Australia govt not allowing second anti-racism demo

An Australian state government says it will allow 2,000 fans to attend an Australian rules football match but won't allow a black lives matter rally on the same day. South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said on Tuesday a crowd will be allowed to attend Adelaide Oval on Saturday for a match between local teams Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Crows. But police would not allow a second exemption from social distancing rules to allow a protest in Adelaide on the same day against the death in Minnesota of George Floyd.

South Australia is the first state or territory to allow a crowd to return to professional sport. Competitions have resumed in empty stadiums as the pandemic lockdown is lifted. South Australia police allowed an exemption from social distancing rules last Saturday to allow 5,000 demonstrators to legally gather at a Black Lives Matter rally in Adelaide. Similar protesters were held in other major Australian cities on that day, highlighting the large proportion if indigenous Australians who are imprisoned. But Stevens said there would be no future exemptions. "We acknowledged the unique and exceptional circumstances of the protests we saw Saturday. The public sentiment around the horrific events we saw in the United States and it was appropriate we gave consideration to that," Stevens said of the exemption.

"To continually allow people to disregard the restrictions we have in place would make a mockery of the good efforts of everybody else who are doing their best to abide by those restrictions," Stevens added. South Australia has no COVID-19 cases in any hospitals. Australia as a whole has reported around 7,250 infections, including 559 still active, and 102 deaths linked to the virus.