Following the large-scale demonstrations against Corona restrictions, the police in the state of New South Wales have set up a task force with the aim of tracking down all those who took part in the protests.
The state’s Minister of Police, David Elliott, announced today that at least 22 “veteran detectives” have been assigned to be part of the task force.
New South Wales is Australia’s most populous state, including the city of Sydney.
On Saturday, July 24, thousands of people in all major Australian cities demonstrated against the draconian restrictions. The police have promised to combat this “filthy, disgusting and selfish” behavior. Although all demonstrations were banned by the Sydney authorities due to the complete closure of the entire state, 3500 people defied the ban and took to the streets. The peaceful protesters were met by police cavalry, batons and pepper spray. Dozens were arrested. The following day, 510 fines had been issued.
David Elliot warned everyone who intends to demonstrate again next Saturday: “To all those who urge to repeat this next week, beware, because these 400 police can be 4000 if needed.”
Similar protests – and similar police violence – were reported from Melbourne and Brisbane.
Police are urging the public to submit photos and videos from the demonstrations in order to identify more participants in the freedom demonstrations. New South Wales Home Secretary Gladys Berejiklian also said she was “completely disgusted” by the freedom demonstrations and urged anyone who recognized anyone from the demonstrations to report them to the police without delay.
A total of three states with more than half of Australia’s population are now completely shut down, with all people ordered to stay at home with the threat of heavy fines. You are only allowed to leave the home to buy food and other necessities, for medical care, exercise for a maximum of 90 minutes a day within 2,5 kilometers of the home, or for “necessary” work.
When New South Wales introduced a total shutdown of the community in mid-June, registering some cases of the alleged Delta variant, the state’s Health Minister Brad Hazzard announced that those who violated the restrictions would be fined $ 11 000 per person or six months’ imprisonment.
Hazzard said NSW police have “all sorts of technology” to track even vehicle number plates. “I also remind the community that the regional communities are very aware when they see someone from out of town arrive and they‘ll make sure that the police know.”
On Sunday, July 25, the authorities reported two more deaths “with” Covid-19, which means that a total of 11 people across the continent have died with the disease since October last year, most in the past month. One of the shutdown states is Victoria, which reported 0 deaths since November last year, but 11 new positive PCR tests on Sunday. The state of South Australia closed down after registering 5 new cases, four of which were in the same cluster.
Meanwhile, the editor for the Daily Mail Australia, Barclay Crawford, has been outed as a vaccine propagandist. A leaked video shows Crawford instructing his staff to ridicule “anti-vaxxers”.
“You’re all champions,” Crawford tells his underlings on the video. “We’ll keep trying to run stories that are, um, call out the ‘anti-vax’ weirdos and, and point out why, why we need to get it and why it’s important, you know, and why we don’t want Australia regressing to some, you know, the reason why we have medicine and medical science is for things like this and it’s amazing, and should be celebrated and not run down.”