Last week Occupy Melbourne featured a “Tent Monster” event.  Protesters pitched several tents in the park, then as the police approaced, someone inside popped out their arms and head, and danced around the park wearing their tent costume.

The first video shows the event, and you can even see some of the police smiling even though the joke was on them.

However, the police force overall did not find the little joke funny, and three days later they returned only to strip the tent costume off of a woman.  They isolated her, surrounded her, and proceeded to rip the tent off, then casually walk away leaving the distressed woman sitting on the lawn in the park with nothing else on but her panties and bra.  Here is the scene caught on video:

This video is a combination of both the Tent Monster day, and ends with a male protester being stripped of his tent costume.

The behavior by the police is nothing less than atrocious.  Simply because a joke was played on them making them look rather foolish is no reason to return later for revenge.  That is exactly what they did… revenge.  Very immature, not professional, but most importantly, they blatantly violated the rights of these two protesters they stripped.  What law did the police feel they were upholding which gave them the right to do this?

And the look on the curly red-haired woman’s face… It is a look of complete violation.

In retribution, Occupy Melbourne has now scheduled “Wear a Tent for Human Rights Day” this upcoming December 10th.

As part of World Human Rights Day (Dec 10 #D10), Occupy Melbourne is calling for Occupy protesters around the world to wear their tents for Human Rights.

The call follows two separate incidents at Occupy Melbourne in which Victoria Police and Melbourne city council officers stripped young male and female occupiers of their tent costumes, leaving them on the ground in their underwear.

The tent costumes originally gained international notoriety as the subject of the ‘Tent Monsters’ incident in which several tents at Occupy Melbourne grew legs and ran away to avoid capture, literally running circles around authorities and becoming an overnight internet meme.

Occupy Melbourne protesters conceived the ‘Tent Monsters’ strategy to highlight the absurdity of the situation which has unfolded for several weeks, in which Melbourne city council officers have been issuing Notices to Comply for tents, blankets, food, tarpaulins and other materials to remove them from the peaceful protesters in an effort to prevent the growth of the movement.

World Human Rights day will be marked in 2011 by thousands of peaceful, co-ordinated actions around the world, including the global Occupy Movement.

Published by Michelle

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