{"id":532829,"date":"2026-03-11T07:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532829\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T07:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:58:08","slug":"two-protesters-arrested-on-first-day-of-queenslands-from-the-river-to-the-sea-ban-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532829\/","title":{"rendered":"Two protesters arrested on first day of Queensland\u2019s \u2018from the river to the sea\u2019 ban | Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested for violating contentious new Queensland<\/a> hate-speech laws, with one of them allegedly saying the banned phrase \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n

The arrests occurred outside the state parliament building on Wednesday, where a small protest march had taken place, just hours after the new laws, passed by parliament last week,<\/a> went into effect.<\/p>\n

Under the act, a person can be jailed for up to two years for saying a banned phrase \u2013 including \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d and \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d \u2013 if doing so would \u201cmenace, harassment or offence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Liam Parry from the Students for Palestine group had led the protest, where there was a large police presence that included officers the public safety response team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if everybody here [knows] the history of the different slogans that the government is trying to ban us from saying, so [in] the interests of education, I want to explain [it] to you,\u201d he said at the protest.<\/p>\n

He went on to deny that the phrase was terroristic or antisemitic, saying it was instead a call for freedom and dignity of the people between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when we say, from the river to the sea, we are calling for the freedom of the people of Palestine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He discouraged others from chanting the slogan.<\/p>\n

Moments later, as protesters started to march, he was arrested.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said a second person was later arrested at the end of the march to King George Square, who they described as wearing a shirt which said \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n

Queensland police have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested for violating contentious new Queensland hate-speech laws, with one of them allegedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-532829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}