Was it 3K or really 10K at the SBC rally and march? It does matter!
Crowd estimates are quite difficult but what intrigues this writer is that the police are running a line there were only 3,000.
My witness would be around 10K based on all of George St opposite Town Hall filled to capacity at the assembly point, as well as Town Hall square itself.
Also the march once mobile filled all of very wide Park St west from George st /Town Hall square, and east to Elizabeth St and Hyde Park. That's quite a crowd in my experience of 40K IR rallies, peace rally in Feb 2003 etc of 200K plus.
Does it matter?
Well yes it does. If the govt/police are running a lie about only 3K turn out with the spin that it was their PR and action etc that caused that, then its a breach of integrity and sound governance of justice policies.
Also the very threatening weather didn't deter a big number of people because it only cleared literally at 10am the scheduled start time, with blue sky for hours following, despite weeks and months of dissuasion to not attend, which means those establishment voices really are NOT trusted or credible. And that's a very inconvenient truth for Big Meeja, Big Govt and Big Police. 10K people simply didn't believe them and were right to not believe them and attended the rally anyway. That's an incredible bond of trust and faith in the NGO sector leadership way above that of the Govt and Big Media and Police.
A 10K vote of no confidence in so called good government institutions is a damning reflection on this govt's lack of integrity.
Also we notice the Sunday Telegraph today refers to "leaden skies". Actually from 10am until 12 noon during the main speeches and rally it was blue sky in a miracle of sunlight amongst the tall buildings. We got worried about sunburn. For the next two hours say noon to 2pm it was more overcast. But actually the weather was fantastic and cool.
So the Sunday Telegraph is badly misleading it's readers ... again. It became drizzily from about 3 or 4 pm if memory serves which encouraged people to finish up and leave. Which is actually what you want with any big event - much better to have a well defined climax and end of proceedings so there is a clearly defined group think, yep its done, time to push on and go. Rather than suffer a messy fizzle of confusion for all concerned ie is there more, did we see 'the thing' etc. In this way the break in the weather 10am to 4pm was perfect and to say otherwise is churlish and snotty after a week of wet weather but what you sort of expect from crook reportage.
The Sunday press in Sydney are playing down the great great rally and march having been denied their long promised riot. They talk about police controlling the streets which is a deception because the march path was agreed by the civil society organisers of the Stop Bush Coalition for a good 48 hours already. So the control of the streets with road blocks everywhere was with barely any qualification the determined, convinced paranoia of the police, but more sinister than that, it was a baited law and order political strategic trap and empire building bureaucracy. What we now know as "popular authoritarianism", that Mussolini, a fascist made infamous.
Yes there were a handful of nasty or unstable characters there of about .01% proportion.
Take any crowd of 10,000 like a sports game and that's what you might
get anywhere. That's not the truth or representative of anything. And
that's why such coverage should never have led any news - it had no
status or validity or representative value. That indeed what police are paid a good career to
deal with, hardly the massive boosting they claim as of right. Hardly the smear they claim of civil society groups.
The big media photo galleries barely reflect the incredible colour and creativity of the event and broad based appeal. Why exactly is that? Because the event was anti big corporate control of society and govt and that's a message to be censored. It's a story to be distorted into a police action, a govt use of force.
It's on the inside pages today around p6 or 8 as if to complain we didn't get our riot. No, but we did get our democracy and another nail in the Howard Govt's coffin, several years overdue. Similarly when 250-500K people in Sydney marched against Howard and Bush in Feb 2003 the same Telegraph tried to bury that huge proportion of Sydney in a "10 million" figure world wide, which is trivial compared to 6 billion world population. But 250K in a city of 4M isn't trivial rather a cage rattling rejection of PM Howard. So sneaky. So dishonest.
Interesting too that the prime time morning abc radio news today reports 200 police exposed with no ID, and Commissioner Scipione saying yes these will be referred to the Professional Standards Command. No doubt because that is prima facie evidence of an intention to indulge in illegal activity, or even incite a riot as exposed in the case of Quebec police on CBC network over in Canada recently. That is something to hide behind sinister anonymity. Some footage on tv last night showed the proverbial protester down under a policeman arms swinging in cowardly ferocity. Pathetic really. Should be sacked.
Police have their role but should not run NSW governance no matter what such grubs like Alan Jones might prefer at 2GB apparently doing his best this last week to promote another Cronulla riot for his friend John Howard's law and order tub thump. What we called from at least mid year 2007 the Howard APEC law and order election trap which has failed. Exit John Howard, failed discredited leader on
- sound global climate change policy
- Iraq war aggression, reconstruction
- industrial relations justice
Like Bob Carr in NSW he should just resign and go. Time's up. Just go. You are a disgrace to good goverance now and the public want a big serious change. The polls are real. Just go.
Re: Was it 3K or really 10K at the SBC rally and march? It does
I wasn't at the march, but was online all day monitoring news bulletins. Organisers were saying by the time the march left Town Hall that 10,000 were present, and all the early media reports were stating that police claimed 5000 were present. It wasn't till mid afternoon when Police Commissioner Scipione came out with the 3000 figure in news reports, that subsequent media reports changed the police claimed attendence to the lower figure.
Now I have seen news videos of the crowd outside the Town Hall and in my judgement I would say that 10,000 was closer to the mark. George street was full for that whole block in front of the Town Hall, as well as much of the City Square. Thats a large space hard for 3000 to fill, 10,000 people is a much closer estimation.
No, I think Scipione is playing games again trying to downplay the extent of the protest, and his gross underestimation of crowd numbers and his attempts to minimise and contain peaceful dissent while employing provocative policing tactics can only reflect on his capacity to run a police force in a liberal democracy.
Re: Was it 3K or really 10K at the SBC rally and march? It does
I've always worked on the assumption you get the police estimate and the protestors estimate and find the in between point for your closest estimate.
So cops say 5,000. Protestors say 10,000
My guess 7,500 at the rally
Police evidence to the Supreme Court predicted 20K, then '3K'
But the police/govt claimed in PR postures on Saturday late arvo that there were only 3K.
That's a huge differential actually from police evidence in court to media PR after the event.
And diverges hugely from the protest organisers estimates of at first 5K, then upgraded to 10K on the day.
There is a clear pattern here I submit of the police presenting dishonest spin to the public, but quite seriously in evidence to the Supreme Court.
The senior police better watch how they go, getting way too clever and adopting sleazy ALP media management style tactics, this is proper fodder for
1. the Police Integrity Commission
2. ICAC
3. arguably potential allegations of perjury (a criminal offence) before a Supreme Court judge Michael Adams in the case over the anti Bush rally/march last week.
Having said all this, we do agree with UWS academic Kennedy in the SMH today young police are indeed being used as political pawns in a hard fought dangerous law and order bait and switch federal election dynamic, power arm wrestle between Howard/Federal Coalition versus ALP/Iemma State govt proxy for Rudd federal Opposition.
The fact remains the police like everyone must act according to law in performing their genuine public safety and security function.
There must also be honesty on the party of the civil society ngo groups both inside and outside the Stop Bush Coalition that .01% of people at the rally were a real threat to public safety. As a lawyer and long time ngo activist and community media practitioner I am quite comfortable in conceding that point to Police Commissioner Scipione, Minister Campbell and the nervous coppers on the line. I felt a few of those nerves myself on Saturday.
Overall democracy came through with some pretty bad bruises and scrapes - quite alot more communication and analysis to review what we've been through is probably in order Mills, Scipione, Campbell, students Paddy and Jones on that list (and SBS and 60 Minutes too as young stars), Bainbridge etc.
Some positive dialogue might be order, and quite a bit more trust. We can all agree surely this was no g20 farce, and one up on Melbourne folks for strategic savvy all round. Ha ha. (Speaking as a refugee from Victoria, God love 'em.)
Re: Was it 3K or really 10K at the SBC rally?
I was present at the rally, which was very peaceful and positive-spirited I might add, with some very articulate and intelligent speeches made at Town Hall. It was peaceful and friendly until I tried to leave Hyde Park! Then I was in for a huge shock, with how poorly the police handled their security of the event - many of the police all revved up and ready to inflame and escalate the most innocent query ie. Can't I just cross the street and go home now? - NO!
3,000 was definitely understated. My guess at the time was that 10,000 seemed fairly accurate.
There may have been 3,000 police officers there though. (Unfortunately.) Perhaps that's where they got their figures crossed...
Thankyou, police numbers take the protest to a minimum 6K/13K?
We never contemplated counting the police in the march and rally numbers, but that's our cliched stereotype of the dear brothers and sisters in blue.
I declare they have two eyes, two arms and legs. They are human like us and they were there.
Heaven be blessed we must count them as at the rally making a healthy 13,000 at the rally march.
Great stuff. The official rally count just keeps growing to reach the police evidence to the Supreme Court judge Michael Adams last Wednesday of in fact 20K likely attendance, but down a little because of the rain up until 10am.
See - telling the truth was never so easy, eh Chief Superintendent Stephen John Cullen, in the witness box as Commander of the Riot and Public Order Squad. It's all on the transcript for some kind of review, can't wait.
Australia All Over gem about the Chaser Boys lock out from ABC!
For media tragics who woke up to hear the Sunday radio news only to get Ian Macnamarra's folksy Sunday morning show, there was a very funny pay off:
Ian Mac was pissing himself that the Chaser lads 'had penetrated the expensive APEC cordon, but only had electronic passes into the ABC studios coded for Wednesdays', or so he said, to explain why they were 'locked out of the ABC' and 'were downstairs but can't get in'.
At least that was the gist if I was hearing it right in a rather sleepy state about 7.30 am on Sunday morning. Is it really true?
Very funny to be sure. Thanks AAO.
Indeed, corporate media, NSW
Indeed, corporate media, NSW Police and the NSW & Federal governments succeeded to no small degree in hijacking the public discussion- off of China’s human rights abuses, Aboriginal issues, poverty and global warming- and on to flogging fake fears of protest violence.
Last Saturday evening, I saw a candlelight vigil held by Falun Gong supporters at the corner of Broadway and King St near Newtown. A single row of protesters sat along the footpath, covering about three to four hundred metres- had to have been 300-400 people. Any mention in the corporate news? Nope. My luddo-mobile doesn’t have a camera, but surely some Indymedia photojournalists must have got some pics, like this brilliant collage from the anti-APEC march.
Indymedia reports that NSW Police busied themselves protecting Welf Herfurth’s neo-nazis, who were masquerading as anarchists and trying to start fights. Some officers reportedly prepared themselves for a few civil rights violations by removing their name badges, which they are required to wear at all times while in uniform. Police indeed have past form in removing badges when policing protests, to avoid assault complaints. One copper proffered the excuse that the badges have a dangerous pin that could be used as a weapon against them. Sounds like velcro badges* could be a fine way to assure officers are identifiable and yet are protected against disabling pin-stick injuries…
A jaywalker who apparently thought the police were only concerned with the unwashed rabble and not responsible family men, found himself strip searched, jailed for 22 hours and bailed for $1000 as well as banned from the APEC areas- and the man’s son has an impression of police that will last a lifetime.
Quaint- and quite familiar.
I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it since policing of Vietnam War protests in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Howard’s recent string of power grabs, from the anti-Federalist Murray-Darling water scheme to the draconian ‘intervention’ in Aboriginal communities and the absolutely over-the-top policing of Sydney during APEC has all of the appearance of a landed fish flipping its last flop before going into the frying pan.
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