Secondary students won't be intimidated
BY JODY BETZIEN
MELBOURNE -- Over the last week, the establishment media have threatened
young people with police repression if they attend the September 11
blockade of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Asia-Pacific Summit here.
Quoted in Melbourne's Herald-Sun, Peter Halloran, head of the police
force's protective security division, said that high school students who
intend to attend the protest ``... need to be very wary of the fact that
they could be unwittingly involved in violence''. The S11 Alliance, which
is one of the main organisers of the protest action, is committed to a
non-violent, peaceful blockade of the WEF meeting.
Police have contacted schools at which activists are organising a high
school walkout for September 11 and warned students not to support the
protest. Resistance member and high school student Tim Doughney said, ``The
police called the school principals and warned them against supporting high
school students going to the protest. But this won't stop us from building
the protest at our school. The police are trying to intimidate us.''
Carey Grammar student and Resistance activist James Crafti told ABC radio
3LO last week: `` As a protestor, what do you achieve through a violent
protest? You put people offside, people don't want to see a violent protest.
"We want a mass peaceful blockade of the World Economic Forum. If anything,
there is a history of police brutality; most of the violence at Seattle was
police violence. We hope for no violence whatsoever and will not respond to
any police violence. We wish to bring as many people to the protest as
possible.
"High school students are going to walk out in spite of the media and
police attempts to portray S11 as violent. We are angry about the corporate
greed that the WEF represents and we will be there in September in full force."
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