The protests in Canberra have echoed similar demonstrations in the Canadian capital Ottawa, where hundreds of truckers and other demonstrators have occupied the city’s streets to call for an end to Covid-19 restrictions.
Covid Backlash Brews in Canada, Sending Warning Across Globe
The Australian protests have attracted a mixed bag of demonstrators. These include advocates of the “sovereign citizen” movement that generally believes people aren’t bound by certain laws and QAnon-style conspiracy theorists who claim without evidence that the government is run by a secret network of pedophiles who traffic children.
Neither Prime Minister Scott Morrison or the Opposition Labor Party have commented on the Canberra protests.
Australia is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, with almost 94% of the population over 16 receiving both shots of a Covid-19 vaccine. While the government has ruled out making it mandatory for citizens to get vaccinated, many people have been required to have both their shots before they can return to work, including healthcare professionals.
Despite the high vaccination rates, a vocal minority of Australians have refused to get their shots, leading to the protests in Canberra. While the anti-vaccination demonstrators claim their numbers have reached more than 100,000 at times, local media put the total number of attendees is closer to a few thousand.
Sunday’s demonstrations followed weeks of incidents across the capital involving the protesters, including multiple clashes outside Australia’s Parliament House and attempts to blockade the National Press Club on Tuesday when Prime Minister Scott Morrison was making a speech.
On Dec. 30, the doors of Canberra’s Old Parliament House were set on fire during an anti-vaccination demonstration.
Great to see the Australians , Canadians , French , Italians , Germans, Dutch and Austrians etc standing up for their human rights . These protests are anti mandates not anti vax . Much strength to all of them.
Yes, they’re all trying to Make America Great Again.
I reckon if you have 94% vaccination, the job is done. No worries mate.
Mr Varrie. Arrant nonsense. These thugs are mostly the fringe of society. Note: with 94% of Wallies vaxxed, it is truly an aggressive, anti-social element acting this way. These people do not stand for freedom. Just look at the line-up. They are bullies… The waving of Trump flags should give you a hint at the type of idiots we have congregating.
Johann Olivier – Calling them names does not undo their argument. Whatever their grievance, right or wrong, in a liberal democratic society they have an inalienable right to protest an injustice. A government removing the freedom of choice under dubious justification is most definitely an injustice, and one that can lead to some very dark places (as history shows us time and time again). If you value your freedoms, you must let others value theirs as well.
Poor Aussies such a downtrodden society, with such a shoddy Government – not.
Maybe Aussies should be allowed of their Rock and allowed back into the world just to get a sense of what’s happening everywhere else.
It seems that many governments can now see that the pandemic is all but over and are running out of time to erode the civic freedoms of their citizens, and are thus desperately falling into deeper tyrannical means to try to normalise their tyranny. It is with profound grief that I watch these Western governments, the very ones that are supposed to uphold the gold standard of free and open societies, fall so far from what we are supposed to value the most: the freedom to pursue our own happiness.