The NSW government recently passed legislation restricting rights to protest around places of worship. This follows abhorrent violent and threatening antisemitic acts. Jewish and all religious communities deserve to be respected and to live freely without fear. However, destructive acts relating to religious institutions were already covered by existing legislation prohibiting violence, intimidation and inciting hatred based on religion. Violence and terrorism are not protests but crimes.
The congregation where I ministered for the last four years, Pitt Street Uniting Church, has received intimidation and acts of violence, yet opposes such laws. For it has not only been attacked but also prominent in protest movements for queer rights, climate action and justice for refugees. It has erected banners, held protest gatherings outside the church and organised marches along Pitt Street. I myself, over decades, have protested outside church spaces on several human rights grounds.
I also worry that such legislation reinforces “religious exceptionalism” – where faith bodies are overprotected – and can thereby restrict reasonable as well as unacceptable dissent from within and beyond their midst. Among others, victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse have thus spoken out against such laws. Furthermore, many Sydney protest march routes pass by places of worship, including Pitt St UC. Protest can cause inconvenience but that is not the same as violence. Unfortunately, many politicians appear to conflate them.
Our community’s capacity to engage in protest is foundational to healthy democracy and to faith witness for justice. Peaceful protest has enabled social progress such as the eight-hour working day, civil rights and independence from colonialism. Yet, sadly, over the last decade the NSW government has introduced more and more restrictive laws against protest and upped penalties, with $22,000 fines for protests impacting railways rushed through last year. A government review recently backed laws that made obstructing a road punishable by two years’ imprisonment despite 20 civil society organisations and over 1,400 individuals calling for the laws to be scrapped.
We must address racist, and religious-linked, violence with targeted reform, rather than restricting democratic rights. Instead of the current top-down approach, I therefore encourage the government to rethink. Resourcing understanding, cross-community cooperation and cross-faith solidarity, as well as targeted reforms addressing far-right extremism, is a much better proactive way of creating the community bonds necessary to protect everyone from violence.
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The Rev. Dr Josephine Inkpin is an Anglican priest. A former General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council, she is co-chair of Equal Voices and a leader in inter-faith dialogue.
