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💔 One Eye for Gaza: Hannah Thomas and the Price of Speaking Truth



🖋️ By Malik Mukhtar
📍 ainnbeen.blogspot.com | 🗓️ June 29, 2025


She stood on the pavement—Hannah Thomas, lawyer, activist, former Greens candidate.
She stood—holding no weapon, only a banner and a conscience.
She stood—outside a factory that allegedly helps plate the steel for F-35 jets now raining hell on Gaza.
And for that—Australian police slammed her to the ground.
Now, she may never see from her right eye again.

Let that sentence burn into your mind:
“She may lose her sight—for standing against genocide.”

🇵🇸 In Gaza, Eyes Are Lost Forever

In Gaza, there are no surgeons left for eyes.
Eyes are buried beneath concrete. Eyes were starved shut. Eyes were blinded by phosphorus, smoke, dust. Children in Gaza have forgotten what it means to look up without fear. And still, the bombs fall.

From October 7, 2023 to now, tens of thousands dead—many torn apart by American-made weapons, polished and prepped by foreign contractors. The livestream genocide has not stopped. The world's silence has not cracked.

And those who dare raise a voice? Their silence is forced.

🇦🇺 Australia’s Iron Fist

On June 27, 2025, a peaceful protest erupted in Belmore, Sydney. Dozens of Australians gathered outside SEC Plating, a company accused of helping arm Israel’s war machine. The protest was vocal, but peaceful.

NSW Police ordered them to disperse. Under Section 197 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, police in New South Wales may issue a “move-on order” if they believe someone’s presence is obstructive or causing harassment. The bar is dangerously low. Vague terms like public safety or obstruction are invoked.

When Thomas refused to abandon her post—because Gaza cannot abandon its dead—police used force. Brutal, disproportionate force.

Photos show her bloodied face. The right side collapsed in purple-black swelling. Her eye sealed shut by trauma.
Doctors now say she may permanently lose sight in that eye.

What is the price of dissent in a democracy?
Apparently, vision.

⚖️ The Law, Weaponized

This isn’t about just one protest.
This is part of a wider crackdown—on voices for Palestine, on conscience, on protest itself.

Under NSW law, the Summary Offences Act and LEPRA (Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act) allow for charges like:

  • Unlawful assembly
  • Failing to comply with police directions
  • Obstructing traffic

All vague. All subjective. All ripe for abuse.

And what of justice for Hannah?
No officer has been suspended. No investigation deemed “critical.” She was arrested—but not charged—as if to wound her, and walk away clean.

🟢 Green Voices, Bloodied Faces

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said:

“This is brutal. This is unjust. There must be an investigation.”

Senator David Shoebridge echoed:

“Police violence cannot be swept under the rug. Peaceful protest is not a crime.”

Yet even as Greens leaders demand justice, the NSW Acting Police Minister refuses to classify this as a “critical incident.”
Apparently, near-blinding a woman in broad daylight isn’t serious enough.

🌐 Human Rights Are Not Selective

Where are the global watchdogs?
Where is the outrage from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Council?

They know this:

  • That Australia's suppression mirrors what is happening globally—
  • That pro-Palestinian advocacy is being criminalized across “liberal democracies”—
  • That to speak out for Gaza is now seen as a threat to the status quo.

This is not democracy. This is manufactured consent enforced with batons.

🔥 One Eye Shut. Millions Turned Away.

Hannah Thomas is one person.
But she stood for millions.

She stood while others scrolled past death.
She stood while children in Gaza cried out.
She stood where governments refused to.

And now she may never see from her right eye again.
But we must see.
We must look harder. Deeper. More defiantly.
Because Gaza’s livestream genocide will not stop with bombs. It continues in silence. In cracked skulls. In blinded eyes. In shattered voices.

✊🏽 Call to Action

If you still have your voice, use it.
If you still have your eyes, open them.
If you still have your freedom, defend those who don’t.

Because today, it was Hannah.
Tomorrow, it could be you.

📎 Link to full coverage and updates at bottom of article.

🔗 ainnbeen.blogspot.com


Comments

Anonymous said…
I am horrified that Australia is directly comicit in this atrocity...and no longer surprised by our so called law enforcement officer's violence. We read about it on almost a daily basis. And what has happened Ed to Hannah is despicable. Where is our Albanese's voice and action to hold the cops responsible? Where is his protection of the right to protest peacefully?
July 14, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Malik said…
Thank you for your powerful and heartfelt response.

You're absolutely right to be horrified. Australia's complicity—through silence, diplomatic cover, and suppression of peaceful dissent—raises deeply troubling questions about our national conscience. The treatment of Hannah is not just despicable; it's symptomatic of a growing intolerance toward protest and a dangerous erosion of civil liberties in so-called liberal democracies.

As you pointed out, law enforcement violence is no longer an anomaly but a pattern. And yet, the absence of leadership—from Prime Minister Albanese in particular—is deafening. When the state fails to defend the fundamental right to protest peacefully, it signals not neutrality, but complicity.

Your voice—and the voices of others who refuse to turn away—are critical in this moment. Thank you for standing up, for speaking out, and for holding power to account.

Warm regards,
Malik Mukhtar
✍️ www.ainnbeen.blogspot.com



July 19, 2025 at 10:17 AM
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