continuing police campaign against g20 protestors : Melbourne Indymedia

In the wake of the g20 protests last November, the police campaign against protestors continues, with the most recent arrests occurring in the past few days.

It seems likely that police are tapping phones and using other surveillance techniques to track suspects. A permanent team of police officers has been assembled to go through countless hours of footage and photographs from the weekend actions. A number of people have also been "dobbed in", most likely through mainstream media anti-protestor campaigns.

Arrests have occurred at random times, most often at suspects' homes, but occasionally elsewhere such as outside a courtroom. Plainclothes police have been sent to search houses, confiscating clothes, shoes and jewellry or other accessories that people were allegedly wearing on the day, stickers (??), diaries, computers, cameras, other media devices and files, and so on. Yesterday, a friend's house was raided in relation to the arrest of one alleged protestor.

People have been held in custody for anywhere from one or two hours to a couple of days. Police are taking people's photographs, fingerprints, and so on, and often confiscating mobile phones.

Charges are generally along the lines of riot, affray, criminal damage, inciting others, endangering others, occasionally theft. Bail conditions include not being able to speak to the co-accused - though this has been successfully challenged by a number of people - reporting up to 3 times a week, not being able to leave victoria.

There are a number of points to make sure you or your friends keep in mind during this time:

- consider what items you may have in your homes or cars

- consider what you speak about via the phone or on the internet

- keep in contact with friends

- visit http://www.activistrights.org and http://www.stopg20.org and ensure you are aware of your legal rights

- a central defence and solidarity line has been set up as a point of contact for people who have been arrested, know someone arrested, or otherwise have information about a number of things. This number is a contact for a number of things:
+assistance with obtaining legal representation and advice
+getting involved in/information about a wider political campaign around the arrests
+organising fundraising events
+support and solidarity

- a blog has also been set up to explore reflections on and ideas coming from g20 actions, and also to act as a centre for updates on what is going on with arrests and so on. The address is arushandapush.blogsome.com.

- there is a need to start fundraising for legal fees, bail payments, and potential fines. You can find details about where to send/deposit funds raised on the above listed blog.

This campaign of arrests and scare tactics is part of a broader attempt to take attention away from the g20 itself, and from the neoliberal regime that the institution is a part of. Demonising a certain form of protest serves to contain protest into a form that can be easily maintained and subsequently ignored and forgotten. By focusing attention onto so-called "protestor violence" - property damage that in no way compares to the violence supported by ANZ in Iraq; to the damage to the environment, to the inequality, to the food insecurity, to the infringement on civil rights, to the lack of justice, to the danger to people's lives, that flow from the policies developed in forums such as the g20; to the police violence against actual individual people over the weekend at the car action on the saturday night, at the museum on sunday, during the ensuing snatch squad arrests; to police and state violence in countless other areas and forums, like Palm Island, where a policeman murdered an indigenous man.

These arrests are political, and should be responded to as such, with a broad political campaign. At the same time, people need to be careful and stay mindful of their own safety, and the safety of people that they know who may be at risk. We need to support each other through this, and step up the struggle - we need to fight our fear, and learn not to be afraid.

In solidarity.

It's everywhere...A BRITISH farm worker needed hospital treatment after being attacked by a herd of Victorian pigs, Norfolk police have said.

The 51-year-old man was knocked over by a sow that looked the spitting ( HaHa-geddit, pig-on-a-spit) image of Christine Nixon, at a Norfolk farm in eastern England on Sunday, prompting the rest of the herd to attack him.

"It seems that when he fell, he was attacked by one of the leading corrupt sows and then the other pigs joined in," a Norfolk police spokesman said.

"He suffered bumps and bruises and a head injury though it is not considered to be life-threatening."

The watchdog spokesman said it was not the first time he had heard of a pig attack in the area - and it was likely the herd would be put down.

"Demonising a certain form of protest serves to contain protest into a form that can be easily maintained and subsequently ignored and forgotten."

This one sentence from the post bears out the ambivilance I have towards the G20 solidarity campaign. Even in this post calling for support the poster could not help but have a quick dig at non-violent forms of protest. The people who endorsed the attacks on police lines at the G20 defend the actions under the banner of "diversity of tactics" yet they continually bag out non-violent demonstrators as ineffective. I empathise with those being caught up in the crack down by the state after the G20 protests but if supporting the solidarity campaign means rejecting the power and effectiveness of non-violence as a form of social change then its not going to be a campaign with broad support.

it was not my intention to "bag out" non violent forms of protest, but rather to suggest that in attempting to contain all protest into one particular form - simply non violent rallies or marches, out of the way - it is the intention of the state to make protest more manageable. non violent mass mobilisation and non violent direct action are extremely effective forms of protest, in many ways. yet if all are restricted to a certain method of protest through fear rather than strategic or political choice, there is no diversity of tactics, no autonomy or agency, and protest becomes "allowed" protest only, rather than actual resistance.

A decision not to take on the cops physically and to restrict one's actions to political, rather than violent activities, will result in one not having a new a' hole ripped for one by the boys and gals in blue.

Behave yourself, and you won't be walking like John Cleese for a few weeks. Ark up like an imbecile, and you won't be sitting down for a while.

G20 meeting went ahead unhindered.

Police won the public relations contest.

Several a'holes are shitting themselves while serious charges are pending.

Gee. I wonder who won this little 'to do'.

what exactly is the "power and effectiveness of non-violence"?
why should it be valued?

...'Non-violent direct action' seems to simply refer to activity that exists in the intersect of masochism and obedience to some abstract other... its 'power and effectiveness' are the result of media attention which strengthens one faction of capital against another. Thus it is a strategy that is tactically dependent upon the continued existence of violent authorities. It is a strategy that not only limits resistence but actually represses it. Paradoxically, all this carrys force continues 'non-violence' is an ideology that is seen as somehow counter to authoritarianism and capitalism.

...the actions of states, the status of laws and the normative values that are adhered to are simply the manifest balancing point between private property's violent efforts in constantly reproducing capital and humanities resistance to that...

all efforts should be made to defend (ameiolerate the effects of repression) those protestors arrested because this will make future conflict against private property easier. To fail to do this means we compromise, unnecessarily, with capital on empty ideological grounds thus making our lives worse - directly through the intensification of work.

Practically - IR relations will only be changed favourably as a result of confrontation that needs to be quelled and can only be quelled by a compromise on capitals behalf. Non-violence and the abandonment of G20 protestors only make this task harder.

I have more to say here.

Next time you want to do a violent protest why don't you organise it yourself instead of trying to use 4 thousand NON-violent protesters as human sheilds?

Your actions were remarkably similar to unpaid(?) police provocatours and you don't deserve support.

It is more appropriate to call politicians 'PIGS 'for obvious reasons.
POLICE, are 'DOGS;, sometimes violent and savage, especially when let off their leads by their bosses the PIGS.

NV protests work, our Indian mate Mahatma G. proved that .. but the kiddies fail to realise that with NV an emphasis in tactics and strategy is required to 'milk' the culture for everything its worth.

but those days may be over, even in India ... what could you possibly 'milk' to advantage re: mobilising the population in Oz; free beer and free tckets to a cricket test!

However, people (with the exception of Howard) fail to take advantage of Oz apathy. If for example someone sat for election on the platform of placing Howard on trial for his war crimes (Iraq) -- trashing trad values, IR etc, treason for gifting the nation to the yanks 2 bases up north and toxic war games in QLD .. then apathy could be turned to advantage ... there are a number of other cultural 'buttons' that could be pressed, care to take a guess .. if u guess correctly then u are able to develop a strategy .. that's how it works ..

the traj today is the only group that is awake to these tactics is Howard's right wing manipulators -- they play every positive and negative curtural trait to death to GREAT ADVANTAGE -- 10 fuckin years worth.

Is it possible the brains have gone right?? I doubt it ...

Considering the damage done to public property and the expense that the G20 riot incurred I hope that the rat bags responsible are rewarded with the harshest penalties available under the law. If you can't to the time don't do the crime.

The powers that be are using new tricks to divide and conquer dissenting activities and they are being used here.

At the protest I counted at least 5 to 6 spooks watching and observing whilst walking around, but they stayed low key despite their obvious give aways.

All activists, protesters and advocators no matter what the cause have 1 thing in common, the desire to express their feelings about the matter in terms of Action.

It is clear that in protesting as a group, we must remain cohesive as a group after the protest, and if 1 person gets picked up days later, then all of us should be at the court, no matter what! We should all have our own digital voice recorders, camera phones, video cameras running when these things happen because if they go around raiding people, confiscating equipment which is nothing more than state sponsered theft and intimidating people then they have got to have a legal and appropriate reason to do so, and we need to see it.

Get some statistics on these efforts, get friends who have legal experience to get these documents through freedom of information. Get officers names and details, give them yours and nothing more.

Internally we may discuss this and that, but to the politicians and corporate interests that fear us so very much, we should present a unified front before, during and most importantly, after any protests.

Ghandi said: "NV protests work, our Indian mate Mahatma G. proved that"

While there _may_ be an argument that non-violence can be effective, the history of the British leaving India has little or nothing to do with non-violence.

The British left India because the violence that the Japanese used against the British in WWII weakened them so much that there was no chance of keeping India.

And the British were frantically worried about the violence that Indians would have used against them if they had tried to stay.

Some of the criticisms above seem like they've been written by coppers - probably ones who watch this site for a living.

1. The coppers are going on about how the protesters were engaged in "upper-level criminality" and charging them with riot, affray and criminal damage. What happened? Nobody got killed. No buildings were torched. The WORST thing alleged is that a copper got their wrist broken. Even if the allegations of the coppers are proven in court, the matters are summary offences - NOT crimes drawing 10 or 15 year penalties. Coppers are liars.

2. The coppers are going on about how "violent" the protesters were, but fail to mention their own MUCH WORSE violence. If the protesters deserve 10 or 15 years for riot, the coppers would deserve life for the bashings they handed out to people completely unconnected to the alleged actions of the people charged. Coppers are thugs.

3. Finally, it is necessary to state that you don't have to approve of the tactics of the Arterial Block to defend the arrested people against State persecution. What the coppers, backed by the State & Federal governments, are trying to achieve is to terrorise protesters into being afraid to break any law at all. The argument between people above over "riot" vs "non-violence" is a distraction. What we need to keep firmly in mind is that, with its aggressive & disproportionate campaign against "violence", the State is trying to remove our right to use reasonable force in self-defence. I don't approve of going out for a brawl with the cops - but I DO want to be able to defend myself if the lying thugs attack me.

the previous post displays a total ignorance of police tactics .. would you kiddies believe they actually kill people (for money) fit, frame, engage in nearly all forms of organised crime while using these issues to present a useful presence to the public..

they are gonna stomp all over you idiots with everything they can muster .. do you remember that idiot Costello attempting to draw a terroist parallel with "STOP G20"

Weekend kiddie protesters wet behind the ears clueless ... go back to your collectives groups and locate every doc on protests from the turn of the 20th century till the 60's.

Who knows, you idiots might learn what it actually is your really protesting against and how they operate ...

Weekend or part time kiddie protesters are actually a liability in the war against the powers ...

keep reading your theory and leave the fighting to the fighters

The previous post displays a pretty amazing degree of ignorance in itself.

1. Hum Drum assumes I'm a "kiddie". I was - a long time ago.

2. Hum Drum also assumes I don't know about police corruption. I do - from personal experience (though, fortunately, the corruption I experienced was of a milder variety than a lot of what has gone down). This is not the reason the coppers exist, however. They exist as capital's army of occupation in a given territory. In return for their services to capital, they receive a licence to extract private benefits from the use of their power.

3. Yes, I do remember Costello trying to draw a parallel between terrorists & the G20 protesters. If Hum Drum reads Point 3 (especially Sentence 2) of my previous post, it will be clear that I understand the essential point.

4. The coppers will be on the offensive at the APEC protests in September. They'll be intending to go for the jugular. That is a given. What they can get away with, however, is a matter of political struggle. This applies as much to organisation & propaganda in the lead-up to APEC as it does to what people do at the protest itself.

5. Victory in the struggle against the State and its minions will be by working class struggle or not at all. If we "leave the fighting to the fighters", we'll descend into a no-win militarist struggle on the very terrain selected by the enemy, which will destroy the working class movement as a progressive force.

yea i seem to recall where this semitic 'class' shit started, i forget his name Karl Moses i think, he approached me and demanded I let his slave class go ...

i told him to think of a more appropriate demand to suit the times, but he was a braindead jewish ideologue .. Marx was his name now that i think of it ... the whole gang were jews -- make sense now?

as a last resort i cited ONE old hippy fart armed with a T-shirt doing a very good job on the powers and people ...

A common theme here seems to be "but the coppers were more violent" - "the pigs bashed innocent non-violent protesters"

That's (mostly) rubbish.

If you are at a protest and violence erupts - get the hell out of there.

If you are at a protest that turns violent - and you're within reach of the police - you're going to cop a baton to the back of the head.

Pure and simple.

If you are injured it's your own fault. And if you are an innocent non-violent protester who gets caught up in the mayhem - blame the violent thug protesters - not the coppers.

Pure and simple/

The cops have shown what they will do and protesters have learned what length the cops will go to.

Learn your lessons and be prepared next time.

The game hasn't changed. The system loves "Peaceful Protesters" who achieve nothing. They don't like effective rebellion/civil unrest/disobedience.

That was round one. Learn from mistakes...strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. New strategies and tactics are required. They are the Masters of War - head on confrontations are their speciality but, as Iraq shows, they still can't handle guerilla tactics.

Friend or Foe? On both sides of the thin blue line!

Quote from Redhead: "The system loves "Peaceful Protesters" who achieve nothing. They don't like effective rebellion/civil unrest/disobedience. "

May 2000, a quarter of a million people walk peacfully - and with the approval of police - over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Aboriginal reconciliation. The story makes headlines across the world - and the story is of the Australian public's support of our indigenous people.

November 2006, a mob of vandals run amock on the streets of Melbourne - smashing police vehicles, private property and state assets. The story makes headlines across the world - and the story is that of violence and mayhem (no mention of the rights and wrongs of the G20 meeting.)

November 2006, 14,000 people at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl (walking distance from the mob violence in the CBD) attend the Make Poverty History concert, joined by U2, Pearl Jam, Jet, John Butler Trio, Eskimo Joe, Evermore, etc, etc, etc. They make headlines around the world - and the story is a positive one that preaches the right message - that Australians are united to end suffering and poverty. On top of this they raise thousands of dollars to support the cause.

So ask yourself this - which was the more effective? Which made a bigger impact? Which made the right impression?

The fact is that the violent protest FAILED. It drew attention away from the G20 and focused it onto the protesters (not what they were protesting).

Those who decide to "bash and smash" are selfish. They simply want to see their destruction in the newspaper and on TV the next day (like a firebug). The promotion of "the cause" is the last thing on their mind.

Redhead, you need to ask yourself what it is you are trying to achieve.

If your aim is to attract attention to your cause and get your message out - then here is proof that peacefull protests achieve their aim.

It is not only the "system" but also the wider public that do not like "rebellion, civil unrest, disobedience". If you want to get your message out to a wider audience then you have to do so in a medium they will accept.

However, I suspect your aim was simply to go out and try to bash a copper... the G20 was but your excuse.

I wrote a detailed response to Ben but the anal buffoons at MIM had disabled comments and it was lost. Too bad. (Thanks Mick you whinging fucking bitch)( Might also have been because my comment also contained a reference to C-h-r-i-s P-a-r-s-o-n-s who Ben is awfully like...walks like bacon, talks like bacon)

But, ten million marched against starting the war in Iraq and guess what happened?

They luv "peaceful protesters". That's why "Ben" also luvs "peaceful protest".