This is the third annual report to members since Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) became an Incorporated Association in 2021. Acknowledgment of Country MALS acknowledges and pays respect to Country and Elders of First Peoples wherever we work across the lands now known as Victoria. We acknowledge that the police and legal system in this…
Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) provides the below report regarding the policing of the 420 in the Park event. Background On Saturday 20 April 2024 MALS fielded a team of four trained legal observers at the ‘420 in the Park’ event at Flagstaff Gardens, West Melbourne, Victoria. ‘420 In the Park’ is an annual event…
What a year! MALS fielded an unprecedented 30 Legal Observer Teams between July 2022 and June 2023, involving over 140 legal observer shifts. That’s almost three teams each month, monitoring police intervention at protest events.
Over 2021 to 2022, MALS has continued to provide unique, specialised and targeted legal and human rights information, resources, training and other forms of direct support to a wide range of diverse, progressive social movements in Victoria.
Our analysis and concerns arising from the policing of protest events in Melbourne between Saturday 18 and Sunday 26 September 2021
Executive summary The threat posed by Covid-19 has led to the mobilisation of state power and authority in new and untested ways. While the community has a shared interest in successfully containing the virus, early evidence suggests that enforcement of public health orders disproportionately impacts on oppressed, poor and marginalised communities. In July 2020, the…
Download a PDF copy of this 45 page report here. Media: Legal observers find police ‘set tone of violence’ at anti-mining protests. Benjamin Miller, The Age, December 7, 2019. Executive Summary The police tactics, approaches and the behaviour of individual police members during the IMARC protest events from Tuesday 29th to Thursday 31st October demonstrated…
On Saturday 1st of September, to the morning of Sunday the 2nd, September, 2018 Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) fielded a team of nine trained Legal Observers at the 66 Records Label launch that took place at the Gasometer Hotel near the intersection of Alexander Parade with Smith Street, in Collingwood, Victoria. Legal Observers were…
The police presence at the Black Lives Matter (BLM) rally on Sunday 17 July, 2016 was notable for its sheer size and scale.* Everyone at the event would have noticed the long lines of police arrayed around the initial rally gathering point at the State Library forecourt and the various PORT – Public Order Response Team…
