Protect protest - call for a ban on dangerous police weapons

Write to your Victorian representatives

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.

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