Who is coming into this country? Terror cannot be allowed to fly flags on the street.

Flat White I 30 September 2024 I Spectator Australia

Why didn’t Victorian Police arrest Hezbollah sympathisers?

There was a group of people protesting in Melbourne and Sydney over the weekend, clutching photos of assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as part of the so-called ‘National Day of Action for Gaza’ that looked more like a march in solidarity with the Middle East’s most notorious terrorists.

While citizens in Lebanon cheered the demise of Nasrallah, our streets were full of people waving internationally recognised terror flags. They did so with their faces covered.

The ABC idiotically called the dead terrorist a ‘longtime militia leader’. Why? Is denying his life’s work as a proud ‘terrorist’ part of the ABC’s ‘balanced’ reporting charter? Who made that editorial decision, I wonder. The sympathetic article did its best to paint the protesters as supporters of peace while video footage shows hateful chants against the backdrop of Australia’s beautiful cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

It is with fury that I ask, where are the Australian Federal Police?

There are over a thousand people, many identifiable, caught on camera committing terror offenses in broad daylight.

Last time I checked, it is against the law in this country to engage in public solidarity with terror groups.

There wasn’t one Hezbollah flag flying – there were many. It was not an accident, it was a trend. They were not there in solidarity for Lebanon or Gaza – but for Hezbollah and Hamas.

As Senator James Paterson tweeted:

‘Disturbing to see symbols of a listed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, prominently displayed on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney today. This is a clear contravention of 80.2HA of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It’s time for police to enforce the law.’

Again – why wasn’t the law enforced?

The softest of flimsy and pitiful replies came from Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, who said the presence of the Hezbollah flag would draw ‘immediate attention’ from security agencies.

Oh really? Could he please define attention? Was it my imagination or did we see people flying the flag of Israel dragged off our city streets by thuggish police in previous months? You are safer flying a terrorist flag in this country than you are our national flag or a flag of an ally.

‘Any indication of support for a terrorist organisation is unequivocally condemned,’ added Mr Burke.

Condemned?

If you travel 2km/h over the speed limit or glance at your phone, you’re not ‘condemned’ – you’re arrested and fined.

Where are the fines and where are the arrests? Or is the law turning a blind eye so as not to upset certain voting blocs sensitive to Labor’s power?

‘There is a higher level of scrutiny if anyone is on a visa. I have made clear from day one, that I will consider refusing and cancelling visas for anyone who seeks to incite discord in Australia.’

Mr Burke, how many of these rally attendees are on visas that you intend to cancel? I’m betting Mr Burke has no idea because police did not detain anyone. You cannot cancel visas if you do not know who these people are. There should have been a police van with open doors parked in front of the rally.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus confirmed that:

‘The new laws also ensure that glorifying and praising acts of terrorism are criminal offences under Commonwealth law.’

Are there? If they are criminal offences we have seen no evidence of it. At this point, the law exists purely so that politicians can give lip service to the public without actually doing anything to get terror sympathisers off the street or out of the country.

It is not as if there was a ‘blink and you missed it’ moment. The police have confirmed they saw the flags.

Victoria Police released a statement saying they were ‘aware prohibited flags were seen at a demonstration in the Melbourne CBD’ but that ‘Victoria Police supports the right to protest peacefully and had a visible presence at the protest to ensure public safety’.

What a cop-out. If Victoria Police were protecting public safety they’d be rounding up people carrying Hezbollah flags.

It’s not about ‘safety at the rally’ it’s about the safety of the country and ensuring people who sympathise with terrorist groups are not wandering around free or living here on visas they are not entitled to hold.

The Victorian Police set up an entire ‘snitching’ database to comb through images of the Freedom Rally to arrest individuals during Covid – where is that enthusiasm for actual terror groups? Where?

There were no arrests at that rally, allowing police to call it ‘peaceful’. It is like failing to arrest petty thieves and saying crime has fallen. The comments are a fabrication of reality, and the public know it.

These marches were not peaceful, they were hateful.

Members of the group were chanting, ‘At your service, Nasrallah…’

Any individual who says that is not an Australian, they are a Hezbollah separatist.

Everyone, from the rally organisers to the Islamic Council of Australia, has claimed that these individuals do not represent them – but how can we know if they are not detained, named, and investigated?

It is not as if they were kicked out, shouted down, or heckled by their fellow protesters.

There did not appear to be any dissent toward the Hezbollah symbols. If they were not welcome at the rally, why did none of their peers confront them? Watch the footage, look at the photographs. Do you see anyone side-eyeing the Hezbollah flag with disgust?

If someone walked up to a Freedom Rally flying a Nazi flag they would be confronted, shouted down, and kicked out.

In previous pro-Palestinian rallies, particularly in England, some have proved the point by shouting slogans against Hamas only for the crowd to turn on them and angrily defend the terror group. In the case of pro-Palestinian events, there is little, if any, evidence that supporters denounce Hamas just as the vast majority of all Palestinians support the Hamas regime.

The Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dr Dvir Abramovich, had the strongest words.

‘Hezbollah, responsible for countless civilian deaths, has no place in “peaceful” protest. The display of their flag at this demonstration is a glorification of violence and terror that undermines the values of our diverse and democratic society. This is not who we are as a nation and let’s not confuse freedom with the promotion of terror. We call on all community leaders and elected officials to unequivocally denounce this act.’

Most Australians would rather see them in jail or deported instead of ‘denounced’.

At least Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had something to say about what happened.

‘We’ve got Jewish schools where we’ve got armed guards out the front of, there are people who are living in the Jewish community in fear and there is an absolute outrage in relation to the glorification of a terrorist leader, which surely must be against the Australian law; and if it’s not, the Parliament should be recalled to pass a law that prohibits that from happening.

It’s time to remember that this is a Christian and secular country based on the values of the Enlightenment. It is a Western country that has no place for imported Middle Eastern conflicts or the violence in those regions that have been ongoing for thousands of years.

Nothing will come of spreading this hateful ideology on Australian streets other than turning Australia into the same mess we see around the world. It is poison to our democracy.

Australians did not ask for this and we have laws to prevent this.

Use the laws or explain why we shouldn’t charge our political leaders with treason.

Who is coming into this country?

How safe to Australians feel walking the streets with these people as their neighbours?

If Melbourne Police can arrest hundreds of freedom protesters with anti-terror units, there is no excuse for these people to walk free. Support for a terror group is not an accepted form of protest in the country. It is against the law.

We talk about Keir Starmer having a two-tiered system of policing, but for the Albanese government and specifically the state government of Jacinta Allan and Chris Minns, it’s one rule for Australian-loving freedom fighters and another for Hezbollah-loving terror sympathisers.

Make it make sense.

Author: Flat White