Vivienne Porzsolt, a member of Jews Against the Occupation and the Socialist Alliance, is one of four Australians on the Canadian boat Tahrir, part of the Freedom Flotilla attempting to break Israel's starvation siege on Gaza. She reports on what happened when Greek authorities acted to stop the boats from sailing on July 4. A protest was held outside the Greek consulate in Sydney on July 7.
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While the soldiers with the coastguard taking our boat were not quite so heavily armed as they were for the US boat, they were armed. The soldiers were very gentle indeed, much more so than police at the Max Brenner demo in Melbourne. They kept saying they did not want to hurt us. On our last night, the coastguard guys joined us in partying.
Before boarding us, the coast guard had tried some water cannon, but this had no pressure behind it and we just got a little wet, no punishment under the burning Mediterranean sun!
Australian Michael Coleman and Canadian Soha Kneen held up the coast guard for vital minutes by taking kayaks in front of their boat. They were charged and released yesterday with suspended sentences of 30 days each.