#criminalisationofdissent — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #criminalisationofdissent, aggregated by home.social.
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It was sickening though also enlightening to hear NSW Premier #ChrisMinns on the radio (ABC) this morning. It helpfully clarified that fundamentally, the public reason for all the chaos in Sydney's CBD last night, the reason Minns insisted NSW police prevent any march from occurring, is at its core quite deeply bigoted and racist.
What Minns admitted to in that interview this morning is that he did not trust rally organisers to do what they said they would do. He did not trust that a rally route ending at parliament house wouldn't actually be a Trojan horse for protesters to suddenly break off through police lines and go rampaging on a pogrom through the streets, looking for Jewish people to harm. That is why there couldn't be a march.
Something like 100 rallies organised by the same people, at which we have followed the agreed route every time. A hundred rallies without any arrests for violence or flouting lawful police directions (indeed, the only charges of violence in the context of 28 months of anti-genocide protest are from a police officer recklessly causing grievous bodily harm to a political candidate who ran against Prime Minister Albanese and came second to him in his electorate).
#NSWpol #NSWPolice #protest #Sydney #Gadigal #CriminalisationOfDIssent #HerzogNotWelcome
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Words of NSW Police Deputy Commissioner #DavidHudson, 4th July 2025, spoken under oath during a NSW parliamentary inquiry:
“We can’t prevent the free movement of people throughout the city just because you’re in a protest. You can walk down the street, the footpath. Bearing in mind, at that particular protest at the town hall, there were a lot of women, children [and] women pushing prams. It’s not like we were going to put walls up and start boxing on with these people who have a right to protest.”
How things change in 7 months.
That's precisely what NSW police did last night at Sydney Town Hall, to another protest with people from all walks of life (including kids in strollers)—walls were put up, and police did indeed start 'boxing on', even if someone is backing away with their hands up, or kneeling on the ground in prayer, or already pinned to the ground with a knee in their back, or part of a large crowd kettled & unable to disperse (while police charge with pepper spray & horses, yelling "disperse or be arrested").
And the point at which the police first charged? Very soon after rally organiser #JoshLees had begun using a megaphone to encourage people to disperse (not that we could, due to police kettle in place).
#NSW #ProtestIsNotACrime #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWPolice
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Words of NSW Police Deputy Commissioner #DavidHudson, 4th July 2025, spoken under oath during a NSW parliamentary inquiry:
“We can’t prevent the free movement of people throughout the city just because you’re in a protest. You can walk down the street, the footpath. Bearing in mind, at that particular protest at the town hall, there were a lot of women, children [and] women pushing prams. It’s not like we were going to put walls up and start boxing on with these people who have a right to protest.”
How things change in 7 months.
That's precisely what NSW police did last night at Sydney Town Hall, to another protest with people from all walks of life (including kids in strollers)—walls were put up, and police did indeed start 'boxing on', even if someone is backing away with their hands up, or kneeling on the ground in prayer, or already pinned to the ground with a knee in their back, or part of a large crowd kettled & unable to disperse (while police charge with pepper spray & horses, yelling "disperse or be arrested").
And the point at which the police first charged? Very soon after rally organiser #JoshLees had begun using a megaphone to encourage people to disperse (not that we could, due to police kettle in place).
#NSW #ProtestIsNotACrime #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWPolice
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Words of NSW Police Deputy Commissioner #DavidHudson, 4th July 2025, spoken under oath during a NSW parliamentary inquiry:
“We can’t prevent the free movement of people throughout the city just because you’re in a protest. You can walk down the street, the footpath. Bearing in mind, at that particular protest at the town hall, there were a lot of women, children [and] women pushing prams. It’s not like we were going to put walls up and start boxing on with these people who have a right to protest.”
How things change in 7 months.
That's precisely what NSW police did last night at Sydney Town Hall, to another protest with people from all walks of life (including kids in strollers)—walls were put up, and police did indeed start 'boxing on', even if someone is backing away with their hands up, or kneeling on the ground in prayer, or already pinned to the ground with a knee in their back, or part of a large crowd kettled & unable to disperse (while police charge with pepper spray & horses, yelling "disperse or be arrested").
And the point at which the police first charged? Very soon after rally organiser #JoshLees had begun using a megaphone to encourage people to disperse (not that we could, due to police kettle in place).
#NSW #ProtestIsNotACrime #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWPolice
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Words of NSW Police Deputy Commissioner #DavidHudson, 4th July 2025, spoken under oath during a NSW parliamentary inquiry:
“We can’t prevent the free movement of people throughout the city just because you’re in a protest. You can walk down the street, the footpath. Bearing in mind, at that particular protest at the town hall, there were a lot of women, children [and] women pushing prams. It’s not like we were going to put walls up and start boxing on with these people who have a right to protest.”
How things change in 7 months.
That's precisely what NSW police did last night at Sydney Town Hall, to another protest with people from all walks of life (including kids in strollers)—walls were put up, and police did indeed start 'boxing on', even if someone is backing away with their hands up, or kneeling on the ground in prayer, or already pinned to the ground with a knee in their back, or part of a large crowd kettled & unable to disperse (while police charge with pepper spray & horses, yelling "disperse or be arrested").
And the point at which the police first charged? Very soon after rally organiser #JoshLees had begun using a megaphone to encourage people to disperse (not that we could, due to police kettle in place).
#NSW #ProtestIsNotACrime #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWPolice
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Words of NSW Police Deputy Commissioner #DavidHudson, 4th July 2025, spoken under oath during a NSW parliamentary inquiry:
“We can’t prevent the free movement of people throughout the city just because you’re in a protest. You can walk down the street, the footpath. Bearing in mind, at that particular protest at the town hall, there were a lot of women, children [and] women pushing prams. It’s not like we were going to put walls up and start boxing on with these people who have a right to protest.”
How things change in 7 months.
That's precisely what NSW police did last night at Sydney Town Hall, to another protest with people from all walks of life (including kids in strollers)—walls were put up, and police did indeed start 'boxing on', even if someone is backing away with their hands up, or kneeling on the ground in prayer, or already pinned to the ground with a knee in their back, or part of a large crowd kettled & unable to disperse (while police charge with pepper spray & horses, yelling "disperse or be arrested").
And the point at which the police first charged? Very soon after rally organiser #JoshLees had begun using a megaphone to encourage people to disperse (not that we could, due to police kettle in place).
#NSW #ProtestIsNotACrime #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWPolice
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Chris Minns, NSW Premier: "for the sake of Social Cohesion™, we're inviting a wanted war criminal from a rogue state to visit, granting police extraordinary emergency powers to forcefully suppress the expression of non-approved messages in non-approved locations, and installing extra Social Cohesion™ fences and barriers in the middle of the city. In order to ensure maximum Social Cohesion™ please don't come into the city, and if you do, then disobeying the instructions of one of the 3,000 Social Cohesion™ officers will result in a $5,000 fine. This is for your own good. You will cohere, or else."
#NSWpol #CivilLiberties #CriminalisationOfDissent #IsaacHerzog #Herzog #ChrisMinns #NSWLabor #Gadi #Sydney #SydneyNews #NSWPolice #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime
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Chris Minns, NSW Premier: "for the sake of Social Cohesion™, we're inviting a wanted war criminal from a rogue state to visit, granting police extraordinary emergency powers to forcefully suppress the expression of non-approved messages in non-approved locations, and installing extra Social Cohesion™ fences and barriers in the middle of the city. In order to ensure maximum Social Cohesion™ please don't come into the city, and if you do, then disobeying the instructions of one of the 3,000 Social Cohesion™ officers will result in a $5,000 fine. This is for your own good. You will cohere, or else."
#NSWpol #CivilLiberties #CriminalisationOfDissent #IsaacHerzog #Herzog #ChrisMinns #NSWLabor #Gadi #Sydney #SydneyNews #NSWPolice #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime
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Chris Minns, NSW Premier: "for the sake of Social Cohesion™, we're inviting a wanted war criminal from a rogue state to visit, granting police extraordinary emergency powers to forcefully suppress the expression of non-approved messages in non-approved locations, and installing extra Social Cohesion™ fences and barriers in the middle of the city. In order to ensure maximum Social Cohesion™ please don't come into the city, and if you do, then disobeying the instructions of one of the 3,000 Social Cohesion™ officers will result in a $5,000 fine. This is for your own good. You will cohere, or else."
#NSWpol #CivilLiberties #CriminalisationOfDissent #IsaacHerzog #Herzog #ChrisMinns #NSWLabor #Gadi #Sydney #SydneyNews #NSWPolice #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime
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Chris Minns, NSW Premier: "for the sake of Social Cohesion™, we're inviting a wanted war criminal from a rogue state to visit, granting police extraordinary emergency powers to forcefully suppress the expression of non-approved messages in non-approved locations, and installing extra Social Cohesion™ fences and barriers in the middle of the city. In order to ensure maximum Social Cohesion™ please don't come into the city, and if you do, then disobeying the instructions of one of the 3,000 Social Cohesion™ officers will result in a $5,000 fine. This is for your own good. You will cohere, or else."
#NSWpol #CivilLiberties #CriminalisationOfDissent #IsaacHerzog #Herzog #ChrisMinns #NSWLabor #Gadi #Sydney #SydneyNews #NSWPolice #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime
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Chris Minns, NSW Premier: "for the sake of Social Cohesion™, we're inviting a wanted war criminal from a rogue state to visit, granting police extraordinary emergency powers to forcefully suppress the expression of non-approved messages in non-approved locations, and installing extra Social Cohesion™ fences and barriers in the middle of the city. In order to ensure maximum Social Cohesion™ please don't come into the city, and if you do, then disobeying the instructions of one of the 3,000 Social Cohesion™ officers will result in a $5,000 fine. This is for your own good. You will cohere, or else."
#NSWpol #CivilLiberties #CriminalisationOfDissent #IsaacHerzog #Herzog #ChrisMinns #NSWLabor #Gadi #Sydney #SydneyNews #NSWPolice #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime
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Thinking today of mob around this continent feeling unnoticed and unwanted (again).
If (almost) any other community had been targeted by an attempted mass murder (likely mass casualty bombing attack) at a gathering marking a sacred day of mourning, do you think it might have made a few more headlines? Might there be a bit more discussion in parliament? Calls for a #RoyalCommission, extensive community discussion of how to address the pervasive #racism very likely at the root of the attack?
There already exists a comprehensive national #antiracism strategy developed over years in consultation with a wide number of relevant experts and stakeholders. It was delivered to the federal government and tabled in parliament over a year ago. The government is yet to respond.
Instead, the duopoly reaches for knee-jerk rushed legislation, atrociously designed, with almost no opportunity for genuine scrutiny, that relies purely on the discredited approach of further #CriminalisationOfDissent Indeed, the existence of these laws is already being weaponised by the #MurdochPress against the very group targeted by the attempted bomb attack, claiming that #Indigenous criticisms of white Australia are racist hate speech and the groups organising the #InvasionDay rallies ought to be proscribed.
Jesus wept.
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CW: Chris Minns: you're picking today to attack an anti-racist movement (again)? #auspol #InvasionDay #26thJan #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWpol
Premier Minns, you claim that your draconian suppression of criticism is motivated by pubic safety and wellbeing.
How does it make Aboriginal people more safe to face increased police powers, when racialised violence from NSW police is one of the core complaints Aboriginal people want to raise with your administration?
Your new anti-protest laws have been used precisely *once* so far: to shut down a peaceful walk by an Aboriginal man accompanied by a few hundred friends, who intended to walk a few hundred metres, not disrupting any traffic or making anyone's life harder. To stop this, your government thought it was worth allocating about as many police officers as there were protesters, in order to physically prevent this dangerous and divisive event from occurring, using extreme force if necessary. What was the grievance of this individual and his friends? The racist violence of NSW police against his people. Yep, that's the perfect moment to premiere these shiny new anti-protest laws.
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CW: A note to non-Australians about Australia Day, 26 January
@futzle Every year, the 26th January sees Invasion Day protest marches and other events mourning genocide and dispossession, celebrating the survival of many of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, and expressing ongoing resistance led by local Indigenous peoples across the continent.
In Gadi (Sydney), most years see tens of thousands of people march from the city to the Yabun festival in Vic Park.
This year will be especially important, given the NSW government's efforts to suppress protest in the name of 'social cohesion' (because denying people a voice has always turned out really well for long-term cohesion, right?). Organisers are planning to march, even if the government extends the anti-protest laws for another two weeks. The more people show up, the less likely it is that the authorities decide to cause trouble.
#InvasionDay #26thJan #jan26 #Auspol #Indigenous #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #SocialCohesion #NSWpol #SuppressionOfDissent #CriminalisationOfDissent
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CW: A note to non-Australians about Australia Day, 26 January
@futzle Every year, the 26th January sees Invasion Day protest marches and other events mourning genocide and dispossession, celebrating the survival of many of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, and expressing ongoing resistance led by local Indigenous peoples across the continent.
In Gadi (Sydney), most years see tens of thousands of people march from the city to the Yabun festival in Vic Park.
This year will be especially important, given the NSW government's efforts to suppress protest in the name of 'social cohesion' (because denying people a voice has always turned out really well for long-term cohesion, right?). Organisers are planning to march, even if the government extends the anti-protest laws for another two weeks. The more people show up, the less likely it is that the authorities decide to cause trouble.
#InvasionDay #26thJan #jan26 #Auspol #Indigenous #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #SocialCohesion #NSWpol #SuppressionOfDissent #CriminalisationOfDissent
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CW: A note to non-Australians about Australia Day, 26 January
@futzle Every year, the 26th January sees Invasion Day protest marches and other events mourning genocide and dispossession, celebrating the survival of many of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, and expressing ongoing resistance led by local Indigenous peoples across the continent.
In Gadi (Sydney), most years see tens of thousands of people march from the city to the Yabun festival in Vic Park.
This year will be especially important, given the NSW government's efforts to suppress protest in the name of 'social cohesion' (because denying people a voice has always turned out really well for long-term cohesion, right?). Organisers are planning to march, even if the government extends the anti-protest laws for another two weeks. The more people show up, the less likely it is that the authorities decide to cause trouble.
#InvasionDay #26thJan #jan26 #Auspol #Indigenous #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #SocialCohesion #NSWpol #SuppressionOfDissent #CriminalisationOfDissent
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CW: A note to non-Australians about Australia Day, 26 January
@futzle Every year, the 26th January sees Invasion Day protest marches and other events mourning genocide and dispossession, celebrating the survival of many of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, and expressing ongoing resistance led by local Indigenous peoples across the continent.
In Gadi (Sydney), most years see tens of thousands of people march from the city to the Yabun festival in Vic Park.
This year will be especially important, given the NSW government's efforts to suppress protest in the name of 'social cohesion' (because denying people a voice has always turned out really well for long-term cohesion, right?). Organisers are planning to march, even if the government extends the anti-protest laws for another two weeks. The more people show up, the less likely it is that the authorities decide to cause trouble.
#InvasionDay #26thJan #jan26 #Auspol #Indigenous #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #SocialCohesion #NSWpol #SuppressionOfDissent #CriminalisationOfDissent
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CW: A note to non-Australians about Australia Day, 26 January
@futzle Every year, the 26th January sees Invasion Day protest marches and other events mourning genocide and dispossession, celebrating the survival of many of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, and expressing ongoing resistance led by local Indigenous peoples across the continent.
In Gadi (Sydney), most years see tens of thousands of people march from the city to the Yabun festival in Vic Park.
This year will be especially important, given the NSW government's efforts to suppress protest in the name of 'social cohesion' (because denying people a voice has always turned out really well for long-term cohesion, right?). Organisers are planning to march, even if the government extends the anti-protest laws for another two weeks. The more people show up, the less likely it is that the authorities decide to cause trouble.
#InvasionDay #26thJan #jan26 #Auspol #Indigenous #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #SocialCohesion #NSWpol #SuppressionOfDissent #CriminalisationOfDissent
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Finally, some arrests associated with the Epstein case...
...except it is of four people in the UK involved in this piece of public service broadcasting/protest, a mini-doco projected onto the walls of Windsor Castle on the evening a certain foreign visitor came for a sleepover.
Their alleged offence? Their brief and accurate overview of publicly-available information about said guest made someone feel bad.
More people ought to see this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8V4VNBw078
#LedByDonkeys #Epstein #Trump #TrumpEpstein #protest #CriminalisationOfDissent #PublicServiceBroadcast #history #documentary #EmperorHasNoClothes
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Why it matters when western governments deliberately blur the lines between the military, administrative and political wings of organisations they accuse of terrorism.
Amongst other ill effects explored by Jonathan Cook, it has a massive chilling effect on public discourse, especially when combined with far-reaching, broadly written 'anti-terrorism' laws prohibiting any speech or behaviour that could be taken to be supportive of such organisations.
In the UK, simply praising the work of doctors saving lives in Gaza potentially leaves you open to prosecution under anti-terrorism laws.
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/why-i-wrote-an-expert-report-against
#UKpol #terrorism #FreeSpeech #media #Auspol #CriminalisationOfDissent
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Today's enormous march was also a powerful repudiation of Premier Chris Minns' attempts to criminalise and demonise public protest in NSW over the last 21 months—efforts that have seen Premier Minns awarded a special medal by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, an individual many believe to be guilty of the crime of incitement to genocide due to numerous public statements he has made in support of the Netanyahu government's genocidal campaign in Gaza. Minns has faced no public consequence from his federal counterparts for accepting this award, despite the notorious origin of the award, and despite the apparent over-reach of a state government official receiving an award for a foreign power for his efforts in suppressing public criticism of that power (as a state representative, he is not meant to meddle in federal foreign policy).
Minns attempts to stifle this march were rejected by the NSW Supreme Court yesterday in a powerful ruling affirming the fact that protest will always involve inconvenience and disruption, and consequently, NSW Police were directed to facilitate rather than suppress today's march.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckirKaU8_94
#ChrisMinns #NSWpol #protest #CriminalisationOfDissent #NSWSupremeCourt #NSWpolice #IsaacHerzog #IncitementToGenocide #MarchForHumanity #Sydney #Gadigal
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I support #DirectAction against #genocide, #ecocide and other #CrimesAgainstHumanity. I oppose the #CriminalisationOfDissent, where that dissent is in the service of human rights, the survival of the oppressed, the habitability of the planet.
I support #PalestineAction.
#protest #CriminalisationOfDissent #UKpol #GeorgeMonbiot #DoubleDownNews
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“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not ill-treat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
— Leviticus 19.33-34Pew pew.
#LA #Andor #CriminalisationOfDissent #protest #ProtestIsNotACrime #authoritarianism #Trump #PoliceState #ACAB #Leviticus #graffiti
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On those who warn against 'divisiveness'
In a time of acrimony and unrest, politicians urge social cohesion and decry those who stoke division. They label protesters troublemakers and haters. They bring in new regulations making it more difficult for ordinary people to publicly criticise the injustices of the status quo and to organise against them in a coherent and effective manner (i.e. #CriminalisationOfDissent).
But real social cohesion can only be built on mutual respect across differences in combination with a sense of shared responsibility for common goods. Respect requires trust. Trust requires honesty and a sustained commitment to working towards shared goals. And so when those who demonise protesters for 'divisiveness' have themselves demonstrated a sustained commitment to dishonesty in service of merely private goods, or goods for a limited group at the expense of those outside it, then it is the accusers who are guilty of their own complaint.
To be established and maintained, social divisions and exclusion always require both the propagation of falsehood and the use of violence to suppress the truth. Thus, to speak frankly about actually existing injustices is not to be divisive, but to hold open the only path towards any kind of genuine social peace.
#divisive #SocialCohesion -
NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns does not seem to have come across a protest that he doesn't want to ban—with PM Albanese and federal Labor backing him up at almost every step of the way.
Feels like these Labor leaders might need a little refresher on the history of the labour movement they purport to represent...
#NSWpol #Auspol #CriminalisationOfDissent #ChrisMinns #AnthonyAlbanese #ALP
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CW: Hate Speech: reflections on Peter Dutton at the Opera House #Auspol 4/3
PS I note that while #Dutton acts as though criticism of the government of #Israel is hateful smearing of all #Jewish people everywhere, he displays an equal lack of nuance in the opposite direction when it comes to #Palestinians, who (in Dutton's mind) are all guilty of the actions of a small group amongst them. Hence he dismissively (libellously) labels all expressions of concern for Palestinian suffering as "Hamas sympathising".
And then he proclaims himself a unifier and those who oppose him as 'divisive'.
While far from full-blown, make no mistake, this speech expresses the fundamental might-makes-right stance of #authoritarianism.
1. Those who are my allies are above criticism, even if they commit horrific atrocities.
2. Those who criticise me and my allies are #divisive, and ought to face social opprobrium and coercive state violence.
4/3
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In over two decades of regular participation in protest, not once have I seen mainstream media cover an event in a way that I felt did it justice. Two or three times an article or video story has come close. But they have been the exception. If they bother covering protests at all, most major media outlets look only for angles to discredit what is happening.
And thus has it been for this movement. After the first week, when tabloids could push a (now discredited) claim of antisemitic chants, and the second week, when politicians floated the idea of criminalising certain expressions of public solidarity with Palestinians (even as they were being slaughtered by Israeli bombs in unprecedented numbers), the mainstream media has almost entirely ignored us. Breathless, extensive coverage of every speaker at a recent (apparently much smaller) pro-Israel rally. But almost total silence when it comes to arguably one of the most significant protest movements of recent decades.
4/6#MediaFail #MediaBias #Auspol #CriminalisationOfDissent #GazaGenocide
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@sister_ratched Oh yes, that's been clear for a while.
The #LECC (police 'watchdog') is still massively underfunded (to the point of being able to investigate a whopping 1.4% of all the complaints made), the NSW Police Commissioner is still paid more than the PM, and none of the Coalition's anti-protest laws that contribute to the #CriminalisationOfDissent have been repealed, so no roses for #NSWLabor government there.
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CW: Suppression of speech about Israel-Palestine
I assume the #FreeSpeech warriors who have fought against #CancelCulture will be up in arms (digitally) about this?
Scores of Palestinian-Israelis have been arrested for social media posts expressing solidarity with the plight of #Palestinians subject to constant bombardment, starvation, displacement and severe dehydration.
In some cases, allegedly the posts were as innocuous as this:
"a young man in the village of Kabul in northern #Israel was arrested for five days simply for posting a photo of children in Gaza with the words “my heart is with you”."Hundreds of people have been fired from their jobs for online comments, posts or even merely clicking 'like' on human rights organisations with a focus on #Palestine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/israeli-arabs-reprisals-online-solidarity-gaza
This is just one manifestation of an increasingly global #CriminalisationOfDissent, and not just about #Gaza. Examples abound.
Something I'm going to try to remember the next time a reactionary complains that a racist/misogynist/abusive white celebrity is getting 'cancelled' by the mere existence of negative press about their actions.
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Remembering victims of church child abuse; persecuted #LGBTQ+ people (including those pushed out of the church or belittled and silenced within it); women denied safety, dignity, and leadership; and all those who have suffered ecclesiastical bullying or had powerful church figures suppress the truth.
Remembering those who have had the police and courts defend their abuser, and those whose protests have been disrupted, blocked, criminalised and attacked by NSW Police.
And today, outside St Mary's Cathedral, on Gadigal land, I celebrate the lives of those who use their voice and lives to speak and act for #ClimateJustice, for equality, for mutual respect amongst all genders and sexualities.
And I remember the testimony of Saint Mary, that God casts down the mighty but lifts the lowly; God fills the hungry but sends the rich away. (Luke 1.52-53)
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CW: Criminalisation of Dissent (NSW)
“The environment and justice movements are increasingly under threat of legal sanctions and arrest for acts of nonviolent resistance to the extractive industries, especially logging and fossil fuels.” — David Shoebridge
NSW courts have recently delivered a hefty prison sentence for a lady who blocked a lane of traffic for less than 30 minutes to protest climate disruption, while giving the green light to yet another massive #FossilGas project involving the destruction of native forest (against the repeatedly expressed urgings of local #Gomeroi people and against the evidence of one of Australia's top climate scientists).
#CriminalisationOfDissent #ClimateCrisis #Santos #ClimateCriminals
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CW: Creeping police state
Did you know: there are protesters in Australia who allegedly committed acts that just a few months ago would have been legally considered minor traffic offences, yet who are now facing months or years locked up, and are currently under bail conditions that effectively prevent them from going online at all, from being able to contact many/most of their friends, and who are subject to the complete loss of any right to privacy (being able to have all their devices searched by police at any point, and they must share any passwords)? And all this without yet having been convicted of any crime, while awaiting trial for alleged offences that just nine months ago would have most likely been resolved with a fine of a few hundred dollars.
#CriminalisationOfDissent #auspol #FreeVioletCoco #AusPol2022 #NSWpol
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Today's political prisoner by @firstdogonthemoon.
"You are welcome to argue that Australia's state and federal governments (along with the police) are not simply the armed wing of the #FossilFuelIndustry... Write your explanation on a postcard and mail it to your grandchildren"
#ClimateProtest #auspol #AusPol2022 #FreeVioletCoco #ClimateCriminals #DirtyEnergyDirtyPolitics #DirtyEnergy #CriminalisationOfDissent
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CW: Criminalisation of Dissent (WA)
In Western Australia, #police raid the home of an Indigenous activist while she was in court as an expert witness. No charges are laid. But intimidation accomplished as part of the escalating #CriminalisationOfDissent across #auspol. #WApol
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CW: Criminalisation of Dissent (NSW)
In April 2022, #ClimateJustice protester Deanna “Violet” Coco blocked a single lane of motor vehicle traffic for 25 minutes. On Friday, she was sentenced to 15 months in prison, in a further escalation of #CriminalisationOfDissent in #NSWpol.
Today, conservative NSW Premier Dominic #Perrottet celebrated the penalty, saying it was "pleasing to see", because her #protest "put our way of life at risk" and that protests must never "inconvenience people".
What a puddle of putrid propaganda. The entire point of protest is to be inconvenient. Name a single successful historical protest movement that never inconvenienced anyone.
Just a couple of years ago, this kind of action would most likely have received (at most) a fine of a few hundred dollars. Yet the vulnerability of the status quo is betrayed by Perrottet's line about the risk to "our way of life".
Whose way of life is at risk from which reckless actions? Because the way of life, health, well-being & very lives of billions are being damaged or lost daily by the activities that Violet was protesting. She was, in a small way, trying to defend against far greater harm.
If you want the book thrown at her, what do you want thrown at the dirty energy companies & their political representatives in parliament?