NSW Police and VicPol Are Routinely Applying Brute Force to Silence Protesters

The vicious assault upon former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas by NSW police officers at an early morning 27 June 2025 pro-Palestinian demonstration on Bidjigal land in the Sydney suburb of Belmore has garnered national headlines. But the horrific attack was not the only police brutality incident to have targeted peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters in the southeast of the continent last weekend.

Thomas, a lawyer, was acting as a legal observer at the protest in front of SEC Plating, an Australian electroplating company that provides parts to F-35 fighter jets being used in the Gaza genocide, and when police commenced issuing move on orders that appeared unwarranted, Hannah questioned officers about the legitimacy of the directions, so a couple of them roughed her up in response.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, as Thomas was still recovering from her serious injury that may see her lose sight in her right eye, Victoria police officers in Naarm-Melbourne were targeting a pro-Palestinian protester for a bit ultraviolence, following the weekly Free Palestine rally, and her crime appears to have been having quoted First Nations deaths in custody statistics in front of officers.

This incident saw about four VicPol officers take hold of the transgender woman, drag her to the side, away from other demonstrators, before wrestling her to the ground, applying their body weight to her, and then forcefully pressing a metal baton into her back to the point that one of her ribs was audibly heard to crack, as they were attempting to apply handcuffs to her.

Both these police brutality incidents involved officers in states considered to be the nation’s most progressive, yet police went to town on their victims, regardless of witnesses and cameras, as they acted as if they had complete impunity in meting out such violent punishment, and commentators are pointing to the political climate and recent antiprotest laws having emboldened this overreach.

The criminalisation of protest

Excessive use of force, police brutality or police-related violence targeting civilians is nothing new in Australia, and nor is the targeting of protesters with force.

Indeed, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have had to bear the full brunt of police brutality on a daily basis since such institutions were established, due to an unofficial/official greenlight to do as much harm as possible to First Peoples.

However, the overbearing aggression law enforcement has shown to the pro-Palestinian movement since it erupted in October 2023 is a new phenomenon and the immediacy in which those opposing the genocide in Gaza were targeted for heightened policing was too right out of the blue.

Police had been targeting climate defenders with ever-increasing force prior to the onset of Israel’s genocide, but the turn towards excessive force spilling over into outright thug tactics was built up over time. It was in no way immediate as has been the suppression of antigenocide mobilising, but the police targeting of pro-Palestinians for special treatment has also been a global occurrence.

In terms of the recent two incidents that carried a certain ‘WTAF element’ to them, politicians critical of the incidents and rights experts have placed the blame firstly, upon the political campaign to demonise pro-Palestinian demonstrators, which has been led by NSW premier Chris Minns, as well as Victorian premier Jacinta Allan, but it’s also heavily involved Australian PM Anthony Albanese.

While the other key aspect that appears to have given the NSW and Victorian police a greenlight to bust some ‘whiny leftist’ heads is that the state Labor governments have been spruiking and passing laws that have emboldened law enforcement to take a harder line against protesters.

NSW recently passed fresh antiprotest measures that ban rallies from taking place near places of worship. The first use of these laws occurred last Friday at the demonstration that has left Thomas with the potential loss of sight in one eye, while the Victorian government has been threatening to pass a suite of overbearing antiprotest measures since late 2024.

The heightened crackdown on protests in NSW began in April 2022, when the Perrottet government created new offences for obstructing major roads, bridges, tunnels and major facilities that carry up to 2 years in prison and/or a fine of $22,000. And in terms of such laws emboldening police to use extra force, this was duly noted in the wake of the enactment of the 2022 NSW antiprotest regime.

Brutalisation the new policing norm

Following the attack on Thomas last Friday, Total Liberation Alliance Naarm contacted Sydney Criminal Lawyers to point out that the attack upon the lawyer was not the only serious assault against a protester of late, and whilst this third incident didn’t involve any officers directly, police that bore witness did display the same extreme distain towards pro-Palestinian protesters.

This incident occurred in mid-May, during a 77th Nakba protest out the front of the US Consulate in Naarm-Melbourne. Two pro-Palestinian protesters were standing in front of a car, when the driver drove towards them, hitting a woman in the upper legs, causing her to collapse onto the front of the vehicle and the driver continued on down the road for some metres with his victim on the bonnet.

Whilst this didn’t occur at speed, the act of driving a car into anyone carries danger. But it was the reaction of attending Victoria police officers that really took the cake, as they wandered over and spoke to the driver before waving him on, despite the fact he had just driven his car into a person and continued to accelerate as they were on top, and no subsequent inquiries were undertaken.

The attack on Thomas has captured headlines, as she had merely questioned a police officer about an order, and was then attacked by several for doing so. The VicPol attack on the trans woman showed officers pushing a metal bar into her ribcage using heavy force to point of breaking bones, which appeared completely unnecessary given that four officers were restraining her at the time.

But as the third incident reveals police are now treating pro-Palestinian protesters as individuals who are already in the wrong due to the political cause they support, and therefore, their rights have been diminished to the point where violence against them is permissible, as well as displaying a certain comradery with civilians who too hold such prejudices against Pro-Palestinians.

So, while these latest incidents have grabbed much attention due to the stark level of unwarranted brutality applied by police, along with the disregard officers have displayed in the wake of these attacks revealing an understanding that nonadherence to protocols in such circumstances is unlikely to trigger any disciplinary response, tends to foretell of more police brutality being on its way.