'Laws are for everyone': Moment a celebrity French journalist complains as he's ARRESTED for filming an Adani coal mine protest - but there's plenty of support for the cops
- Footage shows French journalist being arrested while filming anti-Adani protest
- Hugo Clement was with a group working for French public broadcaster France 2
- The group were forced into a riot wagon and hauled away by police on Monday
Footage has emerged of the moment a French journalist and his crew were arrested while filming an anti-Adani mine protest.
Hugo Clement, who has 616,000 Twitter followers, was with a group working for French public broadcaster France 2 near Abbot Point when the incident unfolded on Monday.
Onlookers were filming as the group were forced into a riot wagon and hauled away by police.
Hugo Clement (pictured with Alexandra Rosenfeld) was with a group working for French public broadcaster France 2 near Abbot Point when the incident unfolded on Monday
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The incident has left many people astonished and they have flocked to social media to express their concern.
'Our democracy is dead. Welcome to the police state,' one person said.
'And so we continue on to the fascist state,' another person wrote.
'The Nazis didn't take over in just one day, it was a slow deliberate process nudging at people's sensibilities creating new normals until we realise it is too late to do anything about it.'
'Just proves how Australia's becoming just like China now freedom of press and the police that are meant to protect the people now find themselves only protecting big business and the ruling class,' wrote another.
Hugo Clement was with a group working for French public broadcaster France 2 near Abbot Point when they were forced into a riot wagon on Monday
The Foreign Correspondents' Association Australia has slammed the arrests as a 'nasty and dangerous development'.
'To see any arrests or restrictions placed on working media, and in this case arrests of visiting correspondents, is seen by us all as a nasty and dangerous development and threat to the modern democracy for which Australia has been known and admired previously,' a statement by the association read.
'We demand that all foreign correspondents are not impeded in their work in this way again in Australia.'
However, some social media users were in support of the police arresting the group.
'This ''journalist" is an activist. He can p**s off back to France,' one person said.
'Last I looked, journalist were not immune to the law.... trespass in particular!' another person said.
Mr Clement (pictured) said he did not understand why they had been arrested as they were filming the protesters, not taking part
'Just because you are supposedly a journalist does not give you the right to trespass on an Australian citizens property,' said another.
Queensland police charged the group with trespassing while filming a demonstration, which included two protesters who had locked their hands inside a concrete barrel.
Mr Clement has been banned from going within 20 kilometres of Adani's Carmichael mine site and less than 100 metres from any other Adani site.
'We were just filming the action of those people and we don't know why but police decided to arrest us,' he told the ABC.
'I still don't understand why. We are not part of the action, we are not activists, just journalists.
'It's like they have something to hide right? Because if you arrest a journalist and then you say to the journalist that he has to keep away from Adani's sites, what's happening on these sites?'
'This intimidation will not stop us from continuing to investigate the dangers that threaten the Great Barrier Reef and the oceans,' he shared on Instagram.
Media union president Marcus Strom has called for the charges to be dropped.
