[pf] Melbourne - WEF protesters defy Police violence and maintain peacef

· for Positive Futures list: report from the WEF protests in Melbourne.
I've added SMH links and some text on its reporting about the group that
MPs Sue Bradford & Nandor Tanczos were with.  D.

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Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:17:15 -0400 [the list-server's time/date.]
From: Takver <Takver@onaustralia.com.au>
Subject: (en) Australia, s13 - WEF protesters defy Police violence and
maintain peaceful blockade
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s13 - WEF protesters defy Police violence and maintain peaceful blockade

    Report by Takver  - http://www.takver.com/soapbox/index.htm

S13 started in the morning with another baton charge on about 40 blockaders
at the Clarendon Street entrance while most people were at the entrance on
Queensbridge street.

  According to an ABC report:
One of the protesters, Nick, says he and his colleagues were hopelessly
outnumbered by police involved in this morning's baton charge. "I saw a
woman about 40 that went down and people were just screaming to let her
out, let her up... just general people getting hurt, a lot of screaming, a
lot of young people going down," he said.

This follows a similar baton charge on Tuesday night to bring the delegates
out. Riot police viciously attacked people engaged in nonviolent civil
disobedience with more than 20 people needing hospital treatment. The ABC
interviewed well known Melbourne entertainer Rod Quantock who said that
several friends were hit by police batons in an unprovoked attack:

"Nothing would justify the violence that was there. I was on the ground. I
couldn't see who was batoning me. It wouldn't have made a difference. They
didn't have ID on anyway," he said. "I was hit all over the body and
eventually kneecapped as I tried to stand up. They just came at us. They
just attacked us. I saw people with so much blood on their face you
couldn't literally tell if they were men or women."

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, said: "The police
action was excellent. They gave the protestors a chance at the first day to
behave in a civilised way, they charged when it was necessary to restore
law and order." His bidding was done by our esteemed Labour Premier, Steve
Bracks, who stated:

"Police have been charged with the responsibility of keeping law and order
and keeping the public protected, the delegates protected, and peaceful
protesters protected and in that they have done a fantastic job," he said.
"Those that have incited disruptive behaviour by throwing missiles are the
ones that are causing difficulty for the peaceful and sensible protesters."

This makes a mockery of the numerous unprovoked baton charges on peaceful
people protesting through civil disobedience techniques. The level of
violence by the police had been deliberately escalated after the successful
blockading on the first day.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported, [in:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/13/text/national6.html ] :-
  [begin SMH item.] ---------  
 - Up to 200 protesters had been injured by police who had hit them on the
head with batons, trampled them with horses, dragged them by the hair,
punched, kicked, elbowed and bitten them and driven at high speed to
disperse crowds, the team of legal observers said.

 - Police are also not wearing their identification badges. Legal observers
estimate 90 per cent of officers have taken off their name tags. Damien
Lawson, of Melbourne's Western Suburbs Legal Centre, said: "This goes to
the heart of accountability at this protest. If they can't be identified
then they can act with impunity. "There was a young man who was
baton-charged and lost two teeth and had to have emergency surgery."

 - But police said that under the circumstances their actions were
remarkably restrained. Four police were injured yesterday and two
protesters were arrested for assaulting officers.

 - So far, there have been four arrests. New Zealand politician Ms Sue
Bradford, who was part of the blockade that was forcibly broken by the
police to make way for the buses carrying World Economic Forum members,
said: "We were given no chance to move. Wave after wave of police came
stamping over our heads."

 - Ms Bradford said that 50 of the 100 protesters she was sitting with were
seriously injured and 11 were hospitalised. 

 - The legal team, comprising barristers, solicitors, law students and
para-legals who came together to give protesters legal information, has
taken 300 statements detailing claims of police using excessive force since
the blockade began on Monday. Partners of the law firm Slater and Gordon
have given their staff time off to attend the protest as legal observers.

 [also see today's:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/14/national/national21.html and:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/14/update/news2.html  ]
  --------- [end SMH item.]

Now we know that Bracks is just another puppet like our Prime Minister,
John Howard, with the ear of the rich and powerful. The WEF organisers
complained and Bracks and his police minister jumped to obey and ordered
the Victorian police to use horses, riot police and batons in unprovoked
attacks on peaceful protestors.

Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth told the ABC reporter:
   "[in Australia] We've always used civil disobedience. We've always done
it according to protocol and that protocol is the police ask you to leave,
they remove the protestors, and they arrest them if they believe they've
done anything unlawful. The police have broken with 30 years of tradition
and they've declared war on peaceful protestors," he said.

At lunch time more than two thousand protestors toured the city precinct
stopping outside a Nike store and several McDonalds. When they returned to
the assembly point outside Crown Casino, a giant multicoloured Gippsland
Earthworm puppet led an encirclement of the Crown Casino complex of people
linking hands. This act involved thousands of people ringing the Casino
complex.

By mid afternoon the blockade was winding down. Why then, did an unmarked
police car try to force its way into a group of blockaders? When a person
was trapped underneath the car, with people pleading for the car to stop,
the driver accelerated running over the person. This person required
immediate hospitalisation, and comes at the end of a long list of brutal
police attacks and violence at the encoragemment of WEF organisers and
conservative politicians, including the Labor Premier, Steve Bracks, and
his Deputy, John Brumby.

The excessive use of force by the police will be pursued through the legal
system. A legal team, comprising barristers, solicitors, law students and
para-legals who came together to give protesters legal information, has
taken over 300 statements detailing claims of police using excessive force
over the duration of the blockade. Under the Crimes Act 1958 section 462A
defines how much force may be used:
  "A person may use such force not disproportionate to the objective as he
believes on reasonable grounds to be necessary to prevent the commission,
continuance or completion of an indictable offence or to effect or assist
in effecting the lawful arrest of a person committing or suspected of
committing any offence"


Our resistance must be as global as capitalism

50 Photos of the 3 days are available at Takver's Soapbox site
For reports and photos also visit Melbourne Indymedia -
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org
--
Takver
 Takver's Soapbox:
   http://www.users.bigpond.com/Takver/soapbox/index.htm
 Radical Tradition, an Australasian History Page
   http://members.xoom.com/takver/history/index.htm
 Visit Anarres Books
   http://www.anarres.org.au

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· Here's the Scoop page with pictures of Sue & Nandor upon their return to
New Zealand:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0009/S00080.htm

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sent to the Positive Futures list by David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/index.html#top
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