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Stop the war on Iraq! |
Workers Power Global, Melbourne: 30 March 2003
Even as Australian troops take a more active part in the war on Iraq, ordinary Australians are still marching in their tens of thousands against this war.
March 28th saw another 40,000 strong demonstration through the main streets of Melbourne. Palestinian and Iraqi flags were prominent in the demonstration and marchers stopped lunchtime traffic and filled Collins St as they marched to the Treasury Gardens.
The previous evening about 1,200 demonstrators had confronted Prime Minister John Howard as he spoke at a Liberal Party function in the suburbs. Despite a heavy police presence, the demonstrators surrounded the building and at least delayed Howard's speech.
The most dramatic scenes though were earlier in the week when students across the country held another walkout against the war. Most major centres saw demonstrations in the thousands, with high school students a playing a prominent role.
In both Perth and Sydney the heavy police presence turned very ugly with police riding horses into Perth students and beating and arresting many in Sydney.
The Sydney events were the most dramatic. About 12,000 mainly high school students had gathered when police appear to have pulled the headscarf off a young woman. This created a scuffle that set the tone for the rest of the march. Later in the day police cordoned off a section of the road with horses, blocking about 500 predominantly Middle Eastern students from leaving.
After four hours the students were allowed to leave but only one by one and after searches with sniffer dogs.
But undeterred by this level of harassment, the protest organisers have called for another demonstration on 2 April.
This has raised a whole lot of new issues about the basic right to protest as the police commissioner has tried to stop a permit for the march and may be seeking a court injunction.
Messages of solidarity can be sent to the Books not Bombs coalition at booksnotbombs@booksnotbombs.org.au
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