Celebrating International Day of the Peace, see attached Video

Yesterday, Victoria Police arrested a pregnant woman, in her pyjamas, at her home in front of her children. She was handcuff and charged as part of an investigation into protest activity “in blatant breach of the Chief Health Officer’s directions”. See the footage of the arrest at https://www.facebook.com/100026703984987/posts/466893250877470/?d=n

I have found this footage extremely distressing; it looks like a scene taken from a movie about a totalitarian state. What kind of country I am living in now? I escaped communist Poland in search of liberties and democracy. I settled here because of Australia’s human rights record. And now this abuse of human rights.

The arrest and handcuffing were clearly unnecessary and cruel and represent a great miss-use of authority. It is a clear overreach of law and looking back at Victorian Government’s attitude towards earlier BLM demonstrations, the arrest demonstrates very selective enforcement of laws to suit political objectives. In particular, proportionality and even-handedness of law enforcement is lacking here. You do not usually send three police officers to arrest somebody for a minor offence; there is also the issue of freedom of expression involved.

Perhaps it is a time for the Australian Human Rights Commission to review this case and all lockdown laws across Australia from the human rights law perspective.