‘Tell the truth’: ABC office vandalised for second time
The ABC’s Melbourne office has been vandalised after red paint was splattered on windows and messages about the Israel-Palestine conflict scrawled across the building.
The outside of the ABC offices in Melbourne have been splashed with red paint. (Joel Carrett/AAP PHOTOS)
The national broadcaster’s Southbank office in Melbourne’s CBD had its front window daubed with “Tell the truth about Palestine” in white paint overnight and red paint was splashed on the building’s doors.
Police have opened an investigation into the “criminal damage incident” at the commercial premises.
“Officers were called to reports unknown offenders had spray painted sections of the building on Southbank Boulevard about 3.50am,” a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.
An ABC spokesman confirmed no one was hurt in the incident.
“There was minimal damage,” he said.
Video footage shared on social media shows two people wearing black clothing and one in a plastic poncho running towards the office before vandalising the exterior.
The post’s caption said the video was sent in by an anonymous user and included a message from “concerned community members” declaring the ABC had “blood on your hands”.
“Your support of “Israels” (sic) propoganda (sic) campaign is unethical, cowardly, and violent,” the message said.
It accused the broadcaster of being “complicit” and condemned its “shameful coverage” of the conflict.
The media president of the union Karen Percy said the incident was very distressing and was not the way to register a complaint about the ABC’s editorial output.
“Staff have a right to feel safe and to be treated with respect,” Ms Percy said.
“Citizens in a mature democracy should not resort to base tactics to make a point.”
It’s the second time in a week the office was targeted.
The portraits and names of 40 Palestinian journalists killed in the conflict were plastered to the national broadcaster’s office windows and doors on Wednesday.
Nine’s Melbourne newspaper The Age and TV office also faced protests on Wednesday after activists staged a “die-in” at the entrance to the headquarters in Docklands.
The group, who were behind fake corpses placed outside seven Labor MPs’ offices in November, donned press vests to protest the deaths of 95 journalists in Gaza, alleging “silence” from Australian media outlets.
Zeddy Lawrence, executive director of Zionism Victoria, told J-Wire: “While their views may be based on misinformation or disinformation, people have the right to protest.
However, when that protest turns into violence or vandalism, or when it threatens the very multiculturalism Victoria prides itself on, then it must be curbed. In this instance, the authorities must act not only to prevent vandalism but crucially to halt the ongoing deterioration of Melbourne into a city where Jews feel threatened and unsafe.”
By William Ton/AAP with J-Wire
It’s becoming tiring. The virtue signalling of these so called activists. Sure peaceful protest. But other people have right to go about their lives in peace and practice freedoms of speech and freedoms of religion. A music venue in Melbourne has been vandalized because they had an Israeli artist. The message was not ceasefire now. It was NO Israeli welcome in this Muslim neighborhood! I’m sorry I think they have all forgotten this is Australia!!! It’s not a Muslim neighborhood you are guests here. These people are unhinged crazy and fascist. Down with Hamas. Down with ignorant virtue signalling activists. End this lunacy. Deport arrest. We are all sick of this.
Just shows how different perceptions can be! The ABC is not as bad as, but mirrors, BBC reportage on the Palestinians. I have been fighting them for years by lodging complaints in which I give them the facts relating to issues on which I see them biased, as has ECAJ. Their senior journalist for Global Affairs, John Lyons, flying in and out of Israel and based in Jerusalem when he’s there, has a history of pro-Palestinian sympathy, and that remains evident in his reporting. And yet they’re being attacked for supporting Israel! They will say, I guess, with both sides complaining they’re doing their job right. However, the docos they produce, including Foreign Correspondent in particular, which was screened only five days after the October 7 attack, and their reportage on this war, say otherwise. The terrible proportionality practised, the big effort to balance a terrorist group and its acts with the IDF defending Israel’s very existence and its unwillingness to continue to live with this on their doorstep, is in itself inflammatory and unfair. This is not the way of good journalism and it is not ethical.
If anything the ABC is the Hamas/PLO spokesperson-outlet in Australia..
It would actually be awesome if they WERE to really tell the unbiased, un-antisemitic truth about Israel for ONCE!