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A man in a white button-up shirt and suit trousers puts his hands in the air as a police officer grabs him. He appears to steady himself on the officer’s shoulders.
He’s then punched multiple times by multiple officers. People watching on scream.
It’s one of the first violent acts that take place as New South Wales police attempt to disperse protesters demonstrating in central Sydney on Monday against the visit of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.
The premier, Chris Minns, has doubled down, saying the protesters created an “impossible situation”. Protesters, meanwhile, have said police were “unhinged”, and a member of Minns’ own government has said the violence was “pretty much an inevitable consequence” of an anti-protest law restricting protesters’ ability to march.
Town hall
5.30pm
It’s a humid evening in Sydney. Thousands of protesters are crowding around town hall, waving flags and chanting for Herzog to be sent to the international criminal court for inciting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, something Herzog denies.
One of the protesters is Rob Chapman, there with his eight-year-old son, Seamus. Another is 69-year-old Jann Alhafny, whose late husband was Palestinian and escaped with his family during the 1948 Nakba.
By the end of the night, Chapman and his son will have witnessed a violent incident and Alhafny will be in hospital with four broken vertebrae.
But for now, the protest is peaceful. A police helicopter hovers low above the crowd.
Only minutes earlier, a judge ruled against protest organiser Palestine Action Group’s challenge to special police powers, bestowed by the Minns government for the duration of Herzog’s four-day visit. It gives the hundreds of police present expanded powers to issue move-on orders.
Those came on top of another power handed to police by the government in the wake of December’s Bondi terror attack in which 15 people were killed. This law, which is facing a constitutional challenge in the supreme court, restricts the ability of protesters to march without the risk of arrest.
In the lead-up to Monday’s protest, there were widespread criticisms this would make the environment more – not less – unsafe.
PAG had wanted to hold the protest at town hall – where protests during the week in the evening are typically held – because both it and the intended destination to state parliament are important sites of political expression. They had also sent a letter to police, seen by Guardian Australia, arguing the route would take marchers away from the International Convention Centre, where Herzog was at the time of the rally.
But the hotel where Herzog was staying was near state parliament. Police had offered an alternative route from Hyde Park to Belmore Park, with Minns saying it would ensure mourners at the event with Herzog commemorating the Bondi terror attack wouldn’t be confronted by protesters.
Town hall
About 5.50pm
High-profile people – including the former Australian of the year Grace Tame – give speeches.
The protest is now so big that people have spilled out on to the streets around Sydney’s town hall.
Town hall
6.39pm
As the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi speaks, a tense conversation is unfolding to the side of the stage between senior police officers, protest organiser Josh Lees, and NSW Greens MPs Jenny Leong and Sue Higginson. Some protesters and reporters jostle to hear. The discussion is over whether protesters will be allowed to march – but it ends without any resolution.
Town hall
6.46pm
Chants of “let us march” slowly build. The energy begins to shift.
Town hall
7.07pm
After the Labor MP Sarah Kaine speaks, Lees introduces the next speaker. Before he does, he says: “I’m told a conversation has happened and people may or may not already be hitting the streets.”
After the final speaker, Paul Keating from the Maritime Union of Australia, finishes, Lees tells the crowd: “We’re going to go have a further conversation about a march.”
George Street
7.15pm
Most of the protesters are still in the square, but some are attempting to hit the streets. Police stand shoulder-to-shoulder along George Street, blocking any chance of protesters heading to their planned destination.
On the steps of town hall facing George Street, a police officer yells through a microphone that people cannot march. He cites the Major Events Act – the declaration the PAG tried unsuccessfully to challenge only hours earlier.
George Street
7.18pm
Protesters beat drums and yell continuously “let us march”.
Town hall steps
About 7.27pm
Senior police officer Paul Dunstan appears on the stairs. He tells an organiser: “It seems you’re not interested in the safety of your people; you need to disperse.” An organiser accuses his officers of threatening people and says their democratic right to march is being withheld.
Dunstan tells the organiser they do not have the right to march and tells protesters that police offered organisers an alternative route “all week”.
George Street
7.31pm
Ali Al-Lami is arrested – one of the first known arrests. He has been standing at the front attempting to march, holding a microphone for another friend who is chanting for a march to go ahead. He says he was trying to “move the march forward” when he was arrested. He alleges when he was restrained, an officer punched him in the head.
He is taken to a police van. “After 10 minutes, they were like, ‘you’re lucky this time,’” he says. “‘We’re not going to charge you, we’re just going to give you a move-on order.’”
George Street
7.35pm
Protesters determined to march continue to stand off with police, who block entry to the street.
It is difficult for the crowd behind the standoff to see what is happening. Some demonstrators are trying to work out which way they should go to disperse.
It escalates quickly.
George Street
7.36pm
At the south end of the protest, and on the other side of George Street, it’s less heated. Then one of the most concerning uses of police force captured on camera erupts.
A man is punched by multiple police, multiple times. He puts his hands in the air. Video of the incident, shared later on the Greens senator David Shoebridge’s Instagram, will become among the most viral to circulate on social media.
Numerous people watch on, including Chapman and his son, Seamus.
“[Before the punches], it was a little tense, but mostly calm and there weren’t any altercations or other signs of conflict,” Chapman says. “The police had started inching their bikes slowly forward to push the crowd back, and there may have been a few words of dissent, but there certainly didn’t seem to be any significant conflict going on.
“It erupted out of nowhere.”
The NSW Labor backbenchers Anthony D’Adam also sees it unfold.
Associate Prof Vicki Sentas, an expert on policing law at UNSW who watched footage of the incident, says: “I cannot see any reason that would objectively justify the level of force being used against the man.”
At the same time, back at the north end of the protest where Al-Lami was arrested four minutes earlier, Jordan Ryan Hennessy runs from the front where police on horseback are closing in. He’s coughing and spluttering, his face wet. Police have deployed pepper spray.
George Street
Shortly after 7.36pm
Chapman and Seamus attempt to find a quiet place. They enter the foyer of a student accommodation where they find an older couple who were also part of the protests. A police officer enters and yells at the couple to leave, but one responds they don’t want to because they’ve got a bad back.
“The police, by that stage, had started moving in a line clearing the footpath area. So that was probably the thing that scared Seamus the most, because this guy was just bellowing at them to get out,” Chapman says.
Chapman says he tried to calm the police officer down. Soon after, Chapman and his son left and went home.
George Street
7.39pm
Back at the north end of the protest, police pluck individuals from the crowd. It’s unclear whether they are arrested or moved on.
One video shows an officer kicking the back of the knee of one protester pulled from the crowd. He falls to the ground and four officers surround him.
People filming from the other side of the street scream “get off him”. A protester runs up to film the incident, but an officer pushes him away.
George Street
7.30-8.00pm
Police push forward from the north end of the protest in a containment line, funnelling the crowd southwards along George Street.
Alhafny is walking around taking photos when, “without any real warning”, police officers charge towards where she is standing and she is pushed down “very violently”.
“[The officer] grabbed one arm, and he yanked me up on to my feet, like really severely, and that was excruciating.”
While she is on the ground, other people are pushed on top of her. She fears there could be a stampede or that she might suffocate.
At 8.24pm she calls an ambulance. Later she learns she has broken four vertebrae.
Town hall
7.45pm
Lees reportedly addresses the crowd, saying “we’re going to take back our streets and demand freedom”. Guardian Australia reporters are metres away but cannot hear what is said.
Town hall forecourt
8.09pm
Wesam Charkawi kneels in prayer with other Muslim worshippers. He has been with the other protesters, but realises he is 15 minutes overdue for sunset prayers. He needs to find somewhere relatively quiet – and quickly.
But as he prays he can hear screams and see people “being flung off on my right, flung off on my left”.
“[Police were] so unhinged, so aggressive and so violent and had zero regard for anyone and anything in their way, even peaceful worshippers who were not in anyone’s way,” he says.
As 16-year-old Nedal watches on, he is allegedly pushed to the ground, kicked and restrained by police before being released without charge.
The NSW Greens MLC Abigail Boyd is also watching on. She alleges she is then punched in the head and shoulder by police officers.
“I just kept repeating, ‘I’m an MP, please give me my space,’ and then they just rushed into the back of me,” she says.
The police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, later apologises to the Muslim community for the incident. Later in the week, police say a senior officer had agreed to let the praying finish, but some worshippers were moved on before the message could be conveyed. Members of the group who were praying are considering legal action.
George Street
8.11pm
Police appear to have funnelled the bulk of the crowd away from town hall and the roadway southwards down George Street. They form a square of containment lines, with horses in the middle.
“They should have let us march. How is this safer,” a protester can be heard telling a friend. Police officers push people on the back as they walk.
A renegade march south soon forms down George Street.
Others are still on the roadway outside town hall. Police appear to outnumber protesters.
George Street
8.00-8.30pm
Jace Turner, 28, is pushed on to the light rail tracks by police, who then punch him while he is restrained. He bites one of their fingers. When he is lifted up by the police his abdomen shows bruising.
He is among 10 protesters charged. His are among the most serious – assault police officer in execution of duty, causing actual bodily harm. It carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
Corner of Bathurst and George streets
8.21pm
Two police officers walk forward from a containment line made to push people down Bathurst Street. They grab a man who has been walking with another woman.
He yells “I’m moving” as they drag him back behind their containment line.
The woman he was with screams “what the fuck” and “let him go”.
Another woman nearby sobs “I don’t want him to get hurt”.
Protesters who have been pepper sprayed run down Bathurst Street, begging for water.
Bathurst Street
8.22pm
Police begin moving up Bathurst Street and using pepper spray. The air tingles with it.
Bathurst Street
8.25pm
Police stand still as if forming a containment line so the protesters they have funnelled towards Hyde Park can’t return.
Guardian Australia reporters try to film a piece to camera. They stop momentarily when a protester who has been pepper sprayed seeks water.
The reporters are about to film when dozens of police charge towards them, yelling.
One of the Guardian Australia reporters, who ran towards Pitt Street, was pushed up against a car in the rush and pepper sprayed.
The police stop momentarily, then charge again. They repeat this process several times until the only remaining protesters have scattered through Hyde Park.
Back at town hall, only police remain.
Surry Hills police station
10.45pm
After the protest, the assistant police commissioner Peter McKenna accuses the speakers at the rally of “inciting the crowd to march”.
“It was really something that was quite inflammatory,” he says. “In fact, it got to the point that I believe the crowd really took part in some type of contagion of groupthink.”
Asked if the protest would have been less violent had the police allowed protesters to march, he says: “It wasn’t a matter of us letting protesters march. There was legislation in place to say they couldn’t march.
“Don’t forget, we also had an internationally protected person, [a] guest of government in town … We’ve got an obligation to protect that person, and that was part of the operation tonight.”
On Friday, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Lecc) said it would examine the police response after receiving “a significant number of complaints” into allegations of misconduct.
Minns has backed the actions of police, despite a growing chorus of criticism. He has said he will not conduct an independent inquiry into what occurred.
“We can’t blame the police for doing what we asked them to do,” he said on Thursday.
