At A Time Of Rapidly Creeping Authoritarianism, Assange s Case Is More Crucial Than Ever | by Caitlin Johnstone | Sep, 2020 | Medium

My home state of Victoria has become the center of attention in the anti-lockdown movement for its authoritarian crackdown against not just people who are in violation of lockdown protocol, but people who merely post about staging future anti-lockdown protests on social media.

Police have been breaking into people s homes and arresting them in front of their children under charges of incitement for posting about anti-lockdown protests on Facebook, drawing international headlines. This is obviously a major threat to human rights that sets a dangerous precedent and will have many undesirable knock-on effects, and it should be condemned unequivocally.

This is awful. Incitement is going to be used to crack down on all sorts of protests including on issues we agree with and think are worth protesting, explained Australian author and analyst Ketan Joshi of one such arrest. Every time I post about this, I am stunned by the number of people who seem furiously unwilling to draw any connection between what s happening above and the history of climate and anti-racist protest in Australia.

via medium.com