Top cop issues dire warning to pro-Palestine protestors ahead of rally in Sydney

A top police officer has warned unruly pro-Palestine demonstrators they risk being arrested for bad behaviour.

NSW police minister Yasmin Catley issued the warning on Sunday ahead of planned protests in Sydney.

‘If everybody is doing the right thing, no problem, no problem whatsoever,’ she said.

‘But if you’re not, you can expect to be arrested. It’s as simple as that. There will be no tolerance for misbehavior. There will be no tolerance for racial slurs, zero tolerance from the New South Wales Police.

‘We do not want the war in the Middle East playing out on our streets in Sydney. That anger has no place here.’

Ms Catley didn’t criticise protestors, instead saying people had ‘the right to assemble peacefully in the city’.

‘If they do the right thing they don’t have to worry,’ she said.

But both Ms Catley and NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb warned that police will not tolerate any actions that were not in keeping with the peaceful protest that were promised by the organisers, Palestine Action Group. 

Ms Webb also promised police officers will be ‘proportionate’ when responding to the pro-Palestine rally in Sydney on Sunday, but added: ‘we will respond if we need to’.

Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna said if ‘people do the right thing we will facilitate that authorised march’.

‘But if people do the wrong thing, if they commit criminal offences, or anti-social behaviour, or do anything that places people’s safety in jeopardy we will step in,’ he said.

‘It’s about public safety for us. We are a-political. We don’t get involved in the arguments about whether it’s right or wrong for these sorts of protests to take place. That’s not the job of the NSW police force.’

It comes as NSW Premier Chris Minns is vowing to stop a repeat of last year’s infamous Opera House demonstrations. 

Mr Minns said on Sunday last year’s protests, where some participants clashed with police and chanted antisemitic slogans, were ‘a mistake’ he had to ‘bear responsibility for’.

‘I apologised at the time,’ he told Sky News.

‘We can’t allow that to happen again, and that’s part of the reason why police were so vigilant about planned protest activity this Sunday and Monday.’

Following an 11th-hour Supreme Court hearing between police and protest organisers, Palestine Action Group withdrew its application to protest on Monday, October 7, saying it would instead hold a vigil at Sydney’s Town Hall on that evening and a rally at Hyde Park on Sunday, October 6.

Mr Minns said the police move to block protests around the anniversary, which he staunchly supported, ‘wasn’t to restrict freedom of speech’ but to avoid public displays of ‘hatred and racism’.

‘We can’t have a situation where hundreds of people hijack a march, end up down at the Opera House and in a violent confrontation with police,’ he said.

‘Those images were spread on the front pages of newspapers around the world, and it gave Sydney and Australia a terrible reputation during that period. I’m determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

‘Now, part of that is ensuring that we’re vigilant about these protests. NSW Police are ready.’