Hundreds of people gathered in Forrest Place in Perth to speak and listen each other as the Occupy Perth movement began. According to Perth Now speeches covered “the unaffordability of housing, the Iraq war and having world leaders responsible for human rights abuses being wined and dined during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.” Plans are being made to Occupy CHOGM on the 28th of October. Three protestors stayed on however after the rally to continue a small occupation.
Related: out Occupy Perth website -- Photos -- Oct 11th Press Release
Perth Now quoted Socialist Alliance group member Chris Jenkins s who stated the
“Occupy Perth movement was a loose alliance of organisations with the ``main key message'' that most people were the 99 per cent that were being exploited by the 1 per cent who held the wealth.
“We do live in a society with an economic system that is run by the smallest number of people and they accumulate wealth for themselves,'' he said.
He said ``right now" there were no key demands of the movement because this was the first general meeting that intended to include as many different opinions as possible and to plan future action, with an anti-CHOGM protest planned for October 28.
``Most importantly, as protestors in the US have been saying, this is what democracy looks like," he said. "And we're trying to introduce this into the streets of Perth.'
Police intimidation of anti-corporate protestors
The protest in Perth took place in the build up to the upcoming protests directed at CHOGM including the planned Occupy CHOGM event on the 28th of October. This week saw an attempt by the state to intimidate these protests with arrests of three activists Seamus Doherty, Colleen Bolger and Alexis Vassiley. Socialist Alliance reports that supposedly on the grounds of investigating a charge of "criminal damage", property such as mobile phones, a car and political T-shirts were confiscated. In addition email and Facebook accounts were searched. Police also walked into the Perth Activist Centre in East Perth, searching it and making various unsubstantiated accusations. Collen Bolger was quoted in the WA Today that the police when questioning her intimated she was under surveaillance.
Footage and interviews of October 15th
Occupy Perth getting underway
#OccupyPerth Human mic, homage to #egypt #tahrir #tunisia
#OccupyPerth young Indigenous youth knows exactly what's going on
