G20 : Sunil & Tim (& Co.)

The anarchist crazies involved in the ultra-violence were in no serious sense part of the demo. Just like their black bloc mates in Europe they simply exploited the demo for their own purposes… The left should offer no comfort to these crazies. We should do whatever we can to isolate them. They are wreckers. If they grow in Australia it will simply make it harder to build future protests and movements. ~ Mick Armstrong, Socialist Alternative, November 19, 2006

…By the time it was all over, police had about 10,000 photographs and 3500 hours of footage to scan for malefactors.

The white paper overalls worn by so many “persons of interest” presented a challenge. Police had to rely on glimpses of shoes, bandanas, glasses, earrings, moles, teeth and T-shirts to identify suspects. When the raids began around Melbourne and later in Sydney, police headed straight for clothes cupboards. The 109-page official Summary of Offences reads like a rag-trade inventory.

Arrests began even before the G20 flew out of Melbourne. Drasko Boljevic, who was out of town on the Saturday, was picked up in the CBD on Sunday and thrown into a police van. The Age quoted Boljevic saying he was tied up and driven round the city with a policeman sitting on his head. He was then handcuffed, arrested and released. Later, the police commissioner, Christine Nixon, confirmed a man had been mistakenly arrested.

Arrests continued for a year. One accused was brought down [December 10, 2007] from Queensland. Another was arrested at Mascot [November 15, 2007] as he flew from New Zealand to Spain on holiday. One was arrested quite by chance [sic] after an off-duty policeman out shopping saw a hardware store employee showing his mates his face in a newspaper photograph of the demonstration. Police reckon luck has been running their way throughout the G20 clean-up.

They are naturally reluctant to say how many demonstrators they’d hoped to arrest. They emphasise the case is not closed. Fresh arrests could be made at any time if they identify more faces in their picture files. But, as of now, the total number arrested is 28… ~ David Marr, A crowded hour, an endless pursuit, The Sydney Morning Herald, March 22, 2008

Melbourne

Two-and-a-half years after protests in Melbourne against the G20 Summit (November 18–19, 2006), the final cases police subsequently brought against the approximately two-dozen or so individuals arrested as a result of ‘Operation Salver’ are concluding.

Following Sina’s verdict (July 9), more verdicts today for Sunil and Tim: “not guilty or no agreement could be made by the jury on all charges, except for one charge of unlawful assembly in the case of Sunil, or so I’m told. Lou or someone will probably give a better summation once the dust settles.”

The verdicts in full:

Sunil

Count 1 Aggravated Burglary at Tenix – Not Guilty
Count 2 Unlawful Assembly .. .. – *Guilty*
Count 3 Criminal Damage .. .. – Not Guilty
Count 4 Aggravated Burglary at Defence – Not Guilty
Count 5 Unlawful Assembly .. .. – *No Verdict*
Count 6 Criminal Damage .. .. – Not Guilty

Tim

Count 1 Aggravated Burglary at Tenix – Not Guilty
Count 2 Unlawful Assembly .. .. – Not Guilty
Count 3 Criminal Damage .. .. – Not Guilty
Count 4 Aggravated Burglary at Defence – Not Guilty
Count 5 Unlawful Assembly .. .. – *No Verdict*
Count 6 Criminal Damage .. .. – Not Guilty

The Crown has announced its intention to proceed to a new trial on the two counts where the jury was unable to reach either a unanimous or a majority verdict, and a mentions hearing is set for 14 August.

Sunil and Tim were one of a number of people arrested in Sydney in March 2007, following dawn raids jointly conducted by Victoria Police and the NSW anti-terrorism unit (Anti-terror police swoop on activists’ homes, Mark Buttler and Paul Anderson, Herald Sun, March 15, 2007). Word on the virtual street is that the suspected terrorists were able to swallow their atom bombs shortly before police arrived. (They have not been to the toilet since, and police warn that the pair are armed and dangerous.)

Over 3000 2000 1000 100 10 people 1 person nobody was killed at the G20 protest in Melbourne in November 2006, but thousands hundreds scores dozens several at least one police officer exacerbated a pre-existing injury (‘tennis elbow’) as a result. In addition, a police van window was broken.

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh is the next pit-stop for the G20 traveling circus, at a meeting to be held @ the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Segments of the transnational ruling class drawn from 20 states (along with a small army of technocrats and men with guns) are set to occupy the city of Pittsburgh from September 24–25, 2009. Some of the natives are restless:

Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project
Pittsburgh Grassroots Examiner (Mike Boda)

Oddly enough, just two weeks prior to the G20 meeting, the AFL-CIO — the United States’ peak union body — will be holding its annual convention @ Mister Lawrence’s house:

This Convention will be historic. It comes as working families struggle with the greatest economic crisis in a generation, but also at a time of unprecedented opportunity – for labor law reform, health care reform, economic revitalization and bold progress toward social and economic justice. For the fourth time since the AFL-CIO’s founding, we will elect new leadership; while honoring the values and legacy that have brought us this far and charting the course for the future of America’s union movement.

Blah blah blah. See also : Activists plan for G-20 with march, demonstrations, Dan Nephin, AP, July 15, 2009.

London

Protests against the G20 meeting took place in London in April, 2009. “The great majority of the police, seemingly ever-patient and self-controlled, stood for hours as kids baited and yelled, shoved and provoked. A handful of officers used well-placed elbows while batons were raised only in response to the vandalism” — or so wrote Paola Totaro, The Age‘s Europe correspondent. Timmeh! Blair, on the other hand, celebrated the police giving the scum a ‘BIT OF STICK’, as he and his followers phantasised about the extra-judicial punishments they would like to dish out to the criminals protesters criminals — if only they had legal immunity (and the courage of their convictions).

In reality, one man, Ian Tomlinson, was killed by police, and numerous others subjected to police assault. Both were in large measure victims of the police tactic known as ‘kettling’ — a tactic employed for many years, one well-known to and commented upon by activists, but strangely escaping the eagle-eye of (most) reporters (See : Guide To Public Order Situations, Schnews). This tactic is now being challenged in the European Court: Metropolitan police’s ‘kettling’ tactic challenged in European court, Paul Lewis, The Guardian, July 19, 2009.

In early July, Freddy Patel, the police pathologist who initially declared Tomlinson to have died of ‘natural causes’ (and who had form) was suspended from his job; the police officer allegedly responsible for assaulting Tomlinson (see : Riot policeman’s hands viciously assaulted by Ian Tomlinson’s back) “had been wrongly re-employed by the Metropolitan Police after leaving while facing a serious disciplinary charge”.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has released a report into policing @ G20, titled ‘Adapting to Protest’ and dated July 2009 [PDF]; its contents are reminiscent of those contained in the whitewash conducted by Victorian Ombudsman Bruce Perry following the S11 protests in September 2000.

Ian Tomlinson’s murder — like that of Blair Peach 30 years earlier, and that of hundreds of others over the same period — is highly unlikely to result in any convictions; and as Janet Street-Porter pointed out he was, after all, just a drunk. (See also : Report on Kiwi’s death ‘must be released’, NZPA, July 29, 2009 | Reggae Fi Peach.)

Everywhere

State authorities have developed and continue to implement (and to revise) a fairly standard repertoire of repressive tactics inre (anti-)summit protests. In addition to reinforcing otherwise routine forms of infiltration and surveillance of protest movements, authorities:

i) conduct propaganda campaigns — in conjunction with state/corporate media, selected public figures and media and political commentators — aimed at transforming the image of the ‘good’ protester into that of the ‘bad’ terrorist, raising expectations of ‘protester violence’, and thus justifying and providing a pretext for paramilitary-style policing;
ii) introduce new or augment existing laws in order to provide for a wider range of offences and greatly increased penalties inre protest activities;
iii) ensure police are able to perform their duties either with virtual legal immunity for their actions or in the reasonable expectation of having the responsibility for any unfavourable legal outcomes assumed by the state;
iv) identify and target for arrest presumed ‘leaders’ (either before, during or after protest activity);
v) construct (temporary) walls and establish perimeters around summit locations, often including the designation of particular areas as being under special laws;
vi) conduct pre-emptive strikes upon convergence spaces, frequently involving mass arrests, and invariably the identification of those present and the collation of (other) materials leading to the identification of (other) participants;
vii) sever, on the basis of tactical differences, links between groups operating in coalition;
viii) destroy and/or seriously damage and/or confiscate materials intended to be used in the course of protest or during its organisation;
ix) obstruct the activities of independent media, legal monitoring and medical aid in particular.

Much more could be said on this subject, and even may be. In the meantime, the Glass Bead Collective and Twin Cities Indymedia have recently produced a superb documentary, Terrorizing Dissent, Part 3 of which (‘And Then They Came For The Anarchists…’) documents state repression of the RNC8 Welcoming Committee.

See also : RNC ’08 Report | Reining in the Parade, Mark Davis, Dateline, September 5, 2007: “With the APEC summit virtually closing off Sydney’s CBD, Mark Davis tracks a band of young protesters planning what may well be one of the biggest anti APEC demonstrations…” | Genoa Red Zone (2002 documentary inre anti-G8 protests in July, 2001 in Genoa, Italy) | Numerous other links on similar subjects which I would include if I thought anyone gave a flying fuck.

NB. anarchy is a fag! anarchy is a (Venezuelan) fag! Return of the Son of Anarchy is a Fag! Anarchy is a dead Greek fag! Anarchist? Queer? XY not?

Bonus!