'They were like wild animals': injured Sydney protesters consider legal action against NSW Police
Rallygoers receive free legal advice on next steps
Dozens of people have sought legal advice after being injured due to police violence at a Sydney rally last week.
A free legal clinic for people considering legal action against NSW Police and the state government was held in Parramatta on Sunday, with nearly a dozen law firms providing advice to 60 members of the public.
Hanna Legal principal Nick Hanna, one of the organisers of the clinic, said lawyers heard some “horrific” stories of police violence.
“Peaceful protesters sustained broken bones, deep lacerations and extensive bruising. Others had respiratory issues and skin irritations from the chemicals deployed by the police,” Hanna told Deepcut. “Many weren’t injured but were arrested or detained without any apparent lawful basis and released later without charge.”
NSW Police arrested 27 people at the Sydney Town Hall protest, with widely circulated footage showing officers punching, pepper-spraying and charging attendees. Muslim community organisations decried footage showing officers shoving and dragging Muslims in prayer outside Town Hall in the protest’s aftermath, with Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik calling on NSW Premier Chris Minns to explain why “worshippers [were] subjected to excessive force”.
The protest was called against Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who toured Australia at the invitation of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week. In September, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Herzog incited genocide in October 2023 when he claimed that “an entire nation out there [in Gaza]... is responsible” for the October 7 attack on Israel.
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While lawyers heard some “strong claims against the State for compensation”, Hanna says most attendees of the clinic wanted to ensure “the police officers and politicians responsible for the crackdown [were] held accountable”.
“Sunday’s clinic was one of the most inspiring examples of movement lawyering I’ve seen in the almost 20 years I’ve been practising law,” Hanna said.
The clinic was supported by the Civil Liberties Defence Centre, a new not-for-profit organisation formed in response to what Hanna calls “the unprecedented assault on the democratic rights of people who have spoken out in support of Palestinian human rights”.
Police were ‘like wild animals’
While Jann Alhafny did not attend Sunday’s clinic, the 69-year-old grandmother is considering taking legal action after being hospitalised during last week’s protest.
Alhafny claims she was shoved to the ground by a NSW Police officer who then stood over her, shouting at her to “get up”.
“He grabbed me by one arm and literally yanked me up onto my feet and started shoving me, saying, ‘move, move’. And I kept saying, ‘I’m injured. I can’t’,” Alhafny says. “I could barely walk. I was hobbling.”
Alhafny was taken to Sydney Hospital where scans revealed she had fractured four lumbar vertebrae.
“At the moment, the pain is excruciating, but hopefully there’s no permanent damage and I will recover,” she says. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Alhafny’s daughter Alia, who was also at the protest, claims police charged at her and other protesters on horseback.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. It was really, really scary,” Alia says. “We’ve been going to the protests together for two and a half years and it’s never been like this. You don’t expect that your 69-year-old mother is going to be brutalised by the police. At first she didn’t want to call an ambulance, because she’s stubborn and she wanted to go home and feed the cats.
“We have friends in the West Bank. I sent them the videos, and they said, ‘This looks like the West Bank’.”
While she is in for months of rehabilitation, Jann – whose late husband is Palestinian – has no plans to avoid protests in the future, though she intends to “stay well away from police”.
“They have to be held accountable for this. They can’t behave the way they did,” she says. “When you look at the force and the brutality that they used, it’s a wonder someone wasn’t killed. It’s a miracle that nobody died.”
“Everything was wrong about it. They were like a pack of wild animals. They had the devil in their eyes.”
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Grateful for outlets like deepcut spot lighting these things while the mainstream media becomes a mouthpiece for politicians and a conduit for their dog whistling racism
Even when you rewatch some of the videos of the police violence against the protesters, you still gasp in shock. Jann Alhafny was lucky not to be rendered a paraplegic. I’d also be interested to know what internal injuries that young man being bashed on the tramlines might have sustained. Torn liver, ruptured spleen? And I wonder what his kidney function is like now?