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NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon will rule on Tuesday whether to extend a 14-day ban on protesting on Sydney streets, just days after an unauthorised rally against the US raid on Venezuela was held in the city’s CBD.
About 250 attended the Town Hall protest late on Sunday afternoon, as similar protests were held around the country, including in Melbourne outside Finders Street Station.
Supporters of the Venezuelan opposition celebrate following the fall of President Nicolás Maduro in Sydney on Sunday.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Lanyon has until 5pm on Tuesday to decide whether the NSW ban, which restricts public assemblies in the south-west metropolitan, north-west metropolitan and central metropolitan policing areas, should remain in place.
Despite the ban, which gives the police commissioner power to temporarily designate public areas as “restricted” from protests after a declared terrorist incident, about 250 people gathered on George Street in the CBD on Sunday to protest against the US military intervention in Venezuela.
Three people were arrested, including a 53-year-old woman who wore “a shirt displaying offensive messaging”. Government sources with knowledge of the protest said the woman had a shirt on that said “globalise the intifada”, a slogan the NSW Minns government wants outlawed.
A senior government source, not authorised to speak publicly, said it was the first time in Australia that someone had been arrested for chanting or wearing that slogan. The woman was ultimately released from Day Street Police Station without charge.
Two men, aged 26 and 34, were also arrested for breach of the peace. They were also taken to Day Street and released after the protest.
A statement from NSW Police said that “there was minimal impact on pedestrian or road traffic in the area and the group dispersed around 8pm with no other arrests made or incidents of note”.
The group “remained stationary”, police said.
Under the new anti-protest laws, gatherings are allowed but police may issue move-on directions for people causing obstructions or behaving in an intimidatory or harassing manner, or to people who might cause or be likely to cause fear in another person.
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The laws were brought in after 15 people were killed at Bondi on December 14 in a terror attack.
Another 40 counter-protesters, believed to be aligned with the Palestine Action Group, were also at the rally on Sunday night.
Images from the rally show protesters outside Sydney Town Hall holding up “hands off Venezuela” posters with the logo of political party Socialist Alliance.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry is this month examining hateful slogans, including “globalise the intifada”, ahead of new laws being introduced next month.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has vowed to outlaw the phrase after linking the Bondi terror attack to protests in support of Palestine.
“I strongly believe that we have to do everything we can to ensure that words that are said at a rally are not used by somebody at a later point for violent retribution on city streets, and that means drawing a line in the sand and saying that this phrase used in this context can lead to violence,” Minns said of the phrase before Christmas.
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