Three protesters were convicted on December 20 over a protest the previous January at weapons company Boeing. They were targetting Boeing’s complicity in Israel’s genocide against the people of Gaza.
“Our goal was that people should know that Boeing is a weapons company,” protestor Margie Pestorius told Green Left. The group is trying to “withdraw the social license” for the “vast amount of Australian money going to Boeing”.
The protest, last January 16, was organised immediately after South Africa’s government presented its genocide case to the International Court of Justice. Twelve protesters held banners, read poetry, prayed and pasted pictures of children on a glass display.
Pestorius said it was a “memorial to 15,000 children murdered in Gaza since the Israeli genocide commenced in October 2023”. Many of these children have been killed with Boeing ballistic weapons, attack helicopters and fighter planes.
Amnesty International released two pictures of bomb fragments with Boeing serial numbers soon after Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza began in October 2023.
These two bombs alone killed 19 children and 24 adults, Pestorius said. Boeing also “expedited orders worth millions of dollars of JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] bombs to Israel”.
Dave Sprigg, Tempest Knight and Pestorius were each found guilty for protesting at Boeing Defence.
Knight pleaded guilty to unlawful assembly and wilful damage as part of a plea deal where the “enter with intent to commit an indictable offence” charge was dropped.
Sprigg and Pestorius participated in the four-day trial, representing themselves, and one day of conviction with magistrates’ remarks and sentencing hearings.
Sprigg was ordered to pay $1500 restitution towards a $5000 bill, even though the company admitted in court that they had not replaced the glass doors of the weapons display cabinet.
Pestorius was found guilty of assault and entering the premises, and fined $1000. No conviction was recorded for the “assault”.
“The assault was admitted in court to be very minor, with no effect and was a soft brushing of one person past another,” she said. It was determined to have happened as she stood in front of the door to prevent it from being closed.
“I was enabling communication from one space through to another,” she said. “Also, others moved through and pasted the pictures, read poetry and made speeches and prayed.”
Pestorius was banned from attending four different Boeing weapon’s venues. She faces a more serious charge with a a maximum sentence of five years in prison, on March 6, for refusing to hand over a PIN to her phone, despite a warrant.
The activists are connected to peace group Wage Peace and all are committed to non-violence. Sprigg and another activist have received $900 fines at an Ipswich court in mid-December for a similar protest.
[Support the crowdfund for the protesters’ legal expenses and court costs.]