“The Police Attacked Us”: Activist Josh Lees on Protesting the Indo Pacific Weapons Fest

The images that emerged out of the Palestine Action Group-led protest against the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition on Tuesday 4 November 2025, revealed demonstrators confined within Tumbalong Park behind a barrier and close by the International Convention Centre, where the festival of killing devices was being staged on Gadigal land in Sydney’s Darling Harbour.

The scenes marked a heightened NSW Police Force response to a crowd of antiwar protesters, in much the same way that the Disrupt Land Forces protests in Naarm-Melbourne were set upon in September 2024, in the fact that state law enforcement was liberally employing the use of nonlethal “crowd control weapons” on unarmed and peaceful civilians protesting, in a manner not seen before.

NSW police has now broken the seal on the use of pepper spray, so that officers can basically spray it at anyone in sight, as if it was some sort of suntan lotion. Although there was the time that NSW police went ballistic with the harmful nonlethal weapon at Sydney’s Central Station, immediately following the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protest.

Killing in the name of

Taking place over the 4th to 6th of November 2025 the biennial Indo Pacific weapons fest saw a coming together of US and Israeli weapons manufacturers, as well as other global merchants of death, at a period when the NSW public has been traumatised ongoing for over two years, by the scenes of the Gaza genocide and the increasing social discord that the mass slaughter has wrought.

Australian defence minister Richard Marles described the showcasing of killing devices as “beautiful, menacing and extremely cool”, which tends to raise questions about what sort of kink the deputy prime minister is into, while the understanding is that the NSW premier Chris Minns is enthusiastic about the expo, as he wants to heighten the importance of the arms trade in this state.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to activist Josh Lees, who was a key participant in the protest against the Indo Pacific weapons fest, and the Palestine Action Group spokesperson, who has ardently demonstrated the Israeli-perpetrated Gaza genocide and further successfully challenged the NSW antiprotest move-on power to see it removed, filled us in on what actually happened on the day.

Palestine Action Group demonstrators gathered on Gadigal land at Sydney’s Darling Harbour early morning on Tuesday 4 November to blockade those taking part in the Indo Pacific Weapons Expo.

Having not been there but observed multiple pieces of footage of the demonstration, it appeared that the protesters were confined to the park beside the International Convention Centre behind a barrier at one point but at another, it shows the barrier breached and demonstrators scuffling with police on the other side of it.

Josh, as you were there early morning that day, can you give us an overview of what happened when Palestine Action Group turned up last Tuesday morning to demonstrate a weapons festival taking place in Sydney city during the ongoing genocide in Gaza?

We were aiming to arrive at 6.30 am because the weapons expo was kicking off for the official welcome breakfast for the dignitaries at 7.30 am.

We were assembling at our publicly advertised assembly point, which was near the IMAX cinema in Darling Harbour, because we wanted to get as close as we reasonably could to the weapons expo for war criminals.

But as soon as we arrived, the police attacked us. They were riding horses into people. They were charging into people. They were making police lines. They were making arrests. They were pepper spraying the crowd.

It was at that point that one protester, Amy, had her leg broken by the police. She was hospitalised. There were some other injuries as well.

Through this police charge of violence and pepper spray, they then forced us into Tumbalong Park, which they had decided was going to be the designated protest zone. So, they were denying us the right to protest any closer to the actual convention.

They kettled us into Tumbalong Park, but that was not the end of it. There were continued scuffles with police. Police pushed further into the crowd with further incursions into the demonstration. We didn’t get out of Tumbalong Park after that moment.

So, most of the scuffling with police happened really early in the morning? 

Yeah. From the very moment we turned up. So, it was about 6.25 am, when the police attacked us, just for attempting to walk and meet at our publicly advertised assembly point.

They forced us into the park. There were further incidents. A lot of it was provocations from police.

At one moment, they decided they were going to escort one of the weapons expo attendees right through the middle of the park and the middle of the demonstration. In my view, this was just to have another excuse to pepper spray the crowd again.

NSW police superintendent Paul Dunstan suggested to 7 News on Tuesday that the good relationship that had been established between Palestine Action Group and state law enforcement over the past 25 months had been squandered by protesters’ actions.

Dunstan was suggesting it was protesters who provoked the ensuing violence. However, demonstrators have suggested the opposite.

Josh, you were present as the senior officer gave his assessment of the circumstances to the television network, however you weren’t permitted to give your account at the time.

Could you explain what you consider were the circumstances that lead to the confrontations between police and protesters?

The overall picture is, the police had obviously been given marching orders by their senior commanders and the NSW government to not allow any protest to happen anywhere near this event, which they see as very important for building up the weapons industry and military interests.

That is what we saw on the day. The police attacked us, as soon as we tried to assemble.

The exact opposite of what the police said happened occurred. It was not us who set upon police, which were his words. It was the police who set upon us immediately as soon as we arrived.

They rode horses into the crowd. They sprayed pepper spray into hundreds of people, and they hospitalised a protester with a broken leg.

So, it’s not the usual for police to set upon protesters prior to a march taking place? 

No, that’s not normal, and it goes to the nature of this event, which was very important for the NSW government. It is a big international weapons expo.

There were 75 American weapons companies, as well as some Israeli weapons companies. There were thousands of participants in this horrible weapons expo of war criminals.

The government was determined to smash any protests, so as not to be embarrassed by us pointing out the facts: That this was a weapons expo in breach of basic tenets of international law being carried out by companies, which have perpetuated a genocide in Gaza.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers has been observing over the last year or so that Victoria police has been increasingly using OC spray on demonstrators in Naarm-Melbourne. This appeared to hit a new level down there during the September 2024 Disrupt Land Forces protests.

VicPol officers have been observed en masse liberally spraying the pepper spray liquid into the faces of protesters in the same way a person might use insect repellent on a mosquito.

Over the time period that this has been occurring in Melbourne, this had not been the case with NSW police at demonstrations on Gadigal land in Sydney.

However, last week’s incident seems to have changed all this. Can you talk about what happened with the use of this nonlethal weapon at the Indo Pacific demonstration?

That is one of the ironies. One of the few weapons not being sold inside the weapons expo is pepper spray, and that’s because it is a banned chemical weapon for use in warfare. But it is obviously not banned for use on peaceful protesters.

I say that because we shouldn’t downplay the severity of this weapon. It is basically a small-scale temporary torture device. It inflicts extreme pain and blindness on people.

The police unleashed buckets of the stuff on protesters. They were very trigger-happy cops on Tuesday, who were looking for any excuse to spray demonstrators without any justification.

People who were already on the ground were sprayed. People who were trying to fall back from police lines, as we were under attack, were sprayed. It was indiscriminately sprayed into whole crowds.

I was sprayed directly into my eye from a range of one or two metres. That was just as I was trying to help another protester who was knocked down and blinded.

It was terrible. Police should not have such weapons. They should not be allowed to use them, especially on peaceful antiwar protesters, which is what we were.

The spray was combined with other violent measures as well. As I said, they rode horses into the crowd. They punched protesters, and they injured people.

So, what did it fell like when you got hit with the spray in the eye? 

It was agony. I was blinded for at least 20 minutes. I have been sprayed before but not as severely, as this. I, at least, knew that over time it would get better.

But for other people sprayed for the first time it is very scary, because the pain just gets worse and worse for the first 10 or 15 minutes, and it feels like it is never going to end.

People start getting scared that it is going to permanently damage their vision, and, of course, it could permanently damage people’s vision.

It is a scary and horrible thing to suffer. It also sticks to your hair and clothes throughout the day. It is a horrible weapon, and police were very trigger happy and trying to spray as many people as they could.

The Indo Pacific Weapons Expo is said to be the only comprehensive weapons festival in the Asia Pacific region. It featured at least two Israeli weapons companies at a time when that nation is implicated in countless ongoing atrocity crimes.

This weapons festival appears to be tied in with aspirations of the premier to make the NSW arms industry a major player in this state’s economy.

Can you explain why it was important not to let this event take place without any public opposition to it?

Firstly, the key contribution we can make in Australia to the cause of Palestinian freedom is to end our government’s ongoing arming and funding of the Israeli war machine.

This expo was the most grotesque display of our government’s military support for a genocidal regime.

The fact is they let these Israeli weapons companies come and sell their weapons that they’ve used to massacre tens of thousands of Palestinians, tens of thousands of children, hundreds of journalists and doctors, and at the time, when we’ve been calling for is an end to the two-way arms trade.

It is not just that these Israeli companies are selling their weapons, but our government is buying their weapons as well, and, therefore, its funding the Israeli war machine.

Again, the Australian government announced a new $20 million contract with Elbit Systems two months ago.

Australia is directly arming Israel by sending weapons to that state, but it is also funding their war machine by buying their weapons.

So, that is part of it. But the other part is the weapons expo was about much more than the genocide in Gaza.

This is about the horrific global arms race that is taking place around the world now, where our rulers from every country on Earth are spending obscene and increasing amounts of our money on weapons and military budgets to prepare for World War III.

In this country, this takes the form of Australia cosying up even more to the United States and its whole empire to prepare for a war on China.

The trillions that they are spending on weapons around the world is at the expense of working-class people and decent healthcare systems – of schools, of jobs, of wages.

So, what was happening in that building was not just a war on the Palestinians, it was a war on the working class all around the world, as our rulers prepare for more war and bloodshed.

And the last one, Josh, there has been a ceasefire in place for about a month now in terms of the Gaza genocide.

So, for the casual watcher of the television news, it might appear that the Indo Pacific Weapons Expo was being demonstrated after that long-term Israeli military assault on the Palestinians of Gaza has in fact come to an end.

Could you explain why this might not be the way to understand what has occurred in terms of Gaza?

Two hundred and fifty Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the so-called ceasefire has been announced. So, that is an average of eight Palestinians being killed every day by the Israelis in Gaza under the so-called ceasefire.

On top of that, Israel is continuing to deny aid to the people of Gaza. The ceasefire deal was supposed to see 600 aid trucks entering Gaza every day, but the real number has been less than 100 per day.

This is a continuation of genocide. Israel has absolutely laid waste to all of Gaza, to all of its infrastructure, to all of its residential buildings, its healthcare system, its economy and everything else.

Israel refusing to allow Gaza to be rebuilt is a continuation of their genocidal project in Gaza, because they’ve made Gaza unliveable for human beings and they’re determined to keep it that way: to force the Palestinians to live in abject misery and danger with the hope of the Palestinians either being forced to leave Gaza or to die.

That is what is going on. It is a continuation of the Gaza genocide. They are also continuing this through different means in the West Bank, via escalating violence, expansion of settlements and displacement of Palestinians there.

We understand that the Palestinian movement needs to keep going. We need to keep protesting. We need to keep mobilising.

The whole world knows this is a genocide that has been and is still taking place, and yet our government is continuing to fund and arm the Israeli war machine.

So, our demands that we have been demanding for two years, we have to keep demanding: to sanction Israel, for an end to the two-way arms trade and for genuine freedom and peace for the Palestinian people.

Main image: Screenshot of NSW police officer about to pepper spray a civilian taken from footage captured by Sydney photographer Iyngaranathan Selvaratnam