Dutton’s protest deportation call an ‘attack on rights’
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has called for the deportation of temporary visa holders who attend pro-Palestinian rallies in comments immediately dismissed as an attack on the right to protest.
Peter Dutton at pro-Israel rally Photo: Henry Benjamin/J-Wire
The fallout continues after video was beamed around the world of anti-Jewish chants being shouted on the steps of the Opera House while it was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag.
Mr Dutton said non-citizens who preached anti-Semitic speech at the rallies should be deported.
“People with that hate in their minds, in their hearts, don’t have any place in our society,” he told Sydney radio 2GB.
“If they were non-citizens, their visas should be before the minister and on character grounds they should have their visas cancelled.”
But rally organiser Palestinian Action Group Sydney, which previously denounced the chants made by a small group of attendees on Monday night, called Mr Dutton’s comments “a shocking attack on democratic rights”.
“People have a right to protest against the war crimes and apartheid policies of the Israeli state,” the group said in a statement.
Islamist group Hamas on Saturday launched attacks on Israeli towns that killed more than 1200 people, with scores of others taken hostage after militants breached the fence enclosing Gaza.
Israeli reprisal strikes on blockaded Gaza have reportedly killed 1100 people.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil urged Australians to consider the optics of rallies that could further hurt an already reeling Jewish community, adding it was not about political views on Israel and Palestine.
“What has happened here is a terrorist organisation has indiscriminately attacked and killed innocent men, women and children,” she told ABC TV.
Organisers will push ahead with a second Sydney rally on Sunday despite a lack of police approval to march on the streets, but they have moved it from Town Hall to Hyde Park.
“This will be a static rally, we will not march but we will be loud, we will be proud and we will show the state that we are in full support of the Palestinian people and will not bow down to their attempts to silence our movement,” they said.
Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said what happened on Monday was unacceptable but he defended the group’s right to protest.
“The reality of people coming together to express concerns about situations is that, at times, unwanted people come along and provoke unnecessary and unwanted actions,” he said.
“Violence is never going to be an answer, as anti-Semitism is never the answer.”
AAP
The hyprocosy to argue their rights after their people have murdered 1200 people in a day and in the most barbaric manner is breathtaking.
Israel has every right to respond to these atrocities. In 4 days Israel have methodically targeted Hamas locations, and after such devastation in the city there are 1100 killed – this is unfortunate if they are civilians, however given the destruction, that death toll is amazing and a testament to the way Israel responds, warns of what is to come, and makes every attempt to minimise civilian non combatant casualties.
It’s not an attack on their rights to protest. It’s an attack on their behaviour inciting hate and their own imposition of hatred and antisemitism.
Yes, if this is what they do, they should be deported.