December 26: There were protests in parts of Indonesia against police following the murder of anti-mining demonstrators in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, on December 24.
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, more than 300 people took to the streets. They destroyed three police posts, pelted police and attacked symbols of capitalism such as banks, and the symbols of the political elite and the political advertising such as billboards. A 23-year-old student was arrested. Two others had been arrested by police intelligence, but the arrest was forcibly prevented by dozens of other protesters.
Similar protests took place in Medan, North Sumatra, where demonstrators condemned what they perceived as the National Police protecting the interests of the business community.
December 24: Eight people were killed when police opened fire on demonstrators in Sape Port, Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Hundreds more people were wounded. Ten people have been arrested by the police. Most of the people who were attacked ran away towards the mountain and many are still in hiding.
Thousands of people had been blockading the port for five days in opposition to exploration work being carried out by gold-mining company PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara, 95% owned by Australian company Arc Exploration. Protests had halted exploration at Bima through most of the year. Continue reading “Eight people killed by police at anti-mining blockade, Indonesia”
In the early hours of the 24/12/2011 we attacked the Mountain Gate branch of the Commonwealth Bank with rocks causing some damage to windows in a small, spontaneous expression of nihilistic solidarity with our comrades fighting the state both here in Australia and all over the world.
via 325: On Monday afternoon [19.12.11] a young man riding an Upfield train in peak hour was pushed to extremes in order to attempt to escape the terror and punishment of Metcops and the law.
In his efforts at evading both everyday beat pigs and their Metro lackeys he was left no option but to attempt to get back onto an already moving train on Platform 2 of North Melbourne Station or face fines, embarrassment and the physical and psychological violence that inevitably presents itself every time a person is arrested or detained by the cops. We must recognise that the actions of the cops and Metpigs created this circumstance that put this man’s life in danger.
Unfortunately he was not successful at escape.
Fortunately he is still alive.
After undergoing extensive surgery he has now lost part of one hand from the fall according to mainstream media reports.
This man’s blood, fear and pain rest not only on the hands of those who were chasing him through that train and on that Platform but on the hands of all Metcop scum that arrogantly patrol our trains and our stations daily. Whose purpose is to force our hand into our pocket and cough up our measly wages so that we can navigate paths through this city – to our friends, families, to food and of course our work where we must sell our lives to buy our legality.
We choose not to wait until more tragedies occur on our train lines and in our stations but feel the need to act immediately to express our solidarity with all fare evaders, escapees of the law and to state clearly that Metcops, ‘real’ cops and “protective services officers” are our daily enemy that we all must avoid, outsmart and outrun. Continue reading “Melbourne: Counter-attack against Metpig violence”
On Wednesday night majority of the Sydenham trainline ticket, myki and validation machines were sabotaged;
We cram ourselves into these steel tubes like sardines. Forced to endure the discomfort day after day, literally being crushed by society. The sweat, smell, and heat is unbearable. As we stand clinging to a stupid little loop, gasping for breath and shifting our weight from foot to foot aching from the tedium and muttering apologies to the fellow passengers we are crushing and suffocating, we can’t help but think of livestock packed together being transported to the slaughterhouse. Because work and consumerism is a slaughterhouse of our minds, and free will.
The public transport system is an essential apparatus of capitalist democracy. It is a conduit with the purpose of efficiently transporting the inhabitants of the metropolis between their homes, their workplaces, and the shops. Making our exploitation by managers and bosses possible. Limiting our actions to either work or consumerism.
We are subjected to constant surveillance in the stations, trams, busses and trains. Security personnel silently observe banks of monitors behind thousands of cameras. Vigilantly watching for “suspicious” behaviour. The ticket inspectors terrorise us into paying up everyday, they are nothing else than armed enforcers of capitalism who use violence and fines to guard the profits of companies who make millions of dollars everyday out of their need for us to travel to and from work.
We refuse to cough up more money in order to make the rich richer. They are parasites that are sucking the blood out of us. Fuck them. We wont pay for the rich to have a free ride into luxury.
We spend all our day at work at jobs we hate, making a profit for bosses that humiliate us. And with the meagre earnings we take home we buy into the illusion of happiness and freedom that we can find in the latest electronics, or clothing, cars, and other products which ultimately bring us neither happiness nor freedom. Our homes have become merely the location where we recover from the previous days work and await the alarm clocks chime which interrupts our sleep and signals us to proceed again to work.
And now the metcops who fulfil their role as armed enforcers of capitalism- guarding profits and threatening us with violence and fines if we refuse this exploitation.
We don’t demand cheaper, more efficient, or more punctual public transport. We attack this entire way of life. Even to make it free doesn’t satisfy us. We already ride for free everyday and refuse to pay or submit to the terrorism of the ticket inspectors. It’s not enough to merely evade the fare or hand our ticket to the next passenger boarding the carriage, an invisible rebellion against these circumstances which we all hate. This whole system must be attacked and sabotaged.
REFUSE TO PAY FOR TICKETS
– AGAINST THE DEVALUATION OF OUR LIVES
– AGAINST THE TERRORISM OF THE METCOPS
At least 150 detainees break out of the detention centre. All Serco guards withdraw from the compound to search for them.
18 March –Christmas Island
As many as 300 detainees were involved in a protest that saw two administration buildings and seven accommodation tents burnt. Asylum seekers armed with bricks and poles charged police and the perimeter fences. Some rioters breached the perimeter wall. Police responded with tear gas and bean bag rounds. The protests started in response to a letter asylum seekers received from Canberra.
20 April – Villawood (Sydney)
At least nine buildings were set alight in a protest at Villawood Detention centre which involved up to 100 immigration detainees. The disturbance grew out of a rooftop protest by a number of asylum seekers.
Sandi Logan, an immigration spokesperson, said:
“From time to time, frankly quite unacceptable, quite appalling non-compliant behaviours have occurred.”
10 June –Christmas Island
About 100 detainees joined in an overnight protest when guards tried to take a detainee to the feared “red block” isolation unit. Detainees, some of whom armed themselves with metal poles and broken concrete, protested at the perimeter of the detention centre and pelted police and guards with projectiles.
This was the worst disturbance at the centre since riots in March, but there is said to have been some kind of disturbance at the facility, every night since the March riots, with at least three separate attacks on guards in the past month.
There were two nights of rioting at Christmas Island detention centre. More than 10 protesters on the roof of the detention centre set fire to sheets, and tents and rubbish bins were also torched. Serco guards withdrew from the detention centre as asylum seekers broke down fences and opened doors to allow free movement between the compounds inside the detention centre.
The major protest follows a series of smaller roof-top protests, and the lock down of the detention centre over the previous week. Federal police responded with tear gas and bean bag rounds.
Proposals from Serco in response to the protests, to change the food, offer more fruit, bring singers into detention have only inflamed the tempers of the asylum seekers, who demanded an end to their long-term detention.
22 Oct – Scherger detention centre (far north Qld)
On Tuesday 8 November, people who had been detained for up to 22 months went on a rampage and destroyed computers, TVs, washing machines, tables and other fittings. Two days later there was another destructive protest, when Serco guards and Federal Police entered the compound to capture and remove about 10 men to Christmas Island as punishment.
Photo by newtowngraffiti: 'Some low-life has splashed the bower bird sculpture with yellow paint
15 February: Attack on sculpture in Redfern
Sculpture on corner of Redfern St and Botany Rd, in Redfern attacked with paint early in morning of 7th anniversary of Thomas Hickey’s murder by NSW police. Flyers were thrown around the area with the following text:
Everyday we pass by these spiked poles we cannot help but be reminded of the unforgivable murder of TJ. It is as if it has been erected to remind us of what we cannot forget- the black deaths, the bloody colonisation which has been for the last two centuries.
This disgusting tangle of metal seemingly circumvents criticism because it is portrayed like some kind of gift of art. Let’s be honest about this, clearly this structure has been engineered to prevent people from gathering in the square. Its imposing presence occupies the entire space and its very form intimidates anyone who dares to linger. Could this obstruction be any more blatant in its design?
As if the damn police towers that lay before it, and the cretins there who make it their job to imprison, murder, torture, harass and watch our every move need also a tribute metres away. This structure enrages us, we can’t let the mechanisms of colonisation, and state repression bulldoze forward. The anti vandal squad (the ever efficient urban art critics) might wash this paint off tomorrow. But is will still remain a hideous mark of gentrification.
This attack is proof that they can’t stop everything, they can’t stop us talking to you now, in reality they can’t stop me and you. This attack we make tonight is for TJ, and everyone murdered by the state (of which there is too many than we could ever list).
This attack was carried out as a minimal response to the murderous savagery of the Greek police on the 28th and 29th of June General Strike against the Troika’s repressive austerity measures. And also to express our solidarity with the imprisoned fighters for social liberation in Greece. Even here far away in Australia we look on and are inspired by the dignified struggle against capitalist domination in Greece.
Solidarity is our weapon.
Fire to the prisons.
-Midnight koalas-
19 October: Melbourne – Politician’s Office Smashed and Paintbombed
Last Wednesday night we attacked the office of Australian Labour Party MP Jenny Macklin, who postures herself as Indigenous Affairs minister. We did this because the Australian government is a government of occupation and ongoing colonization of the Indigenous people of this country. Our actions are in solidarity with the Indigenous people who have been invaded, whose land has been stolen, who have been forcibly removed from their homelands, from their families, whose cultures and languages have been irreversibly damaged, and who are still experiencing ongoing waves of attacks at the hands of our colonial government, of this very office of “Indigenous Affairs”.
We also carried out this attack because as non-Indigenous citizens of this country we are coerced into a situation where we materially benefit from the colonization of Indigenous peoples. We have learnt to deny the reality of the origins of our material wealth – we are the “lucky country”. The myth of luck disguises the reality of war and occupation upon which our lives are built. We are born into a society that tells us that this colonial activity is a good thing, that it is “for us”, that it is “for them”. That capitalist, materialist culture is “good”. Is “beneficial”. That everyone deserves the “great Australian dream” built on the spoils of colonial war. But the dream is a myth. We act because we want to break the monotony of this existence. We do not believe that material comfort is the sole quality which makes life “good”. We act because we do not believe in the cultural superiority of capitalism, and reject the missionary logic of assimilating Indigenous peoples to provide them with a “better” life. We do not believe a life based solely on consumption that is devoid of real emotion, community, individuality and joy is a “better” way of life. This society is boring. It’s empty, unfulfilling, dissatisfying. It is built on a web of lies, pain and suffering, haunted by the almost erased memories of ways of life we have lost.
We reject this culture of denial. We reject a society that is telling us that we must accept the categories given to us by society, be it either “oppressed” or “oppressor”, “colonized” or “coloniser”. We are against colonization. We are against the assimilation of the world into white supremacist capitalist culture. Everyone is resisting this system every day in countless different ways, from the seemingly insignificant – like every time someone shoplifts from Woolworths, doesn’t buy a ticket on the train, turns off their tv because they’re sick of the mindless bullshit; to community walk-offs, and rioting in the streets. This is one way we are choosing to not only resist but intensify our resistance and our lives. Through this action we are reclaiming our dignity and clearly stating our refusal to be “obedient” citizens of colonial Australia.
