This is getting ridiculous

Pro-Palestinian group accuses Queensland police of 'overreach' after 'From the river to the sea' arrests

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-12/qld-speech-laws-protest-students-for-palestine-responds-police/106445318

A pro-Palestinian student group is accusing Queensland police of targeting a demonstration for the "express purpose" of using the state's new hate speech laws to make arrests.

Yesterday, 33-year-old Liam Parry was arrested for using the phrase "From the river to the sea" at an "unauthorised protest" outside state parliament.

An 18-year-old woman was later arrested in the city.

The contested phrase, which is commonly used by pro-Palestinian groups at rallies, was one of two deemed antisemitic by the state government last week and banned in circumstances where it could menace or offend.

Police say the woman was dealt with by way of an adult caution, while Mr Parry is due to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court next month.

It was the first time the new laws had been used.

'Total overreach'

Students for Palestine convenor Ella Gutteridge said she had never seen "riot police everywhere" at a student demonstration before yesterday's and believed they were present "with the express purpose of using these laws".

"The police were listening closely," she said.

"They were ready to make arrests and it was very clear that they came to make arrests."

The ABC put detailed questions to police about the arrests and received the following from a spokesperson:

"Police presence is standard at any protest to manage any road closures, to provide assistance, or direction where required to ensure public and community safety.

"As the matter is now before the court, it would be inappropriate to comment further."

The ABC has seen footage of Mr Parry using "from the river to the sea" in a speech, while the woman was wearing a singlet bearing the phrase.

In a speech to the demonstration, Mr Parry can be heard explaining to the crowd that there are exceptions to the laws, including if the phrases are used for education or in the public interest.

"In the interests of education, I want to explain to you," he said.

"There's a phrase that the government is banning. It uses the words river and the word sea ... the land in between these two bodies of water is the land of Palestine.

"The phrase the government is trying to ban is about asserting that the people who live between those bodies of water deserve dignity and freedom.

"When we say 'from the river to the sea' we are calling for freedom and liberation for the people of Palestine."

The government and members of the Jewish community have described both "From the river to the sea" and "Globalise the intifada" as antisemitic.

Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg said it was "heartening" to see police enforcing the new hate speech laws, and that he disagreed with the explanation of the phrase in Mr Parry's speech.

He said the phrase "From the river to the sea" had been used to "intimidate kids and intimidate Jewish people in workplaces and on the streets".

"The Jews will be exterminated. That is what that statement means," he said.

Government says phrase can be defended

Speaking at a press conference in Bundaberg on Thursday, Police Minister Dan Purdie said there were defences to the use of the phrase.

"What we did was make it clear that we were going to stamp out hate," he told reporters.

"There are a long list of defences … you have to be using it [as] a term that is driving hate and calling for hate.

"So if it is part of education … or other defences that are in the Act … that's certainly the case."

Mr Steinberg said he believed the education defence should apply to the phrase being used in a museum or a classroom.

"Standing on a street outside Parliament House shouting that slogan, or standing on any street in Queensland, it's not for any other purpose than to incite hatred," he said.

Ms Gutteridge said the police presence had been "total overreach" and an attempt to intimidate students.

Mr Purdie said it was a matter "solely for the police" how the laws were enforced as they had been passed.

"As our police do, everyday across the state, they enforce the law," he explained.

He said he did not believe Wednesday's arrests had suppressed free speech.

Another Students for Palestine convenor, Connor Knight, agreed yesterday's police presence was "massively disproportionate".

"They came looking to arrest people, they came looking for a fight,"  he said.
Ms Gutteridge said she believed the charge would be challenged on the grounds the speech was educational and in the public interest.

Under the laws passed last week by Queensland parliament, the phrases "From the river to the sea" and "Globalise the intifada" are banned if used in a way that could cause a person to feel menaced, harassed or offended.

The new laws include both written and spoken phrases, including chants or placards, with penalties of up to two years in prison.

Ms Gutteridge said she believed people should be allowed to call for "freedom and liberation" for people in Palestine, adding it was up to individuals to decide whether the banned phrases would continue to be used at rallies.

She argued the laws undermined people's "fundamental right" to criticise Australia's foreign policy.

"I think these laws are illegitimate and they cannot stand," she told reporters.

No, I don't think it should be banned. It is a gross violation of freedom of speech.

You aren't going to stop people hating Jews by controlling what they are allowed to say in public. It is far better to actually know what is going on.

It is a call for ethnic cleansing/genocide, enslavement and explusion of all who are not their brand of radical Islamists from the entire region currently owned by Israel and countless 'normal Arabs' who just want to get on with their lives, not to mention Christians and Christian Druze and so forth who they are trying to exterminate in Syria right now.

This claim is based on some myth that it was all 'their land' (sounds familiar somehow) because they never really did much with it after the Romans brutally expelled the previous owners... who - over many years starting way back - were BUYING land to farm etc from Arabs and turning it into a paradise compared to the dung heaps the Arabs lived in.

Arrest them for inciting genocide and mass murder etc - to work on the chain gangs Outback building the roads and rails for Canavan's Dream ....

Such insanity has no place in our civilised tribes.

Just on Facebot - in amongst the 'Epstein War' fantasists (as if anyone is distracted by bombing the Ayatollahs), there are raving Judeophobes preaching and praying for the extinction of Israel.

I'll take a bet - Gazans and IS will be gone long before Israel is, along with the Ayatollahs - who, of course, believe so implicitly in their own cause that they think dying is nothing.  I'll put my powerball win on it.

Keep up the bombing, boys and girls!  This war was inevitable.... now unleash the Kraken and stop stuffing about.

(Note:-  at the moment this is like watching your pet football team go through the motions until it finds its feet - big win today - next week down by fifty points - remember 1944 ... there's only one way to win)....

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM wrote on Mar 13^th, 2026 at 8:22am:


The problem is, it does not actually say that. It requires an identification of a 'victim', and it requires them to feel a certain way in response. You are allowed to say "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free' unless someone feels the wrong way about it.

The law will merely replace freedom of speech with ever more complex dog whistle politics.

Past solders who gave their lives fighting for freedom must be turning in their graves.

Certain words and body movements now illegal in this country. It is shameful.

Islam is failing
Israel is just filling the void

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM wrote on Mar 13^th, 2026 at 8:25am:




Great picture, Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM

Is it ?

Decades of Israel denying Palestinians the opportunity to vote their representation, so to keep Hamas in power.

Israel's hard right zionist mob is far from a beacon. It's a cancer.

Palestinian subjects living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot participate in elections
Roughly 5.5 million Palestinian subjects live in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: about 3.5 million in the West Bank (including roughly 350,000 in East Jerusalem) and some 2 million in the Gaza Strip. None of them are allowed to vote or run for Knesset, and they have no representation in the political institutions that dictate their lives.

This reality persists despite the fact that Israel has been the sole power controlling and managing these millions of lives for more than 55 years. Israel controls the land, sea and air spaces and has retained key governance aspects despite geopolitical changes over the years. Israel cites these changes to support its argument that residents of the Occupied Territories can influence their future through other political systems – the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Yet this claim is detached from reality.

These are the facts:

In the Gaza Strip, after removing its settlements and withdrawing its military in 2005, Israel declared its rule over the area at an end and its duties towards Gaza residents terminated, barring minimal obligations aimed at preventing a serious humanitarian crisis. Hamas’ internal rule in the Gaza Strip may bolster this claim and help Israel ignore the 2 million people living there. Yet the fact is that Israel still holds almost all powers pertaining to Gaza residents and determines what their daily lives look like, in no small part due to its near-complete control over the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank, Israel supposedly transferred some powers to the Palestinian Authority. It has since used this move to perpetuate an illusion that political power in the West Bank is divided, with Israel and the Palestinian Authority each acting independently and as it sees fit in the areas it controls. Israel works to uphold the perception that everyone in the West Bank has a political system in which they can participate: the settlers vote and run for Knesset and the Palestinians for the Palestinian Authority. However, the Palestinian Authority can only govern very limited aspects of life in Palestinian urban centers, and usually requires Israel’s permission even for that, while Israel retains control over all major aspects of life – including the use of force, incarceration, the justice system, planning and building, freedom of movement (to and from Israel, Jordan and Gaza, as well as within the West Bank), resources, the population registry and many more. Regardless of whether elections for the Palestinian Authority are held – there have been none in many years – the true control remains in Israeli hands.

In East Jerusalem, upon annexing the area, Israel gave Palestinians living there at the time permanent residency status. This status, which does not confer a right to run or vote for Knesset, is usually given to immigrants entering the country. In the case of East Jerusalem, the opposite is true: it was Israel that entered the area. Residents of East Jerusalem can, theoretically, become citizens and participate in general elections, but the process is lengthy and complex, and Israel deliberately puts bureaucratic obstacles in their way.

Palestinian citizens limited in exercising the right to vote and run for office
The roughly 1.7 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship status can, like Jewish citizens, take part in the general elections. They can vote for their candidates, start their own parties or join existing ones. However, their political participation has been cast as illegitimate since the very inception of the state, along with attempts to restrict or deny them true political representation.

more

https://www.btselem.org/publications/202210_not_a_vibrant_democracy_this_is_apar...


Israel is far from a democracy or beacon.

How Israel helped prop up Hamas for decades

https://www.analystnews.org/posts/how-israel-helped-prop-up-hamas-for-decades

That makes Israel's Zionists as bad as Hamas.

Setting the bar low.



Israel ranks highest in electoral democracy (0.715) and is the only country in the region classified as a "flawed democracy" by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2023.
Tunisia is widely recognized as the most democratic country in the Arab world, having transitioned to a republic after the 2011 Arab Spring.  However, it has regressed in recent years and is now classified as a "hybrid regime" by the EIU.
Iraq and Mauritania also rank highly in the V-Dem indices, with strong participatory and deliberative democracy scores.

Ai_Took_Our_Jobs wrote on Mar 13^th, 2026 at 2:51pm:


Yes, the Arab Muslim countries do set the bar very low. They also try to slaughter Jews at every opportunity. Despite the need to maintain a constant war footing, Israel still manages to grant all its citizens, including the local Arab Muslim population, more rights and freedoms, and more say in the governance of the country, than any other middle eastern or north african country.

Have you realised yet that it is Hamas, not Israel, denying democracy and fundamental human rights to the people of Gaza?

freediver wrote on Mar 13^th, 2026 at 4:05pm:



As before, Israel kept Hamas in power, so holds a share of the responsibility.

https://www.analystnews.org/posts/how-israel-helped-prop-up-hamas-for-decades

It's the zionist's plan ... to have boogiemen, so to slaughter civilians and thieve their land

Melanias purse wrote on Mar 13^th, 2026 at 6:17pm:




Hi Karnal,
are you anti-semetic?

.... and so it begins... the jihad ..... the holy war that will cleanse the known universe .... but only if the known universe goes along with the rantings of a desert-maddened lunatic inbred flea-brain drunk on fermented coconut juice and too many easy conqeusts of small tribal groups who looked at the oncoming camel riders and turned to one another and asked -

Abdul:-  "Is that Ach-med coming back from the oasis?  Got a few mates with him... just to be safe - don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes....."

Hasim:-  "Aaaargh - the dirty bastards - they've been smoking that weed and hitting that coconut juice and their eyes are red!"

freediver wrote Yesterday at 6:43am:


Oh, I see. You want Hamas to start issuing passports too, do you?

But I'm curious. Why won't Israel issue citizenship to their own citizens?

That's a question.