Reuters
Demonstrators carry Australian flags during the 'March for Australia' anti-immigration rally, in Sydney, Australia. [Source: Reuters]
Australia’s centre-left government condemned an anti-immigration rally being held in Sydney on Sunday, which it said sought to spread hate and had links to neo-Nazis.
The March For Australia rally in the country’s most populous city was one of several anti-immigration demonstrations scheduled for state and regional capitals across the country, according to the group’s website.
Australia, where one in two people is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas, has been grappling with a rise in right-wing extremism, including protests by neo-Nazis.
March for Australia organisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the neo-Nazi claims.
Some 5,000 to 8,000 people had assembled for the Sydney rally, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
A counter-rally by the Refugee Action Coalition, a community activist organisation, took place near the Sydney march. “Our event shows the depth of disgust and anger about the far right agenda of March For Australia”, a coalition spokesperson said in a statement. Organisers said hundreds attended the event.
A large March For Australia rally was underway in central Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, ABC aerial footage showed.
Veteran lawmaker Bob Katter threatened a reporter at a press conference on Thursday when the topic of his attendance at a March for Australia was being discussed. The founder of the small, populist Katter’s Australian Party, shook his fist and said he had previously punched people for mentioning his Lebanese heritage.
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