Minns’ anti-protest laws cause of police violence
The continued actions by Premier Chris Minns to clamp down on political expression and peaceful protest are empowering state violence against the community of NSW. The recent assault and arrests by the NSW Police at a peaceful community protest have revealed the impact of Minns’ rhetoric and law making in empowering state violence by the NSW Police against the community.
Greens MP and Spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said “Premier Chris Minns’ attacks on protest near places of worship have now turned up in police fact sheets from a community rally where Hannah Thomas was violently assaulted and hospitalised,”
“I am shocked but unsurprised to see this in the police fact sheet. It is clear to me that Premier Chris Minns is responsible for the police response and serious injury that took place at Belmore,”
“The level of impunity the police displayed doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s written there in black and white - a direct reference to the anti-protest laws rushed through the NSW Parliament under the sordid non-disclosure of the truth around the Dural Caravan incident,”
“The news that the victim of the assault by police has now been issued with a court attendance notice is unsurprising, but upsetting. If the police think they can justify the violence committed against the community by throwing an unjustifiable charge, then they have another thing coming,”
“Chris Minns was warned, each time he pushed ahead with further crackdowns on legitimate and peaceful protest, that handing more powers to the Police, powers that the Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners have said they don’t even need, that the result would be state endorsed violence against the community. Now here we are,”
“I, along with others in the Parliament warned the Premier and his Government that we would see this level of impunity and now here it is. What has happened to Hannah is so distressing, surely Chris Minns and his Cabinet will now start to listen and reverse this agenda of intolerance and anti-protest measures,” Ms Higginson said.