BY LINDA WALDRON
MELBOURNE — Five East Timorese solidarity activists have been found guilty of "public order" offences for burning the flag of the Indonesian consulate in September 1999, two days after the people of East Timor voted for independence from their Indonesian occupiers.
At the March 14 hearing, Magistrate Duncan Reynolds placed the five activists — Dan Nicholson, Kalinda Ashton, Julian Semple, Ian Pople and Ray Fulcher — to $500, 12-month good behaviour bonds but ordered that no conviction be recorded.
Originally the five were charged with arson, which carries a 10-year prison term, by the Protective Security Intelligence Group, Victoria's political police.
This was withdrawn a year later in favour of a charge under Commonwealth law for causing property damage while "taking part in an assembly that is in relation to protected premises", an offence which carries a maximum 12-month jail term.
Prosecution made much of the fact that the Commonwealth's Public Order Act was designed to safeguard the "dignity" of consulates and embassies.
The five argued in court that their actions should be protected, under the "implied right" of political communication contained in the Australian constitution.
Reynolds ruled, however, that this "implied right" was not an individual right to free speech but merely an encumbrance on parliament against it making laws limiting political communication unless such laws are "reasonably appropriate and adapted" to achieving a legitimate end.
Outside the court Ray Fulcher said that the case showed that there is "no right to free speech in Australia".
He also said that all Australians should be concerned that "at a time when East Timor was being burnt to the ground, the Victorian political police decided to pursue — over two years — five solidarity activists for burning a flag."
Lawyer Marcus Clayton attacked the PSIG, saying it "has been notorious for years for being out of step with community values and democratic principals and this case is another example of that".