Small Protest Shuts Down Russian Consulate in Sydney.
On the afternoon of Friday July 14, as a part of the Global Day of Action Against the G8 a small group of protesters has taken on the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Sydney, Australia.
The ongoing brutality of the capitalist system, environmental destruction and, most pressingly, attack on the human rights that the goverments of the countries in the Group of Eight perpetrate made the action urgent.
The protest - on a weekday afternoon, in Woollahra - has attracted a total of 6 (six) protesters from Australia, France and Russia, which made for a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere as vodka and ice tea were shared and the implications of the G8 continued existence were discussed. However, the consulate - an eight storey high building of non-descript Soviet-style architecture - has been closed for visitors from 11:30 a.m., part of the street was cordoned off, and at least ten police officers were guarding the area near the entrance. After having a few pictures taken, the protesters have delivered the following statement to the consulate staff.
To Whom It May Concern:
We, the undersigned, demand immediate halt to the illegal and brutal repressions that Russian authorities, police and Federal Security Service are subjecting the participants in the Network Against the G8, Russian Social Forum and other members of the political opposition to. The fear of the the disturbances at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg is so big that the self-imposed rulers of the world ignore even their own laws.
Illegal shadowing, searches, detentions, arrests for crimes that the police are thinking up as they go along, deportations, and compliance of the courts that slap sentences left, right and centre only based on the confessions of the witnesses in the police force, - that's the reality for hundreds if not thousands of activists in Russia today. These are the methods that are used to curb the dissent and to prevent people from voicing their protest, however peaceful it may be. Operation "Barrier" should be stopped, and everyone detained despite committing no crime should be freed immediately.
We also express solidarity with the activists in Russia who are faced with incredible oppression.
Sydney, Australia
July 14, 2006
(Names withheld).
We ask those who share the sentiments expressed in this letter to offer solidarity to activists in Russia by forwarding this letter via either of the following contacts:
Consulate General of the Russian Federation, 7-9 Fullerton Street Woollahra, Sydney NSW 2025
Fax: +61 (0)2 9327 5065.
Email: ruscon@westnet.com.au
Repression in St
Repression in St Petersburg, solidarity in Germany and Austria
It was relatively quiet Thursday and Friday at the run-up to the St Petersburg G8. It looks like the repression of the previous days was also for tactical reasons to discourage people from going to St Petersburg. But a few small things and repressions happened anyway.
On Friday the Russian Social Forum started officially in St. Petersburg. There was a big press conference in the morning with more than 250 participants and about 70 journalists present.
There were various workshops during the day more or less mirroring the agenda of the G8 summit – energy security, infectious diseases and education.
Police are totally controlling the Social Forum. Bodies are searched on entry and one has to show an id document to register. Frequently people are also checked by police on their way to the forum.
For days a rumour has been going round that from Saturday morning police will close the stadium and let no one out. Some are saying the rumour could have been spread by the police themselves to deter as many people as possible from taking part in the forum.
Also from Saturday the subway station on the island where the Kirov stadium is located is to be put out of bounds for three days. Also blocked since three days has been Moscow’s Pulkovo Aiport. In addition to restrictions on air traffic, there are considerable ones on shipping as well. This is because journalist and other attendees of the summit use the central shipping terminal as a transfer point.
Police tactics in recent days were to exercise as mush repression as possible to intimidate people into not going to St Petersburg. For example, on Friday 200 people were held up on their way there.
This affected not just Russian trade unionists or anarchists, but a woman from Holland was also stopped from coming in, for example, and sent back.
Since Friday more than 30 people were arrested in St Petersburg and some were sentenced to detention for 10 to 15 days – exactly the period of the summit.
That this tactic works was shown by buses from Kiev. After long discussions the organisers of two busloads decided not to start out because they felt sure they wouldn’t arrive.
Two buses of the Libertarian Forum in Moscow had different experiences. They set off for Moscow but only one arrived after being held up for hours by police. The other bus had a breakdown.
Friday morning a woman’s passport was taken off her in a police check and it’s not clear whether she’s got it back.
That was Friday in St Petersburg. Watch out for more information. And get active yourselves.
There have been Global Action Days in German and Austrian towns.
In Bonn there was a rally outside the Russian consulate to protest about the 200 arrests of G8 opponents in Russia and against the growing neo-Nazi movement in that country.
In Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt/M, 20 to 30 protesters gathered outside the German government-owned bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), which is heavily involved with German capital interests in Russia.
The rally also protested against the arrests in St Petersburg by Putin’s police. The initiators made clear that they would continue to oppose the policies of the G8. They called already for actions against the next summit, to take place in Germany in 2007.
At noon on Friday there was a demo in Berlin, directly in front of the Russian Embassy on famous Unten den Linden Str. There were about 50 people, and at least 6 big banners. The famous Berlin Samba Band was also there.
After shortly preparing across the street from the Embassy, we quickly took our banners and flyers to distribute directly in front of the Embassy, but were immediately pushed back by the cops. They said we were only allowed to be across the street, for some unknown reason. Not nice!
We had lots of banners, saying things like “NOG8!” (with the well known image of the cowboy being thrown off the St Petersburg horse), another expressing solidarity for Russian Prisoners, “Resistance Everywhere, Fight the G8”, “Fight G8, Russia”, “No G8, Dissent!” and more small banners were hung across the street as well. There were also people from the Indian Adivasis campaign, who had earlier been demonstrating down the street in front of the Deutsche Bank. (We found out later there was also a demo against Bush just down the street at the US Embassy.)
Next the Samba Band played, livening up everyone’s spirits a bit and allowing us to sing along a bit. We gave out lots of leaflets, copies of the paper G8 Xtra by the Interventionist Left, and flyers for the next soli-demo here on Sunday, at 2 p.m. at U-Bhf Eberswalderstr (see www.kapitalismus-abschalten.de.vu).
In Hamburg about 300 people tried to "Reclaim the Streets". Several hundred police were deployed. Small and large groups blocked intersections and protested against the G8 summit.
In Heidelberg bags of paint were thrown at the building of Kraftanlagen Nukleartechnik in Heidelberg, a company with a large role in the smooth running of nuclear power stations in Germany. The KNT supplies power station components without which they could not operate. It is involved, for example, with the construction of the European Pressurised Water Reactor" in Finland. The idea was to show that not just power stations are imnvolved in the life-threatening nuclear cycle. We chose the 14th of July to mark the St Petersburg summit, where energy security will be a topic.
In Lüneburg leftwing activists gathered in the pedestrian precinct to protest against privatisation and exclusion in the public sector.
In Salzburg, Austria, about 15 people gathered at the Russian consulate to manifest solidarity with the protesters in St Petersburg.
Flyers were handed to motorists stopped at traffic lights. Polioce came and took down personal details. After half an hour police ordered the demonstrators away from the location.
If you understand German go for more to http://germany.indymedia.org/.
Get outta here!
Er....you seem to be unaware of the rules governing posting articles here. It has never been the practice to criticise regimes such as those in Russia. Or Burma. Or Cuba. Or Zimbabwe.
You must limit your criticism to democratic nations, preferably the US, UK, Australia, Canada or, less frequently, New Zealand.
Corrupt regimes such as Putin's have generally been afforded the benefit of selective outrage from human rights activists and I see no reason why you think you can come in here and start slagging them.
Now go away, and come back with some good old fashioned anti-western tirade. It will receive a far more friendly response I can assure you.
:)
Figured as much.
At least capitalism was blamed...
That way, I felt like I was reading Indymedia again. That and the complete lack of interest of context by comparing the human rights under the communist Soviet Union system and the human rights under the modern Russian system.
But Zionazism wasn't blamed
So it still lacks that certain Indymedia flavour ...
Oh, there's a KGB spy at the
Oh, there's a KGB spy at the top of power vertical and he builds a single-party system. It's just so obvious that it ain't worth much of mention.
what's wrong with their
what's wrong with their heads?, have they been sharing each others meds again?.
Yer so lucky to only know
Yer so lucky to only know police oppression from the dictionary.