The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has described the sentencing of environmental protester Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco to a minimum of eight months’ jail as “pleasing to see”, despite strong criticisms by human rights advocates and a UN official.
Coco was on Friday sentenced to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months, after she blocked a lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in April.
Human rights advocates labelled the sentence “disproportionate”, with Clément Voule, the UN’s special rapporteur on freedom of association and peaceful assembly, saying over the weekend he was “alarmed” by the sentence and the court’s refusal to consider bail for her appeal until March.
“Peaceful protesters should never be criminalised or imprisoned,” Voule said.
Asked about the jail term on Monday morning, Perrottet said the sentence was “not excessive” and warned others against taking part in protests that “inconvenience people”.
“If protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then they should have the book thrown at them and that’s pleasing to see,” Perrottet said.
“We want people to be able to protest but do it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience people right across NSW.”
He said the sentencing should serve as a “clear lesson” to people who wanted to protest.
“My view is that those protests literally started to grind our city to a halt,” he said.
“The clear message here, and it is a clear lesson – everyone has the right to protest, but do so in a way that doesn’t inconvenience people.”
Coco was one of four protesters from the activist group Fireproof Australia who blocked a southbound lane on the bridge just before 8.30am on 13 April. While others held a banner and glued themselves to the road, Coco climbed on to the roof of a hired van and set off a flare.
Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges including using or modifying an authorised explosive not as prescribed and resisting a police offer during arrest. She was fined $2,500.
The activist will appeal against the sentence. She was refused bail on Friday and will remain in custody until her appeal hearing in March.
Earlier this year, the NSW government introduced tough new laws increasing punishments for non-violent protesters with larger fines and up to two years in jail. The move, which is being challenged in the supreme court, followed a series of climate protests that disrupted activity at key ports.
The NSW Labor leader, Chris Minns, said on Monday he did not regret supporting the laws, which angered some on his backbench earlier this year.
“At the end of the day, you’re talking about a situation where mass protests were shutting down half the city and in a repeated fashion,” Minns said.
“I think most people would appreciate that even in free societies there’s a context and a set of circumstances [and] when you inconvenience literally hundreds of thousands of people as often as possible in consecutive days there will be legislative action in relation to that because it’s not just inconvenience, it could be a situation where people are put in life-threatening circumstances, not being able to access emergency services right when they need them.”
Protesters are expected to take to the street in Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Brisbane and Hobart on Monday to voice concern over the sentencing.
Canberra rally speaker and the Green Institute executive director, Tim Hollo, said the sentence was a “window into how our system is going into high gear to defend the right to suck the planet dry for profit”.
“We all need to use our democratic rights to call for Violet to be freed and to start building a real democracy that works for people and planet,” he said.
Miriam Robinson, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, said governments across Australia were trying to crush dissent by making an example of protesters rather than dealing with the concerns of citizens.
“It will be bewildering to future historians that governments chose to protect the polluters against the health and wellbeing of an entire planet and the potential end of civilisation as we know it,” she said.
“Blocking a road for half an hour will seem to be the least that people could do. History will be the judge and it will not be kind to the NSW government.”
