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satire « Previous | |Next »
September 08, 2007

If APEC is a gabfest with dress-ups then the several hundred million dollars in security, which involves a further erosion of our civil liberties, stands for surveillance society.

APECsecuirty.jpg
Leahy

The clampdown on civil liberties is way over the top, the restrictions extend far from the key venues and the squashing of the legitimate expression of dissent is extensive. There was even a security ban on the cafe at the Museum of Sydney in Bridge Street placing cutlery on its outdoor tables and the police could inspect the contents of reporters' notebooks.

Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald describes the surveillance thus:

Parts of the city look like a war zone, wreathed in five kilometres of fencing wire. Helicopters buzz, jumpy police bark at motorists. Riot cars tear through the city; the new water cannon lies in wait. Some city workers are forced to shuffle like prisoners through a series of chook runs. Laws are passed to give police extraordinary powers to search, detain, confiscate. There is a fenced-off "restricted" zone and a wider "security" zone.Worst of all, the right to march and protest is curtailed. APEC is disrupting the lives of 4 million people for a week in the interests, we are told, of a greater good. But a protest march that may disrupt the city for a few hours - for the legitimate purpose of expressing dissent - is deemed unacceptable.

Then there were the dog squads, the water cannon, the prison buses with their blacked out windows, the snipers on the roofs, the helicopter night patrols etc etc.

All this was for our protection from the subversives of The Chaser and their attempt to storm the Security Zone masquerading as a motorcade of Canadians.


| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 03:26 PM | | Comments (3)
Comments

Comments

Gary,
all of the talk of violence and confrontation around APEC has come from the police and the Government.

It would seem that in John Howard's comfortable and relaxed Australia, agitation of any kind--eg., to end the Iraq war or see real action on climate change--- has become a national security issue.

Is it any wonder so many laughed when the Chaser boys drove their three-car convoy into the heart of APEC-land and nobody twigged until they turned around.


Pam,
The Chaser moment was ironic isn't it.

Our political leaders had been telling us that the demonstrators were anarchists and ratbags without a cause, just spoiling for a fight and their five minutes of fame.Indeed they were the very reason we had to have such security measures.

Then there was the undertone of retribution for anyone taking to the streets in protest; the threats to students should they be caught wagging school to demonstrate; the legal battle to stop marches in particular areas of the CBD; the images of snipers on rooftops; the hum of helicopters spotlighting the city at night; and the sinister symbolism of the "great wall of Sydney".

It all painted a picture of a nation buckling to the terrorist threat we have all been told we are defeating in Iraq thanks to the stirling efforts of the Americans.

Gary
even more irony. The ABC Chaser team did more to raise the global profile of the APEC meeting than the leaders' communiques.

 
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