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G20--the legal aftermath: Victoria Stead sees an attempt to depoliticise protest behind the extraordinary charges brought against the G20 arrestees.

Article Excerpt
It has been a year and four months now since 2000 people took to the streets in protest against the meeting of the G20 economic summit in Melbourne. Over three days, people engaged in occupations; street theatre and a Carnival Against Capitalism; a convergence and workshops held in a squatted empty warehouse; art shows and performances; and a host of other direct actions aimed at disturbing the status quo and giving expression to our anger, our passion and our hope for something better. It was the events of a total period of a few hours, however, which dominated the media coverage of the protests, and the response of the state to those few hours, that has since dominated the lives of twenty-eight individuals, their supporters, friends and families.

On the afternoon of Saturday 18 November, a group of around 100 protestors attempted to break through the barricades that police had erected around the site of the G20 summit at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Clashes with police ensued, with protestors attacking the water-filled barricades and, a short while later, an empty police brawler van, which was also being used as a barricade to block access to the Hyatt. The next day Victoria Police launched a massive operation--Operation Salver--which began making arrests within twenty-four hours. In the days and months that followed, a total of twenty-eight people were arrested and charged. Most of the charges relate to the events of the Saturday afternoon, but there are also some related to a series of occupations on the Friday before--of the Defence Recruiting Office and the office of Tenix Solutions, a defence contractor company which has been making big profits from the war in Iraq--and a scuffle with police outside Parliament House on the Saturday evening.

The list of charges laid against the twenty-eight women and men is long and frightening. It includes multiple counts of riot, affray, conduct endangering serious injury, criminal damage, assault and aggravated burglary. In March this year the first of the arrestees was sentenced. Akin Sari pleaded guilty to nine charges after having being detained on remand for several months. He was sentenced to a staggering twenty-eight months jail, with a minimum non-parole period of fourteen. His sentencing came midway through the committal hearing for the other twenty-three arrestees going through the adult court system (four more will...

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