Have
civil liberties in Queensland slunk back to the dark old days? What
other conclusion can you draw when a passive political activist is
dragged out of a major public meeting – a debate about civil liberties,
no less – bashed by police, taken to the City Police station and
charged with hindering and resisting arrest before being released? And
he ends up looking like this (picture at right)?

That’s what happened last Thursday night in Brisbane
when the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Law hosted a debate
on the merits of a national ID card. The two heavyweight speakers were
Peter Dutton, federal minister for Workforce Participation, and Terry
O’Gorman, vice-president of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties.
The debate was chaired by Michael Lavarch, Dean of the QUT Faculty of
Law and a former federal Labor Attorney General.

A seasoned
political protester, Jim Dowling, was also there, standing at the back
of the room with a placard resting at his feet that read “Peter Dutton
Supports Terrorism.” According to a lawyer who was among the 50 or so
people who attended the debate, just as questions were being taken from
the floor several police “jumped the quiet protester and pulled him
into the next room and gave him some rough treatment.”

Dowling says it was actually two security guards who showed him towards
the side doors, and when the “doors swung open…there were the
police.” “They grabbed me painfully without a word or explanation,”
says Dowling and “Constable Bruce Jennings pushed my head onto the
solid (concrete?) floor and jammed his knee … into the back of my
head. Though the blood flowed freely from this action, it was the
simultaneous bending of my wrists by his friends in blue that caused me
to scream in pain,” says Dowling. “There was no help in sight as the
police threw my jacket around my head to cover the bloody face while
pushing it down towards my knees.”

“Unfortunately there was more pain to come,” says Dowling, “as they
pushed my body over the boot of the car and searched me. For some
reason they decided this required my wrists to be twisted backwards
once more…” For his full version of events, click
here.

Did
Dowling provoke the attack or yell out? Dowling says he had no
intention of doing anything at the debate – but he does admit that last
year, at a “meet the candidates” event during the federal election campaign,
he was arrested and convicted after making a “citizen’s arrest” on
Dutton to protest the government’s involvement in Iraq.
The stunt was covered by the 7.30 Report, says Dowling, where he claims it was described as a “most significant event in an otherwise boring electoral campaign.”

Police
would have known that Dowling was going to be present at the ID card
debate last week because his name was on a guest list for the debate,
says a lawyer who was at the event – which could explain their presence at the function.
They seemed to be “in a jumpy mood,” says the lawyer.

There
were questions from the floor after Dowling was taken away, and
according to the lawyer, O’Gorman apparently said Dowling’s treatment was “outrageous or something to that effect.”

Through his media
adviser, Dutton told Crikey that it would be inappropriate to comment
about the incident as it was a “police matter.” Once the police took
over, the minister says he had no further knowledge of what happened.

Dowling says he’s been arrested probably 50 or more times over the
years for non-violent civil disobedience, but “I’ve never been bashed
by the cops before…[I] have been thrown about once or twice but not
deliberately bashed without any sort of warning.” It’s pretty novel
“even for Queensland,” he says.

Constable Jennings was not in the office today, and Crikey was unable
to contact him for his side of the story. We tried to contact O’Gorman
and Lavarch to comment, but both were unavailable.