Dale Mills
After US peace activist Scott Parkin was deported from Australia on September 15 for being a "threat to national security" many students he worked with at Sydney University are being put under surveillance.
On September 15, Sydney University student Patrick Langosch was arrested by plain clothes police officers in Newtown. He was with some friends on his way home from a protest against Muslim scapegoating and in defence of civil liberties, organised by the Socialist Alliance outside the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre.
Langosch was arrested and charged with offences said to relate to a voluntary student unionism (VSU) protest on August 10. During the arrest, one police officer told a friend of Langosch that "if you do evil, then you will be punished".
A similar incident took place two weeks earlier at Sydney University when a tutor leafleting against VSU was taken from the campus by plain clothes police, also said to be in relation to the August 10 demonstration. A further three students from Sydney University have been arrested in relation to a protest at the Forbes Global CEO conference.
The student arrests, as well as the deportation of Parkin, seem to indicate one of two things: the level of surveillance of protesters has reached new heights; or that the police feel confident enough to reveal the level of surveillance by making public arrests for very trivial offences.
Paddy Gibson, from the Sydney University SRC, told Green Left Weekly that many activists "have been shaken by the recent detention and deportation of Scott Parkin". He said that many of the Howard government's proposed amendments to the terror legislation "seek to criminalise vague actions such as 'supporting Australia's enemies' and are aimed squarely at those who oppose the government".
To help with the students' campaign against the charges phone Paddy on 0415 800 586.
From Green Left Weekly, September 28, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.