Dear friends, between 1500 and 2000 anti-racists in Melbourne turned out to oppose the racist and Islamohoboic rallies organised by the bigots of Reclaim Australia and the fascist grouplet, the United Patriots Front. Approx 50-60 turned up to the 11 am rally of Reclaim Australia. They were later joined by 70-100 fascists from the United Patriots Front, who were escorted into their rally by the Victoria Police. The United Patriots Front, which had boasted that this would be the biggest patriot rally ever, arrived a half hour ahead of their scheduled time and left 12 minutes after their scheduled rally time. Outnumbered by approximately 20 to 1, the fascists were forced to skulk off after rallying under police protection for about 45 mins. Throughout the day, the up to 2000 anti-racism protesters stood in solidarity with the Australian Muslim and Migrant communities, chanting “Muslims are welcome, Racists are not”; “Sexist, racist, anti-Queers; Fascists are not welcome here” and “You will always lose in Melbourne”.
This is the third rally held by racists and fascists in Melbourne and at each rally they have been outnumbered by anti-racist protesters. On May 31,more than 500 anti-racism protesters turned out to oppose the United Patriots Front, who could only muster 60 people to attend their anti-Islam/anti-Left rally.
Please find below, the report on today’s rally from Red Flag and also photos from the rally (click on photo to enlarge)
In solidarity, Kim
Fascists fail in Melbourne – again
So this was the Master Race. All 60 of them. And it was a national mobilisation. Another 60 right wing “Reclaim Australia” blockheads bolstered their ranks. So there were little more than 100 far right racists in total.
It was the latest attempt by fascists to build a violent street movement and their own vile combat organisations.
They were outnumbered by up to 2,000 anti-racist demonstrators in central Melbourne today.
As far as right wing failures go, they don’t get much more pathetic than this. They ought to have called the event “the biggest losers”.
The racists’ miserable mobilisation was despite the fact that “respectable” Murdoch press columnists openly have been feeding fascism and bigotry.
It was despite the fact that the federal government has been banging on and on about Islamic terrorism, about imminent threats to our way of life, about traitors in our ranks.
And it was despite the fact that they had the protection of hundreds of police officers, who shut down Spring Street to facilitate this neo-Nazi parade in front of the Victorian Parliament and who attacked the anti-racist demonstration with pepper spray.
With all this help, and with months of building work, still they failed. “I can’t believe how small the crowd is. It’s terrible”, Mike Holt, leader of right wing group Restore Australia, told Fairfax Media this afternoon.
As had happened on 31 May when fascists tried to March on Richmond Town Hall, anarchists, socialists, non-aligned progressives and anti-racists united to stop them.
Again, it was an important victory. The counter-mobilisation prevented the fascists from marching through the streets and targeting minorities – Muslims in particular. Instead they were forced to skulk away under police watch before dispersing. They were prevented from spreading hate speech and instead were forced to talk among themselves.
In Adelaide, a 250-person Reclaim Australia rally also was outnumbered by 350 anti-racists. This was a significant turnaround from the previous Reclaim rally at Easter, at which the left was outnumbered by 500 to only 30.
There will be more anti-racist demonstrations around the country tomorrow:
Sydney: facebook.com/events/346452865546642/
Perth: facebook.com/events/893952217313262/
Brisbane: facebook.com/events/1576424285971069/
Red Butterfly Effect 