After detailing the alleged inhumane treatment he and other members of the flotilla had experienced at the hands of the Israeli Defence Force, Mr Watson said it was incomparable to the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I say from the River to the Sea, Palestine should be free, I mean that I have seen first-hand what the occupation does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should not be allowed to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
A heavy police presence oversaw Justice for Palestine Magandjin\u2019s mass civil disobedience rally, where protesters held signs with different variations of the banned phrase.<\/p>\n
Within 10 minutes of delivering his speech, specialist officers descended and removed him from King George\u2019s Square, in the Brisbane CBD, before putting him in a police van. <\/p>\n
Seven people were arrested for using the phrase.<\/p>\n
The Crisafulli government outlawed two phrases \u2013 \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d and \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d \u2013 as part of the crackdown on hate speech and gun ownership<\/a> in response to the Bondi massacre in December. The laws came into effect in July, and at least 24 Queenslanders have been charged to date<\/a>.<\/p>\n A High Court appeal of the legislation is being organised by Justice for Palestine members, who plan to formally lodge legal action in July.<\/p>\n Premier David Crisafulli said he wished protesters could express their views without calling for violence.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing stopping them criticising the regime,\u201d Mr Crisafulli said on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just don’t want them to use the two phrases that have been singled out as hatred that allowed what came onto the shores of Bondi, that’s all that\u2019s being asked.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice for Palestine organiser Remah Naji has claimed police are not consistently applying the new laws, allowing at least eight people to use the prohibited phrase without repercussions.<\/p>\n The first man charged under the legislation, Liam Parry,<\/a> ran for the Queensland Socialists for the state seat of Stafford in a by-election last month, confronting Mr Crisafulli at a booth on polling day<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read related topics:Israel<\/a> Mackenzie Scott is a property and general news reporter based in Brisbane. Prior to joining The Australian in 2018, she was the editorial coordinator at NewsMediaWorks, covering media and publishing, and editor at travel and lifestyle website Xplore Sydney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pro-Palestine activist who recently joined a flotilla intercepted by Israel has been arrested for defying the Queensland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29159,23,133,29157,99,29160,1601,29162,1957,1959,8197,5669,25925,13373,27972,29158,120,29154,29161,212,29153,29156,29155],"class_list":["post-31779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-alleged-inhumane-treatment","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-banned-phrase","tag-brisbane","tag-civil-disobedience-rally","tag-david-crisafulli","tag-flotilla-activist","tag-hate-speech","tag-hate-speech-laws","tag-heavy-police-presence","tag-high-court","tag-israeli-defence-force","tag-john-gass","tag-king-george","tag-mass-civil-disobedience","tag-oceania","tag-palestinian-people","tag-pro-palestinian-activist","tag-queensland","tag-sam-watson","tag-specialist-officers","tag-state-seat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mackenzie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781550131_178_mackenzie_scott.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n