NSW Police to Continue Raiding Herzog Protesters to Sully Police Watchdog Inquiry

Following thousands of New South Wales police officers brutalising countless participants at the 9 February 2026 protest against the official state visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog, NSW police is now dawn raiding civilian demonstrators over their actions during this huge unprecedented display of police violence and the word is that the cops are to set to raid and arrest more of their victims.

Following raids upon three women Herzog protesters across Greater Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday last week, NSW police explained it has arrested 17 of these pro-Palestinians protesters so far. And the most recent dawn raid involved eight officers wearing riot gear smashing in the front door of a woman asleep in bed, over the crime of her having thrown a plastic bottle at an officer.

These raids, or state-sponsored histrionics, appear to be geared at criminalising the 20,000 civilians who demonstrated on Gadigal land before Sydney Town Hall in early February, in the eyes of the rest of the constiuency, many of whom saw the news coverage that clearly depicted NSW police officers punching on, bashing up, demoralising and pepper spraying their fellow community members.

On the night of the protest 20,000 demonstrators turned out to oppose the official visit of a head of state, who the United Nations has charged with inciting genocide. The protesters gathered had wanted to march on the street, despite an official ban on such processions, and as the crowd didn’t disperse, the police unleashed unbridled, illegal force upon them, which is all documented on video.

The ongoing arrests of Herzog protesters are not the only unsettling aspect to the response to the police brutalisation evidenced at the event and also in the hospital wards of those injured, because the NSW premier, police minister and police commissioner have all refused to apologise for the violence, and have instead praised the police, as having acted in a state-sanctioned manner.

Dawn raiding civilians with conscience

Nick Hanna is the lawyer, whose client was the 42-year-old woman who had her door smashed in on 26 March, so that a group of eight officers from Strike Force Laine could arrest her whilst she was asleep in bed. This woman is alleged to have thrown a water bottle at an officer and to have threatened another not to touch her. And these acts evidently warrant early morning forced entry.

Hanna announced over social media on Thursday this week that he’d been in discussion with a senior police officer earlier that day, and he’d been informed that at least 30 more Herzog demonstrators are in the sights of Strike Force Laine and could be expected to be raided and arrested in similarly theatrical circumstances, which may include riot gear, helmets, handcuffs and battering rams.

In response to this, NSW MLC Sue Higginson took to social media on 9 April, stating that much of the constituency are likely to have seen some of the news items involving Strike Force Laine officers “hunting down” anti-Herzog protesters and using “excessive force” during these police operations, and the politicians too warned that this “shocking use of police power” is not over yet.

“It’s designed to punish, to intimidate and, of course, it’s designed to undermine and interfere with the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission’s investigation into the police response that brutal night at Town Hall,” the Greens justice spokesperson said.

“I’ve written to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission. I’ve alerted them to this unbelievable policing exercise,” Higginson continued. “They have confirmed they are investigating this, on top of the investigation into the police response and that violence that we all saw that night in February at Sydney Town Hall.”

After NSW premier Chris Minns, police minister Yasmin Catley and police commissioner Mal Lanyon had all been falling over each other to praise the police and refuse to apologise for the law enforcement brutalisation, the NSW police oversight body, the LECC, launched its own inquiry into the multiple allegations of police violence at the Herzog rally on 17 February this year.

Higginson insisted that this official NSW police attempt to frame victims as the perpetrators makes it more important than ever for those who bore witness to the countless instances of police officers assaulting civilians at the Herzog rally, to lodge their official complaint with the LECC, and she underscored that the police watchdog has made the lodgement process exceedingly easy to use.

State violence coverup

The first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was a street protest that took place in June 1978. NSW police set upon this street demonstration, beat up the participants, arrested them and stuck them in the lockup. The Sydney Morning Herald then outed them in the press, which was dangerous for queer people back in those times. And this marked the last large-scale NSW police bashing incident.

Those at the Herzog protest who took part in the first Mardi Gras, now known today as 78ers, were reminded of the last time they’d borne witness to or been subject to an officail state bashing of the people. However, the anti-Herzog protest involved a dramatically large number of assailants, 3,000 NSW police officers, as well as victims, around 20,000 pro-Palestinian and antigenocide protesters.

The NSW bashing of the 78ers involved the homophobic and transphobic prejudice that is an integral part of policing cultures, while the beating of the Herzog protesters appeared to involve the pro-Israeli stance of entire NSW government apparatus, which considers the 30-month-long outpouring of civil society grief and outrage over Israel genociding Palestinians a massive inconvenience.

Many criminal defence lawyers in this state will explain that NSW police now dawn raiding Herzog demonstrators and charging them with assault police, when officers had appeared to be the actors assaulting the public, is an old time tactic, whereby the police charge the civilians they’ve used excessive force upon with the crime of assaulting police, which serves posit the victim as aggressor.

The most recent high-profile case where this tactic was applied involved senior constable Christopher Davis, who allegedly punched legal observer Hannah Thomas and almost blinded her in June 2025. Officers immediately charged an injured Thomas with resisting police and refusing a move on order. Yet, it took until September for Davis to be charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Strike Force Laine was established to hunt down Herzog protesters. The early morning raids and the charging of these people serves to convey that it was these criminally charged civilians who were perpetrating violence against uncharged police officers. So, as average law-abiding citizens watch the raids on the nightly news, it would appear to them that the protesters were in the wrong.

New South Wales: The Police State

“We know what we saw that night was a brutal attack not just on the people who were gathering, but on our democracy, on our freedom to communicate, on our right to protest,” Higginson made clear in her post. “It is so important that we fight back. NSW under Chris Minns has become a police state.”

During a dispute between NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong and Minns in state parliament a fortnight ago, which involved the member for Newtown attempting to provide the premier with statements from civilians about the police violence they’d witnessed at the rally, the premier insisted that rather than consider the testimonies, parliament should wait for the LECC to release its findings.

But there have issues with the state’s influence over the LECC in the past. Established in 2017, the police watchdog was originally headed by former NSW Supreme Court Judge Michael Adams, whose contract was not renewed in 2020, with speculation involving that this was due to an inquiry into NSW police strip search use being too robust, and that inquiry was cut short after he finished up.

“There is only one thing for us to do in the face of a police state,” Higginson made certain on 9 April, “and that is to stand up against it and demand our civil rights under our democracy.”