Police gave protesters’ names to Gunns

ABC Online
Tasmanian police have revealed they supplied the timber company Gunns with the names of 13 protesters who shut down a woodchip mill at Triubunna last month. Gunns is seeking damages from the activists, saying working families lost income during the seven-hour protest. Police say they got the group’s details at the scene and passed them on to the mill’s managers. The company previously stated the names came from court documents, but this afternoon a spokesman called the ABC to clarify the situation. At the close of trading, Gunns shares were fetching $1.15, a fall of 9 per cent. Read more here

Kim Booth …

FOREST INDUSTRY CALLS FOR “LEGAL” PROTESTS …
… Then Demonises and Sues “Legal” Protestors
Kim Booth MP
Acting Greens Leader
Friday, 9 January 2009

www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today called on the forest industry and Gunns Limited to clarify their repeated calls for people to protest “legally” following Gunns’ decision to sue thirteen non-violent protesters for their actions in the recent Triabunna protest, despite the fact that 6 of the protestors were neither arrested nor charged by Tasmania Police.

Acting Greens Leader Kim Booth said that this is not the first time protesters have obeyed legal requirements and directions only to be demonised by the forest industry and Forestry Tasmania for their actions, and questioned whether the Tasmanian forest industry is able to tolerate any kind of demonstration at all against their practices.

“When protestors disrupt forestry activities in the bush they are told that they should be protesting ‘legally’ and that the most appropriate place is out the front of Forestry Tasmania, but when they took up that invitation last year the head of FT and his Corporate Communications spin doctor exploded in feigned wrath and accusatory spin,” said Mr Booth.

“Now we find that 6 non-violent protestors who obeyed instructions and did not disrupt operations are being sued by Gunns Ltd for, amongst other things, ‘expressing their political views.’”

“The move to demonise and even sue protestors who have obeyed all police directions and requirements should be seen as nothing more than bullying by an industry desperate to deflect attention away from its archaic reliance on clear-felling Tasmania’s old-growth forests for woodchips.”

“The forest industry, Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Limited need to explain to the community why they are calling for all protests to be ‘legal,’ only to demonise or sue protestors who have not been charged or even arrested by police,” said Mr Booth.