SYDNEY — Despite attempts by police to prevent it, an anti-war action in Bankstown's Old Town Plaza on November 16 attracted 80 people. Initiated by the Socialist Alliance and the Canterbury-Bankstown Anti-War Group, the protesters also condemned racist attacks on Arab and Muslim people.

Police rang some of the speakers the day before the rally and told them that the protest was ``illegal''. One community representative was phoned by police three times that afternoon and told that all protests had been banned in Sydney for two weeks. When challenged to provide documentation confirming the ban, the police caller could provide none.

Police hand-delivered a letter to the home of protest organiser Sam Wainwright at 9.30pm the night before the rally to advise that the event was ``unauthorised''.

The harassment continued as protesters assembled in Bankstown, Wainwright told Green Left Weekly. ``Despite repeated assurances that the action would peaceful, the police kept insisting that there would be `violent' demonstrators there. The duty officer then warned that the protest might be violently attacked. Twice he said that `people in Bankstown don't get angry, they get even'. There were 10 police present the whole time.''

The local police had been advised of the event nearly two weeks in advance.

When the protest began, a plain clothes officer filmed everyone present. “This was outrageous and unjustifiable. If you consider the sort of vilification that Arab and Muslim communities have been subject to in recent times, this was an act designed to intimidate people from attending a peaceful and legal gathering”, Wainwright told GLW.

Amjad Mehboob, chief executive officer of the Federation of Islamic Councils, addressed told the gathering that following the Bali bombings there had been an increase in racist attacks on local Muslims, particularly women. Kuranda Seyfit from the Australian Muslim News gave a detailed explanation of the humanitarian crisis caused by Washington's polices towards Iraq and the Middle East.

Wainwright, the Socialist Alliance candidate for state seat of Bankstown, pledged to campaign heavily against any Australian involvement in a war on Iraq. He vowed that his organisation would oppose attacks on Muslim and Arab Australians. Wainwright accused the federal and NSW governments of deliberately fuelling racism against people from the Middle East.

Rihab Charida brought the crowd to tears with a moving description of life under Israeli occupation in Palestine. Many other participants also turns at the microphone.

Wainwright told GLW that the Socialist Alliance will be lodging a letter of complaint with the police.

From Green Left Weekly, November 27, 2002.
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