A Brisbane community house with a “from the river to the sea” sign hanging outside has been raided by police.
Officers arrived at Dorothy Day House on Juliette Street in Greenslopes early on Friday morning.
The home is aligned to the Catholic Worker Movement and has nine residents. It takes in refugees and homeless people, and makes community meals.
Photos show it had a sign hanging outside saying “come get us Crisafulli” below the phrase, which was banned earlier this month under new state government hate speech laws.
Resident Franz Dowling told this masthead he painted the sign after reading about the legislation, and feeling it was an unjust attack on freedom of speech.
“This morning we were awoken at about 7:30am by … about eight big burly officers with guns and vests and they just came banging at our doors,” he said.
“There was a lot of fear. They brought us all into the lounge room and detained us there and gave us big pat-down searches.
“Definitely I didn’t expect such extreme measures.”
Dowling added officers seized his digital devices and required him to share his passwords.
Alongside “globalise the intifada,” the phrase was one of two banned under the new hate speech laws. Supporters argue it is antisemitic, and effectively calls for the genocide or ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in the state of Israel.
Queensland police confirmed they had searched the Greenslopes property as part of an ongoing investigation.
“As the matter remains subject to active investigation, it would be inappropriate to provide further comment at this time,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
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