Palestine Action Group condemns bid to ban vigil on October 7 as an ‘attack on fundamental democratic rights’.Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called for the cancellation of a pro-Palestinian rally scheduled for the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, as police seek to have the event in Sydney banned.
Albanese said on Wednesday that the planned vigil on October 7 would be “incredibly provocative” and “cause a great deal of distress”.
“Look, in a democracy, we allow for people, indeed, it’s important that people be able to express themselves peacefully. But October 7 will be one year since the largest number of deaths and murders – call it for what it is – of Jewish people, since the Holocaust,” Albanese said in an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster, referring to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
“I’ll be attending a vigil to commemorate that terrible day. And anything that looks like it’s a celebration of that, I think, would cause disharmony. We need to promote social cohesion in our multicultural nation.”
Albanese made his comments after police in New South Wales applied to the state’s top court to prohibit the event, billed as a candlelight vigil “mourning 12 months of genocide and terrorism”, as well as another pro-Pal …
