Anti-War protesters have gathered outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to protest the biennial Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition, which is being held in Melbourne’s CBD from the 11th to the 13th of September.
Protesters showed their immense upset about Australia’s role in supporting Israel’s war in Gaza.
Protesters attempted to push flaming rubbish bins through police lines and chanted anti-police slogans such as ‘This is not a police state’.
Many protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted pro-Palestine slogans through loudspeakers.
Police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to suppress the crowd, arresting as many as 42 activists.
Disrupt Land Forces, the group that brought together a coalition of different anti-war organizations criticizing “the glorification of death, destruction, and genocide being carried out with weapons developed on this continent and showcased at Land Forces.”
In an open letter, they called for Australia to end funding of “states engaged in genocide and militarised repression,” including Israel.
In response, Victoria Police have engaged in the largest mobilization undertaken since the World Economic Forum was hosted in Melbourne in 2000.
Victorian Police Commissioner, Shane Patton, called the protesters hypocrites, saying that demonstrators were there to “protest against war, so presumably [were] anti-violence… If people come to protest — we urge them not to — but if they do, and they come and do so peacefully, happy days. But if they break the law, we will hold them to account.”
The Police Commissioner confirmed that officers used rubber bullets and flash distraction devices.
“We were forced to deploy some non-lethal munitions, which we did, and I’m still of the view that they were appropriately deployed and appropriate risk assessments were made.”
Protest leaders marked the police response ‘heavy handed,’ with activists from Students for Palestine calling the police “extremely violent, in an unprecedented way.”
Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, defended the right of Australians to protest but said that they must do so peacefully. “You don’t say you’re opposed to defense equipment by throwing things at police. They’ve got a job to do and our police officers should be respected at all times.”
Gabrielle de Vietri -a Greens MP in the Victorian Parliament- attended the protests and gave her response on twitter, indicating that Victorian Labor government had turned the city into “a display of war machines, spending millions to protect the profits of genocide.” de Vietri said she “pleaded for [the Victorian Government] to cancel Land Forces, but they didn’t listen. Disruption is all we have left.”
