{"id":223642,"date":"2026-01-06T15:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/223642\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:02:17","slug":"protester-detained-in-sydney-for-wearing-globalise-the-intifada-jacket-says-she-should-never-have-been-arrested-new-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/223642\/","title":{"rendered":"Protester detained in Sydney for wearing \u2018globalise the intifada\u2019 jacket says she should \u2018never have been arrested\u2019 | New South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

A protester detained in Sydney\u2019s CBD<\/a> while wearing a jacket that said \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d<\/a> says she should \u201cnever have been arrested\u201d and claims police told her the slogan was unlawful, despite them being unable to point to legislation banning its use.<\/p>\n

The 53-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday during a protest against the US military intervention in Venezuela<\/a> for wearing a shirt \u201cdisplaying offensive messaging\u201d, police alleged.<\/p>\n

In addition to the woman, two men, 26 and 34, were arrested for allegedly breaching the peace. All three were taken to the Day Street police station and released after the protest without charge, police said.<\/p>\n

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The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of professional repercussions, said several police officers approached her at the protest and asked her to remove her jacket. About 300 people attended the protest despite a New South Wales police prohibition on public demonstrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the woman asked why, she said police told her the jacket was \u201cunlawful\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to them, \u2018Can you direct me to the specific bit of legislation that outlaws this statement?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI knew that it was controversial, obviously, but I knew that wasn\u2019t a reason for me to be arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman said police told her they would point her to the legislation once she arrived at the police station, where she would be taken if she didn\u2019t remove her jacket.<\/p>\n

When she refused, she was placed under arrest and spent around an hour at the police station before being released, she said. She said no legislation prohibiting the phrase was provided.<\/p>\n

NSW Police did not respond to further questions about the woman\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

There is no federal criminal offence in Australia that explicitly names \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d as an illegal slogan, but the NSW government wants to expand its hate speech laws<\/a> to ban certain phrases, including \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d, which the government views as inciting violence.<\/p>\n

Intifada is an Arabic word that translates to uprising or \u201cshaking off\u201d and is the term used by Palestinians for uprisings against Israel.<\/p>\n

The first Palestinian intifada occurred between 1987 and 1993. It began in December 1987 after an Israeli truck struck two vehicles in Gaza, killing four Palestinians. The event sparked unrest and brutal reprisals from Israeli forces.<\/p>\n

While figures vary, estimates suggest<\/a> at least 1,300 Palestinians and 100 Israelis were killed by the end of the intifada.<\/p>\n

A second, more violent, intifada<\/a> began in 2000 and continued until 2005. More than 3,000 Palestinians and about 1,000 Israelis were killed, according to a database maintained by the Israeli human rights group B\u2019Tselem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Palestinians and their supporters, the phrase can mean resistance against oppression, but many Jewish groups and leaders see it as a call to violence against people of their faith.<\/p>\n

The director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, David Slucki, said it was an \u201coffensive\u201d and \u201cthreatening\u201d phrase.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntention and impact are two separate questions, and I think it is worthwhile recognising the impact, especially when the impact is harmful and threatening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the woman said she didn\u2019t consider \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d offensive as it \u201csimply means shaking off, or uprising\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has got nothing to do with Judaism \u2013 Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In response to the Bondi massacre, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, singled out the phrase \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d as \u201chateful, violent rhetoric\u201d that he intended to ban. A NSW parliamentary inquiry into banning phrases including \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d is under way<\/a> before new hate speech laws are voted on this year.<\/p>\n

Addressing the media on 20 December, Minns said anyone thinking they could use the slogan \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d before the legislative reforms should \u201cthink again\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got strong advice indicating that phrase \u2026 is already in breach of hate speech laws in NSW,\u201d he said. \u201cThis legislation will put it beyond a shadow of a doubt \u2026 Police aren\u2019t mucking around now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the NSW Crimes Act, it is an offence to publicly threaten or incite violence against a person or group on the grounds of ethno- religious origin, however the conduct must incite or threaten violence, not merely offend.<\/p>\n

The woman said she didn\u2019t go to the protest with any \u201cspecific agenda\u201d other than to oppose \u201cincreasing silencing and breaches of civil rights and our rights to protest\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should never have been arrested,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t breaching the peace. I was there as a peaceful protester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Lees, an organiser for the Australia-based Palestine Action Group, who was present at the protest, said the fact the woman had been released without charge showed her arrest was a \u201cgross overreach\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very disturbing portent of what may lie ahead if Minns\u2019 threatened laws are passed, with peaceful, anti-genocide protesters being snatched off the streets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Timothy Roberts, said more legislation was \u201cnot necessary, nor effective at stopping hate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a government that has restricted protest and freedom of speech in the face of cautions, like those from the NSW Law Reform Commission, which advise against changes to hate speech laws at the cost of infringing on our right to communicate with each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A protester detained in Sydney\u2019s CBD while wearing a jacket that said \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d says she should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-223642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}