Rival anti-Muslim and anti-racism rallies saw hundreds protest across Australia at the weekend with violent clashes in Melbourne, as police officers mounted a strong presence in cities yesterday to keep the two sides apart.
About 100 anti-Muslim protesters from the Reclaim Australia and United Patriots Front groups waved the national flag and yelled chants at a rally in Sydney yesterday, with signs declaring “Say no to Sharia” and “Immigration is the elephant in the room.”
They were met by around 250 counter-demonstrators who carried banners including “No racism, no Islamophobia.”
Photo: Reuters
Police — including riot squad officers and mounted units — packed the Sydney central business district to separate the rival groups.
Five people were arrested at the Sydney demonstrations, a New South Wales state police spokesman said, with two expected to be charged. There were some brief scuffles but no sign of the violence seen in Melbourne on Saturday, where police had to use capsicum spray to subdue protesters.
“While there were a small number of people who chose to do the wrong thing, the majority of participants cooperated with police, which allowed for a peaceful demonstration,” New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Alan Clarke said in a statement.
Reclaim Australia organizers said they were not racist but that the rallies were “a public response to the shock of recent atrocities of ‘Islam’s radicals’ both inside and outside of Australia.”
Australian Member of Parliament George Christensen told a Reclaim Australia demonstration in Mackay in northern Queensland it would be naive to think his country was not at war with extreme Muslims.
He added he was “sad” to see neo-Nazis at the Sydney and Melbourne rallies, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Former Australian politician Pauline Hanson — who rose to prominence in the 1990s as head of the right-wing, anti-immigration party she co-founded — told a rally in Rockhampton in central Queensland she was “against the spread of Islam,” the ABC reported.
“We have other different religions that have never been a problem in Australia,” she said, adding: “I’m not targeting Muslims — I’m targeting the ideology, what Islam stands for.”
There were also opposing rallies in the capital, Canberra and Perth and Hobart, with the anti-racism protests attracting the same number or more participants.
Reclaim Australia demonstrations were also held in April and attracted hundreds of people who said they were protesting against Muslim extremism.
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