LONDON — Authorities in Britain and Australia are tightening restrictions on pro-Palestinians protests in response to the Islamic State-inspiredBondi Beach massacre targeting a Jewish gatheringthat killed 15 people.
In New South Wales, the Australian state where the deadly attack on aHanukkah celebrationtook place, police will be granted expanded powers to shut down unauthorized protests, while tougher hate speech laws will be introduced, including a proposed ban on the slogan "globalize the intifada."
The move comes shortly afterU.K. police arrested two peoplein London on racially aggravated public order charges for allegedly shouting slogans invoking "intifada" at a pro-Palestinian demonstration. The new restrictions are part of a nationwide policing shift in response to the attack, which has drawn concern from some civil liberties and free-speech advocates.
The Arabic word "intifada" is generally translated as "uprising" and is used to describe two major Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip against Israeli occupation, the first beginning in 1987 and the second in 2000, both characterized by periods of violence as well as nonviolent mass protests.
Supporters say the term "globalize the intifada," which has been used for years at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide, refers to international solidarity against Israeli occupation.
Israeli officials and some Jewish organizations, however, argue the term carries an inherent call to violence against Israel and that it functions as antisemitic incitement, a dispute that has increasingly led to policing decisions.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said Thursday that the "implications" of pro-Palestinian rallies could be seen in the Bondi attack and, after authorities designated the shooting a terrorist event, he has introduced reforms that would give his government powers to shut down unauthorized protests for three months.
"When you see people marching and showing violent bloody images, images of death and destruction, it's unleashing something in our community that the organizers of the protest can't contain," he said.
Minns on Saturday announced further reforms to hate speech laws that would ban the "globalize the intifada" chant alongside other "hateful comments and statements," as well as "terrorist symbols such as the ISIS flags."
In the United Kingdom, London Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police said Wednesday officers would arrest people holding placards and chanting the phrase "globalize the intifada," directly citing the context of the attack.A rabbi and a Holocaust survivor were among those killedin the Sydney terror attack, which officials said was intended to directly target the Jewish community.
In a joint statement after the attack, London and Manchester's law enforcement agencies said: "Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests."
The British police forces also referenced anattack at a synagogue in Manchester earlier this year, where two people were killed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Hundreds of people, many of them elderly,according to British Home Office data,have already been arrested at protests in recent months across the U.K. for showing support for Palestine Action, a group that was banned under British terrorism laws after staging actions targeting military facilities and defense firms. The British government said, without providing evidence, that the group had shown willingness "to use violence in pursuit of its cause."
While major Jewish groups have welcomed last week's changes and proposals in the U.K. and Australia, some analysts and opponents of the new measures warn that governments are responding to security fears by collapsing political speech into criminal conduct.
Index on Censorship, a U.K.-based organization advocating for free expression, said police and prosecutors will need to demonstrate that the words "globalize the intifada" are "harmful in and of themselves."
"Where meaning is genuinely ambiguous, we always argue that the criminal law should tread carefully," it said in a statement Friday.
Marji Mansfield, 69, a retired financial consultant and grandmother of seven, was carried away in handcuffs by police officers at demonstrations in July and November in London, and faces terrorism charges for expressing support for Palestine Action.
She said she hasn't heard 'globalize the intifada' chanted at rallies, but denied the slogan was an incitement to violence, calling it "a call for liberation" amid Israel's ongoing occupation of Gaza.
"It seems bizarre that our government and the government in Australia are seeking to criminalize words that are saying, 'stop these illegal international crimes against humanity'," she told NBC News.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned in July that some measures in the U.K. limiting pro-Palestinian protests appear "at odds with the U.K.'s obligations under international human rights law."
Freedom of expression "has always been vital, but it's never been absolute," said Mark Stephens, co-chair of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute. "We've always drawn a line at incitement to violence, and so that principle has to adapt in more volatile climates."
The difficulty authorities face, Stephens told NBC News, is that they are taking slogans and criminalizing them "on the grounds that it threatens public safety and the state has a duty to act, but that is an area where reasonable people can and do differ."
From a police perspective "it's becoming a bit of a game of Whac-A-Mole," he added. "If you can't say 'globalize the intifada,' someone will come up with something else which isn't illegal, and that becomes the new phrase du jour."
In Australia, the additional legislation on protests has also sparked debate over how far authorities should go in policing political expression.
"For two years, people have paraded in our streets and universities calling for the intifada to be globalized, a catchphrase which means kill Jews wherever you find them," David Ossip, the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said last week.
Some Jewish groups have opposed the move. The Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive group that advocates for "Palestinian freedom," said Thursday in a statement that "policy which points towards universities, the protest movement and migration as the problem will only lead to more demonization."
Australian authorities charged the surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach shooting with 59 offenses on Wednesday, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder.
Naveed Akram, 24, wascharged after he awoke from a comain a Sydney hospital, having been shot by police. He is alleged to have carried out the attack alongside his father, Sajid Akram, 50.
