First they came for the Socialists,
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak for me.
by Martin Niemoller
This video ends when the Victorian police officer took the phone which was recording live on Facebook. The arrest and search warrant apparently gave the police the right to confiscate all electronic devices in that home, including that mobile phone.
For more context, you can read the article online at The Australian newspaper by Janet Albrechtsen, it begins:
The state of Victoria is unfathomable. The duly elected leader, a Labor Premier, has armed police with brute powers to enter and search the Ballarat home of a young pregnant woman, her partner and children, arrest and handcuff her and seize all phones and laptops, regardless of who owns them.
Why? Here’s the fascist part.
Twenty-eight-year-old Zoe Buhler posted about “Freedom Day Ballarat” on Facebook. She wrote this: “PEACEFUL PROTEST! All social distancing measures are to be followed so we don’t get arrested please. Please wear a mask unless you have a medical reason not to. As some of you have seen, the government has gone to extreme measures and are using scare tactics through the media to prevent the Melbourne protests.
I'm speaking out, including through this weblog that is usually reserved for my natural history.
I worked out how to download the video from Facebook, and upload to a new Vimeo channel that I've just setup through Climate Lab. You are most welcome to share.
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The image at the top of this blog post is of course about a character in George Orwell's novel called 'Animal Farm'. And I copied the image from here: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/animal-farm/boxer-horse
There is a small indie new organization, Rebel News.
Their Australia correspondent, Avi Yemeni, was tackle arrested in Melbourne in the last week or do, then visited after release by the stasi to be told he is on a list.
The Canadian correspondent within a few days of the same time had basically the same experience in Canada.
There is an apocryphal story about how normal police can be turned into accomplished effective torturers in just a few months.
In reflecting on that story in light of the madness and hunger of the fanatic's leading major issues in the public square, and I think it really time to be very concerned.
Freedom of speech, thought, travel, religion, privacy, are all under severe assault by a large coalition of powerful, corrupt and committed players.
Another Solzhenetsyn proverb worth thinking about : "To do a great evil, one must be convinced they are doing a great good."
When is the Victorian WorkSafe/WorkCover Authority would step up, do their job, and require Andrews to comply with the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2004.
Andrews, as an employer has numerous obligations under the Act, he has failed in his "Duty of Care" (s20) and there is the serious potential that he can be charged with multiple (hundreds of) counts of his much lauded (by himself) s39A "Industrial Manslaughter".
As of today Ballarat has no new cases.
https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/6862965/regional-victoria-drops-below-14-day-average-case-threshold/
This police action is clearly overreach.There is no medical reason to justify such extreme force.
Victoria seems to have too many mentally ill people shot while resisting arrest.
Their track record on Pell and Lawyer X is dismal.
Both the NSW and Commonwealth police forces have been carefully trained in community relations.
Moves to retrain Victorian police could not come too soon.
The answer to the tragedy of the Victorian government and police is to use the Law as a weapon. Overwhelm the politicians and police with legal actions, from personal malfeasance of office to breaching our rights under Common Law.
Rather than blogs and editorials we need good legal minds to undertake a full attack on Victorian politicians and police.
Law if society's option to violence against the oppression of our self appointed masters.
Daniel Andrews has been given total control through the State of emergency. Anything that he cares to proclaim is the law and therefore, Victoria transfers from a democracy to a dictatorship. By refusing to accept Federal help when all other States accepted it , has resulted in the bungled hotel quarantine and over 500 consequential deaths. Compounded by setting, an impossible no-new-cases target that is so unrealistic that it means forever in lock-down.
The Victorian population has been placed in an unbelievable state, with potentially horrific consequences that are yet to be revealed.
Freedom of speech is the greatest threat to the Socialist way of control and Hitler, as a National socialist wrote guides to what was acceptable and what was forbidden. Today's politicians from the left are copying the worst aspects of Hitler's deranged ideas because they see that is a way to justify their fascist views.
The police officer reminds Zoe that she has the right to communicate with a legal practitioner, then confiscates all means of communication (except pen & paper) in the house!
from @martynlloydiles
Here is a list, in no particular order, of the problems with Zoe Lee's arrest.
1. She probably did not commit the crime of incitement. It requires first, intent, and second, for the crime incited to have actually happened. (See Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 321G). She was probably falsely arrested.
2. Daniel Andrews claimed, when questioned the following day (today), that he had not seen the video. This is either a lie, or he specifically told his staff not to show it to him so that he could say he had not seen it.
3. The Assistant Police Commissioner (APC) distinguished her event from BLM because hers was during stage 4 lockdown, and BLM was during stage 3. Wilfully deceptive. Ballarat - the location of Zoe's event - is in stage 3 lockdown.
4. The APC distinguished her event from BLM on the basis that BLM encouraged social distancing and mask wearing. So did her event, very specifically... I quote, "All social distancing measures are to be followed so we don't get arrested please. Please wear a mask unless you have a medical reason not to." Again, wilfully deceptive.
5. The APC said, “While this deadly virus doesn’t discriminate, we won’t discriminate and we can’t discriminate, in holding people to account.” - err, Black Lives Matter, anyone??? This made me snort my coffee out my nose. VicPol are not enforcing a righteous standard, but a political one. Agree with their politics, they lie to defend you. Disagree, they lie to falsely arrest you.
6. The police simply do not have to handcuff a person, do not have to arrest a person, and do not have to execute a search warrant under these circumstances. Doing do is unusual on all three counts. The doing of all three, in front of her family, whilst pregnant and compliant, is nothing short of intimidation tactics. (Not to mention she committed no crime, see point 1).
7. From her interview the following day: "Sorry about my bimbo moment, but I didn’t realise I wasn’t allowed to. I wanted to protest in Melbourne but obviously realised I wasn’t allowed to do that… so I just wanted to feel like I was doing something, you know standing up for human rights, and you know I am just a passionate person and I am sick of the lockdowns, I am sick of hearing about suicides, I personally lost my job, and I am just sick of watching the economy collapse. It got to the point where I just wanted to peacefully protest." Okay, so she is not some sort of anti-lockdown fanatic, or serial protester, or any such thing... and she intended no harm. This accords with the phrasing of her event - among other words, she said, "Here in Ballarat we can be a voice for those in stage 4 lockdowns."
8. Despite point 7, above, the APC implied very heavily in his press conference that she probably had a history of negative police interactions which led to her handcuffing. Rather unfair conjecture.
9. Even if she did seem to breach the Crimes Act, the Act is not allowed to be applied in a way that infringes on her freedom to politically communicate. This is a well known constitutional law doctrine in Australia, and state law is limited on this basis.
10. Even if she did seem to breach the Crimes Act, she has a further protection. The Victorian Police are not allowed to carry out their duties in a manner that breaches the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities which includes the rights to "peaceful assembly and freedom of association" and "freedom of expression"
11. The APC called it “That serious offence of inciting a protest” - actually, what she did (well, didn't do - see point 1) is the most utterly benign, low level crimes. Their actions were outrageously disproportionate.
12. The arresting officers later told Zoe they didn't want to do it. If this is true, then it's as I suspected - politicised leaders in the police force (a change of government usually changes that - hint, hint Victoria).
Summary: Andrews lied, the Assistant Police Commissioner lied, the media didn't bother holding them to account. The bored, Facebook-surfing police went digging to find an offence which they could use to "teach her a lesson" based on the fact they disagreed with her politics... and misread the offence, or hoped nobody would read it, thereby booking her for something she did not do, in handcuffs, in front of her children, and made off with her devices and searched her home.
This is the latest in a long line of incidents of VicPol persecuting those with political differences. See my earlier posts.
Somebody wake me up already. I don't like this dream.