BY TONY ILTIS
MELBOURNE — A non-violent blockade of a meeting featuring immigration minister Philip Ruddock, extreme right-wing Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt and anti-immigration academic Bob Birrell was violently attacked by police in front of Friday night city shopping crowds on May 31. Five protesters were taken to hospital by ambulance and several others were injured. There were no arrests.
The 300-strong blockade was organised by the Refugee Action Collective. The meeting, organised by the right-wing Institute for Public Affairs, was billed as a "Dialogue on Immigration" but as the only views represented were anti-immigrant, RAC decided to call the blockade to attempt to shut down the meeting.
The blockade forced the immigrant-bashing forum to be moved to a different venue, on the other side of Collins Street from that advertised. When protesters began blockading the new venue, police on horseback charged the protesters from two directions, injuring protesters in the process.
While the police did get speakers in through a side entrance, protesters felt that the blockade had successfully highlighted the presence of the pro-refugee ideas the forum's organisers had attempted to deny. The anti-refugee meeting was smaller than the protest outside.
RAC activist Matt Rich, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party, told Green Left Weekly: "The meeting was intended to portray the "refugee debate" as a debate about how to stop them coming, not about whether we should welcome them or not. We turned their fake dialogue into a real debate, which is probably why the police tried to silence us."
From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.
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