SYDNEY: Thousands of people rallied in cities across Australia demanding justice and rights for Indigenous peoples on Monday, a national holiday marking the 1788 arrival of a British fleet in Sydney Harbor.<\/p>\n
Crowds took to the streets in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and other cities on Australia Day, many with banners proclaiming: \u201cAlways was, always will be Aboriginal land.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Sydney, police allowed the protests to go ahead despite new curbs introduced after gunmen opened fire on a Jewish Hanukkah festival on Bondi Beach on December 14, killing 15 people.<\/p>\n
Millions of Australians celebrate the annual holiday with beers and backyard barbecues or a day by the sea, and this year a broad heatwave was forecast to push the temperature in South Australian capital Adelaide to 45C.<\/p>\n
Shark sightings forced people out of the water at several beaches in and around Sydney, however, after a string of shark attacks in the region this month \u2014 including one that led to the death of a 12-year-old boy.<\/p>\n
Many activists describe the January 26, 1788, British landing as \u201cInvasion Day,\u201d a moment that ushered in a period of oppression, lost lands, massacres and Indigenous children being removed from their families.<\/p>\n
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make up about four percent of the population.<\/p>\n
They still have a life expectancy eight years shorter than other Australians, higher rates of incarceration and deaths in custody, steeper youth unemployment and poorer education.<\/p>\n
– Anti-immigration protests –<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s celebrate on another day, because everyone loves this country and everyone wants to celebrate. But we don\u2019t celebrate on a mourning day,\u201d Indigenous man Kody Bardy, 44, told AFP in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Another Indigenous protester in Sydney, 23-year-old Reeyah Dinah Lotoanie, called for people to recognize that a genocide happened in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cShips still came to Sydney and decided to kill so many of our people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Separately, thousands of people joined anti-immigration \u201cMarch for Australia\u201d protests in several cities, with police in Melbourne mobilizing to keep the two demonstrations apart.<\/p>\n
In Sydney, \u201cMarch for Australia\u201d protesters chanted, \u201cSend them back.\u201d Some carried banners reading: \u201cStop importing terrorists\u201d or \u201cOne flag, one country, one people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nowhere for people to live now, the hospitals are full, the roads are full, you\u2019ve got people living on the streets,\u201d said one demonstrator, 66-year-old Rick Conners.<\/p>\n
Several also held aloft placards calling for the release of high-profile neo-Nazi Joel Davis, who is in custody after being arrested in November on allegations of threatening a federal lawmaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be no tolerance for violence or hate speech on Sydney streets,\u201d New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a beautiful, multicultural community with people from around the world, but we will not tolerate a situation where on Australia\u2019s national day, it\u2019s being pulled down by divisive language, hate speech or racism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice are ready and willing to engage with people that breach those rules.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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