Bookmark | Print

Home » 2007 » #707 » Australian News » Charges against Packer protesters dismissed

Duroyan Fertl, Sydney

“It is a disgrace that these charges were brought in the first place and then clumsily pursued by the prosecution”, said protester Stephen Langford, who had all charges against him dismissed. He said the peaceful protest “should have been allowed to proceed, as it had begun, in an orderly fashion instead of being shut down by police arrests”.

According to Alex Bainbridge, whose only charge was dismissed, “The charges that were laid — operating a PA system, refusing a direction to stop protesting and then the dubious charges of resisting arrest and hindering police — clearly represent an attack on free speech”.

“The prosecution case was weak — ‘internally inconsistent’ in places as the magistrate noted — but was pursued because the police want to intimidate people into not participating in protest activity.” Bainbridge argued that this “applies doubly so” now, in the lead-up to planned September APEC protests against US President George Bush and PM John Howard, “but it will not work; we will not be intimidated”.

“Those of us who ended up pleaded guilty did so only for pragmatic reasons”, explained Diane Fieldes. “We faced the choice between two injustices — the injustice of pleading guilty to something we didn’t do or the injustice of suffering further expense and inconvenience in court. Ultimately we pleaded guilty to one minor charge because we had no indication that we would get justice by proceeding further with the case.”

Tools

• Bookmark This Page
• Print This Page