A group of pro-Palestine protesters have launched a high court challenge to a Queensland law banning the slogan “from the river to the sea”, arguing that it amounts to a discriminatory and unconstitutional infringement on free speech.
The controversial laws, which also ban the expression “globalise the intifada”, were passed by the state’s Liberal National party government in response to December’s Bondi terrorist attack.
The laws make reciting, distributing, publishing or displaying either expression an offence punishable by up to two years’ jail, if doing so might reasonably be expected to cause a member of the public to feel menaced, harassed or offended, though there is no requirement that that person exist.
More than 30 people have been arrested and charged under the laws since they took effect in March .
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of seven protesters, alleges the ban amounts to “a direct, content-based restriction” on speech that effectively targets the pro-Palestine movement.
“The operative purpose of [the law] … is to prevent public recitation, public distribution, publication and public display of the prohibited expressions because of their content alone,” the group allege in documents filed to the court last week.
According to the pleading, the law imposes a burden on the implied freedom of political communication in the constitution, without a legitimate purpose.
It also allegedly creates inequality or discrimination by outlawing the expression of perspectives in a political discourse.