Call for Hamas, Hezbollah to be de-listed from terrorism register

An anti-war action at Newtown Station on September 26 called for Australia to remove pro-Palestine groups from the terrorism list. Australia has 31 organisations on its list of terrorist groups.

Speakers called on the Australian government to take Palestine-based group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and others off the list of proscribed terrorist groups. They said Palestine is resisting a genocide and Australia needs to support those resisting. 

They also called on Australia to demand Israel release paediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, whose life is in danger in an Israeli prison.

The right to independence movements to resist is recognised by a 1982 United Nations General Assembly resolution, where it states that resistance and armed struggle is a legitimate tactic of the struggle for “independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation”.

The action was organised by Sydney Palestine Action, Trotskyist Platform, Nurses and Midwives for Palestine, Weapons Out of the West and Pride In Protest.