Rainbow Rights Group Attacked By One Nation Supporters In Sydney
On Tuesday, March 21, members of the LGBTQIA+ group Community Action For Rainbow Rights (CAFRR) were reportedly attacked while protesting outside St Michael’s Church in Belfield, NSW. The church was host to controversial One Nation politician Mark Latham who was scheduled to speak about parental rights, reports Sydney Morning Herald.
PROTESTORS PLEAD TO BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE
According to Sydney Morning Herald, the CAFRR protestors were swarmed by a group of individuals and were physically assaulted. It’s been alleged that a handful of aggressors belong to right-wing groups that oppose LGBTQIA+ advocacy.
Mark Latham is the NSW One Nation leader who has garnered a reputation for speaking out against teaching about gender identity and sexuality in schools. In the lead-up to the NSW state election, the event at St Michael’s was supposed to offer a platform for the politician to advocate his policies to the community.
The confronting videos posted to social media of the protest show individuals swarming the streets around St Michael’s Church. Some of the footage does appear to capture the assault of Rainbow Rights protesters by One Nation followers.
According to Sydney Morning Herald, Superintendent Sheridan Waldau says, “We were able to push the protesters into a police vehicle and move them safely from the scene of the incident… So far there have been two persons charged as a result of the incident and we are reviewing numerous amounts of footage.”
Tensions are high between the two factions with CAFRR members saying only about 15 people were attempting to peacefully protest without blocking any roads before they were set upon. “Tonight hundreds of violent far-right thugs attacked a small peaceful speak out of LGBTI+ activists, with glass bottles, rocks and their fists. Several people were punched in the face multiple times and hit with rocks and bottles as they were surrounded by a mob 30 times their size,” says CAFRR on a Facebook post.
The administrators of the CAFRR Facebook reposted a video of one of the alleged aggressors advocating violence against LGBTQIA+ protestors. In the video (below), the man can be heard saying: “If you’re going down tomorrow to see the protestors, there’s only one way and that is to grab them and you drag them by their fucking hair and you fucking get them out of there.”
Mark Latham has been active on Twitter since, alleging that the Rainbow Rights protestors were blocking the roads and behaving in a threatening manner.
Responses to the events of Tuesday evening have been varied, with both sides reporting wrongdoing by the other. Mr Latham’s anti-transgender policy has been criticised by fellow politicians such as Independent member for Sydney Alex Greenwich. “Mark Latham is a disgusting human being and people who are considering voting for One Nation need to realise they are voting for an extremely hateful and dangerous individual who risks causing a great deal of damage to our state,” says Mr Greenwich.
