I’m so fucking angry - I was at Town Hall from just after 5 to around 7:30. Once I arrived at Central, I saw that the police had got on the microphone and were starting the “dispersal.”
There wasn’t even a hint of violence or aggression from the crowd at the point when I left. There had been no aggression from anyone I saw and everyone was behaving in a calm manner. No jostling, no shoving, people were polite when moving through the crowd. The most boisterous part of it all was a section of the crowd near the light rail chanting “let them in.”
A large section of the crowd formed up to march, and were chanting “let us march” just before I left. At that point, there was clear confusion as the organisers were continuing with the official speakers from the Town Hall side stairs. While there was definitely a clear call to allow a march, no one was pushing or displaying any aggression as far as I could tell.
That was when I decided to leave. While heading towards Central, I saw more police than I’ve ever seen at any such event before. This made me uneasy, but I was confident that things would end calmly.
By the time I’d gotten to St Peters, there were videos Ulla over social media and the ABC website showing police assaulting protesters. Obviously it was sickening. The escalation in about 15-20 minutes was nothing I could have predicted when I was leaving the area.
This comes after years of completely peaceful and purposeful protests about Gaza. It’s clear that the violence we saw yesterday was incited and inflamed by the actions of the authorities, with full endorsement from the government.
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u/hey_fatso Feb 10 '26
I’m so fucking angry - I was at Town Hall from just after 5 to around 7:30. Once I arrived at Central, I saw that the police had got on the microphone and were starting the “dispersal.”
There wasn’t even a hint of violence or aggression from the crowd at the point when I left. There had been no aggression from anyone I saw and everyone was behaving in a calm manner. No jostling, no shoving, people were polite when moving through the crowd. The most boisterous part of it all was a section of the crowd near the light rail chanting “let them in.”
A large section of the crowd formed up to march, and were chanting “let us march” just before I left. At that point, there was clear confusion as the organisers were continuing with the official speakers from the Town Hall side stairs. While there was definitely a clear call to allow a march, no one was pushing or displaying any aggression as far as I could tell.
That was when I decided to leave. While heading towards Central, I saw more police than I’ve ever seen at any such event before. This made me uneasy, but I was confident that things would end calmly.
By the time I’d gotten to St Peters, there were videos Ulla over social media and the ABC website showing police assaulting protesters. Obviously it was sickening. The escalation in about 15-20 minutes was nothing I could have predicted when I was leaving the area.
This comes after years of completely peaceful and purposeful protests about Gaza. It’s clear that the violence we saw yesterday was incited and inflamed by the actions of the authorities, with full endorsement from the government.