Statement from Hannah Thomas

  • SWOP Team

It’s a relief that Senior Constable Christopher Davis is being held to account and I hope that every single cop in this country sees this as a warning. These charges though, are a poignant reminder of who isn’t being held to account:

  • The other police officers who brutalised myself and other protestors that morning.
  • The senior police officer who ordered his team to show us “zero tolerance” at Belmore.
  • The Assistant Commissioner who watched the footage of me being violently struck in the face, hard enough to burst my right eyeball, who said he was “comfortable” with what he saw.
  • The Home Affairs Minister who effectively victim blamed me for my own assault.
  • The politicians, Labor and Liberal, who have spent the last two years demonising Palestine protesters and climate protesters before them, creating a tinderbox environment.
  • And of course, Chris Minns and Yasmin Catley, the architects of the draconian anti-protest laws.

Since I was assaulted, at least two other women have been hospitalised because of the behaviour of NSW Police at Palestine rallies. Their injuries, like mine, are the direct outcome of the Minns Government’s anti Palestine, anti protest, anti democratic agenda.

Far from taking accountability for this violence, Minns and Labor are cracking down, exploiting NSW Police’s decision to rubber stamp a Nazi rally as an excuse to give a violent, incompetent police force even more powers.

We were at Belmore on the morning of June 27th because SEC Plating is part of the global supply chain for the F-35 genocide jet.

The F-35s Israel has used to destroy entire neighbourhoods in Gaza.

The F-35s used to murder countless children, families, journalists, doctors—human beings whose only crime was being Palestinian.

That is why we were there.

Israel has not stopped killing. The world ceased watching but Israel never ceased firing.

This officer is being held to account, and that is good.

But until senior police, ministers, prime ministers, premiers and weapons companies are held accountable—until the system that allows Israel to openly commit genocide and allows police to get away with brutalising protestors is dismantled—then justice is nowhere near done.