Monthly Archives: March 2013
Today’s the day: NUS National Day of Action 2013!
Today students are gathering around Australia in their capital cities to fight course cuts, deregulation of fees and demand that the government invest more into education.
Check out the details of your capital city’s actions below or over here on Facebook.
Education changes lives. Our education is not for profit. #NDA2013
Queers in Education – NDA THIS WEDNESDAY!
The Queer Department has been getting ready for the National Day of Action for Higher Education to be held this Wednesday. Queer students activists in Sydney initiated a Pink Bloc that we are going to at the march. So we have been busy organising that alongside the general activities of getting Sydney’s part of the day off the ground in the Education Action Network, which queer students have pridefully been a huge chunk of. Yesterday’s all-day working bee saw the Pink Bloc’s banner get painted (check it out!) and then queer members of the EAN did a massive poster run through the UTS buildings. The UTS Queer Collective is planning to paint another banner on the morning on the NDA, sounds excellent.
Here are the details for whats happening across the country. If you haven’t already shared it with your friends and networks, better get on it to get the word out!
NSW: www.facebook.com/events/130926880409492/
VIC: www.facebook.com/events/336861143098283/
TAS: www.facebook.com/events/286191351508862/
WA: www.facebook.com/events/437017799710179/
SA: www.facebook.com/events/118943931626292/
National: www.facebook.com/events/102087983306837/
Protesting police brutality at Mardi Gras
RECREATING 1978 – THE FIRST MARDI GRAS – PROTESTING POLICE BRUTALITY
NATIONAL QUEER OFFICE
CAMPAIGN REPORT BACK
Written by:
Cat Rose, National Queer Officer, National Union of Students
Co-organiser of the Snap Action that marched down Oxford St in protest
BACKGROUND
Mardi Gras is the biggest queer event in Australia and represented the beginning of Gay Liberation in this country in 1978. Many queer students, not just from NSW, attend Mardi Gras and it is often part of people’s entry into the queer world and expression of pride. This year there were three student floats who marched behind each other, organised by Sydney University Queer Action Collective, Wollongong Allsorts (Queer) Collective and a cross-campus float organised by various Queer Officers and the Queer Students Network. I organised a float around the theme ‘Generations of Protest’ for Community Action Against Homophobia.
This year 1,000 police were bought in for the event (approx 4,000 are on duty at any given time in all of NSW), including some in full riot gear, and created outrage through a significant number of abuses of power. Many reported a climate of fear on the night. At the end of this report is a list of the incidents from what I know and can recall while I wrote this up, for those who may have lost track of the litany of things reported in the press.
THE PROTEST
Footage of Jamie Jackson being brutalised by Officer 266 was released on YouTube a few days after the parade and immediately went viral. Through Community Action Against Homophobia, I and other activists immediately initiated a snap protest to be held two days later. CAAH has a history of organising large demonstrations for marriage equality in Sydney and campaigning around progressive queer issues, so when we put out the call it was clear that a big demonstration was about to occur. I went about contacting queer student representatives nationally in my role as NUS Queer Officer to get students active in attending the protest, engaged in the issue and signing the online petitions.
On the Friday after Mardi Gras, 2,000 people protested at Taylor Square and marched down Oxford St to Surry Hills police station to express themselves in a raucous demonstration, and marched back up Oxford St again.
Protesters yelled “Out of the bars and onto the streets”, and people did just that, ditching their drinks as they realised what was going on. “Stop police attacks, on gays, women and blacks,” people shouted, using the chant of 1978. There were many others, and even at very short notice there were a huge number of placards that people had made to get their voices heard about the issues.
ORGANISING THE PROTEST
It is worth saying that this was one of those things that happened in a whirl of chaos, it was a huge thing to get done in a short space of time. As soon as we put out the call for the protest I answered phone calls nonstop. Each time I hung up the phone another person was already ringing in, for hours on end. I gave up looking for spare time and ate my breakfast live on radio. The calls came from a variety of places; local, interstate and international media; people who wanted to tell me their own stories about police harassment and illegal behaviour at Mardi Gras this year; people wanting to know if they could attend if they weren’t queer because of their own experiences of police brutality; people involved in the first Mardi Gras in 1978 offering their thanks and support for continuing the tradition; and people wanting reassurance that they could attend a peaceful rally, which was easily given. Thankfully, only one person opposed to the protest bothered to call me.
I can’t recall all the media I spoke to so I will just offer some of the main ones. I did two interviews with Channel 7 at Taylor Square that were featured on the nightly prime time news slot, Channel 7, 9 & 10 interviewed me in person at the rally, I was interviewed live three times each on two of Sydney’s biggest talkback radio channel 2UE and 2GB. The protest was featured on or at news.com.au, ninemsn, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Herald Sun, abc.net.au, Yahoo Seven, Sky News, the Australian Times (UK expat paper), and all the major queer press outlets (samesame, Star Observer, SX) with video footage and pictures of the protest.
I organised Peter Murphy to speak at the rally, he was bashed in the police cells in 1978 (until he was left convulsing and with his pants soiled) while people outside could hear his screams. He is still waiting for an apology, a fact that hangs over Mardi Gras. Also speaking was Ray Jackson, a prominent Indigenous activist known for his significant work campaigning around black deaths in custody.
I made and promoted the FB event, put out 6 or 7 press releases, acted as the primary media contact, and made sure to contact everyone I could to get it happening.
FURTHER POLICE OUTRAGES ROLL IN
I did become overwhelmed by the number of stories I received over those days. One of the most memorable phone calls I got from the many strangers who called me before the protest was from a woman who wanted to ask if she could come if she wasn’t gay, because she had her own reason to come. She’d spent the last 20 years as a carer after a cop had smashed her husband’s skull in. She had successfully sued the police, but the cop responsible was still on the beat. That week she had just found out that he was at Surry Hills police station, the station our protest would march to. She said “it was like the stars had aligned” for her to come and protest, expressing how alone she had been for so long. There were many more like her who’s own stories have gone untold.
In the pub across the road before the protest I made my placard and figuring out what I was doing it turned out that everyone there was there for the protest. We began chatting and the guy I was talking to had traveled from Maitland. He had been involved in an ongoing Beat Project campaign to stop police harassment of beats. Parks are the only place to meet in some regional areas and he explained how they are constantly harassed by the cops. Fully clothed men sitting in a car in opposite seats were routinely harassed by particularly homophobic police. He said that the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officer Donna Adney has known about this for years but those cops are still around. One protester carried a placard saying “Donna Adney is useless”. Another told me “Donna Adney isn’t for us, she’s for the cops”.
After the demonstration had begun to disperse, I began talking to a young homeless gay member of our demonstration. He was saying that Newtown police bashed him in a cell two years ago, leaving him with 19 staples in his head and his life fucked. I felt so much empathy for him. After we talked for a bit he began cursing at the cops over what had been done to him. Then things became alarming. The police moved in for an arrest. We protested for them to leave him alone, he wasn’t hurting anyone, but they were in for it. “Oh do you know (cop responsible)? Yeah he’s a great guy! He’s cool!”
Earlier I had yelled “Fuck violent police” and people repeated it, chanting, some with variations, outside the police station. This arrest was nothing but the lowest way to attack all of us for speaking out. As someone else who was there said to me “it was like hyenas picking off a weak antelope from the herd and devouring him.”
ORGANISING STUDENTS
I contacted those Queer Representatives in and around Sydney particularly, including Wollongong and Newcastle because I heard early on that people were travelling from quite far to come.
Usyd SRC passed a motion of support for the protest and attended. Usyd, UTS and UNSW Queer Collectives attended and promoted the event. UTS Indigenous Collective also attended, which was significant for reasons that are obvious. Prominent figures of the UTS SRC were there too and loaned the student association’s megaphones for students to use. These groups bought their own banners and did their own organising for the event. It was significant for student activism. Evan van Zijl (my co-OB in CAAH and a student activist), Fahad Ali (Usyd Queer Officer), Andy Zephyr (UTS Queer Officer) and Brigitte McFadden (QSN NSW Co-convener and NUS NSW Queer Officer) played a particularly significant role from memory, but sorry to those I didn’t name, because there were lots and so much happening I couldn’t be aware of it all.
I joined student activists in the march down Oxford St and led chants with them for a few blocks, which was fun. The feedback from queer collectives has been extremely positive.
FEEDBACK
Quite a number of the original 1978 Mardi Gras protesters attended the rally and many of them gave thanks and commented that there was something of the spirit of 1978 that was relived in that protest. In a night that felt electric, I imagined it to be true. It was a spirit of defiance, and it was one worth recreating!
I was actually amazed by all the messages of support. They came in emails, on FB (private and in many wall conversations), phone calls and texts, so I took that all really well. It really did help to counter the crazy homophobes that come out in these things, the kind of people who made the pages to support the officers filmed assaulting Jamie, and many police officers who have since removed some very disturbing comments, but that is what happens when you challenge the status quo.
It did actually become clear to us that the media were moving in to line up more with the police’s story by the morning of the protest. Footage had been distributed showing Jamie kicking a cop, which was proliferated often as the final word in the issue. Often we found a wilful refusal to listen to the witnesses report that he had been in a choke hold before he started fighting back and that she would have done the same, or that the reason people were outraged was because of a whole litany of abuses of power that night. Thus we were unsurprised when some of the media coverage of the protest was negative. It really helped that so many people got in contact to say that we were doing something they were desperate for to happen. We had the courage and conviction needed to do what had to be done in the face of and outside of them.
Also, the next week’s Usyd Queer Officer’s report to their student newspaper Honi Soit congratulating the organisers of the protest so I pasted that above.
Amazingly, a solidarity protest was organised in Wellington and held the same night. Thirteen members and supporters of the Queer Avengers protested and held placards they’d made for the occasion offering solidarity. These are the activists who glitterbombed Germaine Greer for being a transphobe by the way.
Radio shock jocks and others have concentrated on anti-police slogans at the rally, so I have put work in with others in CAAH into managing the message of the protest after the event, encouraging unity in opposing police brutality.
DIRECTING SOME DEMANDS
I contacted some of the major bigwigs of the issues – Mardi Gras, Alex Greenwich (MP for Sydney and marriage equality advocate), Clover Moore (Lord Mayor of Sydney( and Cate Faerhmann (Greens NSW Parliament Queer Spokesperson) – to make the demand clear for an external body to be set up to investigate police. The aim is that at Mardi Gras next year we do not want to be in the same situation of police investigating themselves, the issue raised by the woman who screamed in the video ‘nothing will happen to that officer because he’ll just get internal inquest’ was a spark for those who felt the history of police getting away with this every time.
The response from these quarters has been unfortunately lukewarm, but we want to push for this demand in a context of consecutive outrages in NSW within a year (a Brazilian student tasered to death, the two Aboriginal teenagers shot in Kings Cross, and now this), with all officered involved facing no recourse and policing the streets to this day.
The demand for external investigation has been an ongoing one of the ‘black deaths in custody’ campaign and so it is one that I believe is important to take up in solidarity as well as our own sake.
Importantly, the public protest has provided an outlet beyond the gaystream for the demands for external investigation and an end to overpolicing and police brutality and harassment to be raised clearly.
External investigation has not the only demand advanced, clearly it only addresses one aspect of the problem. We have addressed the many aspects of overpolicing, police brutality and harassing behaviour.
WHERE ARE WE AT NOW?
This will be an ongoing issue and the aim will be to reach Mardi Gras next year having gained some serious concessions.
A community forum was initiated by Alex Greenwich (NSW MP for Sydney and marriage equality advocate) with police and other interest groups. At it a number of people spoke angrily about their experiences at Mardi Gras, including a number who said that they would not be lodging a complaint for police to investigate themselves because they knew that nothing would happen.
In the community forum Surry Hills Police Chief Tony Crandell said that he intends to send the most police he can to any event ‘to make it safer’ and that sniffer dogs and searches will continue ‘as they are allowed by law’ and referring to it as ‘harm minimisation’, despite people raising how this encouraged people at Mardi Gras to panic and stuff large quantities of drugs down their throats. This was booed and heckled, unsurprising because many of the people who were there to argue for an end to overpolicing at Mardi Gras, and had just attended a very angry protest that informed the mood.
The forum by the way was woefully constrained with a hall only being used for 200 people to fit. It was clear well before the event that it would fill up, but a ‘possible’ second forum was offered as a response. This meant that many who wanted to come (usually for very personal reasons, those harrassed or assaulted, 1978 Mardi Gras participants) were not able to. The lack of a clear demand from any of the stakeholders represented at it for an external investigation and a promise from the police chief that a softer approach to general policing practices made it clear that the major issues had been decided before the forum and that it was not intended to act as a place to open up the issue.
Upcoming targets include court dates especially for Bryn Hutchinson who has asked that people accompany him as he faces assault police charges, the end of three investigations within 90 days, a possible second forum and the general ongoing fallout.
———— APPENDIX 1 ————-
SYDNEY UNIVERSITY STUDENT REPRESENTATION COUNCIL MOTIONS
The first motion was put by Usyd Queer Officer Fahad Ali. The second he found a week later and has pointed out their similarity.
Motion to Council on 6/3/13:
1. The SRC condemns the brutal actions of the police force during Mardi Gras.
2. The SRC expresses solidarity with the victims of police violence.
3. The SRC endorses the snap action against police violence on Friday, organised by Community Action Against Homophobia.
Motion to Council on 27/6/78:
That the Executive condemns the unprovoked and unnecessary police violence against those involved in the Mardi Gras on June 24th at Kings Cross. That this SRC actively supports and promotes equal rights for all lesbians and male homosexuals.
———— APPENDIX 2 ————-
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED THAT NIGHT?
Three assaults:
Jamie Jackson, slammed into the pavement while handcuffed and subjected to a choke hold in the video, his head was reported to be thrown into the concrete and his choke held before the video also. The video of his assault currently stands at almost 2 million views. From memory it had reached more than 500k within two days, by which we were holding our protest
Bryn Hutchinson, queer rights activist, jumped on from behind by several officers, hogtied, kicked and stomped on
A third man anonymously reported to the Star Observer that he was chewing gum which police assumed to be drugs. One grabbed him by the throat and against a wall, choking him and demanding that he spit it out. They then strip searched him and discussed pumping his stomach. When they realised that he had no drugs on him (and he hadn’t taken any by the way) they charged him with assaulting a police officer.
Degrading and abusive searches:
A man reported being ‘humiliated’ and ‘bullied’ as he was forced to a full strip search in full view of people passing by.
A board member of Mardi Gras reported to me that he was searched without (legally required) cause and a number of others have shared similar stories
Sniffer dogs harassed party goers leading to reports that people stuffed drugs down their throats in panic
Harrassment and queerphobia
Queer men in chaps have reported being told they had to cover up or face face arrest, including one being told to ‘cover his genitals’. Leather Pride members then completed the parade with additional attire.
Topless women were harassed by police officers who likewise demanded they cover up
There has also been a general report that the road was not opened at the end of the parade leading to people being shoved and roughly handled by police who were managing pedestrian traffic in a completely inappropriate way. Sorry for anything I missed. This is not meant to be complete, just helpful.
Calendar
Do you have a queer student or queer student ally event happening in Australia in 2013 that you’d like to promote? Then send us the details to queer@unistudent.com.au and we’ll add it to the calendar!
Coming soon…
Snap action: rally against Mardi Gras police brutality
Were you shocked by the police brutality that occurred at Mardi Gras? If so:
- Please sign this online petition calling for NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher to order an independent inquiry into the incident.
- If you will be in Sydney tomorrow join the rally happening at Taylor Square at 6pm.
Plans for 2013
Wondering what the NUS Queer Department has lined up for the year? We have a plan jam-packed with great campaigns and projects that everyone can get involved in! Check them out under the Campaigns page of this blog or over here.
If you’d like to get involved in any of the campaigns or projects please contact us.
NUS Queer Department 