BY DALE
MILLS
SYDNEY A group of volunteer solicitors, barristers and law students set up to monitor police behaviour at demonstrations have expressed serious concern at the refusal by police to allow the April 2 student anti-war protest, organised by Books Not Bombs (BNB), to march through city and the use of pepper spray by police against protesters.
The Legal Observers Project (LOP) is writing a report to be published on April 9 detailing possible breaches of the law by the police at the April 2 Sydney Town Hall Square anti-war rally and possible claims by protesters for compensation.
The initial concern of the legal observers was with police threats to ban the BNB protest from marching. At a meeting between the protest organisers and police negotiators on March 28, the chief police negotiator said little except that if an application for a march permit was made, NSW police assistant commissioner Adams would not approve it. This in itself raises issues of procedural impropriety making a decision before an application had been made.
Worse was to come. At 11am on April 2, a legal observer was informed that police had ignored a report given to them that a demonstrator had been punched in the head.
The most worrying aspect of police conduct at the April demonstration, however, was the extensive use of undercover police officers, at least one of whom carried (and used) a concealed weapon. At approximately 2pm, an undercover police officer used a chemical weapon known as pepper spray against 5-6 young protesters. One legal observer reported that the spraying was indiscriminate.
The attacker then fled the crowd, was followed by one legal observer and some protesters, and was challenged to prove that he was a police officer by showing identification, or let himself be subject to a citizen's arrest for a serious assault.
It was only after the attacker fled into a secret annexe to the Woolworth's department store building opposite Sydney's Town Hall Square, that a uniformed police officer confirmed that the assailant was in fact an undercover cop.
Public comments reported in the press as being made by Adams that the assailant was an undercover police officer who was backed up against a wall and had to use pepper spray to defend himself do not accord with any of evidence of the incident gathered by the LOP.
Legal observers have spoken with five people affected by the pepper spray, six witnesses present at the spraying, and have observed a video of the incident, none of which show the officer being backed up against a wall.
A similar incident occurred between a legal observer and another plain-clothes police officer. After being informed by a child that his brother had been detained and assaulted by a strange man, the legal observer questioned the man in the belief that this was an example of racist violence against a child of Middle-Eastern appearance. The man responded to the legal observer by saying, I'm a police officer.
It was only after threats of a citizen's arrest being made against the man, that another plain-clothes cop (who showed his identification) confirmed that the man was a police officer.
It is reprehensible that police officers in plain clothes attempt to infiltrate demonstrations. Their presence, by their dress and conduct, after all, is a standing joke among knowledgeable protesters. Indeed, I had only to put a mobile phone to his ear to flush out the nearest pair of undercover cops who would just happen to assume a position standing about 15 centimetres behind me, obviously attempting to eavesdrop on my conversation.
The LOP is calling on NSW police commissioner Ken Moroney to order an enquiry, to be held in public, into the pepper spray assault on the student protesters by the plain-clothes police officer. It is also calling on Moroney to instruct his officers to obey the law: when a plain-clothes cop says he or she is a police officer, they must show identification proving that that is the case.
The use of plain-clothes officers, acting as spies and/or agents provocateurs, in protest situations is a serious inroad into the civil rights that Australians have become accustomed to.
[Dale Mills is a volunteer with the Legal Observers Project, Sydney. Law students, solicitors and barristers who would like to volunteer can contact him on 0417 498 512.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 9, 2003.
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