for workers control of punctuation!
Today I received the blurb reproduced below, sent out by Daniella Olea, sibling of someone arrested in the pseudo-arbitrary circumstances at, or more properly after, the anti-APEC events in Sydney, specifically the big rally ending at a park. I had already left said park after a couple of hours of peaceful, dull standing around against APEC, on the assumption that there would be no collective action and, more significantly, no cop violence, and thus no reason to stay in case it was necessary to defend other protesters - who were in any case mostly dispersing. I was wrong, not the most serious of the large number of mistakes I made over those few days. The group I was in had wandered off into the city in search of food when we got word by phone that police violence and arrests were taking place. We rushed back to find that the police had dragged people away, under circumstances briefly described below.

In my opinion, a deliberate act of targeted repression against Left political activists, possibly provocation but more likely just nasty harassment of the sort which had occurred with escalating frequency in the lead up to the protests against APEC: police tracking people down to threaten them should they attend the anti-APEC protests, whether or not they were on the proscribed list of people criminalised-in-advance, very obviously following people and keeping them under surveillance, ‘random’ stop-and-searching of soon-to-be protesters just for being in Sydney, etcetera. And then this incident, and these arrests, of people just sitting in a park minding their own business.

If possible I intend to go to this rally, despite my general antipathy to demonstrations and in the face of an excessive use of exclamation marks. This is what Daniella sent out:

POLICE ATTACKED PEACEFUL CROWD!!!!

On September 8th 2007 about 10,000 people joined a vibrant, festive crowd protesting against [the] APEC summit. Police created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. After the rally was well and truly over Police attacked a quiet group of people. They arrested 2 people and then released them saying…’they had made a mistake’. In arresting these two people many others got arrested including my sister. My sister was part of the independent media on the day. Her charges range from ‘Assault’ [to] ‘Resisting Arrest’. She along with other were denied bail and had to spend a horrific night in jail.

We demand that all charges be dropped. The hysteria of security leading up to APEC was just a way to intimidate people out of voicing their right to protest. These ridiculous measure might be used in other protest so we need to unite and speak out against violent and intimidating police tactics.

JOIN SOLIDARITY PROTEST TO DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST
THIS THURSDAY 20TH OF DECEMBER
12PM OUTSIDE MELBOURNE MAGISTRATES COURT (CNR WILLIAM & LONSDALE)
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AND BRING BANNERS, MEGAPHONES ETC

I know I haven’t been blogging recently, so let’s consider that evidence that this rally must be really significant and those arrested worth supporting.