Milo Yiannopoulos protesters clash with supporters at Melbourne event
Image: Image: Milo Yiannopoulos / Instagram.
Police have been forced to intervene in Melbourne after protesters clashed with supporters of far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.
The violent scene occurred yesterday evening outside the Melbourne Pavilion in Kensington, ABC News has reported.
Police used pepper spray, and at least two people were arrested.
Minor injuries occurred, with one protester falling and bleeding, and a police officer being struck by a rock.
Yiannopoulos is controversially in Australia for a sold-out speaking tour.
Chris Dipasquale from the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism said his organisation wanted “to send a positive messgae”.
“We’re against racism, we’re against sexism, transphobia, homophobia, everything that Milo stands for, we’re against that,” he said.
Neil Erikson, a member of far-right group Patriot Blue, said he was at the protest to defend free speech.
“We were basically coming to the Milo event and we were attacked so we had to defend ourselves,” he said.
Openly gay Yiannopoulos is notorious for his ultra-conservative views that have been called misogynist and Islamophobic.
The venues for his speaking appearances had been kept secret because of concerns about protests.
Yiannopoulos’s university speaking tour in the US was cancelled last year over security concerns.
Protesters in California earlier this year rioted over his speaking engagement at a university campus, smashing windows and lighting fires.
In October, Yiannopoulos drew criticism for speaking out against marriage equality for Australia, though he is thought to be married himself.
Go home protesters. You will literally do more good pulling a couple of bongs and getting on your Xboxes than you will by protesting anyone or anything whose entire claim to fame is that they are controversial or outspoken or a darling of the right.
Without the protests, there is no controversy. There is no story. He goes away. The only reason he hasn’t gone away is stupid unthinking, unstrategic lefties who give him all the publicity he craves by engaging with him.
These selfish idiots protesting aren’t doing it to stand up against “sexism, transphobia, homophobia, everything that Milo stands for” because they’re achieving the opposite by giving him oxygen. They are doing it for their own self-glorification and egos because that’s far more important to them than ACTUALLY doing something to stop transphobia, homophobia, misogyny etc.