A magistrate has commended high-profile New South Wales environmental activist Deanna “Violet” Coco but said she had gone “too far” by defacing a Perth police station.
Coco, 32, was convicted and fined $200 after she admitted spray painting four yellow Woodside Energy logos on the front windows of the Perth police centre a day earlier.
The Western Australian magistrates court was told her actions at the police station were an act of solidarity with local campaigners targeted by police amid an escalating crackdown on protesters.
It included Coco attempting to use super glue to stick her arm to the window before police arrested and charged her with criminal damage or destruction of property on Wednesday.
After listening to the facts, magistrate Matthew Walton said she appeared to have “legitimate personal beliefs”.
“It is noble and commendable people have strong personal views,” he said on Thursday.
“It’s a fundamental tenet of western democracy … a functioning democracy ... it should be supported.
“You don’t have to go too far abroad to see the restrictions on personal freedoms and activism.”
Coco was ordered to pay $500 in damages.
“In a lot of regards you should be commended, however, you breached the law ... you went too far on this occasion,” Walton said.
“I encourage to you to do it but you should be encouraged to do it in a lawful manner.
“It should be something held to be very precious to all of us.”
Coco, who was jailed and then released last year after being charged with offences relating to activism in New South Wales, was remanded in custody on Wednesday night after her arrest.
She said in a statement that she had travelled to Western Australia to stand in solidarity with protesters opposing the development of the Burrup peninsula.
“I am a survivor of the authoritarian crackdown on environmental protest on the east coast and I have come over to WA to sound the alarm and stand in solidarity with campaigners facing the same police state repression here,” she said.
On Tuesday, the WA police commissioner, Col Blanch, defended the treatment of a journalist who had her home searched and equipment seized during an investigation into a protest.
Eliza Kloser, a journalist with Ngaarda Media, captured the removal of the art from Murujuga on the Burrup peninsula in the Pilbara on Friday morning.
She said she was stopped twice by two different police patrols within minutes, the first while taking photos from public land, and the second while she was leaving the area on a public road.
Earlier that day, Kloser’s housemate, Gerard Mazza, had been arrested in relation to an alleged planned disruption of Woodside’s annual general meeting at the Perth exhibition centre. Mazza and Stolarski have been charged with “aggravated burglary with intent on a place”.
Later that afternoon, Kloser was at her home in Karratha when police knocked on the door and said they were executing a warrant.
Kloser said she had no prior knowledge of the alleged planned disruption and had never been involved in activism.
Kloser told police she was a journalist, and had already been stopped twice earlier that day by police at Murujuga, where she had been taking photos.
But officers spent a significant period of time searching through the photos on a camera she predominantly uses for work, she said, before declaring they would be seizing its memory card.
Her bedroom and clothing were also searched.
Blanch told ABC radio police had not targeted Kloser. “The warrant was specifically in relation to two individuals who have been identified and charged with taking noxious gas and flares into the [Perth] exhibition centre.”
Blanch said police had simply searched the house and Kloser’s possessions while looking for evidence in relation to the alleged offending, and her occupation was not a consideration.
The media director of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Cassie Derrick, said the execution of the warrant was disturbing.
“The bottom line is that this kind of police action utterly undermines journalism and the public’s right to know.”
