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:
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."
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:
"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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