Power concedes nothing without a demand – Frederick Douglas
Everything we have gained in our pursuit of justice, we have fought for – through our collective action, our resistance and through protest.
Protest is crucial for realising all human rights and an essential part of an accountable, just, equitable government. Protest is how we have achieved numerous important reforms that we now take for granted: Voting rights for women and First Nations People, land rights, community controlled health and legal services, the apology for the Stolen Generations, the 8-hour workday and the advancement of LGBTIQA+ rights.
First Nations People have resisted occupation since we were invaded in 1777. We have a long and proud history of protest and resistance movements which have won significant change. Through protest, we fearlessly fought and continue to fight for our Sovereignty, our right to self-determination, our right to care for our lands and waters, to end Deaths in Custody and police violence, and to abolish racism in this colony.
Protest works, which is why it continues to be attacked by unjust colonial governments and institutions. We must fight back against these attacks, because our right to protest can be the difference between life and death.
We must push for:
- Enshrine the Right to Protest in a Federal Human Rights Act
- Repeal Restrictive Anti-Protest Laws
- No peaceful protesters sent to prison
- De-militarise the police
Are protest rights protected?
Around the world, from Ukraine, to Palestine, to the streets of Melbourne, the right to protest is being questioned and challenged. Under colonial law, governments have a duty to respect, facilitate and protect protest rights which they break when it doesn’t suit their agenda.
The right to protest is also protected under international human rights law. So-called Australia is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is party to seven core international human rights treaties which bind all Australian governments and agencies to respect, ensure, and protect our human rights, including our right to protest. Our right to freedom of assembly and association is contained in articles 21 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The Threat to Human Rights
Across the country, goverments are finding new ways to suppress and silence resistance, weaponising their laws, powers and increasingly militarised police forces against human rights defenders who are protesting against violence, war, ecocide and genocide.
In the past few years, five state governments (NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria) have introduced anti-protest legislation to limit protest rights. These laws are in conflict with Australia’s international human rights obligations
Multiple Human rights organisations have expressed alarm over the degradation of our right to protest and have been critical ofthese new laws, highlighting “vague and ill-defined offences, excessive police powers, disproportionately harsh penalties, and the prioritisation of corporate interests, like forestry and mining, over the rights of people to access public land and? to voice dissent.” - Human Rights Law Centre.
In the past decade, numerous United Nations Special Rapporteurs urged state governments, includingTasmania and Western Australia, not to adopt anti-protest legislation. They have also described alarm at “the trend of introducing constraints by state and territory governments on the exercise of this fundamental freedom.”
These attacks on protest rights strike at the core of democracy - we cannot, and we will not, let colonial governments take these rights away from us.
In Victoria, we have a Human Rights Charter which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly and association as a human right. However, in 2022, the then Andrews Labor Government passed the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Act 2022 which doubled the penalties for direct action, like citizen science or surveying areas designated for logging. Recently, there are growing fears from the community of draconian anti-protest legislation as the state cracks down on the weekly Palestine protests in the city of Melbourne and Victoria Police use disproportionate force against peaceful protestors.
The militarisation of police in this country is accelerating, alongside the increased criminalisation of the right to protest. The state is using unjust laws and powers against human rights defenders: those protesting against violence, war, ecocide, genocide.
In Victoria, governments have introduced heavy penalties for people protecting our native forests from logging, and there are growing concerns about new draconian anti-protest laws to crack down on protests in support of the people of Palestine. And while protesting is becoming more and more criminalised, police are becoming increasingly militarised and using disproportionate force against peaceful protestors.
More recently, the “right to feel safe” has been used to attack and dismantle university encampments and the “right for people to go about their business” has been used to brutalise protestors at community pickets. Instead of heading the calls of the masses and taking action, governments are instead doing everything within their power to squash dissent.
We will not be silenced
I was censored in parliament over protesting the visit of a colonising monarch. I was suspended for speaking up against racism in the chambers.
There is pride in protest. I have no regrets. I will not be silent. The truth is, this colony is built on stolen land, stolen wealth and stolen lives. The British Crown committed heinous crimes against the First Peoples of this country. These crimes include war crimes, crimes against humanity and committing Genocide against Indigineous peoples across the planet. The Crown must be held accountable for these crimes, and so must the Genocidal state of Israel that is committing Genocide in Palestine.
Protest is not a part of democracy; it is democracy itself. It is how we are able to express dissent and advocate for a better world for all of us. As successive governments continue to restrict our freedoms and ability to fight for our futures, property and private profits are being prioritised over the freedom to protest.
It’s not too late. We can change course by demanding that Governments across so-called Australia repeal anti-protest laws and introduce human rights acts that compel agencies, including the police, to consider human rights implications before taking action against protestors.
But no matter what reforms are introduced, our long and proud history tells us just how weak these protections can be as governments can just ignore them and do whatever they want anyway, stripping us of our freedoms. So we must keep turning up to defend our rights, no matter how hard they may try to stop us, no matter how many of us they intimidate, arrest, and raid.
There is pride in protest and we will not back down.