Thursday, 12 September 2024

Police conduct

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:45): (1157) My adjournment this evening is to the Attorney-General, and the action I seek is that she stop the use of excessive force by Victoria Police. Melbourne Activist Legal Support, MALS, fielded independent legal observers to monitor the policing of protests against the Land Forces weapons fair on 11 September 2024. Their initial report states:

Incidents of excessive force documented … by legal observers may constitute unlawful assault by police.

Legal observers witnessed:

… police assaulting and OC spraying medics, and obstructing them when attempting to treat injured people.

Police were observed continuing to fire directly at medics as they escorted people away from police lines with OC spray, and tear gas, and charging at them using batons and shields.

The MALS legal observer team itself was subject to gross violation of its independent and internationally recognised role.

The statement continues:

In July 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Council called upon all States ‘to pay particular attention to the safety and protection of those observing, monitoring and recording protests, including human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and other media workers, taking into account their specific role, exposure and vulnerability.’

Even so, on multiple occasions, and despite wearing jackets that clearly stated ‘Legal observer’ on them, those:

… observers, themselves were assaulted, OC sprayed, pushed and grabbed by police.

It continues:

On one occasion, three MALS legal observers were at a location to safely view injured people in police custody. The observers were grabbed by members of a –

police public order response team –

Evidence Gathering Team and forcibly moved away. Two of these observers were able to return to the area to document injuries and police actions.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service have said the use of anti-terror laws and expanded police powers against anti-war protesters represented a ‘disturbing encroachment’ on the democratic right to protest. They said:

Our people, and all people, have a human right to have our voices heard on issues which affect us. Protests must be safe spaces for all people. Where police use excessive force, this makes protests unsafe and goes against our right to protest peacefully …

The increasingly violent culture of protest policing in Victoria must be reversed, and I hope that IBAC conducts an independent investigation of this week’s policing operation. I urge the Attorney-General to take seriously these observations recorded by independent legal observers, and I request that she intervene to stop the use of excessive force by Victoria Police.