Middle-Eastern restaurant turned away people wearing Palestinian scarves

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

A Merivale restaurant which describes itself as 'a little piece of the Middle East in Sydney's CBD' has been accused of refusing entry to people in pro-Palestinian scarves in the hours after the Harbour Bridge protest.
Seven people told the Herald they were stopped from entering Jimmy's Falafel, inside the hospitality giant's George Street Ivy precinct, on August 3 unless they removed their keffiyehs, a Middle Eastern headscarf that has come to symbolise the pro-Palestinian movement abroad.
Merivale initially denied the allegations but later said a management decision to ban people carrying or displaying flags and placards inside the venue was imposed between 3.55pm and 4.15pm for the safety of their employees, after 'many instances of rogue members of the public walking past the Ivy venues on George Street yelling obscenities and violent rhetoric into our venues'.
Merivale footage without audio seen by the Herald showed two people yelling towards the restaurant from the footpath, with another person raising two middle fingers. According to Merivale, passers-by shouted 'death to the IDF', 'death to all Zionist pigs', and 'f---ing Zionist pigs and scum' towards Jimmy's.
Merivale said its staff understood its decision to include 'political items of clothing' in the ban and they asked people wanting to dine in to 'remove those items [or] place them in their bags before entering'.
The Herald observed multiple groups being turned back by security while wearing keffiyehs in a 20-minute window on the CCTV.
Farah Ghafar said security asked her to remove her keffiyeh-printed hijab, telling the Herald she was considering legal action against Merivale over the incident.
'I felt excluded. I felt discriminated against,' she said. 'I have never, ever in my life been refused service based on what I was wearing, or asked to remove an item of clothing in order to enter a store.'