The Age reports that two of their Most Wanted have today joined with two other individuals arrested last week at Melbourne Magistrates Court, all four being bailed to re-appear on May 11; the date which most of those so far charged appear to have been allocated to have their day in court. Please note that the left should offer no comfort to these crazies, and 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. The Age, Herald Sun, Crimestoppers, Operation Salver and the Victoria Police in general are therefore to be congratulated on bringing the anarchist crazies involved in the ultra-violence (and in no serious sense part of the demo) to justice. However, it should be noted that at least 40 New Zealand anarchists remain at large, as well as a considerable number of anarchists from Europe — England, Germany and Sweden in particular — and interstate. For the sake of building a revolutionary organisation that can participate in mass struggles, draw lessons from past victories and defeats and convince the working class of the way forward to socialism, further arrests of these apolitical hooligans is therefore absolutely crucial: we need to take a clear and unambiguous stand against these provocateurs.
Workers and bosses have fundamentally counterposed interests; we must take sides.
Two charged over G20 protests
Julia Medew
The Age
January 23, 2007
Three men and a woman involved in violent protests at the G20 meeting in Melbourne last November have appeared in court charged with affray and rioting.
The fresh charges come just days after police released 28 pictures of “people of interest” in their hunt to identify those suspected of attacking police and damaging property.
Police sifted through 10,000 still pictures and 3,500 hours of footage, including some from media organisations and the public, to compile the list.
Today two of the people pictured on the list, John Finlayson and David Nguyen, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with offences over their involvement in the protests.
Sergeant Brent Scurry from the Salver taskforce said Finlayson, 36, of West Brunswick [previously reported as being 25], who is facing six charges including reckless conduct for throwing bins and bottles at police and intentionally damaging a police brawler van, turned himself into police after his picture was published last Friday.
“He walked into the Brunswick police station last week and said ‘I’m your guy’,” Sergeant Scurry said today.
David Nguyen, 22, of Coburg, whose picture was also released by police last week, appeared at the same court today charged with five offences including affray and reckless conduct for throwing a bottle [which must have been absolutely massive by the sounds of it] at approximately 12 members of Victoria Police.
Two other co-accused, Sina Brown-Davis, 39, of Caulfield North, and Eric Palsis, 37, of Carlton, also appeared at Melbourne Magistrates Court today charged over the protest.
Palsis faces seven charges including reckless conduct for throwing a metal pole at police and escaping from police custody.
Brown Davis is charged with four offences including possessing a prohibited weapon, namely a tonfa — a side-handled baton used in martial arts — and intentionally damaging a police brawler van.
Magistrate Duncan Reynolds extended bail for all four to appear in court again on May 11.
