The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has defended the actions of police at a rally against Isaac Herzog’s visit, after video footage emerged showing officers repeatedly punching a number of protesters.
The premier on Tuesday rejected suggestions his own anti-protest restrictions had created what he deemed to be an “impossible situation” for police dealing with thousands of protesters outside Sydney’s Town Hall.
Rally organisers, Labor backbenchers and Green MPs accused Minns and police of creating an “unsafe situation” for attendees.
NSW police pepper sprayed protesters opposing the four-day Australian visit of the Israeli president. They arrested 27 people and said 10 officers were assaulted, though none of those assaults were serious.
On Tuesday afternoon, police announced nine people had been charged with a range of offences, including allegedly assaulting officers.
Police suggested a further six people would be charged with refusing to comply with police directions. The force was “continuing to investigate the actions of protesters” by reviewing body camera and social media footage.
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Minns defended the police response as well as the controversial protest restrictions that a member of his government said had created a “pressure cooker” situation.
He told reporters that police were “put in an impossible situation last night” after protesters defied a protest restriction preventing them from marching to NSW parliament. The effective ban was introduced after the Bondi terror attack at a Hanukah festival on 14 December that killed 15 people.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, defended Herzog’s visit and called on people to “turn the temperature down”. He told parliament that violent footage of Monday’s protest was “devastating”.
“Many people who saw the footage, particularly of the people who were praying and then action was taken, will want to know all of the circumstances around that. I will allow the police to do their job.”
Monday evening’s protest went ahead despite a NSW supreme court ruling against the Palestine Action Group, which had wanted to overturn additional “major event” powers handed to police for the duration of Herzog’s visit.
“I’d throw myself down on a reasonable person’s interpretation of the circumstances in Sydney streets last night, it was an impossible situation,” Minns said on Tuesday.
“We had to keep the public safe, and as distressing as those scenes were, it would have been far worse if it was … choosing your own adventure, [if] the protesters breached police lines and we had conflict in Sydney streets. That would have been terrible.”
The NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson, who has said she will refer police actions to the independent Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, said the police had “full power and discretion” to allow a peaceful march to go ahead.
“They cannot hide behind that [public assembly restriction] declaration. In fact, it is very much [a] design, layer upon layer upon layer, that Chris Minns has deliberately provided to create this entire situation that took place last night,” Higginson said on Tuesday. “It was inevitable.”
Fellow upper house Greens member Abigail Boyd, who confronted the NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, in the corridors of parliament about her alleged assault by police during the protest, told reporters the force had “made sure we had nowhere to go and then just pushed [protesters] into unsafe situations”.
“I got lifted off the ground. Another police officer [allegedly] punched me in the head, and then I had another one who [allegedly] punched me in the shoulder. I don’t understand how that’s a proportionate response.”
Josh Lees, an organiser for the Palestine Action Group, said Monday night’s events were the worst he had seen after attending many pro-Palestine events in recent years.
“We said, of course, in the lead up to this, that the streets of Sydney should belong to the residents of Sydney,” Lees told reporters. “There is no justification for the police’s actions last night.”
The Palestine Action Group planned to hold another event on Tuesday evening at the NSW police station in Surry Hills to demand all charges against protesters be dropped.
Lanyon, speaking alongside Minns on Tuesday, said protesters could expect “a significant police presence”.
“There is no difference in the approach to police. Where protesters go, and act lawfully, act peacefully, there will be no problem.”
Lanyon and Minns said police would internally investigate violent incidents from the protest shared on social media. The premier urged the public “to not look at a 10-second clip without the full context”.
The police commissioner claimed rally speakers had “incited the crowd” and police had initially shown “remarkable restraint during the first part of the speeches” – until protesters attempted to march to parliament on George Street.
“The police did what they needed to do, which was to hold the line and then fall and move the protesters back with a view to dispersing them. That was designed to keep the community safe.”
One incident captured in footage from the scene appeared to show a number of men kneeling to pray before some were dragged away by police. Asked about the video on Tuesday, Minns rejected the idea that it showed police were disproportionately focused on the Muslim community.
“The context is incredibly important, and the context here was in the middle of what was a riotous behaviour,” the premier told the ABC. “Now I’m not suggesting that those who are engaging in prayer were conducting that behaviour but police are left with a difficult situation when they’ve asked people to clear the area.”
Lanyon said he had spoken to leaders from the Muslim community on Tuesday.
One video showed police repeatedly punching a man in a white shirt. Another video showed officers repeatedly punching a young person in the head as they pinned him to the ground.
Labor NSW upper house member Stephen Lawrence, one of four backbench government MPs to attend the rally, said the state should have facilitated a peaceful protest. He estimated about 20,000 to 30,000 people had been present. Police suggested the crowd was closer to 6,000 people.
Lawrence was among those who questioned the linkage of the Bondi attack and pro-Palestine protests after the extension of a public assembly restriction declaration this month and the “major event” powers unsuccessfully challenged at the supreme court.
“We’ve removed that capacity to have those sorts of processions and protests authorised,” he said.
“This was a pretty much inevitable consequence of that. I don’t like to be right about a thing like this but it’s been repeatedly said in parliament, and in different places, we’re basically creating a pressure cooker and we saw that last night.”
Lawrence said he expected there would be criminal charges, including “maybe some charges against police … in terms of excessive force”, but the “major events” declaration meant there could be no civil claims against the police force.
Do you have video from the Sydney protest? Email guardian.australia.video@guardian.co.uk
