Around 150 people braved the rain on Saturday at Lismore’s Peace Park to highlight the harsh sentencing of Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco for stopping a lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in April this year and call to reverse the NSW anti-protest laws.
Coco has received a 15-month sentence with an eight month non-parole period and no bail pending an appeal to be heard in March 2023. The sentence has been labelled as ‘disproportionate’ by human rights advocates.
Speaking to the crowd Lismore Councillor and Greens candidate for Lismore Adam Guise told the crowd that ‘their laws are outrageous, persecuting activists speaking out against fossil fuel insanity’.
‘Tragically Liberals, Nationals and Labor are in lock step in inflicting these laws on the people who are sounding the alarm on the dangerous impacts of climate change,’ he said.
‘The Greens have been standing with the community for decades calling out the climate crisis and seeking to protect our way of life from this fossil fuel insanity.
‘I’ve stood on the front lines with this community against coal seam gas (CSG) campaigning at Bentley which we won. I stand with the protesters and protectors in order to seek a change to these unjust laws.’
The crowd also heard from Julian Assange’s father who highlighted the impact of Wikileaks holding governments to account and the need for the Australian government to bring his son home.
To support the call to ‘reverse NSW anti-protest laws’ you can sign the online petition that is currently running.
Absolutely outrageous, surely these laws breach some UN conventions that Australia has signed up to? You’d expect this from an authoritarian regime not a liberal democracy like Australia.
The greens have screamed for this. Literarily. Wanted lockdowns. Enforcement. Control. Compliance. To all the State could dish out. They couldn’t get enough of being dictated to. And now the nightmare has come home to roost. Better these people wise up quick smart to what is actually going on here. They are fools. What they sew they shall reap.
John, I assume you referring to the Greens and the Covid 19 and the pandemic public health measures.
What part of the Global Covid-19 Pandemic did you miss, that has to date killed 16,000 plus Australians and still kills scores of Australians each week – existential threat ( we come back to that one shortly ) that has already been delivered to some 16,000 plus Aussies.
I’m thinking that if there was another cause of Aussie deaths, that is ongoing at such a rate there would be a state of National Health Emergency declared to save as many lives as possible and protect our Health System from being over run with sick and dying citizens. Oh wait, we had that, that saved lives, that was supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens.
But nowadays as the Covid 19 pandemic keeps rolling along its destructive course, we get this callous lines of “living with Covid”, where simple public health measures like mask wearing and physical distancing have dumped overboard. Limiting infections, limits deaths and being a Long Covid sufferer and stops our hospitals and health services being swamped.
Climate Change is the existential threat that we have known about for many years now and it is coming home to roost alright.
The National Bushfire Apocalypse 2019/20 and rolling eastern Australia Flood Disaster 2022 – existential threat that has been delivered to dozens of Aussies.
If you don’t want to do anything in support of climate protection, that is YOUR loss. Taking away the citizen right of public protest through enacting punishing jail terms for a non violent activity, is ALL our loss.
The NSW Protest Law has got to go. It’s an insulting no-brainer & we said as much yesterday through rain & shine.
The anti-Protest Law has to go, along with those ‘Leaders’ that thought it such a great idea and legislated it – bye bye Perrottet, Minns and Tool.
Which section of the legislation makes it illegal to protest?
Keep this fact quiet from the debate Shane – It doesn’t !
As was amply demonstrated by the above Echo report on this poorly attended event.
There’s a thorn in a side & another in a tongue. Paddy wagons belong to Perrottet & Co.
The Fossil Fuel Industry is fully supported by Para-military technologies in our ‘Capitalist liberal Democracy”. The deepest cut to Protest and building a better world …and POWER is comforted by such technologies. The struggle is forever. Toughen up folks.
NO BAIL … reserved for flight risks usually out of the country and the worst crimes …. So now we see political crimes being more important than other criminal offences. Watershed day down to path to corp dictatorship.
Easy to see the dictatorship will create a real stir. It could be why the ‘jail term’ [today] is looking at change. Votes to be lost.