Campaign for Free Speech About the Rights of Occupied Peoples Calls for Delisting of Hamas

The legal action launched by Krautungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe and Sydney-based lawyer Daniel Taylor regarding the right to speak freely about the rights of occupied peoples in the public sphere has gained much interest, and this is sure to heighten, as the pair have now included a call for the Australian attorney general to address calls to delist Hamas as a proscribed terrorist organisation.

First filed with the Federal Court in April, the case involves a call for a declaration that talking about certain controversial points of international law is constitutionally protected by the right to freedom of political communication, which was sparked by an on-air discussion last October between Thorpe and Black Peoples Union founder Keiran Stewart-Assheton on 3CR Radio program Bunjil’s Fire.

The conversation touched upon international humanitarian law recognising the right of occupied peoples to take up armed resistance against their occupiers, that this law recognises Hamas as an armed resistance group, that Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinian territory and that armed resistance includes the October 7th 2023 incursions into Israel but not any associated war crimes.

Besides ensuring the right to speak such ideas being constitutionally protected, the updated action now calls for a mandamus order, or a court order to compel a government official to perform a duty, to be issued in respect of the first respondent, the Australian attorney general, to give consideration to previously lodged applications to see Hamas delisted.

So, the updated case filing that was accepted and stamped by a Federal Court registrar on 11 June 2025, now calls upon the court to order current attorney general Michelle Rowland to consider three applications that Taylor made to then AG Mark Dreyfus to delist Hamas as a terrorist organisation in August last year, as the former chief lawmaker failed to respond within a reasonable time frame.

Terror listing is a genocidal act

“The listing of the entirety of Hamas as a terrorist organisation incites the state of Israel to liquidate, exterminate and genocide the Palestinian people as such, in breach of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” states the Thorpe-Taylor court filing, as Israel is currently genociding Palestinian people on the pretext that they are trying to destroy Hamas.

“Delisting of Hamas is required in order to fulfil Australia’s international obligations under the Genocide Convention,” the document continues, adding that the International Court of Justice recognised last year that Israel is plausibly carrying out a genocide upon the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, and that the mass murder of Palestinians is being predicated upon eliminating Hamas.

Taylor wrote to the attorney general requesting Hamas be delisted from the Australian list of proscribed terrorist organisations on the 18th, 23rd and 25th of August 2024, citing subsections 102.1(16) and 102.1(17) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), which provide that an individual can apply to the AG to see an organisation delisted and that this must be promptly considered.

These laws require reasons for delisting of which Taylor presented numerous in his applications, which included that “Hamas is an organisation exercising the right and duty to resist genocide against the Palestinian people”, that a sizable portion of the Palestinians support Hamas, and besides its nonmilitary wing, Hamas undertakes all the functions expected of civilian government.

The reason why this should compel our government to delist Hamas, according to the filing, is that Australia has ratified the 1948 Genocide Convention, and under its first article, the nation must do everything in its power to stop a genocide when one is underway, and the effect that classifying Hamas as a terror organisation provides Israel with the cover to attempt to kill all Palestinians.

“The continued designation of Palestinian armed resistance to genocide as terrorism in Australian law deprives Palestinians of the fundamental human right of self-defence and collective self-defence,” Thorpe and Taylor are further putting to the court, and they add that “the continued listing… has a chilling and suppressive effect on freedom of speech in Australia”.

The rights of occupied peoples

The right to armed resistance of occupied peoples is part of the law of belligerent occupation, which is a section of international humanitarian law that stipulates invasion shifts to occupation when invaders establish control over territory, that occupied people retain their rights and that discrimination against them by their occupiers is illegal.

International humanitarian law further provides that occupied peoples have a right to resist occupation with the use of weapons, but they don’t have the right to commit atrocity crimes in the process.

In terms of Thorpe and Stewart-Assheton, they were well aware that they were speaking the truth and that their comments are protected under the implied right to political communication contained in the Australian Constitution.

However, the pair are also aware that in the current political climate discussion of such matters could be misconstrued as support for a terrorist group, and the legal action notes this could trigger the offence of associating with a terrorist organisation, contrary to section 102.8 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), which is a crime that carries up to three years prison time.

In the filing, Thorpe and Taylor further point to subsection 102.8(6) of the Code, as it provides that the offence of associating with a terrorist organisation does not apply “to the extent (if any) that it would infringe any constitutional doctrine of implied freedom of political communication”. And they’re calling for a court declaration that all such conversations are protected in this country.

Suffocating restrictions on truth

Australia commenced listing proscribed terrorist organisations in October 2002, as it was in the midst of passing the first in a plethora of terrorism laws and offences post-the 9/11 attacks of 2001 in New York City. And since that time, the major parties have together passed over 100 pieces of national security and counterterrorism laws that erode the rights of all citizens and residents.

The listing of an organisation as a terrorist group then results in the criminalisation of a number of activities involved with it, which includes being a member of the organisation or associating with it, recruiting people to become members of it, as well as participating in any training the organisation might provide, funding the organisation and supporting it all too become illegal acts.

“Declaratory relief is required because of the chilling and suppressive effect of the law on the exercise of freedom of communication to oppose genocide, including by expressing support for the right of armed resistance against genocide,” the updated Thorpe-Taylor filing sets out, adding that “to promote the right and duty to oppose genocide, including by armed force” should be protected.

Whilst controversial, Thorpe and Taylor are calling on AG Rowland to consider delisting Hamas in order to prevent the ongoing effect it has in promoting the genocide in Gaza, and in terms of seeking the declaration regarding the right to freely speak around the rights of occupied peoples to armed resistance, this isn’t about protecting their own backs, it’s about the right for all to speak truthfully.

And in terms of the broad, subterranean response to the initial announcement of the rights of the occupied case, it bears testament to the fact that there are countless people across this continent right now feeling an oppressive restriction upon their ability to speak truths about the grave horrors that are currently occurring across the globe, and our government’s complicity in all of it.