Posted on 03/26/2003 11:08:16 AM PST by MrBambaLaMamba
After a brawl with police and a boisterous student protest against the war in Iraq that led to 33 arrests, a schoolgirl in a black chador approached a police cordon.
"I want to go home," she demanded. It had been a sometimes exhilarating and sometimes frightening day of defiance in a warm, autumn sun. The confrontations and the emotion had exhausted her.
She received an icy silence. The cordon did not open. Her friend, another Muslim girl, said: "We'll get into trouble." The police paid them no attention. With incredulity and then outrage, the girls realised the situation.
It was 3.19pm in Phillip Street and police had just corralled 600 young demonstrators between two cordons at Bligh and Bridge Streets, trapping them outside the Prime Minister's office to which they had marched.
They were to remain there for two hours while about 300 angry demonstrators outside the cordon refused to clear the street, treating with contempt police demands and pleas by the adult protest organisers who had lost control of the youngsters whose emotions they had whipped up all day with their bullhorns.
Those inside the cordon saw themselves as hostages and three times surged against the police lines, trying to break through. "Let us go," they chanted. Those outside also tried to break the cordon, but were repulsed.
To Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dick Adams, it was anarchy, just as he had predicted that morning. He said he had to regain control of the streets. Until then, those inside the cordon would have to stay there.
Brandishing a kitchen paring knife he said was found inside the cordon, Mr Adams declared the protest an unlawful assembly.
Police set out to close the protest, making many more arrests. Advancing shoulder to shoulder, they cleared Phillip Street of demonstrators. They then started releasing the now silent and resigned protesters inside the cordon, letting them out into Bridge Street, the far side. At 5.09pm the street outside the Prime Minister's office block was clear and weary police began to march away, led by 10 police horses.
It was the end of a day in which many protesters tried hard to show maturity, wanting their objections to the war to be taken seriously. And for a while it was full of promise as about 2000 school-age protesters massed in Town Hall Square, making passionate declarations but insisting the protest remain peaceful.
At 12.35pm, all that changed. Young men began fighting with police, trying to free two mates who had been arrested. Girls hurled themselves into the fray.
During the half-hour melee, police were assaulted, pelted with full drink containers, eggs and with restaurant chairs. Three suffered minor injuries.
Fourteen protesters were charged, four with assaulting police, the others with resisting arrest, malicious damage, affray, violent disorder and throwing a missile. Nineteen were issued infringement notices for breaches of the peace.
The fights with police showed this was more than a protest against the war in Iraq. They exposed a deeper wound among the young men whom Mr Adams accused of attending the protest with the sole intention of "inciting violence" against police.
No one said it yesterday, but many will say it today: It is a wound which has to be healed.
There's another news item on this at A large group of Middle Eastern males started to engage and incite the police ...
She just can't abide anything but 100% truth, purity, goodness, and perfection in her leaders, government, musical groups, heroes, entertainers, sports figures, or friends.
She can abide murderous tyrants, criminal governments and terrorists in much of the rest of the world, because as she said at the after-protest party, "They're just wogs, what do you expect?"
The best way to end war and ensure peace is to kill the enemy.
Looks to me like we have the answer/example provided to us by the Sydney police ...
Let 'em congregate and pen 'em in!
I kinda' like the idea.
You want to tie up traffic?
Good, we'll keep you there.
Simple problem, simple solution:
I got the impression from reading the responses that some thought this happened on US soil. Australia is one of our allies. They got really mad at the Al Queda long about October 12, 2002.
If Islamofascist radicalism continues to grow in the world this is exactly what will happen.
My Auxxie buddies tell me I don't pronounce Cannes or Brisbane correctly either. Big Sigh.
My Aussie buddies tell me I don't pronounce Cannes or Brisbane correctly either. Big Sigh.
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