Christopher Hopkins, The Disruption of Land Forces (DOCUMENTARY & STREET 2025)

11 September 2024. Melbourne, Australia. Anti-war and Pro-Palestine activists are forced back by mounted Police after blockading the entrance to the Land Forces military conference and exhibition. After eleven months of peaceful weekly Pro-Palestine protests, the streets of Melbourne descended into a riot as tensions surrounding the Australian Government’s inactive response to the Israeli military action in Gaza boiled over. After three days of peaceful protest outside the biennial Land Forces International Land Defence Expo military Conference, held for the first time at the Melbourne Conference and Convention Centre, Victoria Police escalated their response to protestors who had gathered at their scheduled 'day of action'. The event is the annual trade exhibition for global military weapons manufacturers. Held at a time when the world has seen growing conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, Myanmar and Sudan and in a city notorious for its right to protest - Melbourne is dubbed the Protest capital of Australia - many condemned the Government’s decision to bid for the event. A loose coalition of Anti-war and Pro-Palestine protest groups joined forces under the banner of 'Disrupt Land Forces' with the intention to block participants from entering the conference centre and create a 'festival of resistance' against the arms trade. This protest group slowly built until the fourth day of planned action when approximately 2000 protestors surrounded the entrances to the Expo. Special operation Police, some brought in from adjoining states, used military style procedures such as tear gas, flash bombs, capsicum spray and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Protestors responded by creating barricades with burning crates and bins, and by forming a human wall. the stand-off on the Spencer Street bridge created traffic chaos in the CBD and a no-go zone for commuters and city workers. As a result of the action over 110 people were arrested and some left with injuries from being hit at close range by rubber bullets and being struck by police batons with many public rights activists calling for an inquiry into Police violence.

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