By Chris Raab The four 1995 editors of the La Trobe University student paper Rabelais are being threatened with six years' jail and a possible $72,000 fine each. An increasing number of students in Victoria are being arrested and charged with a variety of ridiculous offences, as part of a concerted effort to censor, intimidate, criminalise and repress the student movement. Since the introduction of legislation by the Victorian and WA Liberal governments in 1994, the activities of student organisations in those states have been severely restricted. Amongst other things, under Victorian law no student organisation may spend student fees on a student newspaper. In the face of these restrictions, the federal ALP government declared that it would fund student organisations to an amount equal to that which would formerly have been spent on activities now forbidden under state law. Student organisations were given assurances by the minister for employment, education and training, Simon Crean, that the government would not attempt to use federal funding as a means of control, and that it would attempt to protect freedom of expression and creative activity in university life.
Media spasm
The July 1995 edition of
Rabelais contained an article entitled "The Art of Shoplifting", following a tradition of articles which have floated around in student papers for years. However, the frenzy which surrounded the publication of this article took on unprecedented proportions. The Retail Traders Association — which is dominated by large corporations like Coles-Myer rather than your local milk bar — called for the edition to be pulped and began a campaign which has continued to this day. It threatened to get an injunction to stop the RMIT student newspaper
Catalyst republishing the article, and successfully applied to the national censorship board to have
Rabelais and
Catalyst banned. (The editors discovered this only several months later, from documents included in the prosecution brief.) The La Trobe University vice-chancellor publicly deplored the article. The media spasm carried over from talkback radio, to the television news (all channels), to newspapers and current affairs programs and back to talkback radio. Then, on John Laws' show, Crean made an apparently spontaneous promise to remove funds for the July edition of
Rabelais from the La Trobe SRC. He then had his lawyers search for a law which
Rabelais could be said to have broken, and wrote a letter to the La Trobe SRC informing it of this decision. Pre-empting any court or legal process, Crean claimed that the article contravened the Victorian Classification of Film and Publications Act 1990, in supposedly producing and distributing material which "promotes, incites and instructs in matters of crime". Crean then handed the article to the Victorian attorney-general, Jan Wade — presumably to begin to provide a "legal" basis for his censorship. The four
Rabelais editors were arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated by the Preston CIB. In January, three of the four editors were charged and summonsed to appear in the Magistrates Court. Crean later fined other student newspapers which published the article. This is an unprecedented use of this act, and would vastly expand the scope of censorship laws. The threat to
Rabelais and its editors is a threat to the independence of every student organisation and to many other community groups and trade unions. The Victorian government has declared that many forms of protest around the Grand Prix are illegal. Will someone from Save Albert Park be arrested and possibly jailed for producing a leaflet? Many strikes and pickets are technically illegal. Will union officials be jailed for producing a union journal?
Defend free speech
Shoplifting is not the issue here; the fundamental issues concern student control of student affairs and opposition to government censorship and intimidation. In censoring
Rabelais and other student newspapers, the federal ALP government was replicating the Victorian Liberal government's desire to control student unions. Victorian attorney-general Jan Wade is continuing the logic by attempting to jail the editors. This is not an isolated incident; there has been substantial police harassment of the anarchist Barricade Books, and one member of the shop's collective is currently being charged under a different part of the same act being used against the
Rabelais editors, for the distribution of a "Fuck the police" T-shirt, a pamphlet detailing a homosexual relationship and similar material. Universities and the Victorian government have been attempting to severely restrict the ability of student organisations to operate autonomously. At La Trobe in 1995, the university administration attempted to force the SRC into signing away much of its freedom by, among other things, refusing to hand student money to the student organisation. When students responded by occupying the administration, the university gave in and handed over the money. However, since then two students have been arrested in retaliation for the occupation and charged with criminal damage, which has a maximum penalty of 10 years' jail. The police say they are looking for more La Trobe students. Defend the
Rabelais Editors Campaign is a part of the Student Defence Committee, phone (03) 9479 2976, (03) 9479 3550, or PO Box 146, La Trobe University Post Office, Bundoora Victoria 3083. The Defence Committee meets Thursdays at 5.30pm at RMIT, meeting room 2. There will be a rally on the March 25, 9.30am at the Preston Magistrates Court, Roseberry Avenue, Preston.