Protesting is a right: use it, don't abuse it
ON Tuesday, two protesters painted the words "No war" on the
sails of the Opera House. Yesterday, 15 Greenpeace activists, wearing
blue United Nations berets, blocked the gates of The Lodge in Canberra,
using four-wheel drive vehicles with "UN" painted on them.
Chaining themselves to the fence, they tried to place the Prime Minister
under "house arrest" for war crimes, then heckled him as he
returned from his morning walk.
The right to express an opinion through peaceful protest is one of the
linchpins of a democratic society.
During the past 30 years, with the rise of multinational activist
organisations such as Greenpeace, protests have increasingly taken the
form of well-organised mobilisations, designed to attract attention on
the evening news with their colour and audacity.
As the nation moves towards war, the right to protest becomes more
important and more worth preserving than ever. But in a political and
security climate that has been transformed by the evil of international
terrorism, it also becomes more important that activists do not abuse the
right to protest.
Those who scaled the sails of the Opera House on Tuesday could easily
have been mistaken for terrorists, and shot. And when protesters in some
kind of uniform block the Prime Minister's residence using large
disguised vehicles, it is simply asking too much of police and security
personnel to make the instant call that they are bent on protest, not
something much more sinister.
The tragic case of Rachel Corrie, the young US peace activist who was
crushed to death by an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip on Monday,
illustrates just how badly wrong a protest can go. FROM and editorial in
Moloch paper the Australian.Today.
Politician warns media, war is not a
game
A Federal Labor MP has accused Rupert Murdoch's newspapers
of treating the looming war in Iraq like a video game.
