Police protect Max Brenner from anti-apartheid protesters

Of the 19 protesters arrested at a Palestine solidarity protest outside Israeli-owned store Max Brenner in Melbourne on July 1, 13 were issued with bail conditions preventing them from entering the QV shopping centre or Melbourne Central shopping centres in Melbourne.

The Melbourne Central shopping centre has a major city train station on its bottom floor.

The protest was part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the apartheid state of Israel. It is modelled on the campaign to boycott South Africa in the 1970s and ’80s.

The aim of the bail conditions is to prevent the protesters from taking part in further protests outside the Max Brenner stores in QV and Melbourne Central shopping centres. Most of the 19 protesters were charged with besetting or trespass.

On July 27, 11 protesters applied to have the bail conditions dropped. Defending the application, lawyer Rob Stary referred to the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, which guarantees freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of thought and freedom to protest.

He also referred to a Supreme Court case in which the court determined that anti-logging activists are allowed to re-enter a logging area.

Initially Inspector Michael Beattie gave evidence that the July 1 protest “expressed a lot of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment”.

However, under cross-examination, he admitted that was a “poor choice of words”, that there was no anti-Jewish sentiment expressed and that the BDS group “is not anti-Jewish”.

In his evidence, Beattie said the police had a “pro-prosecution” approach to the July 1 protest and police had to “draw a line in the sand” and were likely to load up the protesters already charged with extra charges.

He revealed that the police considered the people leading chanting on a megaphone at the July 1 protest as part of the BDS leadership and therefore targets for arrest.

Beattie also revealed he had had frequent meetings with the two shopping centres’ managements, the state and national managers of Max Brenner and the Victorian Government Solicitor over the BDS protests.



Under cross-examination, Beattie also revealed that the police had sent an undercover officer to attend a civil disobedience training session organised by the BDS campaign.

Sergeant Falconer, was the police officer in charge of police tactics at the July 1 protest, pointing out who to arrest and organising the police movements. He revealed how police tactics had changed in response to each of the four BDS protest actions since 2010.

He said that at the first couple of BDS protests “prevention of injury and damage to property was the police aim, on 20 May … the aim was to stop rushing of the police line. Now the aim is to allow a legal business [Max Brenner] to operate and people’s access in and out of the store and the free access of the public to the store”.

Under cross-examination, Falconer agreed that the protests at QV and Melbourne Central shopping centres “occurred in a public place”.

Unfortunately, the magistrate did not drop the bail conditions but varied them to ban the 11 protesters from going within 50 metres of the Max Brenner stores in QV and Melbourne Central shopping centres, except for the purpose of travel or going to the doctor.

The protesters will face court over their charges on September 5.

The police revealed through their evidence in this case that their role is not to protect the public from injury but to protect the rights of business. As soon as the right to protest impinges on companies making a profit, the democratic right to protest is suppressed by the police.

Stary told Green Left Weekly he is worried about the police being used to “criminalise protest and dissent” in Victoria. He said that “police should not be used to protect the interests of a commercial company”.

On July 29, more than 300 protesters marched between the Max Brenner stores in Melbourne Central and QV, holding sit-ins outside both. Despite an intimidating police presence, there were no arrests.

[Sue Bolton is one of the 19 protesters arrested and charged at the July 1 protest.]