The @disruptlandforces picket in Naarm/Melbourne today was met with massive police repression.

Victoria Police used pepper spray, rubber bullets, flashbangs, tear spray and OC pellets against anti-war and pro-palestine protesters to push them away from the convention centre.

Breaking! Autonomous activists have shut down the roads entering Webb Dock, stopping workers and trucks from entering the shipping terminals for Toll Group and Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT).

This action targets Toll Group, a logistics company actively facilitating the global transfer of arms, including for display at Disrupt Land Forces, and VICT, a terminal that contracts with "israeli" national shipping carrier ZIM and its partners.

This is a purposeful economic disruption to further anti-zionist and anti-imperialist causes. It aims to economically disrupt the flow of capital to the zionist economy and the global logistics of arms supply.

Activists reaffirm their commitment to material solidarity with all Indigenous peoples who face and resist the forces of imperialism, colonisation and capitalism, from the occupation on this continent to the occupation in Palestine.

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE

Anonymous submission from a group of antifascist networks in so-called 'melbourne':

"In the wake of the heinous & racist riots in the UK & the NSN feeling emboldened to attempt to normalise their presence in the streets of our cities, a solidarity action was held to say

FCK NSN, FCK EDL, N@ZI SCUM GO TO HELL!

Systems of oppression always work to uphold one another and we cannot rely on the state to keep our communities safe. Community safety is maintained when we take to the streets and fight back.

Don't rely on any entity that claims authority or experience over you, liberation is a community effort, take autonomous action. Join your local antif@scist network, train, organise and bash fash."

BREAKING: 21 year old Laura has been sentenced to 3 months jail in Newcastle local court today after shutting down the loading facility at the Coal Port on Sunday.
After more than 30 arrests as part of a sustained Blockade Australia mobilisation, Laura is the first to be sentenced to jail.

Despite the formation of a Police strike force actions have continued unabated and disruption has reached over 100 hours. Having no success in stopping action, the courts have turned to excessive sentencing as a deterrent.
This is the way that Australia protects it's interests, by imprisoning dissent. It is another example of how the profit of extractive industries is prioritised over the liberty and safety of the people and planet.

The past few years we have seen these types of harsh penalties become more common as people all over the continent are getting serious about challenging the core of the Australian system.

Laura like many young people took part in the Blockade Australia mobilisation to confront the system that is putting her future in jeopardy
Laura - "In the past I would just fall into a pit of despair and grief, just wishing that someone would do something. We're facing imminent climate collapse and you're filled with dread and hopelessness and you think to yourself "Why isn't anyone doing anything!?" From it's inception Australia has used threatened and actual violence to enable exploitation. First Nation Peoples for the past 250 years have been on the frontline of this violence and continue to fight back against it. The same system that dispossessed first people of their land is the one that is now playing a huge role in the accelerating climate and ecological crisis.

In the face of repression action becomes more important than ever. There are risks inherent in challenging this system but to risk standing idle is to risk everything.

Dontate to support, https://chuffed.org/project/blockade-australia-support-fundraiser

NO LIBERATION WITHOUT RESISTANCE!
Aahana (17) takes bold action this morning, hanging from a bipod at a pinch-point into the Port of Newcastle. We believe she is still there 3+ hours later, after locking onto the structure when search and rescue cops arrived.

She shares some potent words,
"I extend my respect and solidarity to all indigenous communities fighting for liberation. The nation state of Australia is responsible for not only the massacre of Indigenous people on this continent but across the globe."

"98% of Australia's trade is through the ports. I'm disrupting corporate and institutional power, the foundation of Australia's system. Disruptive tactics have always been employed, and are always criticised as extremist and counter intuitive. Despite this, the status quo celebrates many wins of the same disruptive tactics, attributing the successes to the framework of liberal democracy and the more passive reformist movement."

"I'm totally disabled from participating in our "so-called democracy" but still expected to be compliant - with all the evidence that suggests we need to take action, strategically and urgently."

"We are living with finite resources but this system works towards infinite extraction. Blockade Australia immobilises key infrastructure on the ground where power is manufactured. I believe nothing happens without people. I want to use myself, as a person, to take action."

13 actions and counting... we must #BLOCKADEAUSTRALIA

THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED, NOT BROKEN

#BLOCKADEAUSTRALIA 5th consecutive day of action blocking the Port of Newcastle, Grace hangs from a bipod over a rail bridge with a banner that reads, "the system is rigged, not broken."

Grace is right... environmental disasters, climate change, pollution and inequality are not mistakes - they are symptoms of a system built to exploit, to benefit those in power over the many.

The system is working just as intended. Politicians, corporations and the rich profit from the exploitation of people and planet because it's in their job description.

She says, "I don't think l'd be able to look at myself, if I wasn't doing something.

If you agree, join the resistance!

https://chuffed.org/project/blockade-australia-support-fundraiser

#BLOCKADEAUSTRALIA TAKES FIFTH ACTION IN TWO DAYS!

Australia, Israel, and the USA are a part of the same financial, military, and ideological system of exploitation that maintains power through extraction and military force. Power that serves only the elite at the expense of the needs of the many and the climate that sustains us all.
Kim (33) who stopped trains into Newcastle Port shares,

"it's all connected, the genocide of first peoples, the exploitation of land and the climate crisis."

"Whether it's through stopping coal as we hurtle headlong into climate collapse... or showing up in solidarity for Palestine and getting in the way of corporations who are enabling genocide for their own profit... we have to get to the root of the problem."
"We need to organise ourselves differently to create economies that prioritise people's needs."

"The global systems that Australia supports are continuing genocides and dispossession using militarised state-sanctioned violence. I'm here to say that ordinary people without real access to decision-making power can and should intervene directly to stop the flow of resources."

THIS SYSTEM HAS NO ANSWERS: TAKE ACTION AGAINST ECOCIDE

Another community blockade at Webb Dock in Melbourne, blocking and preventing the loading of a ZIM-contracted MSC ship, with all work at the port being disrupted for the evening shift.

Similar to the previous community blockade, dozens of Public Order Response Team (PORT) were deployed outfitted in riot control gear including shields. Rubber bullets, tear gas rounds and flash bangs were used extensively against the protesters. This 'force of numbers' approach towards protests has become all too common in Victoria.

Not to be outdone nor deterred, protesters also stepped up their tactics, establishing makeshift barricades to halt the advance of the cops and to prolong the blockade for as long as possible.

https://backlashblogs.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/web-dock-blockade/