NSW police have backed away from an attempt to ban an LGBTQ+ campaign group from marching on the street outside George Pell’s funeral, ahead of the cardinal’s service at St Mary’s Cathedral on Thursday.
Instead, an agreement has been reached outside of court for the protest to go ahead on a modified route.
An “alternative route has been agreed,” barrister Sebastian De Brennan confirmed to the supreme court on Wednesday afternoon.
The route will allow walking up to College Street, but not on it.
The campaign group Community Action for Rainbow Rights (Carr) planned a protest through Sydney to the cathedral on the day of Pell’s requiem mass, in condemnation of his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
But the police commissioner had sought an order to prohibit the holding of a public assembly under section 25 of the state’s Summary Offences Act.
The campaign group was challenging the NSW police claim that the protest raised safety concerns.
Kim Stern, a Carr campaign organiser, has outlined the newly negotiated campaign route. Starting at Archibald fountain in Hyde park at 10.30am, the group will head to opposite the cathedral on College Street. There, speakers will discuss Pell’s “long track record of misogyny, homophobia and conservative bigotry”. The protest will end with a march through the city after that.
Earlier on Wednesday, Stern had said the group would proceed with their planned protest even if the court agreed to the police ban.
“We think that it’s pretty grotesque that someone who’s an arch defender of homophobia, sexism, who said abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests abusing children, gets to have a celebration of his life,” Stern said.
“We will still be going ahead with our protest, we will still be attempting to march as near as possible to the cathedral, to show that we not only oppose what Pell stood for but also the attempt to suppress our democratic right to protest.”
In a statement, the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Josh Pallas, said the NSW police court order was “not a genuine attempt to preserve public safety”.
“In reality, this is a case of the NSW police trying to do tone-policing,” he said.
Informing protest organisers “only the day before a planned protest” is “completely unacceptable”.
“It is a blatant misuse of the court process, by seeking to overwhelm protest organisers through the obvious disparity of legal resources, and practically limit their ability to defend the proceedings,” Pallas said.
The court hearing took place just hours after Pell’s body was carried into St Mary’s Cathedral to commence lying in state. Outside, clergy abuse survivors led a group tying ribbons to the gates of the church, representing the voices of those affected by child sexual abuse by clergy.
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