The NSW police officer who brutally assaulted Palestine activist and federal Greens candidate Hannah Thomas will appear before Bankstown Local Court on November 18. He faces charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and recklessly causing grievous bodily harm.
Hannah Thomas sustained serious damage to her vision in this incident while protesting against F-35 fighter jet parts being produced in Australia and supplied to Israel. This assault was a clear example of NSW police violence emboldened by Chris Minns’ anti-protest laws which have been used to target pro-Palestine actions. Officers were reportedly briefed prior to the protest and instructed to show “no tolerance”.
Now Minns is yet again moving to expand police powers to get around a NSW supreme court decision that ruled sweeping police powers to prevent protests near places of worship unconstitutional.
Minns continues to conflate antisemitism with the Pro-Palestine movement. The NSW police have allowed a nazi group, the NSN, to stage a disgraceful antisemetic rally outside NSW Parliament. Minns’ new proposed protest laws are a response to pressure over this. But instead of targeting real antisemitism, they take aim at actions such as a pro-Palestine protest last year outside the Great Synagogue that took place because the synagogue was hosting a celebration of Israeli university Technion. This was an event that openly celebrated the genocide, hosting an IDF soldier as a speaker.
Israel’s actions in Gaza have been clearly ruled a genocide by the UN. Minns must stop using grounds of antisemitism as cover for criminalising protests against the genocide and Australia’s role in supplying weapons that enable it. Albanese and Minns must sanction Israel now.
Join us to stand with Hannah Thomas against the violence of the NSW police, and against the anti-protest laws that enabled this shameful assault.