Australian Prime Minister warns against pro-Palestine rally as police seek ban | Israel-Palestine Conflicts News

The Palestine Action Group condemns the call to end the vigil on October 7 as an ‘attack on basic democratic rights’.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called for the cancellation of a pro-Palestinian rally planned to mark the end of the year since the Hamas attack on Israel and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, as police demand that the event in Sydney be shut down.

Albanese said on Wednesday that the vigil planned for October 7 would “provoke passion” and “cause great sorrow”.

“Look, in a democratic country, we allow people, it is really important for people to be able to express their feelings in peace. But October 7 will be one year since the largest number of deaths and murders – let’s call it what it is – of Jews, since the Holocaust,” said Albanese in an interview with the national broadcaster of Australia, referring to the attack by Hamas in southern Israel. .

“I will be attending a vigil to remember that terrible day. And anything that looks like a celebration of that, I think, can create tension. We need to promote social cohesion in our multicultural nation.”

Albanese made his comments after New South Wales police applied to the state’s high court to ban the event, called a candlelight vigil to “mourn 12 months of genocide and terrorism”, along with another pro-Palestinian rally planned for October 6.

NSW Police in a statement on Tuesday said that while they supported the right to peaceful assembly, they were “not satisfied that the demonstration could proceed safely”.

The organizer of the Palestine Action Group condemned the request to close these gatherings as “an attack on basic democratic rights”.

“We have the right to demonstrate and we refuse to accept political attacks aimed at reducing the awareness that the masses of this country are against the Australian government’s involvement in this genocide,” the Sydney-based group said in a Facebook post.

“With Israel now escalating its war against Lebanon, the Palestine Action Group categorically opposes this attempt to shut down protests demanding that the Australian government take action against Israel’s war.”

The attempt to shut down the gatherings follows controversy over the display of the flag of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah during recent pro-Palestinian protests in Melbourne and Sydney.

Australia’s centre-left Labor Party government in January passed legislation banning Nazi decorations and symbols of listed “terrorist organisations”, which include Hezbollah and Hamas.

NSW police on Wednesday said they had arrested a 19-year-old woman for allegedly carrying a Hezbollah flag at a pro-Palestinian march in Sydney on Sunday.