Police called to ‘Vote No’ rally counter-protest at University of Sydney

Police called to ‘Vote No’ rally counter-protest at University of Sydney

Police have been called to the University of Sydney after a ‘Vote No’ rally was drowned out by hundreds of counter-protesters advocating for a Yes vote.

A small group of students gathered to make speeches and hold signs which read “It’s okay to vote no.”

The protest occurred around lunchtime near where a stall had been set up by the student-run Catholic society at the university, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

“The Catholic society tried to have a ‘vote no’ rally with the promise of free kebabs, but it seemed to have been quickly surrounded by a much bigger counter-rally,” said student and Honi Soit editor Kishor Napier-Raman.

“There were maybe 15 ‘vote no’ people there and hundreds of ‘vote yes’ people,” he said.

Napier-Raman said the counter-protesters “had a megaphone and the ‘vote no’ people were saying things like, ‘You’re drowning out our voices.'”

“I heard that there was one person who made a comparison between same-sex marriage and paedophilia and someone said, ‘Why can’t I marry my dog?’ It was a bit ridiculous.”

A small confrontation occurred over one of the No protestors’ signs, which was when police began separating protesters.

“There was quite a heated verbal confrontation, the worst was someone putting a megaphone in someone else’s face,” Napier-Raman said.

The students rallying for Yes were videoed chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia’s got to go.”

Napier-Raman said he did not know the original rally was occurring, but went to the campus’ Eastern Ave when he saw video circulating on Facebook.

He also said this was the first protest against marriage equality the had ever seen on the campus.

In addition to police, a University of Sydney campus security were present at the confrontation which involved around 200 people.

It comes just days after Sydney hosted the largest rally for marriage equality in Australian history.

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4 responses to “Police called to ‘Vote No’ rally counter-protest at University of Sydney”

  1. Today when I checked my letterbox I found a phamplet with the heading ..10 reasons to vote No
    It was astounding,they gave their reasons,always bringing up the term Family’s and Australian…over and over…
    Pushing and pushing they were..
    They forgot Something though…
    On the paper there was absolutely no mention of who wrote these reasons,printed or delivered it….
    What are they afraid of?
    I myself will be voting Yes
    Thanks

  2. those who were saying “can I marry my dogs?” are simply making themselves look & sound stupid. this is an indication of judging other people without knowing about the people – what does this mean? they will definitely lose. People who are disrespectful in what they do ALWAYS LOSE no matter in what situation. Here is an advice: use intelligence and knowledge instead of talking stupidly, and better be a wise person in future!

  3. Aaargh. Once again we’re delivering publicity and victimhood status to the No campaign. Once again it’s presumably well meaning BUT REALLY STUPID students doing it, I doubt there were more than a couple of gay students present (and one of them was with the catholics!!). This could have been avoided, rather than protesting you could have saved 55 minutes out of your day by just tweeting an image of 14 catholic students with pathetic signs, but no. Instead the cops are involved and its needlessly controversial and thus attractive to the media.

    I remember the good old days when the left stood opposed to censorship and supported free speech. I was at uni in the days when Nirvana were topping the charts. Both the quality of the music and the quality of student lefty argument have severely declined. And now I’m just a grumpy, crusty old bastard.