Exclusive: Friends of Palestine calls for independent investigation of actions of NSW police amid ‘terrible erosion of civil liberties’ at Sydney rally
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A group of pro-Palestine Labor members have voiced their “distress and disgust” at the police response to protests over Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit to Sydney, accusing the New South Wales government of overseeing a “terrible erosion of civil liberties” in its crackdown on public demonstrations.
In a letter to NSW police minister Yasmin Catley, the Labor Friends of Palestine group – an internal assembly of rank-and-file ALP members – has demanded an independent investigation of the actions of NSW police at Monday’s rally. Eyewitness accounts and mobile phone footage captured officers pepper spraying demonstrators, punching a man with his hands up, and forcibly dragging a group of Muslim men kneeling in prayer.