About 40 nurses descended on a park in Fitzroy Melbourne to conduct a sit down protest in responses to vaccine mandates in the Victorian public heath sector on Monday morning.
Nurses respectfully wore face masks and maintained social distancing of at least 1.5 meters as they sat down peacefully and silently holding signs to get their message across. Signs included “We Have Been Silenced” this is inline with what most nurses are saying privately, that they are effectively gagged to either speak out about Covid or the Vaccines including adverse events.
Another sign read “No! To Vaccine Mandates”, an important message considering some in the crowd were vaccinated, one spokesperson said during a live cross on Rebel News that she was not anti science or anti vaccine but believed in the right for personal choice. She went on to explain that she had worked in a vaccine hub and many of the people coming in to be vaccinated did not want to be, but were left with no choice due to mandates forcing them to take the vaccine, even though this was not their personal choice.
After about twenty minutes of the protest beginning, members of the public order riot squad moved in and surrounded the group, this was followed up with two bus loads of normal police officers arriving and taking the number of officers on the ground to well over 100. Then if that was not enough, the police chopper could be heard overhead. The number of officers in attendance was serious overkill for a peaceful protest run by nurses who have been at the front lines during this outbreak.
But a peaceful resolution was able to come about when Police spoke to one of the Nurse representatives and gave the group a move on notice. When the organiser discussed it with the group they all agreed to move on, feeling like they were able to get their message out.
