No shrinking Violet: jail sentence a crime against the earth and its people

Jenny Thomas writes: There is multiple evidence that Australia’s concern to punish community activism (“Climate protester’s sentence is half that of Grace Tame’s abuser’s. Is this justice?”) is far greater than its selective moral indignation over paedophilia (by “selective”, I refer to the almost complete public amnesia over family-based paedophilia as opposed to institutionally based abuse, although the evidence is that its occurrence is many times greater and more pervasive). It cannot have escaped notice that in the same edition of Crikey as Michael Bradley’s article, Keir Semmens quotes Martin Luther King Jr’s letter from Birmingham Jail:

That the great stumbling block in the Negro’s stride toward freedom is the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice … who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.’

He clearly anticipated this week’s words from Dom Perrottet, the NSW premier, in a separate but just as existential conflict: drawing the attention of the public to the impending disaster of climate change and seeking its support for more urgent action from governments.

This is not the first time the NSW government has stumbled into the creation of laws which manifestly protect institutionalised bastardry over the rights of the public to be informed. I refer in particular to the laws protecting the privacy rights of farmers over those of animal activists seeking to publicise the conditions under which farm animals are kept and killed, the NSW Surveillance Devices Act. There is a theme here.

Roger Clifton writes: During the anti-Vietnam War movement, groups containing would-be revolutionaries were able to access lawyers with conscience to advise on how to reduce their risks of prosecution. As the need for climate revolution increases in the years ahead, our foot soldiers will increasingly need the advice of today’s lawyers of conscience.

Malcolm Fraser writes: It is indeed a very serious issue that a citizen should disrupt so many people trying to get to work. In economic terms it must be considerable. I am not prepared to take such an act of civil disobedience myself but the lack of adequate action to deal with climate change by our society — not just politicians — makes the protest action understandable. Historically such desperate action has at times been the only appropriate form of action available to citizens.

Colin Ross writes: Surely “peaceful protest” is an oxymoron. All protests are meant to disturb someone’s peace, even if it’s only their peace of mind.  Even though I am an atheist, I marvel at what the historical figure Jesus managed to achieve through many of his far from peaceful protests.

Rosemary Jacob writes: Since the end of January 2020, I have been a non-violent protester, sitting outside the NT’s Parliament House for two hours every (non-rainy) Wednesday afternoon. I have now open-ended permission to do so from the speaker. Increasingly, those who stop to speak to me are fully supportive. And the numbers of supporters are — slowly — increasing.

I am totally disgusted by the new laws in NSW and the prison sentence dealt out to Deanna “Violet” Coco and sincerely hope her appeal is successful. And the reported police threats of sexual assault are beyond disgusting. They belong in Iran.

I turn 87 in January and, despite being a Murdoch paper, the NT News publishes my letters and those from other activists. Interestingly, my earlier letters used to trigger unpleasant responses. No longer is that the case. Good luck to activists in NSW!

Doug Hamment writes: I am a pensioner in his 70s and appalled by the outrageous sentencing of this young woman for doing no more than peacefully protesting the painfully slow government reaction to global warming and its associated issues. The law that this vile government has allowed will take us back to the same level as some of the world’s most despotic and feudal governments where any objection to government decrees is punishable by imprisonment or worse.

Governments shouldn’t be able to say who can or can’t have a peaceful demonstration. We should all have that right.

Anthony McIntyre writes: I am surprised that the legislation was not written in German. The Nazi
Party passed similar legislation in the 1930s. The first thing autocratic regimes do when seizing power is to muffle protests. It is sad to see an Australian government going down this path.

Kelvin Sparks writes: The point you make with the comparison you draw between Coco’s sentence and that of Nicolaas Bester’s is indeed instructive: the status quo never reforms itself. Put differently, those who enjoy privilege never willingly give up that privilege.

Here’s another comparison: in Adelaide for the past 10 days the traffic has been seriously disrupted, day in, day out, by a fossil-fuel-guzzling minority sport, namely the Adelaide 500, which is run on main roads adjacent to the CBD. It is no less hyperbolic than the judge’s in Sydney to claim this made “an entire city suffer” but over a much longer period. That no one was arrested — indeed the race’s reinstatement became part of an election-winning party’s platform — indicates exactly where we are as a society in terms of taking the effects of climate change seriously. 

Sol Ibrahim writes: Although the author’s intention was not to comment on the adequacy of the abuser’s sentence, I think the conclusion must be that Nicolaas Bester got off too lightly (notwithstanding the fact that he can never work as a teacher again and is branded as a child abuser for the rest of his life). How society (through the government of the day) determines appropriate punishment is based on consideration of more factors than intention and harm.

The new anti-protesting laws are a reaction to a series of protest actions (in Australia and internationally) with ever-increasing disrupting consequences. It takes only a few people to organise a rally that stops a city, and this can be done over and over again. With no clear objective other than “climate action”, activists can repeat a range of massively disruptive protests indefinitely. These harsh anti-protest laws are made in this context. Fortunately there are many more creative and effective ways to communicate the very real and urgent concerns about the climate emergency.

Dean Wotherspoon writes: Young people looking back on the past year see another 6% increase in greenhouse gas emissions — another record — and ask where is the action to stop climate change? The current crop of politicians just doesn’t understand the urgency of the problem and some still refuse to believe the problem is even real.

When I read about the magistrate’s emotional outbursts in the court it was clear we are dealing with a person who has absolutely no sympathy or understanding of the situation young people find themselves in. I was appalled by the magistrate’s description of Violet Coco’s actions as “childish”, a comment worthy of tabloid scribblers. The protest was clearly a political activity and for the magistrate to blurt out that Coco was not a political prisoner was quite absurd.

I am also appalled that Coco was refused bail and that she was allegedly subjected to sexual threats from police officers. There are plenty of people in jail now for serious crimes who will be locked up for less time than Coco who was engaged in a peaceful protest. 

Judith Wakeman writes: Just two days ago an event was held at The Hague chaired by Princess Esmeralda of Belgium to discuss the inclusion of ecocide as a fifth crime against humanity. Curiously, ecocide, defined as “the unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”, is already a crime in the Rome Statute, but not in a time of peace. It was proposed that the relevant clause could, if not should, be amended to correct this inconsistency. If it were, government ministers and CEOs worldwide would be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Coco’s disproportionate treatment will be noted among young people in burgeoning numbers around the globe who are taking up the cause for ecocide to be written into international law books.

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