From Andrew Kelly: Letter sent to Age, before I noticed the word limit (three times too long)

I must take issue with your paper’s characterisation of this morning’s East West Link protest as violent. I was there. We formed a line and were pushed back by police: that is pretty much all that happened. No one needed medical attention.

Your article opens “Protests at east-west link drilling sites again turned violent, with one man arrested and claims of punches being thrown.” This sentence is misleading.

The man arrested was Tony Murphy, but it was for standing on the road when he had stepped down off the curb. It had not the slightest relation to violence.

There was a punch but only one. It was thrown by an officer into Mel Gregson’s face. Her arms were linked with those of her neighbours at the time so she was unable to protect herself. Evidently it was not a killer blow but it was hard enough so that her head struck that of the person standing behind her and for a short time afterwards her nose bled. There is an important issue here. Over the weeks she is being repeatedly targeted, not because of anything physical she does — she is not exactly burly — but simply because she is one of the organisers. It looks very much like police officers, if not their commanders, are making a political decision to harass someone for their prominence in a political campaign. Continue Reading…