Remembering victims of church child abuse; persecuted #LGBTQ+ people (including those pushed out of the church or belittled and silenced within it); women denied safety, dignity, and leadership; and all those who have suffered ecclesiastical bullying or had powerful church figures suppress the truth.

Remembering those who have had the police and courts defend their abuser, and those whose protests have been disrupted, blocked, criminalised and attacked by NSW Police.

And today, outside St Mary's Cathedral, on Gadigal land, I celebrate the lives of those who use their voice and lives to speak and act for #ClimateJustice, for equality, for mutual respect amongst all genders and sexualities.

And I remember the testimony of Saint Mary, that God casts down the mighty but lifts the lowly; God fills the hungry but sends the rich away. (Luke 1.52-53)

#GeorgePell #CriminalisationOfDissent

Did you know: there are protesters in Australia who allegedly committed acts that just a few months ago would have been legally considered minor traffic offences, yet who are now facing months or years locked up, and are currently under bail conditions that effectively prevent them from going online at all, from being able to contact many/most of their friends, and who are subject to the complete loss of any right to privacy (being able to have all their devices searched by police at any point, and they must share any passwords)? And all this without yet having been convicted of any crime, while awaiting trial for alleged offences that just nine months ago would have most likely been resolved with a fine of a few hundred dollars.

#CriminalisationOfDissent #auspol #FreeVioletCoco #AusPol2022 #NSWpol

Today's political prisoner by @firstdogonthemoon.

"You are welcome to argue that Australia's state and federal governments (along with the police) are not simply the armed wing of the #FossilFuelIndustry... Write your explanation on a postcard and mail it to your grandchildren"

#ClimateProtest #auspol #AusPol2022 #FreeVioletCoco #ClimateCriminals #DirtyEnergyDirtyPolitics #DirtyEnergy #CriminalisationOfDissent

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/violet-coco-is-in-prison-meanwhile-the-fossil-fuel-people-are-really-getting-value-for-money

In Western Australia, #police raid the home of an Indigenous activist while she was in court as an expert witness. No charges are laid. But intimidation accomplished as part of the escalating #CriminalisationOfDissent across #auspol. #WApol

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/04/wa-police-raid-home-of-indigenous-woman-campaigning-to-protect-sacred-rock-art

In April 2022, #ClimateJustice protester Deanna “Violet” Coco blocked a single lane of motor vehicle traffic for 25 minutes. Yesterday, she was sentenced to fifteen months in prison, in a further escalation of #CriminalisationOfDissent in #NSWpol.

Today, conservative NSW Premier Dominic #Perrottet celebrated the sentence, saying it was "pleasing to see", that her #protest "put our way of life at risk" and that protests must never "inconvenience people".

What a puddle of putrid propaganda. The entire point of protest is to be inconvenient. Name a single successful historical protest movement that never inconvenienced anyone.

Just a couple of years ago, this kind of action would most likely have received (at most) a fine of a few hundred dollars.

The stakes are rising. The vulnerability of the status quo is betrayed by Perrottet's line about the risk to "our way of life". Whose way of life is at risk from which reckless actions? Because the way of life, health, wellbeing and very lives of billions are being risked and lost daily by the activities that Violet was protesting. She was, in one small way, attempting to defend against far greater harm.

If you want the book thrown at her, what do you want thrown at the dirty energy companies and their political representatives in parliament?