Corporate Tyranny and Police Brutality
Thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge on the Australian Stock Exchange Building in Melbourne from 7am to protest against capitalism and globalisation. The protests have been organised by the M1 alliance, an offshoot of the S11 group behind the demonstrations that disrupted the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last September. The alliance comprises human rights and environmental activists, unionists, students and christians who plan to highlight the negative effects of global capitalism.
The aim is spectacular — to close stock exchanges around the country, suspending 'corporate tyranny', for a moment. The how of it is, quite simply, through anarchy. That's not to say it isn't organised, though. Melbourne legal activist Damien Lawson, who placed volunteer legal observers on Melbourne streets for the S11 protest, is doing this job again for the Melbourne stock exchange blockade. He says 50 law students, and solicitors from community legal centres and private practice will observe police behaviour at today's protest. These legal observers, backed by the video tapes of alternative media group indymedia, are responsible for the Victorian Ombudsman holding an inquiry into police brutality in Melbourne.
The aim is spectacular — to close stock exchanges around the country, suspending 'corporate tyranny', for a moment. The how of it is, quite simply, through anarchy. That's not to say it isn't organised, though. Melbourne legal activist Damien Lawson, who placed volunteer legal observers on Melbourne streets for the S11 protest, is doing this job again for the Melbourne stock exchange blockade. He says 50 law students, and solicitors from community legal centres and private practice will observe police behaviour at today's protest. These legal observers, backed by the video tapes of alternative media group indymedia, are responsible for the Victorian Ombudsman holding an inquiry into police brutality in Melbourne.