Police will be granted extra powers inside a “declared area” of inner city Brisbane stretching from South Bank, to Kelvin Grove, Bowen Hills, Fortitude Valley and Wooloongabba in a bid to stop the violent chaos that has crippled other G20 host cities.
Inside the zone, police will be able to strip search anyone they fear is carrying a weapon or prohibited item that would not be found in a pat down, while civil libertarians claim the police commissioner can put people on a blacklist without explanation.
Premier Campbell Newman said the government had taken the advice of security professionals and they saw “no other way forward” to stop the violence that saw one death and hundreds of injuries at the London and Toronto G20s.
In Toronto, the scale of the “mass disorder” of the 2010 G20 in the city overwhelmed police as masked rioters torched police cars, trashed businesses and…
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