Indigenous activists respond to flag-burning on 'Invasion Day'

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and other cities to protest "Australia Day," the national celebration marking the anniversary of the continent's colonisation, known by critics as "Invasion Day" or "Survival Day."

From calls to #ChangeTheDate, expressions of Indigenous culture and shows of solidarity from non-Indigenous communities, the protests were said to draw 50,000 people in Melbourne and 10,000 in Sydney on Friday.

In the latter city's case, the peaceful protest involved an attempted flag-burning, which was broken up when police sprayed fire extinguishers into the crowd. Negative reaction to the incident framed most media reports of the day.

But according to some protesters, the legal act of flag burning is a right that should be defended, not used to delegitimise a growing movement requesting respect for Aboriginals on what is often also called a "day of mourning."

Indigenous MP Linda Burney hit back at media reports that called the protesters involved in flag-burning "nutters" and a "violent … angry mob," on Friday by telling Buzzfeed "there were thousands of people saying very clearly to the Australian people that there is an argument and wide support for Indigenous rights and a date change … The focus wasn’t on that … the focus is on someone setting a flag alight." However, she also stated that she believed flag-burning "undermined" the rally.

Gumbaynggirr man Birrugan Dunn-Velsasco, 20, is one young man at the centre of the reports. After the flag-burning incident, he told Mashable's Ariel Bogle "we've done this many times as well in public areas, and it's not actually against the law."

He continued: "The symbolic expression of our humanity [is] in the ceremony of burning the flag. Because we, with our sovereignty, deny their [the police force’s] power and the existence of Australia … obviously the NSW riot police had a problem with that and they came in with a fire extinguisher and extinguished it on a lot of people in there, and there was a bit of an altercation."

Uncle Ken Canning a.k.a Burraga Gutya is a Bidjara man and organiser with protest group Fire. He told Mashable during the march, "they [the police] respond to a burning of the flag, but they don't respond that much when a blackfella is dead in custody, or when a child is dragged out of their mother's arms. If they did, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we're dealing with today. I just can't equate the death of Aboriginal people with the burning of a rag."

The incident saw one police officer injured and a protester take to hospital for assessment, according to Huffington Post. Despite the altercation, the protest resumed its peaceful march.

The Australian flag has been burned publicly many times over the past decade. While former Prime Minister John Howard famously said in 2006, "I do not believe it should be a criminal offence …. I see that kind of thing as just as expression, however offensive to the majority of the Australian community, an expression of political opinion." Since then, a bill to outlaw flag burning was brought before parliament in 2016, but it failed.