Australia charges woman for flying Hezbollah flag at anti-Israel protest
Police say woman being charged for displaying symbol of prohibited terrorist organization; authorities on high alert ahead of planned protests marking October 7 anniversary
Australian police on Wednesday charged a 19-year-old woman after an investigation into terror group Hezbollah flags flown at a Sydney demonstration.
She was arrested and charged with publicly displaying the symbol of a prohibited terrorist organization, said New South Wales Police.
Other attendees at the anti-Israel protests, which took place in Sydney and Melbourne last week, also waved other terror-supporting signs, including flags of Palestinian group Hamas and placards with slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The protest has divided politicians, police and community leaders on what constitutes free speech or illegal activity.
Authorities remain on high alert ahead of two planned anti-Israel protests this week that will mark the one-year anniversary since Hamas’s October 7 massacres in Israel that triggered the Gaza conflict, which has spread to Lebanon and beyond.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that the two protests — set for October 6 and 7 — should not go ahead and that any demonstration would be seen “as incredibly provocative.”
“It would not advance any cause. It would cause a great deal of distress,” he told national broadcaster ABC. Albanese added he would attend a vigil instead.
Police have indicated they would seek to stop the demonstrations from going ahead.
New South Wales Police said Tuesday that despite discussions with organizers, they were “not satisfied that the protest can proceed safely” and had decided to apply to the NSW Supreme Court to prohibit them.
The matter will be heard in court later this week.
Protest organizers, the Palestine Action Group Sydney, said the police action was “an attack on fundamental democratic rights.”
“We intend on defending our right to protest and are determined to continue standing for justice for Palestine and Lebanon,” the group said in a statement.
Antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment have risen in Australia since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw thousands of terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
In September, anti-Israel protesters and police clashed outside a defense exhibition in Australia’s second-largest city of Melbourne, with police using sponge grenades, flash-bang devices and irritant sprays to control parts of the hostile crowd.
In August, anti-Israel demonstrators marched through the streets of Sydney condemning the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah terror chiefs Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Protesters waved Palestinian flags and held signs showing Haniyeh.
In October 2023, a few days after the unprecedented onslaught, Jewish Australians who were holding a vigil outside the Sydney Opera House were faced with antisemitic protesters who chanted “F*** the Jews” and “Gas the Jews,” although law enforcement later claimed that they were chanting, “Where’re the Jews” and not “Gas the Jews.”
