A protester detained in Sydney’s CBD while wearing a jacket that said “globalise the intifada” says she should “never have been arrested” and claims police told her the slogan was unlawful, despite them being unable to point to legislation banning its use.
The 53-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday during a protest against the US military intervention in Venezuela for wearing a shirt “displaying offensive messaging”, police alleged.
In addition to the woman, two men, 26 and 34, were arrested for allegedly breaching the peace. All three were taken to the Day Street police station and released after the protest without charge, police said.
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The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of professional repercussions, said several police officers approached her at the protest and asked her to remove her jacket. About 300 people attended the protest despite a New South Wales police prohibition on public demonstrations.
When the woman asked why, she said police told her the jacket was “unlawful”.
“I said to them, ‘Can you direct me to the specific bit of legislation that outlaws this statement?’” she said. “I knew that it was controversial, obviously, but I knew that wasn’t a reason for me to be arrested.”
The woman said police told her they would point her to the legislation once she arrived at the police station, where she would be taken if she did not remove her jacket.
When she refused, she was placed under arrest and spent about an hour at the police station before being released, she said. She said no legislation prohibiting the phrase was provided.
NSW police did not respond to further questions about the woman’s arrest.
There is no federal criminal offence in Australia that explicitly names “globalise the intifada” as an illegal slogan but the NSW government wants to expand its hate speech laws to ban certain phrases, including “globalise the intifada”, which the government views as inciting violence.
Intifada is an Arabic word that translates to uprising or “shaking off” and is the term used by Palestinians for uprisings against Israel.
The first Palestinian intifada occurred between 1987 and 1993. It began in December 1987 after an Israeli truck struck two vehicles in Gaza, killing four Palestinians. The event sparked unrest and brutal reprisals from Israeli forces.
While figures vary, estimates suggest at least 1,300 Palestinians and 100 Israelis were killed by the end of the intifada.
A second, more violent, intifada began in 2000 and continued until 2005. More than 3,000 Palestinians and about 1,000 Israelis were killed, according to a database maintained by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
For Palestinians and their supporters, the phrase can mean resistance against oppression but many Jewish groups and leaders see it as a call to violence against people of their faith.
The director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, David Slucki, said it was an “offensive” and “threatening” phrase.
“Intention and impact are two separate questions, and I think it is worthwhile recognising the impact, especially when the impact is harmful and threatening,” he said.
But the woman said she didn’t consider “globalise the intifada” offensive as it “simply means shaking off, or uprising”.
“This has got nothing to do with Judaism – Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing,” she said.
In response to the Bondi massacre, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, singled out the phrase “globalise the intifada” as “hateful, violent rhetoric” that he intended to ban. A NSW parliamentary inquiry into banning phrases including “globalise the intifada” is under way before new hate speech laws are voted on this year.
Addressing the media on 20 December, Minns said anyone thinking they could use the slogan “globalise the intifada” before the legislative reforms should “think again”.
“We’ve got strong advice indicating that phrase … is already in breach of hate speech laws in NSW,” he said. “This legislation will put it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Police aren’t mucking around now.”
Under the NSW Crimes Act, it is an offence to publicly threaten or incite violence against a person or group on the grounds of ethno-religious origin, however the conduct must incite or threaten violence, not merely offend.
The woman said she did not go to the protest with any “specific agenda” other than to oppose “increasing silencing and breaches of civil rights and our rights to protest”.
“I should never have been arrested,” she said. “I wasn’t breaching the peace. I was there as a peaceful protester.”
Josh Lees, an organiser for the Australia-based Palestine Action Group, who was present at the protest, said the fact the woman had been released without charge showed her arrest was a “gross overreach”.
“It’s a very disturbing portent of what may lie ahead if Minns’ threatened laws are passed, with peaceful, anti-genocide protesters being snatched off the streets,” he said.
The president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Timothy Roberts, said more legislation was “not necessary, nor effective at stopping hate”.
“We have a government that has restricted protest and freedom of speech in the face of cautions, like those from the NSW Law Reform Commission, which advise against changes to hate speech laws at the cost of infringing on our right to communicate with each other,” he said.
