Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. On Monday,
Speaker 1: about six thousand people attended a protest against Israeli President
Speaker 1: Isaac Hertzog's Sydney visit. The event began peacefully, for villas
Speaker 1: began to emerge, showing protesters pepper sprayed, beaten and arrested
Speaker 1: by police. Police say some demonstrators wanted to march to
Speaker 1: New South Wales Parliament despite a restriction making it unlawful,
Speaker 1: and that when orders to disperse were ignored, they had
Speaker 1: to move the crowd. On twenty seven protesters were arrested.
Speaker 1: There's been a number of incidents in recent years where
Speaker 1: police have been accused of using excessive force against protesters,
Speaker 1: and it comes as officers are increasingly using weapons like
Speaker 1: pepper spray and rubber bullets. Today we're bringing you an
Speaker 1: episode from last year where Ruby Jones speaks to journalists
Speaker 1: and author Ariel Bogel on the use of these so
Speaker 1: called lethal weapons and how they're changing protests in Australia.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday, February fifteen. This episode was first published in
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So Ariel, at the moment, we're seeing weekly public protests,
Speaker 2: thousands of people gathering regularly in pro Palestine marches, also
Speaker 2: climate protests, we saw anti immigration rallies. As all of
Speaker 2: this happens, though, we are also regularly hearing reports of
Speaker 2: people being injured, sometimes quite seriously by police. So can
Speaker 2: you tell me some of the stories that you've been
Speaker 2: looking at of this happening.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I've been tracking.
Speaker 4: These same protests that you're talking about and just noticing
Speaker 4: perhaps an optic in the appearance of what you call
Speaker 4: leslie or police tools. So these are things like oc spray,
Speaker 4: pepper spray in some cases, rubber bullets, things called flushbangs
Speaker 4: that kind of let off aloud, like sort of miniature
Speaker 4: explosives for one of a better way to put it.
Speaker 4: The inventive branch now also trying to stop this group
Speaker 4: which is on the Clarendon Street.
Speaker 5: Side, from coming down along the era.
Speaker 4: Jeez, that's so much spray gets in the area. I
Speaker 4: started wondering what impact this might be having on protesters
Speaker 4: or others observing them, And one person I spoke to
Speaker 4: was Alex Zuko. She's a photographer in Melbourne who was
Speaker 4: pepper sprayed while doing her job as a photojournalist at
Speaker 4: a protest in Melbourne towards the end of last year.
Speaker 4: It caused her to go blind for about an hour.
Speaker 4: She needed help. There was another photographer too was injured
Speaker 4: at the same protest. He told me he was hit
Speaker 4: in the ear with a rubber bullet and required medical
Speaker 4: attention for that.
Speaker 2: And tell me a bit more about these weapons, about
Speaker 2: the OC spray and the rubber bullets, these things that
Speaker 2: police seem to be using a protest, What I mean,
Speaker 2: can they cause long term damage?
Speaker 4: So when we use the term sea spray, we were
Speaker 4: referring to the kind of chemical compound used in the
Speaker 4: spray that causes that intense burning to the eye.
Speaker 3: And people told me it's like getting stabbed in the eye.
Speaker 4: You know, it's really excruciating if it gets into your eyeball.
Speaker 4: And people probably have heard of pepper spray, but they
Speaker 4: might have this idea it's like a small cannacy sort
Speaker 4: of spray at someone's eye kind of miss These.
Speaker 3: Days, the type that police have.
Speaker 4: Is it's more like a sticky foam, if you can
Speaker 4: imagine it. The issue is too like how to get
Speaker 4: it off. A lot of people who go to the
Speaker 4: protests now have techniques for doing this, but when you
Speaker 4: get home, you need to have a shower, get out
Speaker 4: of your hair, get out of your eyebrows, get out
Speaker 4: of your clothes. But it's not a simple thing to
Speaker 4: get this stuff off. And then of course there are
Speaker 4: things like rubber bullets or different forms of projectiles. We
Speaker 4: heard from somebody Kylie Martin. She says she was shot
Speaker 4: in the leg by police with a projectile she believes
Speaker 4: was a baton round. Just for clarity, a baton round
Speaker 4: they can be fired from a weapon ressembling a kind
Speaker 4: of grenade launcher. So in a statements said that police
Speaker 4: were just shooting into the crowded protesters, and she claims
Speaker 4: to have had lasting pain and damage to her leg.
Speaker 4: And when we look at injuries from these tools globally,
Speaker 4: we can see really serious instances of injury, brain damage,
Speaker 4: and even death. I think the term less legal quote
Speaker 4: unquote is a bit of a misnomer. Certainly, these tools,
Speaker 4: especially projectiles, can be lethal depending on how they're used,
Speaker 4: so they're not something to be used lightly. So police
Speaker 4: have growing access to these types of tools, but there
Speaker 4: has been a bit of a lack of public discussion
Speaker 4: or examination. I think of how these tools are being
Speaker 4: used and even what tools are out there. I think
Speaker 4: the average Australian might be quite shocked if they go
Speaker 4: to a protest and see police with some of these things.
Speaker 3: They might never even heard of them.
Speaker 2: And so where are these tools developed and how do
Speaker 2: they make their way to Australian police forces.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so when you look at some of the manufacturers
Speaker 4: of sea spray, flash bangs, rubber bullets, they do often
Speaker 4: come out of companies that make other more traditionally legal weapons.
Speaker 4: They often have a side trade in these kind of
Speaker 4: less legal policing tools. So we got some new South
Speaker 4: Wales parliamentary documents that show some of the caps can
Speaker 4: spray launchers used by police are made by one of
Speaker 4: Germany's largest arms manufacturers, Ryan Metal. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 4: percent sure what brand the Victoria police use at the moment.
Speaker 4: There have been a range of reports on that topic,
Speaker 4: but certainly some of the legal observers at some protests
Speaker 4: in late twenty twenty four, especially outside the Landforces Arms Expo,
Speaker 4: which sort of faced a quite significant protests over a
Speaker 4: number of days, observed the use of these flashbank kind
Speaker 4: of devices as well.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's pretty terrifying by all accounts.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I spoke to one police officer in the United States
Speaker 4: who trains officers on how to use these tools, and
Speaker 4: to his mind, they are a form of explosive So
Speaker 4: you really have to make sure officers are trained in
Speaker 4: their use and really consider the fact that you throw
Speaker 4: such a thing into a crowd. It can cause panic,
Speaker 4: it can cause stampede and cause a range of injuries.
Speaker 4: And I guess there's just very little accountability or discussion
Speaker 4: about how police are using these tools.
Speaker 2: Coming up the people who are suing police over their
Speaker 2: use of force. I think that most Australians think that
Speaker 2: we do or we should have the right peaceful protest,
Speaker 2: that being able to do that is an important and
Speaker 2: normal part of living in a democracy. But in recent
Speaker 2: years we have seen various state governments introduced laws that
Speaker 2: restrict that right to protest. So can you tell me
Speaker 2: more about that and about how that has in turn
Speaker 2: affected the way that policing works.
Speaker 4: I think Australia's attitude to protest, Matt, I wouldn't say
Speaker 4: it has ever been like one hundred percent friendly. If
Speaker 4: you go and talk to protesters against the damning of
Speaker 4: the Franklin River and MANI you know, there was continuous
Speaker 4: face off with police over that. There've been protests, of course,
Speaker 4: against various conflicts, but reports coming out of places like
Speaker 4: the Human Rights Law Center have suggested there is a
Speaker 4: growing crackdown and they are found at least forty nine
Speaker 4: laws enacted by governments have constricted the right to protest
Speaker 4: over the past twenty years.
Speaker 3: If we look here in New South.
Speaker 4: Wales, where I am our state may be considered to
Speaker 4: have led the pack in that way. There's broad discretion
Speaker 4: now for police to penalize people who disrupt major roads
Speaker 4: or infrastructure, but there's a lot of discretion there for
Speaker 4: police to decide what is a major road, what is infrastructure?
Speaker 4: When they can use these laws, Other states have rolled
Speaker 4: out a suite of similar legislation. What was suggested to
Speaker 4: me by a variety of lawyers and advocates is this
Speaker 4: is creating a permissive environment for use of force by police.
Speaker 4: We managed to get our hands on some of the statistics.
Speaker 4: There has been an uptick in use of force in
Speaker 4: general in New South Wales and also you know, hundreds
Speaker 4: of documented cases of use of OC spray in Victoria.
Speaker 3: Again when you're relying on.
Speaker 4: Police to report use of force, it's not always an
Speaker 4: accurate record, so it's a complicated space to get a
Speaker 4: really clear picture of.
Speaker 3: But it does seem like use of force in general
Speaker 3: is on the up.
Speaker 2: So tell me about the data that you have managed
Speaker 2: to gather about the increase in use of force against protesters.
Speaker 4: This is really part of a trend I know at
Speaker 4: this point of at least four settled cases in Victoria
Speaker 4: since twenty twenty one cases have been brought against Victoria
Speaker 4: police and they've been settled over the treatment of photographers
Speaker 4: and journalists, including the use of OC spray. We also
Speaker 4: found there were at least seven protesters alleging police violence
Speaker 4: who have active civil cases in the Victorian County Court.
Speaker 4: There are a range of allegations there, including a dislocated shoulder,
Speaker 4: burning painted testicles, caused by police, including through the use
Speaker 4: of OC spray or foam, and what was claimed to
Speaker 4: be unnecessarily violent arrests and through FOI. We did get
Speaker 4: data that showed in New South Wales, overall number of
Speaker 4: incidents where force has been used has risen from almost
Speaker 4: eighty twenty seventeen eighteen to more than nine thousand in
Speaker 4: the last financial year, but that data couldn't be broken
Speaker 4: down by protest scenarios.
Speaker 3: We could see too that oc spray was used almost.
Speaker 4: Nine hundred times in New South Wales in the past
Speaker 4: financial year, as well as more than two thousand takedowns,
Speaker 4: which is kind of where police might sweep the leg
Speaker 4: out of somebody to get them to the ground as
Speaker 4: part of an arrest. And we saw there too in
Speaker 4: those stats, fifty four percent of those who had experienced
Speaker 4: a takedown identified themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait islander.
Speaker 2: And there is the obvious question then of what you
Speaker 2: do if you believe you've been on the other end
Speaker 2: of that, if you've been assaulted by a police officer
Speaker 2: at a protest, Where do you turn?
Speaker 5: What do you do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely tough. Various states have different mechanisms for
Speaker 4: making complaints. But I spoke to a law professor, Simon Rice.
Speaker 4: He won a case against New South Wales PLA a
Speaker 4: few years ago for assault, battery and false imprisonment. He
Speaker 4: was thrown to the ground and arrested while observing a
Speaker 4: student protest at Sydney University back in twenty twenty in
Speaker 4: his view, there was no really realistic way of complaining
Speaker 4: about police overstepping the mark. They in general investigate themselves
Speaker 4: if you complain directly. A lot of the oversight bodies
Speaker 4: really take on only kind of systemic instances of police
Speaker 4: misconduct or corruption. And again, as I mentioned, it's really
Speaker 4: hard to get those sheer numbers. You know, after a protest,
Speaker 4: police often come out and announce how many people were
Speaker 4: arrested at an event, but there's not really a public
Speaker 4: record of how many times force was used, what was used,
Speaker 4: what tools were used, and whether it was appropriate. So
Speaker 4: that level of accountability is really difficult to obtain without
Speaker 4: taking legal action, and so we did speak to a
Speaker 4: number of protesters who feel their only option to get
Speaker 4: an outcome was to take it to court. There's actually,
Speaker 4: in fact, a class action currently underway in Victoria about
Speaker 4: police use of OC spray back in twenty nineteen at
Speaker 4: the I Mark climate protest, So the outcome there will
Speaker 4: be interesting because that will play out in public. We did,
Speaker 4: of course approach police in Victoria and New South Wales
Speaker 4: when working on this story. Victoria police told us that
Speaker 4: it makes no apologies for officers having to use force
Speaker 4: to separate and safely disperse crowds during protests. They said
Speaker 4: they don't attend protests with aim of using force, but
Speaker 4: is always in response to the actions of protesters.
Speaker 3: And what effect do you think all.
Speaker 2: Of this is, having this use of force protests, both
Speaker 2: on the individual level on people who you know might
Speaker 2: go to protests or you know, decide not to and
Speaker 2: expose as well on the bigger level in terms of
Speaker 2: how you think the very idea of protesting or going
Speaker 2: or peaceful protesting is seen in Australia now.
Speaker 4: Well, certainly people that have been affected by these tools.
Speaker 4: A lot of the people I spoke with, you know,
Speaker 4: remain with them. You know, if you get oc sprayed
Speaker 4: directly in the eyes, that type of pain, you know,
Speaker 4: you don't forget it quickly. I think it might, you know,
Speaker 4: affect people's willingness.
Speaker 3: To share up and protest.
Speaker 4: It's part of this overall picture of antagonism in some
Speaker 4: parts of the media to protest. We do have an
Speaker 4: implied right to political communication in the Australian Constitution, which
Speaker 4: is rare as supporting protest, but very little positive law
Speaker 4: about that fact. I think some people when they show
Speaker 4: up to protest might be surprised about the kind of
Speaker 4: use of force that they're facing, because again it's it's
Speaker 4: not well known that police have these kinds of tools
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 2: Well, Ariel, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Ruby.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. Seven am will be back Tomorrow was
Speaker 1: an episode on the Pacific Australia Labor Lady Scheme or PALM,
Speaker 1: a program sold as a win win for migrant workers
Speaker 1: and Australian businesses, but that many say creates conditions that
Speaker 1: could amount to modern slavery. Thanks for listening, bye for now.