Headline from news.com.au of a few days back: APEC protestors admit "violent" plan.
Somebody found an online post circulating from Melbourne anarchist group claiming that it endorsed violent action. The allegedly incriminating line is "By the very praxis of stepping out and challenging their control of space, we are committing what is regarded as a violent act".
It seems dubious that this is an intention to cause harm to person or property. They seem to be saying that they'll be CALLED violent, but not actually advocating it.
The full text of the anarchist group's announcement is here. I'll quote again, adding the next sentence that news.com.au left off: "By the very praxis of stepping out and challenging their control of space we are committing what is regarded as a violent act. It is the violence of articulating resistance; it is a violation against their understanding of our lives."
I think that reads slightly differently.
Curious how the way of talking about the APEC protests has neatly categorised the possible protest into one of only two categories: peaceful and good, or violent and evil. This group is advocating something that doesn't fit neatly into that dichotomy: from my reading, their intention is not to cause direct harm or damage, but to deliberately trespass. That's not violent. It is, though, definitely illegal, and dead certain to provoke a forceful response from police.
So...is it "violent protest" if a person knowingly commits a non-violent but illegal act which the police will, I believe, be obliged to respond to with force?
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