source : the age
The police watchdog will investigate the actions of officers and NSW Police broadly at Monday’s protest against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) received a significant number of complaints about police behaviour, after videos emerged of officers aggressively arresting and moving on protesters at Town Hall.
“Following the receipt of a significant number of complaints, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (the Commission) has decided that it is in the public interest to investigate the police operation at Sydney Town Hall and surrounds on the evening of Monday, February 9, 2026, including incidents of alleged misconduct on the part of NSW Police officers against persons attending that location for a protest,” a spokesperson said.
The LECC will investigate the lawfulness and appropriateness of the NSW Police Force and individual officers’ behaviour, and will analyse mobile phone footage, documents and other records held by the police.
The commission will also hold hearings, although it has yet to announce if they will be open to the public. A public report will be tabled in NSW parliament when the investigation concludes.
The police watchdog’s investigation must be respected and allowed to do its job, Police Minister Yasmin Catley said.
“Now is the time for calm. We must allow the investigation to take place and respect the integrity of that process,” she said.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon and Premier Chris Minns have broadly and repeatedly defended the actions of police officers at the protest, where 27 people were arrested and 10 charged.
Police have since confirmed to the Herald that a senior police officer had promised to allow a group of Muslim worshippers to continue with their sunset prayers, only for other officers to forcibly remove them. In phone footage of the incident, a man is seen being pulled to his feet while bowed in prayer and thrown to the ground.
When asked on Thursday if he would apologise to the Muslim community for the actions of police while breaking up the prayer, Minns said he would not.
“I don’t do that in an antagonistic way, but I think the circumstances are important, and I genuinely believe that NSW Police … would never, ever have disrupted a prayer service, or individual Australians who were exercising their religion, unless it was in the middle of a riot,” he said.
The premier did not comment on Friday when asked if he stands by those remarks now that police have confirmed a senior officer agreed to let the prayers continue.
Lanyon told ABC Radio Sydney he had contacted members of the Muslim community, but defended the actions of police.
“I have apologised for … offence taken for interfering with that religious process. But it needs to be taken in context that we were moving a violent and aggressive crowd backwards,” he said.
The premier has faced mounting calls for an independent inquiry into the actions of police at the protest, including from his own MPs, from independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, Lord Mayor Clover Moore and from Muslim community leaders.
Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, the imam who was leading the prayers at the rally, said the scope of the LECC investigation was not “sufficient”.
In a statement, Charkawi called for a “comprehensive and independent inquiry into the full chain of political and operational decision-making” that led to the police action, which in his view should include the premier, police minister and commissioner.
“If serious concerns have been raised about the conduct of officers from the NSW Police Force, then examining frontline behaviour alone will not be sufficient. Policing does not occur in a vacuum,” he said.
“It is necessary to determine whether officers who acted aggressively and disproportionately engaged in rogue behaviour, or whether their actions were the predictable outcome of policy settings and command decisions made at the highest levels.”
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Jessica McSweeney is a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald covering urban affairs and state politics.Connect via email.
Mostafa Rachwani is a Parramatta reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously the Community Affairs reporter at Guardian Australia.Connect via email.
