Victoria Police will be put under the microscope for allegedly breaching race laws by encouraging, authorising or assisting neo-Nazis to protest on the steps of parliament.
Victoria Police is facing a human rights probe after officers failed to stop neo-Nazis from protesting at Parliament House.
The Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has confirmed it will launch an investigation into a formal complaint Victoria Police breached race laws by encouraging, authorising or assisting neo-Nazis to protest on the steps of parliament at a now infamous Let Women Speak rally in March.
Police came under fire for failing to stop the neo-Nazi protesters from marching and saluting on Spring St after gatecrashing the rally.
The VEOHRC complaint alleges “twenty neo-Nazis all dressed in black, some with their faces covered, publicly engaged in conduct that incited hatred against, serious contempt for and/or revulsion and/or severe ridicule of myself and/or members of the Jewish race and/or religion.”
“Absent Victoria Police encouraging, authorising and assisting the neo-Nazis, they would have been unable to publicly incite hatred against, serious contempt and/or revulsion and/or severe ridicule of myself and/or members of the Jewish race and/or religion.”
The complaint, seen by the Herald Sun, also references the alleged breach of a legal agreement signed off by former police chief Christine Nixon in 2008 ordering police to report all racially or religiously motivated incidents and determine any offences that may have been committed.
Read the article by Shannon Deery and Carly Douglas in the Herald Sun.