A grandmother has been arrested under Queensland\u2019s hate speech laws after allegedly stating an outlawed phrase at a pro-Palestine rally.<\/p>\n
Activist Helen O\u2019Sullivan was detained on Tuesday morning as around 50 protesters gathered outside Brisbane Magistrates Court, The Courier Mail reports.<\/p>\n
The state government introduced hate speech laws earlier this year that prohibited the use of phrases including \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n
Police have alleged the grandmother used the exact phrasing of the since-banned slogan, according the masthead.<\/p>\n
A Queensland Police spokesperson told SkyNews.com.au a 64-year-old woman had been charged \u201cfollowing a political disturbance\u201d outside the courthouse on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 64-year-old woman from Labrador was charged with one count of Recital, distribution, publication or display of prohibited expressions,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
She is set to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court on July 14.<\/p>\n
The group of protesters on Tuesday held up pro-Palestine signage and delivered speeches as 26 people faced court after being charged under the hate speech laws, The Courier Mail reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barrister Damon Boswell represented some of the accused and said matters were adjourned on Tuesday, with a High Court challenge expected to be brought.<\/p>\n
Amid Tuesday\u2019s protest, one defendant said he would be “definitely pleading not guilty”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe slogans have been banned unfairly \u2026 it\u2019s claimed they\u2019re messages of hate but that\u2019s a false claim,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simply a message for freedom and justice, and people in Queensland should have the right to speak out.\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes after the Crisafulli government on February 8 announced sweeping reforms to combat antisemitism and \u201cterrorist symbolism\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Crisafulli Government is delivering a comprehensive package to crack down on antisemitism and terrorist symbolism, bolster safety around places of worship, and make Queensland safer,\u201d a joint statement on the bill proposal from Premier David Crisafulli and Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said.<\/p>\n
The reforms also made it an offence to use the phrases \u201cglobalise the intifada\u201d and \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d in a way that causes menace, harassment or offence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grandmother has been arrested under Queensland\u2019s hate speech laws after allegedly stating an outlawed phrase at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3340,24,99,8005,32850,212,32851],"class_list":["post-41191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-arrest","tag-ban","tag-brisbane","tag-charges","tag-from-the-river-to-the-sea","tag-queensland","tag-slogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41191","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=41191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}