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In Melbourne, Australia, clashes continue between the police and those protesting Victoria state’s harsh lockdown rules (under which people are permitted to leave their homes only for essential reasons).
And, of the 25 million Australian citizens, a grand total of 319 people have reportedly died of COVID this year, or a grand total of 0.00128 percent of the population.
Yet, as we note in this Trends Journal (see “NSW: NO VAX, NO FREEDOM!”) draconian lockdown orders have been imposed and “freedom” will not be restored until 80 percent of the population is jabbed.
Down and Out, Down Under
Harsh rules and heavy-handed enforcement are nothing new there; see “AUSTRALIA: FEW VIRUS CASES BUT TOUGH RE-LOCKDOWN” (22 Sep 2020).
And, to illustrate the ongoing brutality of Aussie COVID Commie Cop squad, this video posted by news.com.au, Australia’s leading news site, shows a cowardly cop coming up behind a man who was threatening no one, and throwing him down and bashing the victim’s head open.
Of course, this is not reported in America or the other now tyrannical “democracies.”
However, NPR did report on 21 September that construction workers were at the forefront of demonstrations in Melbourne’s Central Business District, angered by a new vaccination mandate requiring them to show proof of at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine; the new rule was in reaction to some 13 percent of the state’s active COVID-19 cases being linked to construction sites.
On 20 September crowds gathered outside the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union headquarters to protest the mandate. With agents provocateurs inciting, a melee ensued in which bottles were allegedly thrown, and police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters.
The union condemned the violence but distanced itself from the protesters, claiming that the demonstration had been hijacked and that actual union members had been in the minority. A union statement attributed the violence to the crowd having been “heavily infiltrated by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists” who donned “hi-viz” clothing and purported to be construction workers.
Other marches have continued across the city, again with objects hurled and property damaged, and also attributed by media to “protesters dressed as construction workers.” Indeed, photos and videos of the events are reminiscent of the “Yellow Vest” strikes and protests in France; see “FRANCE: NATIONAL STRIKE IS BREWING” (3 Dec 2019).
Responding to those events, state officials imposed a two-week shutdown of construction sites in Melbourne and other regional areas.
Meanwhile, a protest at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance was met with not only tear gas and volleys of rubber bullets but with an escalation of rhetoric.
9News.com.au reported on 23 September that the previous day some 400 persons, also protesting the vax mandates for the construction industry, had “hijacked” the memorial to war veterans and heroes. Allegedly the demonstrators, who gathered on the steps of the memorial, were given four hours to disperse and, when they failed to do so, police opened fire. A video of police firing on the crowd can be seen here.
215 persons were arrested and will be subject to AU$5500 fines for breaching the lockdown orders.
Most of the coverage of this event (in what might strike some as an orchestrated “propaganda offensive”) centers on how “shameful,” “disgraceful” and “disrespectful” it was for the protesters to have chosen that particular location.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the protesters should be “ashamed of themselves.” And Senator Jacqui Lambie declared, “Blood, sweat and tears is the reason that you have your freedoms because all those people fought for this country.”
TRENDPOST: Apparently no irony was seen in attacking demonstrators (whom even the media labeled as peaceful “freedom protesters”) who chose a monument to defenders of freedom as a place to protest limitations on their own freedoms. And while the protests are being reviled as “disrespectful,” it should be noted that the crowds were chanting “Sacred Ground” and “Lest We Forget.”