LONDON – Authorities in Britain and Australia are tightening restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests in response to the ISIS-inspired Bondi Beach massacre that targeted a Jewish community and left 15 people dead.
In New South Wales, the Australian state where the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration occurred, police will be given expanded powers to shut down unauthorized protests, while tougher laws on hate speech will be introduced, including a proposed ban on the “Globalization of Intifada” slogan.
This step comes shortly after British police arrested two people in London on racist charges related to public order for allegedly chanting slogans evoking the “intifada” at a pro-Palestinian demonstration. The new restrictions are part of a nationwide police shift in response to the attack, which has alarmed some civil liberties and free speech advocates.
The Arabic word “intifada” is generally translated as “uprising” and is used to describe two major Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against Israeli occupation, the first beginning in 1987 and the second in 2000, both of which were characterized by periods of violence as well as non-violent mass protests.
Supporters say the term “globalization of intifada,” which has been used for years in pro-Palestinian protests around the world, refers to international solidarity against Israeli occupation.
However, Israeli officials and some Jewish organizations view the term as an inherent call for violence against Israel and as tantamount to anti-Semitic incitement, a dispute that has increasingly led to police decisions.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said on Thursday that the “ramifications” of pro-Palestinian marches could be seen in the Bondi attack, and after authorities classified the shooting as a terrorist event, he introduced reforms that would give his government powers to shut down unauthorized protests for three months.
“When you see people marching and showing violent, bloody images, images of death and destruction, it unleashes something in our society that protest organizers cannot contain,” he said.
On Saturday, Minnis announced further reforms to hate speech laws that would ban the “globalization of the uprising” chant along with other “hateful comments and statements,” as well as “terrorist symbols such as ISIS flags.”
In the United Kingdom, the London Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police said on Wednesday that officers would arrest people carrying placards and chanting the phrase “globalization of the uprising.” Quoting directly from the context of the attack. A rabbi and Holocaust survivor were among those killed in the Sydney terror attack, which officials said was intended to directly target the Jewish community.
In a joint statement after the attack, law enforcement agencies in London and Manchester said: “Violence has occurred, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequences. We will act decisively and make the arrests.”
British police forces also pointed to an attack on a synagogue in Manchester earlier this year, where two people were killed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Hundreds of people, most of them elderly According to data from the British Home Office. They have already been arrested during protests in recent months across the UK to show their support for the Palestinian Action Organisation, a group banned under British terrorism laws after carrying out actions targeting military installations and defense companies. The British government said, without providing any evidence, that the group had demonstrated its willingness “to use violence in pursuit of its cause.”
While major Jewish groups welcomed the changes and proposals introduced last week in the UK and Australia, some analysts and opponents of the new measures warn that governments are responding to security concerns by turning political rhetoric into criminal behaviour.
Index on Censorship, a UK-based organization that defends freedom of expression, said police and prosecutors would need to prove that the phrase “globalization of uprising” is “inherently harmful.”
“When the meaning is truly ambiguous, we always say that criminal law should tread carefully,” she said in a statement on Friday.
Margie Mansfield, 69, a retired financial adviser and grandmother of seven, was taken away in handcuffs by police officers during demonstrations in July and November in London, and faces terrorism charges for expressing her support for Palestinian action.
She said that she did not hear chants of “globalization of the intifada” at the marches, but she denied that the slogan was incitement to violence, and described it as a “call for liberation” amid the ongoing Israeli occupation of Gaza.
“It seems strange that our government and the Australian government would seek to criminalize the words ‘stop these illegal international crimes against humanity,'” she told NBC News.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned in July that some measures in the UK limiting pro-Palestinian protests appeared “in conflict with the UK’s obligations under international human rights law.”
Mark Stevens, co-chair of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, said freedom of expression “has always been vital, but it has never been absolute.” “We have always put an end to incitement to violence, so this principle must be adapted in more volatile climates.”
Stevens told NBC News that the difficulty for authorities is that they take slogans and criminalize them “on the basis that they threaten public safety and it is the state’s duty to act, but this is an area where reasonable people can and do disagree.”
From the police perspective, “it’s become a game of Whac-A-Mole,” he added. “If you can’t say ‘globalist uprising,’ someone will come up with something else that is illegal, and it becomes the new phrase of the day.”
In Australia, additional legislation on protests has also sparked debate about how far authorities should go in policing political expression.
“For two years, people have demonstrated in our streets and universities demanding the globalization of the uprising, a slogan that means killing Jews wherever you find them,” David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, said last week.
Some Jewish groups opposed the move. The Australian Jewish Council, a progressive group that advocates for “Palestinian freedom,” “Politics that point to universities, the protest movement and immigration as the problem will only lead to further demonization,” Al-Khamis said in a statement.
Australian authorities charged The surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach shooting was charged with 59 crimes on Wednesday, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder.
Naveed Akram (24 years old) was charged after he woke up from a coma in a Sydney hospital after being shot by police. He allegedly carried out the attack with his father, Sajid Akram (50 years old).