Protesters launch high court challenge to Queensland ban on ‘from the river to the sea’

Exclusive: Lawsuit filed on behalf of seven protesters alleges ban amounts to ‘a direct, content-based restriction’ on speech, effectively targeting pro-Palestine movement

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A group of pro-Palestine protesters have launched a high court challenge to a Queensland law banning the slogan “from the river to the sea”, arguing that it amounts to a discriminatory and unconstitutional infringement on free speech.

The controversial laws, which also ban the expression “globalise the intifada”, were passed by the state’s Liberal National party government in response to December’s Bondi terrorist attack.

The laws make reciting, distributing, publishing or displaying either expression an offence punishable by up to two years’ jail, if doing so might reasonably be expected to cause a member of the public to feel menaced, harassed or offended, though there is no requirement that that person exist.

More than 30 people have been arrested and charged under the laws since they took effect in March.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of seven protesters, alleges the ban amounts to “a direct, content-based restriction” on speech that effectively targets the pro-Palestine movement.

“The operative purpose of [the law] … is to prevent public recitation, public distribution, publication and public display of the prohibited expressions because of their content alone,” the group allege in documents filed to the court last week.

According to the pleading, the law imposes a burden on the implied freedom of political communication in the constitution, without a legitimate purpose.

It also allegedly creates inequality or discrimination by outlawing the expression of perspectives in a political discourse.

“A person may be restricted in how they express their political views due to the fear and risk of being arrested, convicted and/or imprisoned,” the group alleges.

The Queensland government has been contacted for comment.

The Queensland premier has previously justified banning the slogans by saying the phrases are antisemitic.

“We just don’t want them [protesters] to use the two phrases that have been singled out as the hatred that allowed what came on to the shores of Bondi,” David Crisafulli said in June.

“That’s all that’s being asked, their right to protest, their right to stand up against the regime, their right to call out freedom for individuals, of course, they should have that right”.

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The challenge to the laws has been filed in the high court by Remah Naji – a member of the Justice for Palestine group – joined by six other pro-Palestine protesters.

Four of them – Stephen Heydt, Ed Carroll, Sam Watson and Kathryn Dennehy – have been arrested and charged with breaching the law, at rallies in April and June.

They allege they were also searched by police and detained in a police watch house for up to eight hours.

Watson had previously participated in the Global Samud flotilla and was detained by the Israel Defense Forces in May.

Another applicant, James Hillier, an artist known as Nordacious, alleges he was made to withdraw some of his artworks that contained the proscribed expression from sale after being contacted by police in March.

The group argues that “from the river to the sea” does not have any fixed meaning at all, and is not inherently racist, antisemitic or violent.

In their pleading, they lay out 12 alternative meanings, including “an expression of Palestinian identity”, “to denounce the genocide in Gaza” and “expressing a broad aspiration for Palestinian freedom and realisation of their human rights”.

Under the law, there are defences for using the expressions for genuine artistic, religious, educational or historical purpose, or in the public interest, such as during a “genuine public dispute” and the ban does not apply to people who oppose the ideology represented by the prohibited expression.

But the group argues that these “reasonable excuse provisions” do not make the law constitutional, because the balance of proving them is placed on the individual.

Even if the protesters prove themselves innocent of a breach of the law at trial, they say, their arrest and detention would still represent a burden on them.