Victory for democratic rights: Now scrap the Anti-protest laws

  • SWOP Team
A crowd gathers in Hyde Park to protest the increasing First Nations deaths in custody, and to mark ten years since David Dungay Jnr's callow murder in Long Bay jail.

The NSW police announcement that protest restrictions will no longer apply to Hyde Park is a victory for democratic rights in NSW. It is now very transparent that the anti-protest laws are directed at the pro-Palestine movement. There is no justification for those laws.

Stop the War on Palestine spokesperson Adam Adelpour says: “The announcement that Invasion Day can assemble in Hyde Park and march to Victoria Park is a fantastic win for the right to protest.”

“The Premier and NSW Police have blinked in the face of calls to defy the ban on Invasion Day and if Israel’s genocidal President Isaac Herzog visits Australia.”

Adelpour continued: “Now the laws need to be scrapped in their entirety. It is completely undemocratic for the Premier or Police Commissioner to dictate where we can and can’t protest. Our democratic rights aren't Chris Minns’ plaything.”

“If there is no freedom to protest and march without restriction when Isaac Herzog visits Australia, the laws need to be defied.”

“Herzog is a war criminal who signed the bombs that rained down on the people of Gaza. He was named in a UN Commission of Inquiry as guilty of inciting genocide.” he said.

On Monday 19 January a hundred-strong meeting of community organisations and activists in Sydney voted to defy any Public Assembly Restriction Declaration (PARD), to march and risk arrest on Invasion Day, and to rally and march to oppose any visit by Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.

The meeting also voted to support the Mardi Gras street rally on Sunday 15 February (see below).

Motion: This meeting of community groups and activists calls for the repeal of NSW government anti-protest laws, and expresses its opposition to proposed laws to ban anti-Israeli political slogans. The laws have nothing to do with social cohesion and everything to do with stifling fundamental democratic rights.

We support the call for the Invasion Day rally to defy the NSW government’s ban on marching and to assert the right to march on the day.

We declare (i) our willingness and determination to defy the protest ban and risk arrest by marching on 26 January and (ii) to similarly rally and march, in defiance of any bans, to oppose the visit of Israeli president, and war criminal, Isaac Herzog, to Australia, (iii) to defy the protest ban at the 2026 Mardi Gras street rally in support of transgender rights on Sunday 15 February.

For more information contact Adam Adelpour on 0400 351 694.