Protesters occupy Brisbane’s City Hall to object to the closure of remote Aboriginal communities. Photo: Supplied
Around 300 people stormed into Brisbane’s City Hall on Saturday night and staged an old-fashioned sit-in to protest the forced closure of indigenous communities in Western and Southern Australia.
The surprise action followed a rally in King George Square on Saturday after indigenous groups under the banner SOS Blak Australia took to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to protest problems in indigenous communities.
A person familiar with the protest groups said the protests were organised on Facebook and Twitter and attracted 10,000 people in Melbourne and 3000 in Brisbane.
Protesters occupy Brisbane’s City Hall. Photo: Supplied
“It is indigenous groups around the country all based around the forced closure of indigenous communities in Western Australia and possibly Southern Australia,” the protester said.
“It had a couple of big actions recently and they had a big protest in Melbourne where they shut down Melbourne, and they got about 10,000 people in Sydney as well.”
“They’re getting 10,000 in the streets outside Flinders Street station.”
Protesters occupy Brisbane’s City Hall to object to the closure of remote Aboriginal communities. Photo: Supplied
The protester said there were around 3000 people at a rally in Brisbane’s King George Square on Saturday to join the Australia-wide protest.
Protesters sat in some intersections in the middle of Brisbane central business district at first.
“Then, they had around 300 people then just storm in to City Hall,” the protester said.
The groups are targeting federal government moves to close down some small indigenous communities, but took the opportunity on Saturday to storm City Hall.
“I think the idea of the protests is to say, ‘Hey, we will give you an idea of closing down an intersection, or closing down City Hall, so the federal government can get the idea of the impact of closing down an indigenous community.”
They stayed for around three hours before leaving.
Further protests are planned by well-organised black activists in June.
Some of the actions have been supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, although the actions are organised by the parent group SOS BlakAustralia.
“So it is a really interesting grassroots movement that is really getting a lot of momentum,” the protester said.
The protests in Brisbane were loosely linked to the support network for the Indigenous Sovereign Embassy in Brisbane’s Musgrave Park.
The Musgrave Park Sovereign Embassy developed a nationwide – and international – profile during Brisbane’s G20 protests in November 2014.