Student activist Cherish Kuehlmann went to court on March 1 to challenge her bail conditions that prevent her from entering Sydney’s CBD.
Kuehlmann was arrested at midnight on February 18, after attending a protest for housing justice at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Martin Place with the student group “Get a Room”.
She was charged with aggravated trespass and released on conditions that barred her from coming within two kilometres of the CBD.
Activists supporting her included colleagues from Get a Room, Socialist Alternative, 350.org, Socialist Alliance, Green Left, NSW Greens MP for Newtown Jenny Leong, Student Representative Council at the University of Sydney, Community Action for Rainbow Rights, National Union of Students and the National Tertiary Education Union.
Kuehlmann said there was a real need for house justice, and that “the real crime is that housing is used as a vehicle for the accumulation of wealth by a privileged few”.
Leong spoke about her own experience of police harassment during the campaign against the use of sniffer dogs. April Holcombe spoke about state and police oppression of LGBTIQ people.
The court dropped Kuehlmann’s bail conditions.