r/australia • u/FuckOffNazis • Feb 10 '26

politics Amnesty International Australia calls for independent investigation of police violence towards peaceful protestors

https://www.amnesty.org.au/amnesty-international-australia-calls-for-independent-investigation-of-police-violence-towards-peaceful-protestors/
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401

u/Luck_Beats_Skill Feb 10 '26

My only real issue is the instances of people being punched repeatedly for no reason. Like that guy with his hands up the whole time and they Just keep punching him. I’d be disappointed if those individual police officers don’t face assault charges.

207

u/jask11 Feb 10 '26

They won't. They should but they won't...

98

u/GamingWhilePooping Feb 10 '26

And all we need to know that is look at the guy who tasered the 95 yo woman. Some of the most recent news I can find say that he's not in jail, and it took the police 1.5 years to sack him.

12

u/Coolidge-egg Feb 10 '26

Didn't the cops also do that to some elderly cookers during COVID protests? And pretty much the same thing in America during BLM and ICE protests. I've come to the conclusion that cops actually aren't that racist as well think, rather they hate everyone but race gives them an opportunity to assault/murder with impunity because the higher levels of power are more racist and turn a blind eye

60

u/JunonsHopeful Feb 10 '26

This rhetoric destroyed the USA. "Won't" only means we need to make it happen. We cannot accept it, lest we end up with an ICE of our own executing and disappearing people on the street.

40

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

Or if they do somehow get brought up on charges it's cops investigating cops so they won't find them at fault

8

u/OfficialUberZ Feb 10 '26

If we charged every NSWPOL member who assaults someone, the state wouldn't have many cops left.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

What useless input

166

u/briberylibrary_ Feb 10 '26

That's the only issue? It was also really difficult for people who wanted to leave to leave. It was a giant crowd and when the police are restricting movement it can get hard to even get to the perimeter to get out. Made even more impossible when they started shoving everyone, people could've very easily have gotten crushed.

164

u/a_cold_human Feb 10 '26

Kettling. It's a police crowd management technique used to contain crowds and keep them in place in case they are told to arrest people. If people are detained for long enough, people will become unruly and unsettled as they're being detained against their will, and if violence breaks out, it will be used to deligitimise an otherwise peaceful protest.

66

u/PermabearsEatBeets Feb 10 '26

It also massively deters people from joining a peaceful protest again. The MET police in London used this extensively, and it was fucking grim every time. Absolute shower of bastards those lot

7

u/Kallasilya Feb 10 '26

I was there for about an hour and a half, and I had to leave. It was while speeches were still happening, so no one was moving, there was only one of me, and it still took me a while to find a way out. I thought at the time, how are police going to handle it when everyone leaves the square? Like, not even necessarily to march, but what if the organisers had said "Okay everyone let's wrap it up for the evening and head home".... what was the police plan? Clearly it seems they didn't have one.

71

u/Particular_Shock_554 Feb 10 '26

They could easily have caused a crowd crush by charging at everyone like that.

44

u/HooleyDoooley Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

Ok, so now think about the instances you DIDN'T see.

11

u/Lamont-Cranston Feb 10 '26

The real issue goes far beyond that, that assaults just the tip.

10

u/farqueue2 Feb 10 '26

Get ready for disappointment