Those who protested outside Catholic churches believe they would have been arrested if such laws were in place
John Ellis believes he would have been arrested outside a Sydney cathedral if a proposed protest ban was in place when George Pell died.John Ellis believes he would have been arrested outside a Sydney cathedral if a proposed protest ban was in place when George Pell died.Survivors of clergy abuse have expressed deep concern at proposals to ban protests outside places of worship, with lawyer John Ellis saying a blanket ban would have seen him arrested outside a Sydney cathedral last year.
Ellis was abused as an altar boy for years by a paedophile priest in the 1970s. When he sued the church and Pell himself, the Sydney archdiocese, under Pell’s leadership, took an aggressive approach in fighting his case despiteIt successfully argued in NSW’s highest court in 2007 that, as an unincorporated association holding its assets in a protected trust, it did not legally exist and could not be sued.
But he said there were already laws designed to do precisely that, which target violent protest, offensive behaviour, racial abuse and discrimination. The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said such a ban would “not necessarily” have stopped abuse protests because they hadn’t intimidated the church.Kevin Liston, co-chair of the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform,, also expressed alarm at the proposed ban.“Banning protests or banning the expression of public opinion always seems to me to be a bad thing,” he said.
Kheir said some of his scepticism was rooted in the lack of political responses to previous Islamophobic attacks, referencing two incidents involving pigs heads being left outsideas examples of inflammatory protests targeting Muslims that received minimal political responses. Kheir said: “Why should we trust the government to fairly implement these laws?
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