Former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas has been severely injured in her right eye while being arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest in Sydney’s south-west on Friday.
Thomas, 35, posted a video from her hospital bed on Sunday night, saying she may lose vision in her eye and blames “draconian protest laws” for her injury.
“I’m five one. I weigh about 45 kilos. I was engaged in peaceful protest, and my interactions with NSW police have left me potentially without vision in my right eye, permanently,” Thomas said.
“I look like this now because of Chris Minns and Yasmin Catley and their draconian anti-protest laws and their attempts to demonise protesters, especially protesters for Palestine. They’ve emboldened the police to crack down with extreme violence and brutality, and they were warned that those laws would lead to this outcome.”
Thomas was charged with hinder or resist police officer in the execution of duty, and refuse/fail to comply with direction to disperse. She remains in hospital with significant facial injuries and will appear at Bankstown Local Court on August 12.
In the video, the lawyer, activist and writer also described her injuries as “obviously nothing compared to what people in Gaza are going through because of Israel”.
“That’s why we protested on Friday, and that’s why we’ll keep protesting,” Thomas said.
Controversial laws
Thomas was arrested and charged with four others after protesting outside SEC Plating, which protesters say supplies services for F-35 jets used by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The company is opposite the Teebah Islamic Association Mosque on Lakemba Street in Belmore.
Police in NSW are now allowed to issue move-on directions for genuine protests if they take place near a place of worship, as introduced in legislative changes by NSW Premier Chris Minns in February this year.
These legislative changes occurred following the so-called Dural caravan incident, where a month prior, police revealed details of an investigation relating to a caravan packed with explosives at a property in Dural in Sydney’s north-west. Minns described it as having the potential to be a “mass casualty event”.
An inquiry was launched into this incident with the support of the Coalition, the Greens and crossbench MLCs, looking at the handling of information about the caravan plot and concerns that parliament may have been “misled” before the new laws aimed at curbing antisemitism were rushed through parliament.
In regards to the protest on Friday morning, a police fact sheet for one of the protesters seen by the Sydney Morning Herald cites a “place of worship” in a document describing Thomas’ arrest.
At the protest, the document describes police watching a person walk “across the road to the opposite side of SEC Plating which is a place of worship”. Officers approached the protester and for a second time, “informed her to comply with” a move on direction.
“Due to the accused being given repeated warnings and opportunities to comply with the direction, she was cautioned and placed under arrest for failing to comply with a move on direction,” the document states.
Civil liberty groups and legal experts have voiced concern over this reference to a place of worship, warning that the laws are overly broad.
NSW police have said the protesters were given the move-on order for allegedly blocking pedestrian access to the SEC Plating business and have denied the anti-protest laws were used in the arrest.
Greens MP Sue Higginson has written to Police Minister Yasmin Catley demanding that Thomas’ injury, which required surgery, be treated as a critical incident investigation.
“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,” said Higginson.
“I, along with others in Parliament, warned the premier and his government that we would see this level of impunity and now here it is.”