By Garry Walters and Ian Close
MELBOURNE — A "Police Frame-ups" public meeting, organised by the Campaign Exposing the Frame-up of Tim Anderson and other groups on February 20, heard speakers from the Aboriginal and Irish struggles and the campaigns in support of Tim Anderson and Kerry Browning.
Nigel Anderson, chairing, pointed to the similar features of these struggles and the benefits of linking up to expose and challenge political frame-ups.
Aboriginal activist Gary Foley called the current charges against Tim the "greatest miscarriage of justice since the last time he was framed".
Historically, Foley noted, there had been "no police here BC (before Cook) — but today Australia had been turned into a vast penal colony".
Foley said that "Tim Anderson's crime was to have worked with the Koori people". Stressing that the police and the media combine in political frame-ups, Foley urged the meeting to encourage other people to be aware of the attacks.
Tony Bidgood, the state secretary of Australian Aid for Ireland, said it was apparent that European political activists supporting national liberation campaigns are being put on trial for "terrorism". He cited in particular the maximum security incarceration of Gerry Hanratty and Gerry McGeough in Germany for two years.
Kerry Browning told the meeting that Australia's political police, while purporting to represent the interests of Australians, in practice serve the ruling interests of paranoid monopoly groups.
Browning spoke of the difficulty of financing a legal response to the frame-up charges that she fire-bombed a South African embassy car. She noted that increasingly the political police were being deployed against all major progressive organisations and that there was an urgent need for linking up defences against police harassment. Browning stressed that "if you don't fight these frame-ups, it could happen to you".
The meeting concluded with discussion, highlighting the harassment of Tim in the NSW penal system. Tim has just been shifted from Long Bay to Lithgow jail, apparently in retaliation for his continuing efforts to organise fellow prisoners for improved conditions.