The NSW Labor government has given notice that it is joining the High Court case, bought by Justice for Palestine Magan-djin (JFP), in support of Queensland’s prohibited expressions law.
It signals that NSW plans to follow Queensland’s Liberal National Party government and enact its own law criminalising the expression “Globalise the intifada”.
JFP announced on July 28 it had launched a High Court challenge to Queensland’s so-called hate speech laws which prohibits the expression of the phrases “From the river to the sea” and “Globalise the intifada”. It said on October 1 that it is now fighting a Coalition and a Labor government in this critical battle for rights to free speech and political protest.
Remah Naji, spokesperson for JFP said: “NSW has just made it easier for us to take this fight against the Coalition and Labor national; both are complicit in crimes against humanity.
“What the NSW government fails to understand is that by intervening, they’re playing directly into our hands. This intervention was expected. We will use it to transform this from a Queensland case into a national struggle — one in which all people of conscience have a stake.”
JFP said the battle was always bigger than Queensland and now NSW Labor has made that impossible to ignore. The case is a part of the broader struggle to end genocide. Israel is only allowed to get away with its crimes because its accomplices, including our own governments, are failing to meet their obligation under international law to prevent and punish genocide and are instead are cracking down on their own citizens to crush dissent.