Monday 9 May 2022 04:59 AM Drew Pavlou arrested after protesting China's Xi Jinping trends now

An outspoken Australian critic of the Chinese Communist Party has been arrested for holding up a sign saying 'f*** Xi Jinping'. 

Drew Pavlou, 22, was rounded up by NSW Police at an anti-Communist Party rally in Sydney's Eastwood on Saturday night and spent five hours in a police cell.  

A few dozen pro-democracy campaigners gathered in the north-western suburb with a high number of Chinese residents, one week after Mr Pavlou caused controversy by holding up his sign. 

On this occasion the Queenslander was carrying a placard that read: 'Free Hong Kong, free Tibet, free the Uyghurs, down with CCP'.

Mr Pavlou, who is running as a candidate for the Senate at the Federal election next Saturday, said he told the arresting officer captured on video patting him down against a police van, to 'buy me dinner first'. 

'I was just standing there holding a sign. There were no profanities this time and I wasn't even the most vocal protester,' Mr Pavlou told Daily Mail Australia.

'But when a group of Chinese government supporters came along and started swearing in Mandarin at us, police gave me a charge sheet for the sign that said f**k Xi Jinping.'

The officers momentarily detained him before allowing him to leave. He then returned to the protest and was given a formal move-on order and told by officers he would be arrested if he did not leave the area.

Police were concerned that the 'unauthorised assembly was causing fear and alarm among the community'.

'I said, with respect, sir, I would rather be arrested because I believe this is my right as an Australian to speak freely,' he said.

Video posted online shows officers patting down the Senate candidate before being loaded into a police van and taken back to the station.