29 year-old student Akin Sari was today sentenced by Judge Roy Punshon to 28 months jail, with a 14 month minimum before becoming eligible for parole (and having already served 7) after Sari plead guilty to nine charges. He was also fined…
G20 rioter jailed
Emily Power
Herald Sun
March 8, 2008A PROTESTER involved in the violent G20 riots has been jailed for 14 months after denouncing his own actions.
Akin Sari was among a group of demonstrators who stormed a city office, attacked a police brawler van, rammed police lines with plastic barricades and hurled rocks, rubbish bins and milk crates.
Judge Roy Punshon said it was to Sari’s credit that he had acknowledged his behaviour during the November 2006 riots was unacceptable.
Judge Punshon said Sari’s change of attitude sent an important message to the public and others who protested the Group of 20 nations summit, held in Melbourne.
“You are entitled to hold the views you have — the crimes concern your behaviour,” the judge said.
Defence barrister Dermott Dann earlier told the court Sari, 29, believed extreme measures were required but now understood they were unacceptable.
Sari was sentenced to 28 months’ jail, with a minimum of 14, and was ordered to pay $8310 compensation for damage to a police brawler van.
He has already served 215 days in custody after he was detained for fleeing to Sydney last year while on bail.
The court heard Sari was one of 20 protesters who barged into the Defence Recruiting Centre on Swanston St on November 17, tearing down posters and graffiti-ing walls.
The next day Sari, disguised in a white jumpsuit, menaced two traffic event controllers with a metal pole and smashed the front window of their car.
Sari was part of a group who confronted police at Collins St, where officers were pelted with bottles and stones.
One policeman broke his wrist and another tore the tendons in her elbow.
“They tried to hide behind a brawler van,” Judge Punshon told Sari.
“A DVD shows you throwing objects at police.”
Sari, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and theft, two counts of common assault and riot, and three counts of criminal damage.
Prosecutor Chris Beale said 10 of 23 accused protesters would plead guilty this month.
Jail for G20 protester who ‘terrorised’ victims
Sarah-Jane Collins
The Age
March 7, 2008A protester who threw a metal bar through a police van window and hurled rocks and bottles at police as part of a series of anti-G20 riots was today jailed for 28 months.
Akin Sari, 29, had pleaded guilty to nine charges including aggravated burglary, riot and common assault for his role in the anti-G20 protests in November 2006.
County Court Judge Roy Punshon said Sari had acted in a manner that had “terrorised” his victims.
“You grabbed the female victim by the arm at one stage and menaced both victims with a metal pole,” he said.
Sari was part of a group of protesters who entered an Australian Defence Force recruitment office on November 17, 2006 and vandalised the reception area.
The next day a group of protesters – some wearing white jumpsuits and head scarves in an attempt to avoid identification – rioted twice in designated protest areas, hurling bottles and rocks at police and grabbing barricades and poles to use as weapons, Judge Punshon said.
“I readily accept that the uniformed police involved would have been very frightened … each incident was relatively brief. However, it would have seemed to last much longer.”
Sari will serve a non-parole period of 14 months and has been ordered to pay compensation for damage caused.
In sentencing, Judge Roy Punshon told the court Sari had serious, genuine, and longstanding political views and had provided the court with a two-page letter, outlining his opposition to the economic summit. Judge Punshon said Sari was entitled to hold those views but it was his behaviour he was being sentenced for. ~ G20 protester jailed, ABC, March 7, 2008
Bob Gould, Australian Labor Party, November 21, 2006:
The essential question is the fact that these irresponsible political adventurers disguise their faces. I agree strongly with Mick Armstrong’s post on this matter on Leftwrites [below], and I defer to his knowledge, based on his investigation as to who these people were. The very act of people from outside a city invading a demonstration in another city with the clear intention of launching a semi-military attack on the cops, with their faces covered, irrespective of the consequences for the rest of the demonstrators, is a calculated political act directed against the bulk of the demonstrators.
People with covered faces who attack the cops, unless they are rather unlucky and their covering falls off, are very dangerous to everybody else at the demonstrations, and quite possibly include fascists and agents provocateur… real agents provocateur certainly do exist, and organised contingents with covered faces clearly facilitate the [activities] of real agents provocateur…
Margarita Windisch, Democratic Socialist Perspective, November 19, 2006:
…stressed that the white-clad, masked individuals were separate from the protesters towards whom they had displayed “a surly and hostile attitude.” She added that their actions were “self-indulgent and parasitic in that for the sake of some macho fantasies, they enabled those who do not want our message to get across to portray us as mindless idiots.”
Mick Armstrong, Socialist Alternative, November 19, 2006:
I was one of the organisers of the G20 demo from the [Melbourne] Stop the War Coalition and I am also in Socialist Alternative.
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.
Right throughout the lead-up to the demo they made clear their hostility to and contempt [for] other protestors. On the day they did all they could to disrupt the demonstration and were hostile, abusive, threatening [and] ultra-sectarian towards people on the demo.
Australia[,] fortunately[,] has not previously been blighted by the sort of black bloc anarchist activities which [have] had such a disastrous impact on demonstrations in Europe. These people are simply provocateurs that open up protests to police repression. In Europe their ranks have been riddled by police agents and fascists.
What gave them a certain critical mass at the G20 was the presence of considerable numbers of anarchists from overseas. One of our members from New Zealand said he recognised at least 40 NZ anarchists. He knew at least 20 of them by name. There were also a considerable number of black [bloc] anarchists from Europe. We know of people from Sweden, Germany and England. These people are like football hooligans who travel the world looking for violence.
On top of that there were also a considerable number of anarchists from interstate.
Because of the behaviour of these provocateurs the media [and…] the law and order brigade are having a field day.
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.
See also : G20: And ‘revolutionary Marxism’ | G20
IT WAS obvious on the first day of Chris Hurley’s manslaughter trial that the police officer was unlikely to go to jail over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee.
No matter that it wouldn’t have taken much for the 200-centimetre, 115-kilogram senior sergeant with the short fuse to fell the drunk, barefoot 74-kilogram Aboriginal man. No matter that three doctors testified that a knee to the abdomen most likely split Mr Doomadgee’s liver in two and caused him to bleed to death. No matter that Mr Doomadgee had provoked Hurley by resisting arrest and punching him.
With no other witnesses to the event, it was always going to be difficult for the jury to decide beyond reasonable doubt that Senior Sergeant Hurley deliberately caused Mr Doomadgee’s fatal injuries… ~ A predictable result three years in the making, Cosima Marriner, The Age, June 21, 2007
- Diarrheal diseases
Diarrhea is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in developing countries. It is caused by ingesting certain bacteria, viruses or parasites present in water or food, and can be spread by utensils, hands or flies. Diarrheal disease causes considerable dehydration, which may quickly lead to death when not promptly treated.
Cholera, one of the most severe diarrheal diseases, is a significant cause of illness and death in developing countries. An acute bacterial infection of the intestine, cholera is spread the consumption of contaminated food or water. Cholera symptoms include acute watery diarrhea and vomiting, which can result in severe dehydration and rapidly lead to death. Other diarrheal disease pathogens include rotavirus, escherichia coli, salmonella, shigella and giardia.
Diarrheal diseases can be prevented through access to clean, safe drinking water and through proper sanitation measures, including hand washing and safe disposal of human waste. While diarrhea generally can be easily treated using oral rehydration solution (ORS), a combination of glucose and sodium dissolved in water that replaces essential electrolytes lost through diarrhea, long-term prevention solutions require investments in water and sanitation, as well as changes in behavior to prevent unnecessary transmission of disease agents.
Diarrhea, known medically as gastroenteritis, is a major cause of children’s death in the world–second only to acute respiratory infections (ARI). One out of every four childhood deaths is from diarrhea, which drains the life out of at least 3 million infants and young children every year. Of these deaths, 99.6% occur in the Third World, where one in ten children dies of diarrhea before the age five… ~ David Werner & David Sanders, Questioning the Solution, Chapter 6: Diarrhea: A Leading Killer of Children, 1997
PROTESTERS at this week’s G20 summit should be cheering efforts to eradicate poverty, Treasurer Peter Costello said yesterday. “If you’re concerned about aid and poverty and the developing world, this is a summit you should be demonstrating for,” he said. ~ November 13, 2006
Peter Costello has also kept his head down. Friends say he is firming to join Goldman Sachs in London. His relationship with Gordon Brown, forged when both were treasurers, is a valuable commodity in Britain where Brown is now Prime Minister. ~ March 7, 2008
In juancastro’s defence, yesterday, it did say that there was an EXTRA meeting on March 14. Seriously, it really did!
After the battle of Lewisham in 1977, where a demonstration against the National Front led to riotous assaults on the police, the Anti Nazi League was set up. Those of us who had seen the Left in action that day knew exactly what they were up to. At Lewisham they had called on people to stop fighting the police with crap like the police are not the real enemy, and we should not alienate (middle class) support. For many Black youth it was a good opportunity to strike back at a form of organised thuggery much more significant than the Hitler groupies. The Anti Nazi League wanted to control opposition to the Nazis and funnel this opposition into voting Labour (“without illusions” in the case of the SWP). The autonomist wing emerging from anarchism saw clearly that the Left was the first line of defence of the state and had to be treated as such. Things came to head when the Anti Nazi League staged a meeting in Friends Meeting House featuring a French anti-racist cop, and the Mayor of Bologna (in fact only his deputy turned up). Tony Benn was also there. He had been active in developing links with the Italian Communist Party during the period of the Historic Compromise between the Italian CP and the Christian Democrats. This was a declaration of war, in that the Mayor of Bologna had called out tanks to attack workers and students on the streets of Bologna. A contingent of forty occupied a corner of the hall, to the dismay of the stewards. Malicious rumours were circulated about the autonomists being fascists — an old technique favoured by the CP during the Spanish civil war. The meeting was heckled, but when four women went to the toilet (in a group for protection) they were physically attacked by some leftist men. Word got through to the body of autonomists still in the hall, who then joined the fracas in the corridor. Having thus been manipulated out of the hall the leftists made a desultory attempt to attack us. There were fights in the street later that night.
We had the meeting – I got there a bit late, but by 6:10 there were plenty of people there.
It was at the back of the bookshop as it said on the website – and yes, the extra meeting was up there until it was updated yesterday.
Not sure how you missed it…
What the hell! At 6 o’clock I asked the woman behind the counter if she knew about a g20 related meeting, she gave me the number of someone called Gerard but doubted that there was a meeting this week, as it was on the week before.
You’re telling me those people talking in the back of the store was you? How funny/annoying. Next time.
liz – are there people checking the afterg20 email account? I sent an email a couple of days ago… no rush for a reply, just wanted to make sure someone got it. 🙂
Juan Castro:
yes that was us in the back of the room. Don’t know how the person at the front desk didn’t know, cos it is booked. Oh well. Gerard is from Civil Rights Defence, and used to be in SAlt – you probably know him.
Asher – yes, the email account is checked. Someone will get back to you very soon!
All sorted now, cheers liz 🙂
Akin Sari
PO Box 376
Laverton
3080
have you written to Akin or only about him ?
excellent point
the other address you can use is:
Akin Sari
C/- Corrections Victoria
GPO Box 123
Melbourne VIC 3001
cos then it will get to him if he is moved, which is possible and can happen without notice
i was looking for this info for a couple of weeks, getting the run around from corrections vic, kept on hold for HOURS and treated like an idiot, so finally against my better judgement, i contacted the “afterg20 solidarity crew.”
6 days, 3 emails later, no reply.
what’s the story with the “afterg20 solidarity crew?” 6 days is a long time for – well i’m pissed off so i’ll just leave it there.
on the other hand, why put themselves forward as an information source {i.e. “we know what’s going on”} if they don’t share the info? why tell people “contact us to get in contact with {political prisoners}” if they don’t then do it?
whatever, i have questions, is all.
“afterg20 solidarity crew” get your shit together.
oh and in my fit of ire i forgot to say what i meant to say: thanks red and liz for the info, lucky i found it by accident buried in the comments, actually i almost missed it.
and @ndy, sorry to turn the sofisti-cuffs on YOUR blog comments 😉
i don’t wanna be sectarian either.
ESPECIALLY not with any of YOU.
sorry about delay on email stuff – not sure why that has happened except to say that the committal has been long horrible and meant that we’ve been in court for the last month almost every day and that has unfortunately meant some other tasks have not been as well attended to. Small group of people doing lots of tasks. The committal is now finished so it will be easier to get onto tasks like the email stuff. Could always use more assistance though.
I can answer your question now:
Congratulations – yours was the first real email of the lot to end up in the spam pile, hence the not answering.
Hi all,
So – Akin has been moved to Barwon prison. Yes, the one in Geelong. Yes it’s shit.
Details below:
Tel: (613) 5220 8222
Fax: (613) 5282 3406
Postal address: Locked Bag 7, Lara, VIC 3212
From what I can gather, contact visits are only on weekends. Anyone who wants to visit, contact:
afterg20[at]gmail[dot]com
I promise you a better response time than wot sparx copped.
What kind of things can be sent / does Akin want sent to him?
Hey all,
He hasn’t yet been placed in a unit at Barwon so we’re not able to see him or talk to him yet. I’ll ask though. The regime is different everywhere and Barwon is particularly strict it seems. But it may take us a while to work out, cos as of yesterday he was still not processed into a unit despite having been there since Thursday…
Will post as soon as we know.