Today’s Black Lives Matter rally in Sydney’s CBD was supposed to start at 12 noon, but by 11.50am it was all over.
It took police just 10 intense and fraught minutes to perform an almost surgical shutdown of the outlawed protest.
Six people were arrested at the demonstration, in a move which one of the organisers slammed as “disgusting” behaviour by police.
But NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing retorted that protesters were under no allusions about what might take place.
“I don’t know how many times we have to warn people,” he said after events turned ugly.
Protesters have said just a single action by the authorities would have seen them call off the gathering.
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On Sunday, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the NSW Police, prohibiting the event from going forward. Police said the demonstration could breach public health orders brought into prevent the spread of coronavirus.
This morning, Premier Gladys Berejiklian backed police once again and said people should find another way to protest.
“It only takes a few cases for this thing to go out of control. We have seen that in Victoria. We don’t want it to happen in NSW.”
But Padraic “Paddy” Gibson, one of the rally’s main organisers, said the hand wringing and legal manoeuvres by the government were pure hypocrisy given people could go to football stadiums and shopping centres.
“I think it is completely unfair that we are being told that we are somehow responsible for deaths when you are not dragging the proprietor of Westfield to condemn them for continuing their operations,” he said on Today.
Around 4000 people had said they might come to the protest. That figure was way down on the tens of thousands that went to the Black Lives Matter rallies on June 6, which shut down the Sydney CBD and other Australian cities.
But it was clear numbers wouldn’t ever reach that, dampened by work, days of rain and, perhaps, worries about COVID-19, which seems just a little closer to home now than a few months ago.
As noon neared, about 40 protesters dribbled onto the soggy grass of The Domain, a large patch of grass squeezed between the NSW Parliament, the Art Gallery and a motorway.
They were easily outnumbered by up to 400 officers scattered around the park.
10 MINUTE COUNTDOWN
At around 11.40am, Mr Gibson and Paul Silva, the nephew of David Dungay Jr who died in custody in 2015, spoke to the media about why they were there.
Mr Silva talked about his uncle, a Dunghutti man from Kempsey, who perished in Sydney’s Long Bay Jail. He was there for offences including assault and attempted sexual assault and was due to be released three weeks later.
In November 2015, he was tackled by guards who found him eating a pack of biscuits in his cell. He had diabetes. As he was restrained, Mr Dungay said repeatedly “I can’t breathe”. Shortly afterwards he died.
Last year, an inquest found the prison staff involved were not motivated by malicious intent.
“We’re not breaking any rules, we’re in groups of less than 20,” Mr Silva said of the rally. “We’re coming down here to listen to our families demand justice. There is enough grass here for 5000 people.”
Police weren’t convinced. An officer took to a microphone to urge the small group of protesters to go.
“If you do not immediately disperse from The Domain you will be detained and legal action will be taken against you.”
That warning done, within a few seconds Mr Gibson was hauled away by police into a nearby van.
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As he was taken away, Mr Gibson shouted: “Don’t come near me. Cancel the rally. Disperse they crowd, comrade.”
He was seemingly concerned that if the other protesters tried to prevent him being bustled out of sight, it could provide police with a reason to use other tactics. After all, at June’s rally, some protesters were pepper sprayed.
Within minutes, another five protesters were bundled into vans in a flurry of arrests. Most of the rest of the rally goers then evaporated.
It was 11.50am and the protest was, for all intents and purposes, done.
One of the protesters emerged later brandishing a $1000 penalty infringement notice for breaching public health orders. He said he had no intention of paying as he was not in breach of COVID-19 restrictions.
“I will be taking this fine all the way to the Supreme Court,” he said before he tore up and discarded the notice.
“Garbage ripped in the bin, because that’s all it’s worth”.
‘DISGUSTING’
Talking to news.com.au, Mr Silva, who was also detained and fined, said he was appalled by the confrontation.
“It’s disgusting what NSW Police have done,” he said.
“We literally went down there in a groups of 10 people that are family and some supporters. We were all social distancing and it really does show you that NSW Police has used the pandemic as an excuse to shut down these protests.”
However, Assistant Commissioner Willing later said protesters knew what they were getting themselves in for.
“As we said all along, we are not anti-the right to protest,” he told reporters.
“This is about public safety. At the end of the day, we are in the middle of a pandemic. The Supreme Court judge himself described the current situation in NSW as being on a knife’s edge.
“Over the last 24 hours we have said time and time again, ‘Do not turn up, you will be arrested, you will receive an infringement notice if you’re in breach of the health orders.
“I don’t know how many times we have to warn people.”
On the protester who tore up his fine and vowed to take it to the Supreme Court,” Assistant Commissioner Willing said: “Well, best of luck to you at court.”
‘IT WAS WORTH IT’
Later on Tuesday, the Dungay family gathered at NSW Parliament, invited in as guests of Greens MPs Jenny Leong and David Shoebridge.
The family presented several boxes filled with a petition of 100,000 signatures calling for a further investigation into Mr Dungay’s death.
If that demand had been met, said organisers, they wouldn’t have held the rally at all.
“I’d like these boxes to go to those people who were in the room where my son was killed,” said Mr Dungay’s mother Leetona.
Mr Silva said he hoped criminal charges would be brought due to his uncle’s death.
“We’re calling on SafeWork NSW to take back their second rejection into their investigation and actually investigate the death of David Dungay Jr,” he said.
“They’ll investigate a finger that is cut off in the workplace, but they’re not willing to investigate a human life when it was held down in a workplace.”
It’s very likely the handing in of a petition to parliament wouldn’t have broken any public health orders. But then it would have been unlikely to have received the attention today without the protest – all 10 minutes of it – beforehand.
Asked by news.com.au if he believed the day was worth all the argy-bargy with police and the courts, Mr Silva said it was.
“It was most definitely worthwhile coming down today. My family never took a step back and we will continue doing this”.
NSW Police confirmed six people were arrested. Three men aged 40, 37 and 22 and two women aged 50 and 23 were arrested and each issued with a $1000 penalty infringement notice for breaching public health orders, before being issued move-on directions.
A third woman, aged 25, was arrested and issued a criminal infringement notice for offensive language.
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2020-07-28 09:15:48Z
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