According to both The Guardian and The Australian, New South Wales police (the ones currently having a few major differences between Deputy Commissioners) think it is OK to pepper spray protesters.

From The Guardian:

Police have defended the handling of the unauthorised protest.

“The NSW police force will not tolerate breaches of the peace or criminal offences being committed by persons who attend unauthorised demonstrations or public assembles [sic],” a statement said.

The Australian ran the same AAP report with the same comment in it.

Unauthorised protests? Breaches of the peace? Criminal offences?

OK, let’s deal with the last matter first. If there were criminal offences being committed why were there no arrests? Could it be this is just a self-serving justification for the violence the police unleashed on protesters? Perhaps what we will now see is some after the event action by police to retrospectively justify their attacks.

What breaches of the peace? I wasn’t aware demonstrating was a breach of the peace. This sets a dangerous precedent for all future demonstrations.

And unauthorised demonstrations and public assemblies? (Note the correct spelling of assemblies).

We need authorisation, from the police, to demonstrate. This is the police state beginning its long tortuous road to more and more repression.

Leaving aside the fact such laws may not withstand a High Court freedom of speech challenge, the idea that you need approval from police to demonstrate is deeply offensive to democratic principles. It was the police of course who did not authorise (i.e. banned) one protest at the Israeli Film Festival last year.

Why do police have this power? To regulate protest. What the ruling class fears is effective protest.  In the words of John Gorton:  ‘We will tolerate dissent as long as it remains ineffective.’ Now it appears even that illusion of freedom is under attack.

What to do? As I wrote in relation to the Charlie Hebdo protests:

The defence of free speech is an important struggle for the left. The demonstrations in defence of free speech prompted by the murder of the Charlie Hedbo journalists offer some hope for us to both join in that movement and argue for an expansion of free speech from the ruling class to all of us as well as fight Islamophobia. In Australia that means being involved, as best we can and when opportunities present, to mobilise against the growing neoliberal encroachment of and restrictions on free speech and other civil liberties and any racist outbreaks.  It also means pointing out the limited nature of free speech under capitalism and highlighting the attacks of the 1% on it and explaining the possibilities for its expansion to give voice to the voiceless, the vast majority in society.

Students are keeping that flame of free speech alive with their ‘unauthorised’ protests against Pyne and his attempted destruction of Universities. To defend free speech and Universities join with students in their just campaign against fee deregulation and funding cuts on 25 March across Australia.

Police say it is OK to pepper spray protesters away