By Yael Winikoff

MELBOURNE -- Protesters at the Otway forest blockade have accused Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union members and pro-loggers of human rights violations against them.

On January 25, 50 CFMEU forestry division members, employers, contractors and their family members picketed 16 Otway Ranges Environment Network protesters blockading a logging coupe at Beech Forest. The picket dispersed late on January 29. During the picket, protesters were not allowed to leave or enter the blockade site.

Three people managed to escape, and one was allowed to leave due to illness. Adrian Whitehead, spokesperson for OREN, said protesters do not feel safe despite a 24-hour police presence. Whitehead spoke of “incidents of intimidation and harassment, including flood lights being shined and chainsaws running continuously.”

The blockaders are protesting clear-felling in the Otway Ranges. Last year, 300 hectares of high conservation native forest was logged. Eighty percent of logs taken from this cool temperate rainforest end up as woodchips for export or in Kleenex (Kimberley-Clark) paper products.

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