‘It was terrifying’: Australia faces reckoning over brutal police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests

Rebecca Payne was wearing a fluorescent pink vest – clearly identifying her as a legal observer – as she filmed from the edge of a crowd of Australians protesting the visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog in Sydney last week.

When she was first hit with pepper-spray and started feeling an immediate burning sensation in her eye, her first thought was that it was an accident. It was only later, when she watched back footage of the incident, that Payne realised a police officer had reached over and pepper-sprayed directly into the packed crowd.

The protest on 9 February would quick grow violent, and the scenes of clashes between demonstrators and police exploded on social media. Many have since accused authorities of using excessive force while officials have accused protesters of being aggressive towards officers and said the police acted with “remarkable restraint”.

Thousands of people had gathered near Sydney Town Hall as Herzog began a four-day state visit focused on commemorating the victims of a December attack at a Jewish festival in Bondi Beach. Fifteen people were killed in Australia’s worst mass shooting in almost three decades.

The protesters accused Herzog of inciting genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Herzog rejected the accusation and claimed that protests against him were meant to “undermine and delegitimise” Israel’s right to exist.

“Without any warning at all, he suddenly just pepper sprayed a whole bunch of us for absolutely no reason that I could detect,” Payne tells The Independent, referring to the officer. “I felt it go into my right eye and land on my left cheek.”

“I literally could not see a thing,” she says. “I was completely blind. My face was burning. I was really frightened that I was going to get knocked over and trampled.”

Moments later, she says, police charged. Protesters were pushed and punched, people coughed and screamed, and she stumbled forward in tears, clinging to a stranger to avoid falling on her face.

“It was absolutely terrifying,” she says. “My first feeling was shock – that police in Sydney would behave in this way. And then fear.”

It was subsequently revealed that the New South Wales police had used capsicum spray on the protesters, prompting allegations of the use of excessive force and an investigation by the state watchdog.

The rally took place after organisers failed in a last-minute legal bid to overturn a ban on a planned march through the city centre.

It had been declared a “special event”, giving police expanded powers and preventing the protesters from marching.

Payne, who has monitored demonstrations in New South Wales since 2020, had arrived at the rally expecting tension. But she insisted that she didn’t witness violence from demonstrators that would justify what followed.

“I did not see one protester do anything that a police person could reasonably feel threatened by,” she says. “But I saw so many instances of police violence that were completely unprovoked.”

Police said 27 people were arrested, with nine later charged, and that 10 officers were assaulted.

Assistant commissioner Peter McKenna claimed his officers were “threatened, jostled and assaulted” during “a number of melees, rolling fights” and were “significantly outnumbered”.

State police chief Mal Lanyon said that officers showed “remarkable restraint” and “did what they needed to do”.

NSW premier Chris Minns said the police had been “put in an impossible situation” that night and urged the public “not to look at a 10-second clip without the full context”. He claimed officers had done “everything possible” to avoid violent confrontations.

Payne disputes the characterisation. “Most of the protest was peaceful,” she says. While there had been tension when police initially prevented people entering the protest area, she did not witness demonstrators acting violently at the time the spray was deployed.

The incident in Sydney has sparked renewed scrutiny over Australian police’s use of pepper spray and other crowd-control methods.

A video from the Sydney protest verified by Human Rights Watch showed officers punching people on the ground, dispersing people kneeling in prayer and spraying protesters from up close. One clip featured a voice shouting “Stop it! Stop it!” as two officers repeatedly struck a restrained protester.

Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher for the rights group, says they are “particularly concerned about the apparent use of force” at protests against the Israeli president’s visit.

“From our initial analysis of videos and taking statements from witnesses, it does appear that force was used,” she tells The Independent.

She points to international standards governing so-called less-lethal weapons. “Under UN guidance on less lethal weapons in law enforcement, chemical irritants like pepper spray should only be used when a law enforcement official has reason to believe there is an imminent threat of injury. In many of the videos, pepper spray appears to be used on protesters who do not appear to be behaving in a way that is violent,” she says.

According to Hennessy, some of the most troubling accounts of the night came from legal observers who described being sprayed and then immediately charged by officers.

“Pepper spray is a non-discriminatory weapon,” she notes. “It is very concerning when it’s used on a large group of people in such a way, particularly when people describe being sprayed, unable to see, falling over, and then having to seek hospital care afterwards.”

Beyond the immediate injuries, Hennessy warns of a wider democratic impact. “It can have a chilling effect on the right to public assembly when we see this kind of apparent excessive force used against protesters,” she says.

“It can deter others from exercising their right to public assembly and free speech. And that’s really worrying, because the right to public assembly is a cornerstone of democracy.”

Amnesty International Australia welcomed confirmation that the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission would examine the clashes, noting the watchdog had received a significant number of complaints.

“Amnesty International was shocked and horrified by the unnecessary and disproportionate force used by NSW police against First Nations Peoples, Muslims in prayer and members of the public who came together at the Sydney Town Hall protest to demand Herzog be investigated for incitement of genocide,” Mohamed Duar, the organisation’s Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesman, said in a statement. “Law enforcement officials should be protecting people’s right to protest, not violently suppressing peaceful protest and harming those standing up for human rights.”

He described the police’s conduct as “a serious assault on those rights and a deeply troubling display of state-sanctioned violence”.

Pepper spray, also known as OC or capsicum spray, is a chemical irritant derived from capsaicin, the compound that gives chilli peppers their heat. It is generally dispensed as a stream, mist or fog and is intended under the NSW Police’s guidance “for self-defence to assist in the restraint of a subject, or to limit a subject’s actions”.

The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms states that law enforcement should apply non-violent means before resorting to force and use only the minimum necessary.

Civil society and legal groups, including the Australian Democracy Network and the Grata Fund, reported an increase in the deployment of pepper spray at protests between 2019 and 2024.

Their research found OC spray was used at 11 protests in 2023–24, compared with seven in the previous five years. In at least five incidents it was allegedly sprayed directly into the faces of the protesters, leaving more than 200 people across 18 protests over five years requiring treatment by street medics after exposure.

While the national data for 2025 is yet to be compiled, figures shared with The Independent by the Australian Democracy Network show police using OC spray at protests on six occasions in Victoria and two in NSW. This includes a 70-year-old being sprayed during a Wollongong march in support of the Palestinian people in October.

The research also recorded 51 incidents of the use of excessive force in restraining protesters from 2019 to 2024, including the use of headlocks, chokeholds, and officers placing knees on people’s heads and necks. Injuries recorded included a perforated eardrum, bruising, soft tissue damage, scarring, a broken arm, and a sprained finger.

The firing of rubber bullets at a protest in Melbourne in September 2024 led to at least 20 people being treated for injuries. Foam baton rounds and pepper spray were also used during clashes at a Land Forces military conference in the city. At other protests, tear gas and flash-bang grenades were deployed, including against people who were reportedly moving away and complying with police directions.

Police horses were ridden into crowds on at least four occasions in NSW and Victoria, according to the research, and four children aged 16 and under were pepper-sprayed.

The watchdog said that it was “in the public interest” to investigate what happened in Sydney, “including incidents of alleged misconduct on the part of NSW police officers against persons attending that location for a protest”.

A spokesperson for the NSW minister for police told the ABC the government would cooperate, adding: “At this time, the most appropriate course of action is to allow the LECC to carry out its functions independently and without interference.”

Source: independent.co.uk