 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Parkin supporters confront Attorney General
Melbourne, Monday September 19, 2005: A roomful of protesters wearing Mahatma Gandhi masks demanded an explanation for the deportation of US peace activist Scott Parkin from Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock at a speaking engagement in Melbourne tonight.
Supporters of Mr Parkin donned the Gandhi masks and confronted Mr. Ruddock in a bid to find out why ASIO, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, considers the 36 year old history teacher a threat to Australia's national security. Several held placards which asked "Would you deport Gandhi, Mr Ruddock?"
Mr Parkin, who was deported from Australia on Friday, has spoken of his committment to nonviolent methods of protest and remains "baffled" as to the reasons for his negative security assessment and deportation. In a statement made while still in detentation last week, Mr Parkin said: "I am a student of mass social movements in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr and I think that these movements have shown us the way to achieve positive social change."
The protestors are demanding to know if Australian citizens who have associated with Scott are also considered threats to national security by ASIO.
Iain Murray was the first person contacted after Mr Parkin was seized by Australian Federal Police in Brunswick on Saturday 10 August. Mr Murray was preparing to co-present a workshop with Mr Parkin scheduled for day that he was detained.
"Scott has been involved with teaching people how to participate safely in nonviolent forms of protest. In doing so, he worked alongside a number of Australian citizens who share his committment to nonviolence. In fact, every single one of Scott's co-trainers was a graduate of an event held in Victoria in February called the 'Nonviolence Skillshare for Trainers'," Mr Murray said.
"Scott and I spent two days planning a workshop of the sort that Mr Ruddock has inferred could 'incite political violence'. If Mr Ruddock is so certain that what was being taught in those workshops was such a threat to Australia's national security, why am I still free to roam the streets while Scott has been locked up, then kicked out of the country?"
Houston Global Awareness, the group that Mr Parkin worked with back home, has a stated committment to nonviolence in its mission statement and asks all who participate in their protests to abide by a set of guidelines which includes adhering to nonviolent methods. (1)
Last Thursday, supporters of Mr Parkin invited Mr Ruddock and the Director-General of ASIO to participate in a nonviolence training workshop in a committee room of the Australian Federal Parliament.
"Unfortunately, Mr Ruddock, who by all indications desperately needs a lesson in the difference between violence and nonviolence, failed to show. We're still not sure whether any ASIO agents were in attendance," Mr Murray said.
Note to editors:
(1) http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2005/04/38966.php