…oh yeah… Indymedia Danmark too…
Spies Like Us
Quasi-terrorist treatment for tea-and-biscuit protesters
Melissa Fyfe
ThE gReEn RaGe
December 13, 2009
Government reaction to protest groups says much about freedom of speech.
…Aside from the demonisation – with John Brumby and his ministers variously labelling protesters liars, ugly and Molotov-cocktail-throwing quasi-terrorists – groups have been crippled because the state has, occasionally but strategically, left open the threat of court costs. Last month, Parliament significantly jacked up penalties for protesters caught within coal-fired power stations.
[“These are feral, low-life people that want society to be in a state of near anarchy for their own perverse pleasure”, Acting SA Premier Kevin Foley: SA defence expo cancelled over violence fears from radical groups, Nigel Hunt, Sunday Mail, September 7, 2008.]
Melbourne Water Minister Tim Holding says a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a pipeline worksite in the Toolangi Forest in January. Some protest action has been illegal, dangerous and disruptive, but much of this anti-protest overkill – including numerous arrests – has not been aimed at militant environmentalists or industrial saboteurs…
”There seems to be a disturbing trend of this Government over-reacting to relatively low-level and, in most instances, peaceful and lawful protests,” Liberty Victoria’s president, Michael Pearce, said. ”It’s a worrying trend if a government that is entering its mature phase starts to lose sight of the principles of open and accountable government and becomes overly focused on achieving particular objectives.”
…Last week, the Government and police argued that the deals allowing private companies access to police data only existed to help with prosecutions. But when asked about the memorandum of understanding that gave the desalination consortium AquaSure access to ”law enforcement data”, a police spokeswoman told The Age that if police intelligence identified a risk to the plant, “we would share that information with the company to enable it to manage that risk”. But surely it is the police’s responsibility to manage this risk.
Perhaps the most worrying revelation [sic] was that the MOU was not a one-off. Chief Commissioner Simon Overland admitted that these deals were numerous. He promised to release them, but then said they must be requested under freedom of information (this makes little sense considering that the desalination MOU is on a State Government website).
What the public deserves to know is what projects are covered by these deals and, more importantly, what information has been released to the corporate sector. Already, the Environment Defenders Office – which provides legal help for green groups – has been contacted by people worried that their private data has been handed over…
See also : “Uranium is ace!” “Beverley uranium mine is grouse!” (October 9, 2009) | “My name is Brandon, and I’m an FBI informant.” “Hi Brandon!” (January 20, 2009) | Rob Gilchrist : Saving the country economically from people who do a lot of good (…and need a shave) (December 24, 2008) | “Allahu akbar!” “Free the battery hens!” “Allahu akbar!” (December 19, 2008) | Amanda is in your extended network (December 7, 2008) | Victoria Police denounce McDonald’s (Kinda sorta) (November 5, 2008) | Mehmet Ersoy/Osman : Former officer hired to spy (October 17, 2008) | Mutiny is an anarchist group consisting of a number of layers of trust and information management (September 7, 2008) | Keeping FIT (Watch) (May 5, 2008).
Rotten Denmark
Copenhagen’s climate cages filling up with activists arrested for “pre-emptive” reasons
Matthew Knott
Crikey
December 14, 2009
Mindful of the resistance to the eviction and then demolition (for the benefit of a local religious cult) of the Ungdomshuset in 2006/7, the authorities in Denmark were taking no chances when they instructed police to conduct mass arrests, as reported by Knott, of several hundred scum citizens taking to the streets of Copenhagen begging for X, Y and Z. (Knott reckons the arrest count from the weekend’s trouble-making is around 1,200: “The arrests have been made under a special COP15 “pre-emptive” measure that allows police to detain anyone they suspect to be” one.)
Note that, in addition to a range of other tactics, the utilisation of pre-emptive strikes is standard state practice, not only on the macro- but also the micro-political level (see, for example, E.On police kick terrorist arse: 114 criminal conspirators arrested, April 14, 2009); the costs sometimes associated with the occasional illegality of such maneuvers considered a small price to pay for ensuring social passivity, whether in the face of war and/or capitalist exploitation and/or ecocide. In the case of COP15, as of many other recent summits, the tricksy state has simply changed the laws before embarking on the mass arrest of those guilty of precrime.
See also : Long live social democracy! Youth out of Copenhagen! (October 7, 2007) | Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-Globalization Movement, Luis A. Fernandez, Rutgers University Press, 2008 | Philip K. Dick, ‘The Minority Report’ (1956) | STATEWATCH.
Bonus Loving!
Bonus Fucking!
Never Trust A COP
See also : Climate Justice Action | iCOP15 | Climate IMC.
