Australia COVID LIVE updates: NSW records 825 new local COVID-19 cases, three deaths; Sydney anti-lockdown protest planned to go ahead; Victoria to enter statewide lockdown after 61 new cases. Police used pepper spray and made arrests as anti-lockdown protesters managed to breach a defensive line of officers, including some on horseback.
As police tried to prevent the onward march of those at the rally, a number of demonstrators rushed the line of police, breaking through and causing chaotic scenes as officers tried to tackle and hold back offenders.
Heated protests erupted in Sydney and Melbourne as massive crowds took to the streets to decry ongoing lockdown measures, seeing clashes with Australian police, who responded with pepper spray, roadblocks and a string of arrests.
The demonstrations broke out on Saturday afternoon in the two major cities, with groups estimated in the hundreds protesting coronavirus lockdowns and curfew orders, chanting slogans and hoisting signs against the country’s Covid regime.
Footage making the rounds online showed crowds making their way through Melbourne, at some points clashing with a heavy police presence deployed to block the march. Pepper spray was unleashed on the demonstrators in response.
The bulk of protesters who turned out for Melbourne’s anti-lockdown rally in the CBD finally dispersed after a tense crush at Queen Victoria Market where hundreds of police officers and riot squad closed in on the crowd, organisers called off the rally on an encrypted chat app.
