Anti-WTO protesters to defy street march ban

BY IGGY KIM

SYDNEY — Activists
planning demonstrations during the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mini-ministerial
meeting in Sydney, November 14-15, have condemned the NSW Labor government's
plans to prohibit street marches during the meeting.

The NSW police have indicated that they will to refuse to grant permits
for any marches through the city from November 13 to November 16.

Organisers of a November 13 Free Movement of People march were told
on November 7 they will not be granted a police permit to march to the
immigration department's Sydney offices to protest against the federal
government's treatment of asylum seekers.

“This directive has clearly come from police minister Michael Costa”,
march organiser Mark Goudkamp told Green Left Weekly. “Clearly,
the idea of the free movement of people is an anathema to the likes of
Costa.”

Simon Butler, an organiser of the November 14 youth-led March Against
the War and the WTO also condemned the refusal of the police to grant march
permits.

“It's obvious that this tactic by Costa and the police is meant to intimidate
people from coming out to protest against the war on Iraq and the tyrannical
trade policies of the WTO”, said Butler. “It's designed to scare people
away in advance and leaves it open for the police to try to provoke a confrontation
on the day against an officially 'illegal march'.

“But I think it might backfire on the government. My feeling is that
when people realise that peaceful protests against the WTO are effectively
being banned it could encourage them to turn up to defend the basic rights
of free speech and free assembly. We've submitted our march permit and
we've laboured the point to the police that this will be a peaceful but
vibrant march through the city. So they've got absolutely no excuse.”

Goudkamp stated that the Free Movement of People March would go ahead
regardless of the police threats. “This is an outrageous stifling of the
right to demonstrate. We are particularly concerned about the rights of
many temporary protection visa holders who have indicated they would attend
this peaceful march. We will still be marching and making it clear we won't
be intimidated by this draconian proposal.”

Butler agreed that any attempt to stop the protests against the WTO
had to be defied. “For the Carr government to make such an attack on our
civil liberties is reminiscent of the anti-democratic, anti-street march
policy of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland in the 1970s
and '80s. Our response to [NSW Premier Bob] Carr and Costa's intimidation
will be the same as the protesters back then. We intend to march peacefully
anyway. The right to march in the streets is a right that has been won
through struggle. We don't intend to give up our rights.”

From Green Left Weekly, November 13, 2002.

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From GLW issue 516