Facing the police and legal system
Facing the police and legal system due to your political beliefs can be very difficult, costly and frightening.
The stigma of being involved in unlawful activity', the risk of police violence or arrest, the potential costs and consequences of charges or a criminal record, the threat of jail, all serve to deter people from becoming active on important issues. Many activists also drop out of movements or cease taking part in protest actions as the cost and consequences of police and legal action become too great.
Too many activists are left traumatised by police action, in debt due to legal costs or isolated in long-running court actions when they are abandoned' by campaigns or activist groups.
Resources have been drawn from around the world and from our own experience here in Australia to help activists, organisers and legal workers to better support activists facing the police and legal system.
The resources in this section of this site are for new and experienced activists, campaign organisers and for legal support workers and lawyers. They are designed to be downloaded and used in organising campaigns and actions, to be distributed at trainings and at actions.
Information, support and solidarity
There are three core aspects of Activist Legal Support: information, support and solidarity. Legal information is best provided by lawyers or legal practitioners. Support is best provided by a well-organised Legal Support team. Other activists can only really provide solidarity . All three of these are crucial in good activist legal support.
Information
It is vital that activists have access to accurate legal information about their rights and the consequences of their actions and activities. Providing clear and accurate legal information is best done by progressive lawyers but can be distributed by organisers or legal support teams.
Support
This website hopes to support activists and also to provide resources for campaigners and legal support teams to help develop effective activist legal support.
Solidarity
Solidarity is looking after each other when facing the police or legal system. Legal solidarity describes a set of activist tactics to support and protect people when they are being held in police custody, in jail or facing court. Legal solidarity tactics have been used effectively for decades in the civil rights, peace, environmental, and global justice movements in Australia.
Individual and collective tactics of non-cooperation can be used to protect targeted or vulnerable people in the campaign, meet demands and maintain the combined strength of activists after arrests occur.
Class, race and gender
Some activists in Australia experience higher levels of police violence and legal threats or may be less able to cope with legal repercussions. Activists who are Aboriginal, Muslim or from an Islamic country, activists who are gay, lesbian or queer, or have a criminal history may be particularly targeted or vulnerable to police and legal repression.
Activist legal support needs to recognise that white, middle class or educated activists can be privileged in the legal system, and that others are particularly vulnerable to violence or discrimination. Support and solidarity across lines of difference and discrimination is crucial if all activists are able to withstand police and legal repression.
Most people in detention do not choose to be arrested, and incarceration is a tool of the powerful most frequently used against those who are poor, non-white, or illiterate. If we choose to be arrested as a direct action strategy we also must acknowledge this in our relations with other people who are in detention.
Mass arrests can also cause crowding in cells and this can make experiences of detention even harder for other inmates. This happened in Darwin at the height of the Jabiluka Blockade. Some Aboriginal women were transferred to prisons outside Darwin, which made it impossible for their families to visit. The women asked the Jabiluka arrestees to accept bail and thereby enable their return to Darwin prison.
It is also important to recognise that solidarity across lines of class, race and gender can often be paternalistic. Gary Foley (1999), for example, writes of the repeated problems of patronising attitudes and paternalism amongst white solidarity activists who support Aboriginal struggles. But he also writes of the principles for "successful cooperative action ... between Koori [south-eastern Aboriginal] community activists and non-Koori supporters", which have also been in evidence in some local campaigns, but also since the 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Solidarity activists in these campaigns "did not seek a say in how the protest was run [and] were more aware of the need for Koori people to be determining their own destiny politically, and they were prepared to stand with Koori activists when the crunch came". Foley urges non-Koori supporters to make sure that they join a group that "genuinely supports Koori control of Koori affairs and is in some way affiliated with, or taking guidance from, the local Koori traditional owners and/or local Koori community." (Foley 1999). (From Anderson 2002.)
See Case Study: John Batman's statue tried for war crimes
Organisers, activists and legal support workers need to respond to political and social repression as core to activist legal support.
These are all things that activist campaigns must overcome if they are to involve more people in the campaign and support people who are already a part of it.
Fear of the police
Fear of the police and legal system is one of the most effective social control systems that the government has. When facing any sort of police or legal sanctions, activist campaigns and movements must develop ways to help activists overcome fear of police and the risk of charges, jail and violence.
The Activist Legal Support strategies described on this site can be vital for this. Legal information about rights and police powers, activist training and preparation are all ways of asisting activists deal with the very reasonable fear of police, charges and police violence.
Overcoming repression
It is important to distinguish between political repression' and the normal workings of the legal system.
In Australia, most activists who are arrested, charged and convicted are not targets of systematic political repression. We just face the normal, everyday workings of a conservative and institutionalised legal system, a system of police, courts and judges that has trouble recognising civil disobedience and protest as legitimate. We get arrested and treated like anyone else who has broken the law. It's not nice, but it's not political repression.
Political repression, however, is the deliberate targeting of political dissidents designed to prevent, undermine or stop their actions. It can involve being recognised and monitored by sections of the police, security forces or government as a target, and includes a range of tactics designed to hamper our ability to continue our work as activists.
Political repression takes many forms but can often be exercised through the legal system. Political dissidents have always been the target of government surveillance and repression. It is important to take these attacks seriously and resist them.
It is important not to allow fear or the threat of repression to scare us away from political participation. Stories about vast conspiracies and elaborate surveillance technologies can create an atmosphere that discourages activism. This is part of the repression and is the first element that needs to be resisted.
In the Activist legal support section of this guide you will find sensible and reliable information about safety and security for political activists.
Government harassment of political activists clearly exists today, violating our fundamental democratic rights and creating a climate of fear and distrust that undermines our efforts to create political change.
It is valuable to learn from the attacks on social justice movements in the United States of America that came to light during the 1960s.
Largely hidden at the time was a vast government program to neutralise domestic political opposition through "covert action" (political repression carried out secretly or under the guise of legitimate law enforcement). The 1960s program, coordinated by the FBI under the code name " COINTELPRO," was exposed in the 1970s and supposedly stopped. Notwithstanding this exposure, there are concerns that such covert action persists.
For more information about COINTELPRO go to the PUBLIC EYE site.
In Australia, we have a different political framework and system of police and security forces. But the targeted surveillance and harassment of political activists does occur here. See Political surveillance of activists
We have learnt from activists in highly repressive regimes that the goal of state terror is to isolate and separate social movements, and that in order to withstand such political harassment and violence, activists need to develop strong and resilient support networks. Julia Hernandez, former director of Tutela Legal Support office in El Salvador, asserts that that most critical factor enabling people to overcome fear is their solidarity with others in their organisations. (Mahoney and Eguren, 1997)
| 
