Climate group cop bikie bail terms

By VERONICA ANASSIS

Extinction Rebellion (XR) environmental demonstrators were arrested at Broadway last Monday where they were detained and “starved” into signing “unfair” bail agreements, according to the climate change activist group. The peaceful protestors were offered “extreme” bail conditions after they claimed they were refused food for long periods by Police whilst in detention for their obstructive marches. The conditions, usually enforced on organised bikie gangs, included bans of contact with other members and entering within 2km of the CBD.

At Railway Square on the day, hundreds were forcibly removed by police “aggressively” – according to witnesses at the event – including pain compliance methods used to extract elderly men from being seated and lying on the road they’d blocked.
Most of the 38 members taken to local Police stations were held for over ten hours, despite being allowed to be held for a maximum of six. The two members who refused to sign the bail terms were held for 17 hours – with no food.

Spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, Elly Baxter, says what occurred is a “blatant misuse of bail”: pressuring protesters to sign arbitrary terms that would have been thrown out of Court.
“[After ten hours] in the middle of the night – when they are exhausted and starving – they are asked to sign bail conditions,” Ms Baxter told City Hub. “They won’t be released unless they sign those bail agreements, and the Police are able make those conditions whatever they like.
“The peaceful protest was a very minor offense of blocking traffic or not following directions, where the maximum penalty is just over 2000 dollars. And [NSW Police] were using bail conditions that are imposed to break up bikie gangs,” she said.

The following day the bail terms were promptly thrown out by a Magistrate and the two XR participants were granted unconditional bail. NSW Police had no comment on their methods to secure bail agreements but said safety was always the “first priority”.

Spring surge
Many major cities have been stormed with stunts of “peaceful civil disobedience” by XR as part of their one week of Spring Rebellion. In Brisbane a protester hung suspended in a hammock from the Story Bridge last week, and 35 members were arrested for blocking traffic on William Jolly Bridge. Melbourne protestors have blocked busy roadways in underwear-clad marches showing they are “vulnerable” and “overexposed”.
The disruptions have roused hostility from Government officials for being “extreme” and a public nuisance. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told Nine Network they were radical “outliers,” while others have branded them as “attention seekers”.

Ms Baxter admitted they have been driven to sacrifice civil liberties to get noticed.
“There is an element of it that is about attracting attention,” she told City Hub, “because we’ve been on the A to B marches that the police have approved. We’ve signed petitions. We’ve written letters. We’ve lobbied Government. And nothing has changed.
“None of us want to be here doing this,” she responded, pointing fingers at the Government who accuse them. “We’ve got 75-year-old men lying down on the street being dragged off by police and having to be taken to hospital, and he’s [sic] doing that because he wants there to be a future for his grandchildren and their grandchildren. We want the government to act but they simply won’t.
“The last thing we have left as citizens of democracy is to sacrifice our personal liberty and we do believe that it’s that serious.”

Head in the sand
XR’s Sydney group continued their week-long protests and hit the beaches on Friday with non-disruptive symbolic visuals concerning climate change denial. Over 100 protesters buried their heads in the sand of Manly Beach for one minute, to bring home the futility of wilfully ignoring the “climate emergency”.
The following day at Bondi Beach a giant hourglass was formed by a human chain of protesters to symbolise planet earth on borrowed time. The event also featured 20 members cloaked in crimson and painted white faces – the now recognisable Red Brigade get-up, which features in many of XR’s world-wide protests.

“As we face into the Climate Emergency, it seems many around us have their heads in the sand, afraid to face the reality of what is coming,” said organisers on the event’s Facebook page.

Locked up for lock-ons: Queensland is now banning protest lock-on devices following the XR August protests, where protesters glued themselves to roads and forced their arms into steel cylinders. The law changes announced by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, will give police search and seizure powers where they suspect possession of devices that can attach protesters to objects. They have been deemed “dangerous devices” by the Premier due to the potential hazards and delays they pose to police to extract them from obstructed areas.