Pro-Palestine protesters challenge council on free speech amid Carlton meeting room cancellation

Pro-Palestine activists have staged a concerted confrontation over the City of Melbourne's handling of their activities, asking questions at two recent meetings suggesting anti-Zionism had been wrongly conflated with antisemitism and free speech suppressed by the cancellation of a meeting room booking in Carlton.

At a Future Melbourne Committee meeting on July 7 three questioners sought justification for the Friday night cancellation of a paid and confirmed Kathleen Syme meeting room booking for Sunday, June 21 made by “diverse anti-Zionist collective” Anti-Zionism Australia.

The event had been part of a series of seminars, five of which had already taken place at the venue without incident, Stefano Perfili and David Watson told the FMC meeting, demanding to know what had since changed.

In answer, CEO Alison Leighton’s chief of staff Kirsty Pearce said the cancellation had been “an operational decision based on heightened community concerns and potential protest activity”.

Management had received “a significant escalation in representations and community concern in the days immediately before the final seminar, including concerns raised through councillors and senior officers about the potential for protest activity and the impact of heightened community tensions on the safe and orderly operation of the facility,” she said.

Ms Pearce acknowledged that Victoria Police had no information regarding a specific threat but said management had considered the broader operating context and “exercised … discretion” on the issue.

She told the activists the City of Melbourne had “a demonstrable record of supporting free speech across its range of public services, including at its libraries”.

A third questioner, Veronica Sherman, who was the planned speaker at the Carlton meeting, argued that her seminar on Christian Zionism had been educational and based on lived experience.

“They’ve been harassing and attacking me online.

“And now, thanks to this council, they’ve been able to silence me in person.”

The seminar, however, went ahead at Coburg Library with an “unprecedented” 60 attendees.

At the following Future Melbourne Committee meeting on July 21, activists Mr Perfili, Mr Watson and Amin Abbas again asked about the abrupt cancellation of the booking, which Mr Watson described as a “suppression of free speech”.

They also asked questions about the City of Melbourne’s categorisation of pro-Palestine graffiti as “offensive” in its submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

In the submission, the council described removing “4500 square metres of antisemitic graffiti and materials” since the start of 2023.

The council had previously confirmed that 49 “Free Gaza” references were counted as part of the statistic, and in response to the activists’ questions, infrastructure and amenity executive Karen Miller agreed that instances of the Palestinian flag and the words “Palestine”, “Gaza” and “genocide” had also been counted in the category although watermelon imagery had not.

“All of these were amongst phrases that met the criteria of the [council’s graffiti] policy as the words formed part of phrases that could be construed as offensive or in locations that caused offence or misinterpretation,” she said. •