An anti-war protest taking place in Melbourne against the backdrop of an international arms exhibition has escalated into large-scale riots, to combat which the largest police operation in the last 20 years has been launched, local media report.
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Protesters began gathering in Melbourne’s city center outside the Exhibition Centre, where the International Army Weapons Exhibition is taking place from September 11 to 13, early on Wednesday morning. The demonstrators unfurled posters calling to “stop the war” and began chanting pro-Palestinian slogans. Later, protesters numbering about 1.5 thousand people marched through the city streets and clashed with police officers: they threw heavy objects, horse manure, bottles of acid at them, and also set fire to garbage cans. In response, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, stun grenades and batons.
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At the moment, more than 30 people are known to have been arrested, 24 police officers are injured and require medical attention.
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According to the organizers of the protest, the ongoing defense exhibition is a “shop of genocide”, and the protesters “stand up in defense of all those who were killed by the weapons displayed there.”
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“Many of the weapons… are advertised as being battle-tested. Given the presence of Israeli arms companies, this means they have been proven to kill Gazan civilians,” Jasmine Duff, a spokeswoman for the rights group Disrupt Land Forces, said.
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According to the Prime Minister of Victoria, Jacinta Allan, quoted by the local ABC television channel, the behavior of protesters towards police officers is “disgraceful”. The politician noted that law enforcement officers did their job to maintain public safety and deserve respect.
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As the publication notes, citing the Victoria Police, several thousand law enforcement officers, including mounted police and special units, were brought in to maintain order on the streets of Melbourne. It is clarified that officers were also sent from regional police departments. It is said that the police operation will be the largest since the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in September 2000, which saw mass protests involving about 10,000 people.
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Anti-war protests in Melbourne are expected to continue until the end of the week.
