A T-shirt or a banner promoting the use of birth control? Those will very possibly be illegal during Catholic World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. Other potentially arrestable offenses: thumbing one's nose at the visiting "Holy Father," yelling slogans deemed hostile to the Catholic church, and passing out flyers demanding that priests find other things to fuck than 10-year-old choirboys.Anyone deemed to be causing annoyance could be arrested and fined up to Australian $5,500. New South Wales deputy police commissioner Dave Owens says the regulations do not restrict democratic rights. ... "Police officers always maintain a discretion, and I expect them to use that discretion."
There have been suggestions that people could be arrested if they wear a T-shirt that promotes the use of condoms. Mr Owens refused to rule that out.
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President of the New South Wales Bar Association Anna Katzmann says she does not understand why the regulations have been brought in."The Government has by-passed the normal parliamentary scrutiny that would be available if they were introduced by an Act of Parliament," she commented. "They are also an unreasonable interference with people's freedom of speech and movement."
Ms Katzmann says there is a chance people could be arrested for trivial offences in the areas that have been declared as special World Youth Day zones.
"These World Youth Day-declared areas are numerous and they encompass places like Sydney University and the Opera House. Places that you and I would travel to regularly, not just churches or church schools," she added.
New South Wales Council of Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy is also opposed to the proposed measures.
Green and secularist activists have joined civil libertarians and the Bar Association in calling for the regulations to be scrapped immediately.
