Brenna McNeil is coordinator of Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS), an all-volunteer organisation that provides training for protest movements, offers information and resources on the right to protest and trains and fields legal observer teams that monitor and report on the policing of protests in Australia’s Victoria state. She speaks with CIVICUS about increasing restrictions on the right to protest in Australia.
Australia is experiencing an escalating crackdown on the right to protest, with state governments introducing increasingly restrictive legislation and law enforcement officers adopting more aggressive tactics against protesters. Initially targeting climate activists, these measures have expanded to affect other movements, particularly those mobilising in solidarity with Palestine. Restrictions include new anti-protest laws, surveillance of activists, deployment of riot units, strict bail conditions and the use of ‘strategic incapacitation’ tactics to discourage participation in protests. Civil society warns that these developments represent an unprecedented threat to freedom of assembly and democratic expression in Australia.
