A put-up job that boomeranged?
Submitted by Diet Simon on Sun, 29/01/2012 - 11:37pmNot for as long as it takes to blink were Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott so much as threatened, even less endangered, on the 26th of January by demonstrators from the 40th anniversary Aboriginal Embassy camp in Canberra. Vision footage from activists and mainstream media almost inundating the internet makes irrefutably clear that it was police who were violent and caused the bedlam. At one point uniform was even roughing up plainclothes. For at least 10 minutes after Gillard/Abbott had been driven away, when there was nothing and no one left to “protect”, the police line kept pushing us back, some punching, shoving, throwing people on the ground and “f”- swearing at demonstrators.
Tent Embassy statements: Aboriginal Provisional Government statement | Declaration of Independence for a Sovereign Union of First Nations | Press conference | Comment: Embassy more relevant than ever | I see no riot or attack | Media paints black as white and might as right | Protest speaks for itself | A lesson in over-reaction and social context | No apologies are due to either politician, nor to anyone else |Forget the race card, they're playing the whole deck | Michael Anderson explained the importance of the Embassy on Radio Australia | First hand accounts: Chris Graham: fact v fiction, black v white | From field notes and footnotes | “You shoe’da come!” | Video | Photo essay by Green Left Weekly (what the media didn't show) | ABC’s Media Watch: An Australia Day beat up | AFP to review officers' conduct | Kim Sattler, Secretary, Unions ACT, to Barbara Shaw: "And Abbott's just made a statement to the press that the tent embassy should be pulled down ... he's over there." | Gerry Georgatos’ source: Multiple calls from Gillard’s office, awards ceremony not disturbed | Bob Carr: “The Tent Embassy in Canberra says nothing to anyone and should have been quietly packed up years ago.” | Solidarity actions: Solidarity billboard in Melbourne | Banner drop in Canberra