Australian Democracy Network

Last week we saw police injure at least 100 protestors with rubber bullets, OC spray and stun grenades, causing one protestor to lose part of their ear. Independent legal observer accounts of the protests from Melbourne Activist Legal Support identified that coercive crowd maneuvers from police and the use of police weapons created tensions between police and protestors.

Media reporting of these tensions uncritically repeated police accounts of events, including the claim that acid was thrown at the police, with accounts since stating that police were sprayed with a smelly but harmless liquid.

Dangerous weapons at protests infringe on human rights and curtail communities’ capacity for democratic expression. Ten legal and human rights organisations have already called for them to be banned, including Amnesty International and Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria.

Help protect protest rights by writing to your MP to demand:

An independent inquiry into the police response to Land Forces protests
A ban on dangerous police weapons
An independent body to investigate police misconduct

Last week we saw police injure at least 100 protestors with rubber bullets, OC spray and stun grenades, causing one protestor to lose part of their ear. Independent legal observer accounts of the protests from Melbourne Activist Legal Support identified that coercive crowd maneuvers from police and the use of police weapons created tensions between police and protestors.

Media reporting of these tensions uncritically repeated police accounts of events, including the claim that acid was thrown at the police, with accounts since stating that police were sprayed with a smelly but harmless liquid.

Dangerous weapons at protests infringe on human rights and curtail communities’ capacity for democratic expression. Ten legal and human rights organisations have already called for them to be banned, including Amnesty International and Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria.

Help protect protest rights by writing to your MP to demand:

An independent inquiry into the police response to Land Forces protests
A ban on dangerous police weapons
An independent body to investigate police misconduct

Call for a ban on dangerous police weapons

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Subject:

I am writing today to express my support for establishing an inquiry into the policing of protests at the Land Forces conference last week and banning dangerous police weapons at protests, after at least 100 people participating in the protest were injured by police.

One person suffered a perforated eardrum and lost part of their ear after being hit with a rubber bullet. The disproportionate and pre-emptive use of pepper spray, stun grenades and police horses against both protestors and independent legal observers at last week’s Land Forces protest raised serious questions around the adequacy of safeguards around police use of force at protests.

This was the fourteenth time this year that Victoria Police have used pepper spray on protestors, with children as young as eight years old previously affected by pepper spray use at protests.

Ten human rights and legal organisations, including Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria, Liberty Victoria, and Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, have called for dangerous police weapons to be banned.

Communities should be able to participate in protest without fear of serious injury from police use of force. I ask that you support an inquiry into the police response to the protests last week, explore a ban on dangerous police weapons at protests and work towards establishing an independent body to investigate police misconduct.

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