A CAUTIONARY TALE: By Jim Dowling
Both my son Franz and I have been arrested, separately, for suspected thought crimes relating to Palestine and Israel.
We dared to display in public the words, “from the river to the sea”, using or displaying such words now being illegal in Queensland.
I say “thought crimes” because neither of our displays mentioned Palestine or Israel. So obviously they can only conclude we must have been illegally thinking the “wrong thoughts” about this conflict.
- READ MORE: Dorothy Day House raided by police over ‘From the River to the Sea’ banner
- ‘From the river to the sea’ is being outlawed in Queensland. How will the slogan’s ban work, and will it be challenged?
- ‘From the river to the sea’: What does the Palestinian slogan really mean?
- Other Palestine reports
For nearly two years a group of us have been gathering weekly outside the office of Boeing in Brisbane, to draw attention to their terrorist activity in making missiles, fighter jets, attack helicopters and other weapons of mass destruction, used in present conflicts, especially the Gaza genocide.
When the Queensland government made it illegal to use the words “From the River to the Sea” in public, I went to the usual Wednesday action with a large placard saying “From the River to the Sea, Brisbane will be Free — of Boeing”.
Eventually police came and arrested me. My arresting officer asked me what the words on the banner meant. I gave him a good rave about Boeing and why we wanted them nowhere in Brisbane, from the river to the sea.
He took a while trying to get me to “incriminate” myself by making reference to Palestine etc. Eventually, after exposing the farcical nature of the law, I was happy do so.
Interrogated by ‘anti-terrorism squad’
He took me to the watchhouse where I was interrogated about my thought crimes by the “Anti-terrorism squad” (that is not a joke by the way).
This gave me a good chance to explain why we wanted Boeing out of Brisbane, and a lot more — about free speech, terrorism, nonviolence, etc. After an hour and a half they let me go.
I go to court on the April 14.
Now, 42 hours later at 7am, the same ever vigilant anti-terrorism squad raided Dorothy Day house of hospitality, with a team of eight officers.
Franz immediately confessed to his thought crimes, and actual crimes of displaying a banner on the side of the house reading, “From the river to the sea — come and get us [Premier] Crisafulli”.
Now I guess it is an exaggeration to call this elite squad “ever vigilant”, as the banner had been on the wall of the house for over a week. And, being on a main road and very visible from said road, there is no telling how many innocent citizens may have been infected by the thought crimes emanating from it.
Once at Dorothy Day house, the police searched all the rooms for? Hmm, illegal thinking maybe.
Phone and laptop confiscated
Anyhow, as I said, Franz broke down and confessed, so they eventually left everyone else alone. They confiscated Franz’s phone and laptop — probably the main reason for the raid.
They also took the banner and the very paints used to commit the crime. I asked Franz if they took the paper placed under the banner during the painting process. But they did not.
Now, they could find out a lot of information from Franz’s phone and laptop. They could find out who were being infected by these thought crimes, and how far they were spreading.
Perhaps they could investigate the words of the songs on Franz’s laptop sung by his church choir, to see if there was anything about rivers or seas. Perhaps, with names and phone numbers of his fellow choir members they could instigate more raids. (I know for a fact some choir members weren’t even born in Australia!)
In the end the police told Franz they would let him know next Tuesday, if or what he would be charged with.
You can read the ABC news report of the raid of Dorothy Day house here. You can also see him interviewed on Brisbane’s Channel Ten news on March 20 (if you can find it — ABC Tiktok video removed).
So there you have it. Another week in the state’s never ending battle against terrorism. Or is it a battle against a few pathetic people who believe they are the ones resisting terrorism?
Is it terrorism to say “from the river to the sea”, or is it terrorism to slaughter tens of thousands of innocents with the help of Boeing, Pine Gap and the Australian government? You decide.
Jim Dowling is a human rights, free speech and anti-war activist from Brisbane, Australia.
