Free speech campaign widens

By Maurice Sibelle

BRISBANE -- The campaign for free speech in the Queen Street Mall is gaining support against Lord Mayor Jim Soorley's attempt to further restrict the right of peaceful assembly.

Support for the campaign has been declared by the Electrical Trades Union, the Transport Workers Union and Waterside Workers Federation. The University of Queensland students union joined the Queensland Greens, International Socialist Organisation and Democratic Socialist Party in condemning the introduction of new regulations and enforcement of existing undemocratic regulations.

Sections of the ALP have come out in opposition to the Labor council's attacks on democratic rights. The Labor Party's West End branch has been added to the list of supporters of the Free Speech in the Mall campaign.

The campaign began in January this year when the council began implementing Bjelke-Petersen regulations which ban the distribution or sale of literature, the erection of stalls or amplified speaking. The council's new regulations prohibit peaceful assemblies when the mall management have arranged an “approved promotion” such as fashion parades.

Three activists were arrested in the mall at a protest on May 14 after council officers and police began harassing newspaper sellers from the International Socialist Organisation.

Susan Price, spokesperson for the Democratic Socialist Party, condemned the police actions. “The police are deliberating picking out activists for harassment. They are inflaming the situation with their use of force.”

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