Month: September 2016

26 Sept – Riot police helped security guards deal with rowdy revellers and fence jumpers at a Joondalup music festival yesterday.

A police spokesman said youths were involved in a “rolling blue” with security guards at the Listen Out festival at HBF Arena.

Police dogs and officers on horseback were sent to the venue to help with security after officers were contacted at 3pm.

It will be alleged that as police were moving on a crowd of 300, some began throwing objects at police officers.

Four people were arrested for allegedly assaulting three police officers and 15 move on notices were issued.

Police also received a complaint that windows had been damaged at the Joondalup Arena.

A 23-year-old man from Armadale, a 22-year-old woman from Kalamunda and a 20-year-old woman also from Kalamunda were charged with assaulting a public officer.

A 23-year-old Roleystone man was charged with disorderly behaviour.

There were at least 20 officers in riot gear near HBF Arena at 9pm.

The sold-out dance music festival features Rufus, Anderson .Paak, Ngaiire and A$AP Ferg.

Some inmates at maximum security Barwon Prison want a better deal and have been refusing to work since last week.

Management at the jail, near Geelong, on Monday took action of their own, confining those refusing to work under new arrangements to their cells.

Journalists have been told the situation had been, at times, tense and that those prisoners locked down were being allowed out of their cells on a rotation basis.

Specialist officers from the security and emergency services group were on standby in case of trouble at the jail, which houses killers, armed robbers, terrorists and gangland figures.

Prisoners in Victoria are paid between $6.50 and $8.95 per day.

It is unclear who are the ringleaders of the Barwon industrial action.

Among the high-profile inmates are drug bosses Tony Mokbel, Frank Madafferi and Pasquale Barbaro and Matthew Johnson, the man who murdered underworld kingpin Carl Williams.

Opposition Corrections spokesman Edward O’Donohue said the strike raises questions about who was in control of our corrections system.

The Opposition’s corrections spokesman Edward O’Donohue said it was “unacceptable” that maximum security prisoners would “feel emboldened” to strike.

“The community expects prisoners to be focused on rehabilitation and paying their debt to the community, not to be taking strike action over pay rates in prison.”

“Under Daniel Andrews we’ve seen the worst prison riots in Victoria’s history, prisoners growing drugs in the prison gardens, increased escapes, increased deaths in custody and now prisoners going on strike,”.

“You have to question who is in control and who is running the Victorian corrections system.” said  O’Donohue.

Continue reading “Barwon: Prison prisoners go on strike”

2 Sept – On the 30^th of August 2016, following the murder of 14 year old Elijah Doughty by a white vigilante, Indigenous protesters fought back against their treatment by police and the racist ‘justice system’, smashing up the courthouse, 5 police vehicles, and injuring 12 cops.

In the days since then, some anarchists in Sydney undertook some small acts of solidarity. Hundreds of posters celebrating the rebellion was pasted up around train stations in various areas, a number of solidarity banners were tied to highway overpasses and a few dozen anti-colonial slogans were sprayed on Sydney walls.

The ‘justice system’ in this country, the police, courts and prisons are structures of capitalist and colonial domination whose purpose remain the dispossession, and oppression of Indigenous people.

The rebels in Kalgoorlie were right to attack these structures with all the rage and ferocity that they deserve. Such uprisings are a source of inspiration and joy to countess people who face daily harassment by cops on the streets or by screws in the prisons. When the flames of revolt break out we must fan them across this territory, by striking out at every manifestation of state authority, until every structure of colonialism is reduced to ashes.

 

30 August – People smashed windows and jumped on police cars at a West Australian courthouse after a protest over the death of a local teenager turned violent.

A 55-year-old man, was due to appear at a court in Kalgoorlie, east of Perth, charged with the manslaughter of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy, Elijah Doughty.

The boy’s body was found in nearby bushland on Monday morning.

But violent scenes erupted outside the courthouse with around 200 people smashing building windows with rocks and bottles.

During the violent clash 12 police officers were injured with one needing stitches, police say.

Five cars were smashed when the protest turned violent – but streets have returned to normal after police reinforcements turned up.

‘Several people have been taken into custody in relation to assault police and disorderly offences,’ police said.

According to The West Australian, family and friends of the teenager broke through the gates to the court before throwing rocks through windows.

Others threw bottles at the building and the ABC reported a police officer had been injured during the clash.

A number of people were pictured standing on top of police cars, two of whom were clutching an Aboriginal flag after the boy’s death sparked tensions between local police and the Indigenous community.

Footage from the scene shows dozens of people marching through the streets outside the building, chanting and holding signs.

Demonstrators were seen carrying Aboriginal flags, as well as banners that read: ‘We Want Justice’ and ‘All Lives Matter, Save Our Kids’.

The crowd could be heard chanting: ‘We want justice’ and ‘When do we want it? Now!’.

Doughty’s aunt said the teenager was the third person in the family to die in recent weeks, and described her nephew as ‘a bit of a prankster’.

‘He was a very happy-go-lucky kid; he was never a bad kid,’ the woman told the Kalgoorlie Miner.

He was not a straight-A student but his circumstances were hard, he struggled at school but he had other issues to prioritise.’