A group of women in Melbourne have been injured, and a police officer in Sydney was allegedly assaulted, following anti-immigration marches across Australia on the weekend.
A group of men, including some members of neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, attacked the standing First Nations protest site, Camp Sovereignty, in Melbourne’s Kings Domain on Sunday evening, according to video footage seen by Guardian Australia.
The footage showed at least 50 men, mostly clad in black, approaching the Camp Sovereignty site as the sun was setting.
The site is identifiable by the large letters spelling out the camp’s name erected on the grass. In the footage, the men attack the letters in an apparent attempt to knock them down, and then begin violently swinging sticks and poles at camp activists.
In a statement on Monday morning, Camp Sovereignty and the Black Peoples Union said the group appeared and allegedly “completely unprovoked, they ran up the hill and immediately targeted women, grabbing them, throwing them to the ground, and striking them in the head”.
Four people required medical attention and two were taken to hospital with severe head injuries, one with a deep gash to their head, the camp said. A spokesperson told Guardian Australia all of those injured were younger women of colour.
They alleged the men yelled slogans such as “white power” and “white man’s land”, as well as sexist and racist slurs.
One member of the community, a 30-year-old primary school teacher who did not want to be identified, alleged in the statement: “I had what looked like a 15-year-old boy rip my hair, throw me to the ground and smash into my face with his fists. He did it with a smile on his face. I couldn’t believe it.”
The camp believed it was targeted and the group of men appeared at the time they regularly held community gatherings and ceremonies.
A spokesperson for Victoria police said crime investigation unit detectives were investigating “an affray in Southbank”.
“It is understood a group were gathered in parkland off St Kilda Road about 5pm when they were approached by a second group,” the spokesperson said.
“Officers have been told the second group formed a line in front of the first group, before assaulting various members of the first group with sticks and flag poles. Officers attended and moved the second group on. A man and woman were both given medical assistance at the scene. The investigation remains ongoing.”
A spokesperson for Ambulance Victoria said they were called to an incident at about 5.05pm. “A woman in her 30s with upper body injuries was transported by road ambulance to The Alfred [hospital] in a stable condition,” the spokesperson said.
Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe, whose uncle, Krautungalung elder Robbie Thorpe, established the camp on a sacred Aboriginal burial site, said the alleged “unprovoked, coordinated Nazi attack on Aboriginal people” was “racism out on full display” and ought to be investigated as a hate crime.
“The aim of this attack was to cause fear and terror in the hearts and minds of our people, and Black and Brown people across the country,” Thorpe said in a statement.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, two people were charged after a brawl erupted in a Broadway hotel and a police officer was allegedly assaulted.
Police attended the hotel at about 5.40pm on Sunday following reports that a group of people at the bar were “yelling offensively at passersby before a brawl ensued,” a NSW police spokesperson said.
“Police arrived and attempted to disperse the group. It will be alleged that a 48-year-old man assaulted a male constable” NSW police said in a statement.
“When the constable attempted to arrest the man, it will be further alleged that a 29-year-old man also assaulted the officer.” The officer suffered minor injuries.
Police deployed capsicum spray and both men ran from the scene. They were arrested “after a short foot pursuit” and were charged with affray, assaulting a police officer and hindering or resisting a police officer in the execution of duty, police said.
The men were refused bail and were scheduled to appear in court on Monday.
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The incidents came after neo-Nazis led marches and addressed crowds at anti-immigration so-called March for Australia rallies in state and territory capitals across the country on Sunday.
The rallies drew significant crowds in Melbourne and Sydney, and resulted in tense and volatile confrontations with anti-fascist counter-protesters in Melbourne.
Victoria police said six people were arrested at the Melbourne rallies on Sunday.
The demonstrations were promoted by neo-Nazis, as well as anti-lockdown figures who gained prominence during the pandemic and other fringe groups, but no group publicly claimed responsibility for organising the protests.
While the protests were condemned as hateful by the federal government, some politicians attended. The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, and party member Senator Malcolm Roberts attended a march in Canberra, and the federal MP Bob Katter appeared in Townsville.
The Victorian police minister, Anthony Carbines, condemned the protests as “disgraceful”.
“People who choose to attend such rallies – addressed by convicted criminals and members of neo-Nazi groups, as we saw yesterday – need to be called out and condemned for their associations at those rallies,” Carbines told ABC radio on Monday.
“Victorians need to continue to call it out, Victorians need to continue to have a positive attitude, to celebrate our diversity and wrap their arms around people in the community who feel that they’re being blamed for the sort of petty whingers and gripes and the discrimination and racism of a fringe element.”
Carbines said most rallies in Melbourne’s CBD, including pro-Palestine rallies that have been held every Sunday for almost two years, were “largely peaceful”. But Sunday “brought violence to the streets of Melbourne”, including Camp Sovereignty at King’s Domain.
“Police will be investigating those matters, they’ll also be in contact with members of Camp Sovereignty and a lot of our First Nations, people who are deeply distressed and upset with that activity yesterday, and this is what happens, isn’t it, when you have bullies in the community who roam in packs to intimidate others, it’s gutless, and it needs to be called out, and we will hold those people to account.”
Victoria’s deputy premier, Ben Carroll, said on Monday that immigration was the state’s “secret sauce”.
“Our migrants should be celebrated,” he said. “They shouldn’t be, in any way, frowned upon. The success of Victoria is indeed the secret sauce of migration.”
The federal minister for multiculturalism, Anne Aly, said neo-Nazis had used the rallies to “prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living”.
Aly told ABC radio on Monday that said the rallies were “clearly racist”, even if not everyone who attended was a neo-Nazi.
“I would say to those who marched and who argued that they have … those legitimate concerns, that they were organised by Nazis, the very purpose of them was anti-immigration.
“One of the very clear calls to action that was listed there was anti-Indian immigration, against people coming from India. Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity.”
