Australian Black Lives Matter protests: tens of thousands demand end to Indigenous deaths in custody

Tens of thousands of people marched through Australian cities and towns for Black Lives Matter protests on Saturday, defying an attempt from the police to ban one demonstration through the courts and despite pleas from the prime minister and state leaders for people to stay home.

In a dramatic turn of events, a massive crowd in Sydney learned just as they were gathering outside the city’s Town Hall that the New South Wales court of appeal had ruled their rally was now lawful, overturning a court decision handed down late on Friday.

At least 20,000 attended the Sydney march which passed off peacefully, except for ugly scenes when police officers used pepper spray on protesters who had flowed into Central station after the rally finished.

Some protestors were hurt by the spray, with eyes streaming, and there were accusations that the remaining crowd had been forced together into a small space in the station and unable to move. 

On Sunday morning, NSW Police said a 21-year-old man had been charged with offensive behaviour and resisting police, after he allegedly “became violent” when officers “attempted to move a group of people through the station”.

Police said after he was arrested, the surrounding group of people in the station “became increasingly aggressive”, at which point “OC (pepper) spray was deployed”, with five people treated at the scene from the effects of the spray.

In the hour before the protest was declared legal by the NSW Supreme Court, police tasered and arrested a 23-year-old man who was involved in “a physical altercation”, and a 51-year-old was arrested over an alleged “breach of the peace” when he raised a sign that said “black, white, all lives matter” on the steps of Town Hall.

At a press conference on Sunday afternoon – held about 35km north west of the local police station for Central station – acting commissioner Mal Lanyon defended officers using capsicum spray as “acting professionally”. 

He said a brick was thrown through a police car on Eddy Avenue, behind the station, prior to the capsicum spray incident. Police then attempted to move the remaining crowd away from the area and into the nearby train station, after which people in the group threw a drink can and bottle at the faces of policemen, injuring at least one officer.

Lanyon said the spray was deployed to “curb that violence” from people acting aggressively.

He also said the incident at Central was not representative of the wider protest, and said he believed “there are groups that attend those types of protests with an interest to incite police and try to cause violence” and to “pursue interests that are contrary to the rest of the protest group”.

In Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and smaller cities and towns across the country mask-clad protesters gathered, drawing attention to racial profiling, police brutality and the more than 400 Indigenous people who have died in police custody since a royal commission into the problem was held in 1991.

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“It’s the same story on different soil,” Ky-ya Nicholson-Ward, 17, told a rally in Melbourne of the similarities between what has been happening in the US and Australia.

Victoria Police has confirmed it will fine Melbourne Black Lives Matter rally organisers $1,652 each for breaching the directions of the chief health officer amid the pandemic.

A smaller, socially-distanced protest of about 20 people was planned outside the Frankston police station on Sunday morning.

In Perth, protesters will gather for a Black Lives Matter rally on Sunday, following the death of an Aboriginal man in custody at Acacia prison.

Although Saturday’s protests were sparked after the death of unarmed African American man George Floyd, public outrage was further stoked when a Sydney police officer was caught on camera slamming an Indigenous teenager face-first into the ground this week.

Still, some campaigners expressed frustration that it had taken Floyd’s death on the other side of the world to draw attention to the plight of Australia’s First Nations people, who suffer lower life expectancy and are more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous Australians.

Protesters fell silent to mourn Indigenous deaths in custody and stopped to take a knee as they marched, while organisers led chants of “I can’t breathe” and “Black lives matter”. Another chant involved those at the rally hitting their chests in unison to create the sound of a fading heartbeat.

In Sydney, the “I can’t breathe” chant held special significance for the mother of David Dungay Jr, who gasped those words before he died in Long Bay jail in 2015.

“They held my son down for 10 minutes,” Leetona Dungay said told the crowd.

Warren Day, the son of Victorian woman Tanya, who died in police custody, said in Melbourne there had been no convictions despite the hundreds of Indigenous deaths in police custody in the past three decades.

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“All we want is justice and to be treated as equals,” he said. “It’s not much to ask for is it? There is no room for racists in this world. We need change and it needs to start happening now.”

The protests went ahead despite warnings from Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, that large gatherings risked ruining the progress Australia had made in significantly reducing the number of active coronavirus cases.

Protesters in Sydney expected to defy a supreme court order that gave police the right to fine them for breaking social distancing laws but instead erupted in cheers when they learned the court of appeal had overturned the decision.

The last-ditch appeal, which was finalised 12 minutes before the rally was scheduled to begin, struck out a late-night court ruling on Friday that said the demonstration would be unlawful because current laws ban gatherings of more than 10 people. The police had sought the court order to ban the protest.

Although the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said he believed the cause was important, his message earlier in the week to protesters was “don’t go”, citing the existing health advice.

But he also questioned those drawing comparisons between Australia and the situation in the United States, where protesters have rallied for several days following Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

“There’s no need to import things happening in other countries here to Australia,” Morrison said.

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Most protesters heeded a call from organisers to cover their faces, creating a sea of mask-clad faces that was unprecedented in Australia given face coverings are not mandated by state or federal governments.

Although protesters sought to keep at least 1.5 metres between them, many struggled to do so closer to the stage. In Melbourne, where the crowd stretched across many blocks, some also began to dance when the African Australian musician Sampa the Great took to the stage to perform two songs.

Black lives matter, she said, “because I woke up black today, and I’m going to wake up black tomorrow”.

Crowds also gathered in Adelaide, where police granted protesters an exemption to allow them to hold a rally, as well as smaller cities such as Hobart, Wagga Wagga, Townsville, Byron Bay.

In Sydney the end of the march for most was marked peacefully, although some protestors were caught in frightening scenes at Central Station.

A crowd appeared to be pressed together in the underground concourse at the station and police used pepper spray on some.

One protester who was inside Central station at the time of the clash told the Guardian it was unclear why police made the decision to use the spray. 

He said police had been ushering protesters in the vicinity of Belmore Park – where the march ended – into Central station, when the incident occurred shortly after 6pm.

“I was walking through [the station entrance] and there was some commotion behind me where police had formed a line.”

“Out of nowhere they just started macing people, it didn’t look like there was any type of reason to do it,” the protester, who did not wish to be identified, said.