According to local media, police in the Australian city of Melbourne have used pepper spray and baton rounds in response to “violent clashes” between anti-immigration protesters and counter-demonstrators.
As thousands of people gathered in major Australian cities, including Sydney, Perth, Canberra, and Brisbane, to demand an end to what they termed “mass immigration,” the violence on Sunday occurred.
The rallies, which took place under the “March for Australia” banner, were “organized by Nazis,” according to Minister of Multicultural Affairs Anne Aly, who denounced the actions.
According to the SBS Network, about 5, 000 protesters, some of whom were draped in the Australian flag, and counterprotesters showed up in Melbourne, citing the police.
The police deployed the riot squad, which used pepper spray and baton rounds to keep the two groups apart, after violent clashes “multiple times,” according to the network.
According to SBS, at least six people were detained in the city on assault-related charges.
The violence in Melbourne was also covered by the Australian Associated Press.
The organization behind “March for Australia” claimed on its website and social media that “mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together” and that its rallies aimed to “demand an end to mass immigration, something the majority politicians never have the courage to do: demand it.”
Critics expressed concern over the rise of right-wing extremism in Australia, where one in two people is either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas.
Let’s not talk about this in a coy manner. They weren’t opposing immigration from “white Western nations,” according to Aly, the minister of multicultural affairs.
Aly told ABC News, “I would say to those who marched and who argued that they had those legitimate concerns that they were organized by Nazis. The purpose of them was to oppose immigration.”
The Nazi allegations were not made public by “March for Australia.”
According to The Age newspaper, Thomas Sewell, a well-known Australian neo-Nazi, was one of the speakers at the rally in Melbourne. He was one of a group of black men who later attacked a camp for indigenous protests in Melbourne, known as Camp Sovereignty, according to the ABC.
Four people were hurt, including a woman who was taken to a hospital, according to Camp , Sovereignty’s organizers, according to a statement released. Police did not make any arrests until after the men had left, according to the organizers.
Police in Sydney estimated that between 5, 000 and 8, 000 people would attend the anti-immigration demonstration, while the Refugee Action Coalition, a community activist group, held a counter-rally.
Glenn Allchin, a protester for the March for Australia, stated to the Reuters news agency that he wanted an “slowdown” in immigration.
Allchin said, “It’s about our country bursting at the seams and our government inducting more and more people,”. Our children are battling to find homes, hospitals, and the lack of roads in our country.
Meanwhile, counterprotesters in Sydney displayed signs indicating that immigrants make up the majority of Australia’s population despite the presence of Indigenous people. A representative for the Refugee Action Coalition said in a statement that “our event shows the depth of disgust and anger about the far right agenda of March For Australia.”
A party spokesperson said that Pauline Hanson, the leader of a far-right Australian senator, and Bob Katter, the leader of a small populist party, attended a “March for Australia” rally in Queensland while a few hundred people were protesting in Canberra. The veteran lawmaker had threatened to speak at a press conference about Katter’s involvement with a “March for Australia” event in the days leading up to the rally when it was being discussed.
Katter had yelled at the reporter, “Don’t say that, because that irritates me, and I punch blokes in the face for saying that,” according to SBS.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the deputy leader of the Australian Greens and antiracist spokesperson, said in a statement that “these rallies must be called out for what they are: racist fear mongering and hate.”
Faruqi also criticized the Labor government, claiming that it “must stop its racist dog-whistling against immigrants and refugees and stop bashing pro-Palestine protesters and instead concentrate on the urgent implementation of the National Anti-Racism Framework.”
Far-right organizations are becoming more organized and visible in Australia, according to previous warnings from Australia’s spy agency.
In Australia this year, following a string of anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues, buildings, and cars since Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, laws governing the Nazi salute and the display or sale of symbols associated with terror groups were passed.
Source: Aljazeera
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