The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has denied emboldening police to crack down on protesters after a former Greens candidate, who was injured at a pro-Palestine protest last week, was charged with resisting police.
Hannah Thomas, who ran against the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in the Sydney seat of Grayndler at the federal election, was arrested at the protest attended by about 60 people in Belmore on Friday morning before she was taken to hospital.
Thomas – who has said she could lose sight in her right eye after the arrest – called out the Minns government’s “draconian anti-protest laws”.
In a video from her hospital bed on Sunday night, she accused Minns and the police minister, Yasmin Catley, of previously attempting to demonise protesters, particularly pro-Palestine protesters.
The state Greens spokesperson for justice, Sue Higginson, alleged that Minns’ “clampdown” on protesters was “empowering state violence” and had fostered a culture of police impunity.
The NSW assistant police commissioner, Brett McFadden, told ABC radio that Thomas’s injury happened “during the course of her arrest”.
“She was given a move-on direction. She [allegedly] failed to comply with that. Attempts were made to arrest her. She resisted, and other people became involved. A scuffle ensued, and she sustained the injury we believe during the course of that arrest,” McFadden said.
“I’ve had a preliminary review of the body-worn video. There’s no information at this stage that’s before me that indicates any misconduct on behalf of my officers.”
Higginson, in a statement on Monday, noted that the protest took place near a place of worship, which was referenced in the police allegations against one of four other protesters charged with various offences.
The police allegations in a facts sheet seen by Guardian Australia reference the protest taking place near a place of worship. Such activity is restricted under controversial “protecting places of worship” legislation passed earlier this year.
Minns told reporters on Monday he hoped Thomas made a “full recovery” and was “back on her feet soon”. He rejected the claim that he and Catley had attempted to demonise protesters.
“Like big cities right around the world, you do have to deal with everybody’s right to enjoy their city, to go to church, to go to a mosque, to enjoy recreation on the weekends free from harassment or vilification, alongside the public’s right to protest,” the premier told reporters. “That is never easy. It’s often difficult.”
Higginson said: “The level of [alleged] impunity the police displayed doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s written there in black and white – a direct reference to the anti-protest laws rushed through the NSW parliament.”
A limit to protests located “in or near” places of worship was passed as part of a suite of reforms aimed at curbing antisemitism.
The law is now facing a constitutional challenge by the Palestine Action Group, which has argued police’s expanded move-on powers “impermissibly burdens the implied [commonwealth] constitutional freedom of communication on government or political matters”.
Previously, NSW police could only issue a move-on direction if a protest disrupted traffic or posed a “serious risk” to a person’s safety. The change means police can now also issue move-on orders if a protest takes place in or near a place of worship.
The supreme court challenge against the legislation heard this month that the catalyst for the laws was a protest targeting an event at a synagogue where a member of the Israel Defense Forces was speaking.
The police arrested and charged four other people on Friday aside from Thomas, including a 29-year-old woman and three men aged 24,29 and 41.
The police facts sheet for one of the protesters arrested on Friday alleged the person attended the protest outside SEC Plating for the purpose of obstructing “the manufacture of components which supposedly [were to] be used for F-35 fighter jets and other weapons”.
NSW police alleged the business in Belmore was surrounded by other businesses, homes and a place of worship.
The police facts alleged that after being threatened with arrest, the “accused walked across the road to the opposite side of SEC Plating, which is a place of worship”.
“Police approached the accused once again and informed her to comply with the move-on direction, otherwise she would be committing an offence. The accused indicated that she was not going to move on from the demonstration and, therefore, was failing to comply with the direction.”
After “repeated warnings” the protester was cautioned and placed under arrest for failing to comply with a move-on order under section 197 of the Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act (Lepra).
Tim Roberts, the president of the NSW Civil Liberties Council, said section 200 restricted protests in or near places of worship and that section could dictate the operation of move-on powers under section 197.
“The Minns government faced ample criticism that these laws not only empowered NSW police improperly, but that they gave NSW police the discretion about when they can use their powers,” Roberts said in a statement.
“The police should never have been put in this position. It was always a risk that these laws could be used by the police to suppress public assembly. That has [allegedly] proven true.”
Minns on Monday called out Higginson for saying that police used their new powers.
“That’s not true … the case is that police have confirmed they did not use those laws, and they knew that they used the existing Lepra powers to move on a demonstration that had taken place reasonably often, [at] a private business in NSW.
“Not prejudging the circumstances relating to the injury, but I’m certainly not going to condemn police on the absence of information.”
Higginson said the police facts showed in “clear black and white” the impunity “that Minns had provided to police”.
She said she would write to the premier urging the charges against Thomas be withdrawn.
NSW police said Thomas, 35, had been issued a future court attendance notice for hindering or resisting a police officer in the execution of duty and refusing or failing to comply with a direction to disperse.
She was scheduled to appear at Bankstown local court on 12 August.
Thomas shared a video on social media on Sunday evening thanking her community for their support and saying there was a possibility she could lose her sight in one eye.
“I’ve been very lucky to have been looked after so well,” she said in an Instagram post recorded at Bankstown hospital.
“I don’t want to get into too much detail about the traumatic events on Friday but I’m five-foot-one, I weigh about 45kg, I was engaged in peaceful protest … My interactions with NSW police have left me potentially without vision in my right eye permanently.”
Friday’s protest took place outside a business in Belmore accused of “supplying electroplating and surface coating services for a variety of applications including aerospace and defence technology” to Israel.
This year, an international campaign urged nations that produce F-35 fighter jets to stop supplying Israel.
SEC Plating told Guardian Australia on Friday that: “We have no involvement in providing plating services for various parts used in the F-35 Jet program. We do not have any business servicing F-35 components. We do have business servicing some Australian defence manufacturers however F-35 components are not part of this.”
A Labor MLC has previously said that the places of worship legislation was the most “draconian” law against protests in decades.
