This is a copy of a Daily Mail Australia article. More features are available at the original site.
Published 19 April 2018
Lidia Thorpe raises a 'bloodstained' hand as she riles up angry crowd over 'stolen land' at rally on Day of Mourning for the Queen - before protesters BURN an Australian flag and smear red paint on British consulate
Protesters have set fire to the Australian flag and called to 'abolish the monarchy' hours after the national memorial service was held to mourn the Queen.
Thousands rallied against colonialism to draw attention to First Nation people's suffering, with protests held in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra.
The demonstrations at Melbourne's Birrarung Marr cut up the flag, while elders in Brisbane set the Australian flag on fire on top of a pile of flaming newspapers.
Federal Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe led a crowd on the Queen's National Day of Mourning in Melbourne.
'The Crown has blood on their hands. Our people are still dying in this country every single day,' Ms Thorpe said at the rally.
The Crown's boot is on our neck and we're sick of it.'
The group then smeared red dye, resembling blood, over an emblem on the British Consulate in Melbourne.
In Brisbane's CBD hundreds of protesters gathered just after midday marching from the Queen Victoria Statue.
One speaker at the protest was heard saying, 'Our message to England and the Monarchy is to f**king burn.'
'We don't need the numbers, we just need the passion,' another protester said.
A banner at the Brisbane protest read 'No Kings, No Cops, No Capitalists', carried by the economic-reformist group the Socialist Alternative.
Other protesters at the rally wore shirts calling for Australia Day to be abolished.
Indigenous elder Uncle Wayne Wharton wore one such shirt standing by an Australian flag while other Indigenous protesters set a flag alight in Brisbane's CBD.
Activist groups had been planning the protests since the Queen's death.
In Sydney, protesters gathered in front of the Town Hall building in the CBD, using speakers to address the crowd, standing on sandstone steps.
While in Adelaide, a 31-year-old man had to be forcibly removed from Government House after he chanted anti-monarchy slogans and then refused to leave.
He was escorted from the premises and issued with a trespass notice not to re-enter the area for 24 hours.
Activist groups Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) and Fighting In Solidarity Towards Treaties were one group who organised the demonstrations.
'This is a stance against the continued crimes committed against marginalised First Nations, black, brown and Asian communities. We do not support benefactors or Stolenwealth (sic) and demand justice, truth and accountability for all. Justice for all,' WAR wrote on Facebook.
'This is a demonstration against racist colonial imperialism.'
Signs and banners held at the protests across the country called for a range of reforms including the introduction of an Indigenous treaty, Australia to become a republic and for justice in response to reports of First Nations deaths in custody.
In 2007, Indigenous youths accounted for 59 per cent of the total juvenile detention population, according to government records.
Last year, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners made up 30 per cent of all prisoners.
