Talk:S11 (protest)

The National Library of Australia archives significant websites, including Australia's first "web" protest - S11. They call the archive site "Pandora" and it has lots of interesting political sites there. http://pandora.nla.gov.au

There is also a good doco called Melbourne Rising that i used to have on VHS which came out in 01 about the protests. I think IndyMedia made it.

I wish that the entry was expanded and that someone would like to some pics. It was a really colourful protest, and it was agenda setting in its day.

Discussion

From my talk page:

Oh yeah, s11 was an anti-globalisation group that were one of the major suspects for the twin towers bombing. That was why they disbanded. Their web site was http://www.s11.org/. Not only is that web site permanently de-listed, but you cannot look at archives. All you can do to find out who they were is to look up greenie/communist sites. They were an Australian-based group (hence more well known in Australia than the rest of the world). Slashdot wrote an article on them on September 12, 2001, and as far as I know, they were all either arrested or killed by people who thought that they were involved, and all evidence that they had ever existed was destroyed by early 2002. They used to be called M1 apparently. The reason why they were called s11 was because their major protest was always held on September 11th. On September 11, 2000, they protested at the World Trade Center in New York, and were labelled by the US government as terrorists. Their effort for September 11, 2001, however, was in China. Pretty massive connections though, and people who know about them think that they are a very valid suspect for the Twin Towers bombing. Biggest problem though is why on earth would they want to attack the Pentagon? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 00:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

--Striver 00:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but its very hard to research them, because pretty much everything about them has been taken down - either by them, or else by the CIA or equivalent secret service organisations in other countries. All that we are left with is snippets. They are now like a black hole. We can see evidence that they once existed, but we can't know what they really did. We just see things that were affected by them, that's all.

Oh and of course they didn't call themselves terrorists. But then again, neither does Al Qaeda. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 00:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems this "s11" group may have stumbled onto the September 11th, and other, dates as having some sort of meaning to the powers that be...? What other major events in history have happened on September 11th? I doubt this group was complicit, but they may have been onto something. zen master T 01:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

It was something to do with dates of Economic Forums, although the dates of the economic forums seemed to happen on different dates and weren't annual things. They protested things like the G7 summits and stuff as well. But the thing is that "s11" wasn't really just one group. "Green Left", which has an article about them, was essentially a part of the same organisation. They went by different names, all calling themselves different things, all a big mix up of lots of things. If I recall from their old web site, "s11" was just a date that made sense to them, and also, since they thought that USA was the centre of all of the world's globalisations, and "911" is the phone number that Americans use to call for emergencies, it was kind of a play on that. "m1" was a play on UK's "MI5" organisation, if I recall. I have no idea what "s26" was based on since they didn't use that one very much. They weren't entirely anti-American though. They were anti-globalisation. They still sort-of exist. At least, Green Left (a communist activist group) still exists, as do others who were once a part of s11, who continue to do the same things. The parallels between the way that this group operate and the way that Al Qaeda operate are obvious. One big difference though - s11 were almost exclusively white, and almost exclusively came from western countries. There's a fine line between protesters and terrorism. That line is often interpretative. But they were regarded as terrorists by the Australian and American government. And by Nike. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Green Left has *LOTS* of articles about them. It is quite plausible that Green Left and s11 are the same organisation. Green Left get labelled as terrorists sometimes too. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Responding to Zordrac, I hope you are kidding about "fine line between protesters and terrorism"? Instead of using labels what sorts of illegal things did this group do specifically in your estimation? Protesting Nike's alleged sweatshop labor is hardly a "terrorist" thing to do. So you think their "s11" date name was purely coincidental? Do I assume correctly there aren't many sources remaining for why they named themselves "s11"? Should we compile a list of all events, conferences, and economic forums that took place on September 11th historically to look for the same pattern they may have? The article kind of hints the group was made to disappear by the CIA or similar, what is the source for that, just the fact info about the group is mysteriously sparse? zen master T 07:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that this actually was a "group" and not just a specific one-time event put on by a coalition of Australian activists?... Blackcats 07:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I dunno, group or coalition, my questions apply the same in either case. What did this coalition do to be labeled a "terrorist organization"? zen master T 07:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Jo - S11 was the date. September 11. The date of the WEF. At the time, it meant nothing else, as the Twin Towers had not been terrorised. It was basically inspired by the protest in Seattle of the WTO. There was no terrorist type thing. The event was well publisised in the lead up to the protest.

Cite needed

The following needs a cite:

"In the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist actions, s11 was one of the primary suspects as for :who might have caused the attacks, because they had not released plans for what they were planning :to protest on that 11 September 2001 effort. They replied on their web page insisting that they had :planned to protest the economic forum in China, but that they had been unable to do it and hence :had abandoned their protest for that year."

Arkon 02:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

There is already a cite in the article about this. Check the links. Would it help if I put that next to the statement? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, that would be very helpful. Arkon 02:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I've also just read over all of the the links, none support the section I quoted. Arkon 02:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean? Do you want me to reword it? "A lot of people on the internet believed that they were responsible and the CIA was believed to be extremely interested in their activities". Is that better? As for what they said on their web page, you can't prove that directly because of course their web page doesn't exist, nor do any archives of it exist. However, that was quoted by others who talked about it at the time.

Of course, this brings in to question the merits of this article, which was why I hadn't created it. See, s11 was a relatively new organisation. Okay, so they got news coverage for their hacking of nike in June 2000, but it wasn't a lot of coverage. Yes, their protests in Melbourne on September 11th 2000 got news coverage in Australia, but only as a 5 minute segment on the nightly news, plus a couple of little sections afterwards.

The thing was that their being targetted to blame for 9/11 was NOT publicised in newspapers or TV or anywhere. It was only spoken about on the internet. But they very much were targetted. They were enormously targetted. There was a link I found before which was talking about people he knew who were involved in s11 who were murdered because of their involvement, and how he thought it was wrong.

I guess I should also talk about the difference between regular anti-globalisation groups and a group like s11.

Actually, I'll start with a different example - Greenpeace vs Earth Corps.

Greenpeace of course goes around jumping on to whaling ships, protecting seals and dolphins, and stuff like that. Earth Corps goes around murdering whalers, sabotaging their equipment, setting off bombs on their ships and stuff like that.

Regular old anti-globalisation groups would protest and march on the streets about the exploitation of labour, destroying of rainforests, forcing everyone to live under one government, and so forth. s11 thought that the people who ran these sweat shops, like Nike executives, should die.

That's the difference really. There were what we would call "extremists".

Of course, not a lot of people believe that they were responsible for the bombing of the world trade center. Whilst its conceivable that they might have let off a bomb in the building, the idea that they would go so far as to hijack planes and blow them in to the building is a bit far-fetched. Yes, they had motive. Yes, they had opportunity. But would they have done it? Its a huge leap from what they were doing before to suddenly be doing that.

Some people just thought that it was an extraordinary coincidence, that they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Oh, and let's not forget that they were basically all white, all westerners, who were essentially protesting about their peers, and asking people to stop being globalists and to join them.

If they are notable, they are probably more notable because of their persecution for the 9/11 incident than for being a suspect. They weren't really believed to be a serious suspect. Even if they blew up the twin towers, why would they go for the pentagon? It doesn't make sense.

Of course, in saying that, some of their ideology was similar to Al Qaeda's. There are definite links between them, with how they went about things, what their purpose was, and so forth. Just from a different starting point - one for religion while the other was for economic reform. Its quite conceivable that they might have met in the middle somewhere and joined forces. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 05:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Jo-Wow. S11 was a beautiful thing. I can't believe people would think it could possibly be involved in 911. I am shocked people were murdered and surprised this wasn't on the news. The protest was covered by the media CONSTANTLY the whole time it was on. Maybe not in America, but it was in Melbourne. The media coverage was unfavourable and often contained out-and-out lies. Perhaps someone, perhaps I will at some stage, look up the Herald Sun. It is not conceivable that the movement (as a whole) would or could have 'met in the middle' with Al Queda. Can I add here that the Australian Greens Party made a show of being supportive of the movement? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.53.2 (talk) 23:10, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

More Evidence needed...

I think a whole lot more evidence is needed to ascertain any sort of direct link between the Austrailian S11 protest organizing and the 9/11 attacks one year later. I was fairly active in the larger anti-globalization movement at the time, so I heard about the S11 protests when they were happenening. The were held in Melbourne, Australia when the World Economic Forum was meeting there. The meetings began on September the 11th, 2000 - one year to the date before the 9/11 attacks. [1] [2]

As far as I know, this is entirely coincidental. Of course some people within the WEF likely were behind 9/11, but I don't know that they would have been so meticulous as to plan their meetings exactly one year before. Who knows though - maybe they are into numerology or have some kind of number fetish. (in any case - that's all completely speculative - anything's possible - for all I know, they picked that date because it was a Monday and that allowed them to party for the whole weekend before hand). Sept. 11 also happens to be the date that Salvador Allende's government in Chile was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup.

As for the name S11, this followed in the tradition of activist code-names for anti-globalization convergences. For example, the WTO protests in Seattle on Nov 30, 1990 were known as N30 and the IMF/World Bank protests in DC on April 16th, 2000 were known as A16. These short and simple names were also ideal for urls - hence n30.org, a16.org, and s11.org. But though these were .org urls, they didn't generally represent long-term organizations - rather just a coaltion that came together to facilitate the convergence and protest. After the protest was over, a lot of the local, regional, and national/international social networks would remain, but there wouldn't typically be a group that would go by that name. For instance, after the WTO protests, there wasn't a group in the Seattle area (at least not one that I know of) called N30. And typically the protest-specific website would eventually be taken down some time after the event.

Blackcats 06:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Removal of some wild speculation

I'm sorry guys, but as I read through that article more I became more and more unhapy with its content. The way that article was written is exactly the sort of thing that gives the whole notion of "conspiracy theories" such a bad name in so many people's minds. In particular the last paragraph, which read:

"The group all but collapsed following the attacks in 11 September 2001, and, after 1000s of death threats were directed against all of their members, they disbanded, their web page cannot be looked at in any archives, and any hint that they ever existed in the first place has been removed. Whether they were all murdered, or the CIA took them all to interrogate them or what happened nobody will ever know."

First of all, is there any evidence that this was ever a group? As far as I know, S11 was an event - put on by a coaltion of groups that was part of the larger anti-globalization movement (not one group). Second of all, there's any number of reasons why their archives may have been blocked. It looks like the URL has been bought by some corporation, and it would likely be an embarassment for their patrons to see that the site had once owned by a bunch of Australian radicals. Third of all, the last sentence implying that large numbers of Aussie protest organizers may have been killed strikes me as pretty absurd. The sorts of people who put on those kind of big protests have connections - both direct and indirect - within the whole liberal and radical milleus, not to mention family connections (and many of them are of middle or upper class origins). So if hundreds or even dozens of these activist sudenly disapeared or were killed, there would certainly be some record of this, as a lot of people would take note. If the "powers that be" wanted that many people dead, they would at least have to engineer cover-story events, and those would leave a media trail for investigators to follow. And of course there would be a whole lot of chatter in the Aussie (and even international) activist communities about so many of their comrades dying or disapearing over such a short period of time, and there would be a record of that too.

So at any rate, I've removed most of the wild speculation and re-written the article to focus on verifiable events. (If I hadn't done so, I'm pretty sure the article would have been quickly AFDed). Blackcats 07:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I remember reading it on their web site. The web site wasn't shut down on September 12, 2001. It was open until well in to 2002. It just got so much activity on September 12, 2001 that to many they couldn't view it because of time outs. Indeed, it was still getting unbelievable amounts of traffic right through until November 2001. In the order of 2 million hits per day. They were writing on their site talking about getting death threats from people, and all of the rest. And of course everyone that went to the protest was interviewed by police a year later. My sister's ex-bf didn't go, but he got interviewed just because he was friends with people who did go.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that this warrants its own article. I didn't make it. I just thought that it should be included in 9/11 conspiracy theories, that's all. I for one rank the theory that they did it as only slightly more believable than Al Qaeda did it. Both quite preposterous. It's obvious that Saddam Hussein did it.

But don't forget that they were under FBI investigation quite a long time before 9/11. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 07:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Jo - I'm pretty sure that S11 was created for the purpose of putting together this particular protest. I was never interviewed, for the record. As a bunch of socialists, communists, anarchists, leftists and various others, I find it not surprising that FBI would have been interested in the group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.53.2 (talk) 23:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Well I'm done

Thanks to everyone for helping there and getting rid of my ignorance! :) This started out as original research, which is bad, and you've proved that a lot of the things that I thought were true weren't (e.g. s11 came first, m1 came later), but it has also backed up most of what I thought was true. Oh man my eyes are tired from all the google searches. I did about 50 different ones. Trying to run a search on this and not be mixed up with the whole terrorist attacks thing is seriously tough.

I was sad though that I couldn't find direct links that they were threatened for their involvement (well, they obviously were threatened in 2000, but I mean because of the belief that they were involved in the 2001 WTC attacks). Its pretty obviously true, considering that Arabs and Muslims the world over (especially in America and western countries) were murdered just because of their race or religion in the wake of the WTC attacks. But precisely what happened we might never know.

I think that took me a good 4 hours, so I hope that most of my research stays up. Thanks especially for Black Cat.

I personally never agree with conspiracy theories, but I just thought that this one should be included in the 9/11 site, for balance. Whilst it wasn't really believed by a lot of people, they did get death threats in bucketloads, as did anyone who had anything to do with it.

Of course, when was the site shut down? Police forcibly removed it end of 2002, but was it shut down before then? Dunno. Last time I can remember it being active was March 2002, but they didn't update it much after about October 2001. I'm not sure if they updated it at all after October 2001 actually.

Who owns the domain name now I don't know. But whoever does, those activist pages are still there. Intelligence agencies CAN access those pages. FBI, CIA, all of them, they can. So there you go.

I think that the reason why it wasn't in the media more about the connection was to protect them. That was my understanding. I mean they obviously had nothing to do with the WTC bombings. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 09:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

"...with the approval of the US"

I'm removing the paranthetical part of the following:

and the Australian government (with the approval of the US) had declared S11 a "terrorist" event.

Last I heard Australia was a sovereign nation and doesn't get approval from the US to label people anything. They may get cooperation from the US, or request that the US label the group in turn, but "approval" implies a relationship that doesn't really reflect Australian-US relations in this context (i.e. it implies that Australia is subordinate to the US). If you think something important was meant by this, then find out what it actually was that Australia requested and use more accurate language, because whatever it was "approval" is certainly innaccurate at best and misleading at worst.--Brentt 07:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise that was poorly worded. It should say "as well as the US government". I will reword it. Both countries declared them terrorists. The US government under advice from the FBI. I believe that the USA declared them terrorists first. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 08:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

To clarify: The Australian government used the labelling of the group as terrorist by the US government as "permission" or "proof" to do the same. This section should be reworded. - Synapse 05:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Cite needed on why s11 site is inaccesible

In regards the following passage:

On 14 November 2002, Australian police initiatives commenced with an effort to ban all anti-WTO sites which were thought to "instruct in crime", i.e. encourage violent protest, including s11 [3]. As a result, the web site has been permanently blocked from viewing including archives [4]

The citations do not say that the s11.org site was taken down because of the police initiatives. All that is said in the story cited is that 4 "take down" notices were issued by the ABA for "unamed sites. It doesn't say which. This either needs to be qualified with an "allegedly" type descriptor or a better source cited.--Brentt 08:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You obviously didn't look at the 2nd citation - or do any work whatsoever towards contributing to this article. Please DO NOT destroy an article that took this much work. It says very clearly that s11.org was the MAIN web site to be taken down. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Google search does not demonstrate site "still exists"

In regards to:

whilst Google demonstrates that the pages still exist, but cannot be accessed by any members of the public.

Because a site comes up in a Google search does not mean it "still exists", Google is constantly trawling the web to find new websites, and stores those websites to make searches quicker. Any site that is taken down will likely come up on Google searches for a long time after it no longer exists (it happens all the time!) It does not mean the site is there but inaccesible. Even if this wasn't the case this would have been "original research",bad original research at that, but even good original research is against wikipedia policy, so watch what your writing people. --Brentt 08:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense. For a site to still display in Google 3 years after it has been taken down is actually proof that it still exists. Please stop destroying good work. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup Tag

I'm finding to many problems with this article to keep attacking myself. I'm tempted to put a rewrite tag, but I decided to be more conservative and put a cleanup tag instead. Whoever wrote the bulk of this I think needs to study wikipedia policy a little closer. It seems consist mostly of extrapolotions of speculations heard around the web.--Brentt 08:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

LEAVE THE ARTICLE ALONE AND STOP DESTROYING IT! Thank you. It is NOT speculation heard on the web. It is something which was well documented, but the documentation was destroyed thanks to CIA initiatives undertaken in the wake of 9/11 to destroy all information that opposed the official story, thus leaving a "black hole" for issues such as this, whereby we know that they exist but the original form cannot be discovered. Your work has destroyed a lot of work. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Expansion

What the article really needs - more than rewriting or even cleanup is expansion. The majority of the article should focus on S11 for what it's really known for - a large protest in Melbourne Australia on September, 11th, 2000. I added one paragraph on this, but a lot more still needs to be added, so hopefully some people can find the time to do that..

There can still be a section for allegations or misunderstandings regarding S11 and 9/11, but that's by-far not the most notable thing about S-11. Also, I don't know that any source has been cited to show that anyone still believes that S-11 had any connection to 9/11 (other than maybe a couple people here of course). All I've seen is that right after 9/11 the coincidence of dates and the similarity of names caused some confusion... Blackcats 02:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Even those misunderstandings were limited to people posting in comment threads or on message boards. I don't believe that even meets wikipedia's standards for reliable sources, but it certainly doesn't deserve to be the focus of the article. Arkon 03:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

People, if you want to add something, then do so, but dont delet anything. --Striver 17:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

.....Right... Arkon 21:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Jo- True that. This protest helped shape who I am. It was a thing of beauty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.53.2 (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Response to Conspiracy Theorists

Hi Guys, I quick read through this page seems to point to the fact that many of you are living in some bizarre alternative reality within your own heads. You should really get some professional pyschological help. To set the record straight, s11 was simply a protest in the year 2000 attended by about 20,000 people in Australia. I was there. I helped organise it. There was nothing sinister about it. I know hundred of other people who were there too, many of whom helped organise it. None are dead - they are all very much alive. Many of them work for mainstrean trade unions, environmental organisation and even in state government bureaucracies in Australia.

If you believe that simply because two events happened on the same day one year apart then there must be some connection, you are clinically insane and should be admitted to an asylum. The S11 protest were just that - protests. There was some police voilence, but that's about as exciting as they got. There was nothing sinister about them. You can even check out the photos of what happened on the links on the wikipedia page. I guess the s11 website is down because the protests happened so long ago. Why don't you guys find something more productive to do with your time instead to sitting around seeing who can think up the most brainless conspiracy theory?

I've deleted the conspiracy theory crap on the main page. Please don't put it back up - it's insulting tot he tens of thousands of people who were there in 2000 trying to make the world a better place - something you guys could learn a lot from.

User:MMc 2:39 PM (EST) 31 December 2005.

I agree one slashdot posting and some of the other sources aren't much but we should report the allegations nevertheless, the fact members of the coallition were questioned by the Australian senate (presumably over "terrorism" or 9/11 or ...?) is relevant enough for inclusion. If you disagree please make a case against that information rather than label it dismissively with "conspiracy theory". Why did you remove the relevant fact the Australian and U.S. Governments had labeled S11's September 11, 2000 protest in Melbourne a "terrorist" event? zen master T 03:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

-As I mentioned previously, no members of the s11 protests groups have ever been questioned by the Australian Senate. The link that was posted was to a Hansard record of a committee which inquired into the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement. In the commitee's discussion, there was one brief mention of the s11 protest. The mention provided no information about the s11 protest, and hence shouldn't be included - go back and have a read of it, if you're really interested. I removed the accusation that "the Australian and U.S. Governments had labeled S11's September 11, 2000 protest in Melbourne a "terrorist" event" because it was UNTRUE - the protests were never labelled as such by any government representative. If you think they were, please give evidence. Cheers, User:MMc 7:58 PM (EST) 1 January 2005.

Jo - thankyou some sense here. At the time, calling groups 'terrorists' wasn't even in fashion like it is now post-911. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.86.53.2 (talk) 23:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there more than one S11?

Quick question in reguards to this? Was there ever actually an organisation S11 not related to the protests related to the protests in 2000?

As somebody who witnessed the events at the Crown Casino on September 11th & 13th 2000 the S11, S11 was the name given to the allience of groups (Ranging from Far Left groups right through as far as main stream Trade Unions, The left wing Australian Greens party, Student Unions among others) who were protesting against the World Economic Forum that took place suronding the World Economic Forum on September 11-13.

The name S11 is quiet obviously related to the date and nothing else, however if memory serves me correctly, it was also borrowed from a protest on the same date the Year before somewhere in Europe... bit hazy on that one.

In the minds of Melbournians, depending on your point of view and political standing, prior to the terrorist events of September 11 2001, refered to the picketlining and protest of the Crown Casino for the duration of the World Economic Forum by estimates of people ranging anywhere from 20,000-250,000 people at its peak (The picket ran 24 hours and quiet obviously it was quiter at night) Where protesters picketed and violently challenged anyone who attempted to cross the picket line, vandalised the area and hurled ball bearings at police horses and urine filled water balloons at police (Claims which were heavily disputed by the protesters) or It was a peaceful picket surronding the Casino on 3 sides (One side of the Casino has the natural barrier of the Yarra River) which was marred by the Violent use of police violence to break the picket, use of horse charges, battons etc. and the act of deligates transport speeding at the picket line in order to break through without concerns for the protesters safety. Other complaints that the protesters had were Police actions such as refusing to identify themselves by the standard Vistorian Police practice of wearing name badges therefore protecting any Victorian Police member being identified in any complaint against them by Civilian Protesters. I do recall there were several complaints filed against the police however I dont recall the outcome of them. In terms of the police tactics, it was also reported that several protesters were injured (By police use of battons, being trampled by Police Horses and the charging throught the picket lines by speading cars) although again I dont remember figures.... 50 is a figure that comes to mind but not sure.

It should be noted that 25-50 people were charged for various things resulting from the protest however controvesialy, I seam to recall no protester was ever actually convicted of anything due to either being found not guilty or the charges being dropped.

S11 beyond that means absolutly nothing further in the minds of Melbournians beyond that. The loose S11 coallition was planing a followup anti-globalisation protest the following year but I'm not sure if it ever actually eventuated... It may well have, however the News Reports and I'm sure 99% of peoples memorys of that date were all of Planes crashing into the Twin Towers.

The significance related to the Terrorist events the next year is simply the fact that at the time of attacks when nobody knew what was going on, People were confused and many many sources were blamed. When nobody had any idea what to think, pointing the finger at the people at the Extream Left of the S11 protest "group" was just as good an idea as any, and when people had nothing to work with, the coincidental date being exactly 1 Year after those protests was as plausable as anything else. It should be remambered that the general concensis extreamly quickly came to the conclusion that Al-Queada was responsible...

At the end of the day, the relation of the date between the S11 protest and the 9-11 event is the coincidental fact that they happened on the same date.

And to move right along to the M1... essentialy M1 was the name given to a protest along anti-globalisation themes again held on May 1st (not sure of year, suspect 2001) which was organised by the same groups that organised the S11 protest. It was possibly also held to coincide with another forum or meeting etc, but not entierly sure.

For proper research on this, the best bet is to go through News and other Media reports a few day prior to the protest through to about a week of follow up news for about a week after... Newspaper reports etc from maybe 8th September 2000 -> 20th September 2000, along with the scattered media reports that would have only appeared in Australian news briefs in relation to the outcome of charges laid against protestors etc.

I was there

Well I have to say I certainly had a big laugh at this page. I was also at the s11 protests in melbourne, australia. s11 was an amalamation of different political groups and individual protesters who used this alliance to help organise a massive protest against the WTO. As far as terrorism goes the only violence or terror that was inflicted at this protest was by the police eg: running down and seriously injuring a protester with a police car and then failing to stop and render assistance (against the law) just to cite one case. Sleep easy all.

Police Response

I've added this section, and in the interests of being factual and NPOV I have only mentioned events that were not in dispute and for which there is substantial video evidence.

Unfortunately I can't find a lot of good material relating to this on the web. In particular, I can't find the Victorian Police Operating Procedures manual anywhere on victoria police (?!) or government sites. Googling only gives pages referring to particular sections by name. It's a public document, there isn't really any reason why it 'shouldn't' be up.

Also, I've tried searching for some of the footage from TV stations sites, but it seems to have expired. However, I did find this article [5] about the s11 sites being blocked.

- Synapse 05:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Bordering on Vandalism

Reminders for editors of these articles:

• WP:CITE All material must cite refrences. Blogs, web forum posts, newsgroup posts, slashdot comments etc are not references.
• Conspiracy theories are better added to 9/11 conspiracy theories
• Do not remove material which is cited.

If this behaviour continues I will probably have to take this further and get the page locked for anon edits.

-- Synapse 22:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This article makes unsourced claims of criminality and brutality against police, and does not pretend to offer their side of the story. I'm adding a NPOV tag. Let's discuss it here. Wikipedia isn't a place for attacking Victoria Police. - Richardcavell 00:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The claims are all sourced in the article to the footage that was broadcast nationally that night. I was one of many who saw all the things listed there (and I wasn't the one who wrote that paragraph). Rebecca 06:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Much as I hate to say it, being one of the people who participated in the protests (non-violently), this article needs a major POV re-work to cover the criticism and police counter-claims better. Being a WikiRooki I'm going to have to do some research before I wade into the fray. And for the record, S11 was always billed as an event amongst the various protest groups I interacted with - nobody referred to S11 as an entity in itself. Judi 00:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Indymedia at s11

First I should preface my comment that I have a potential conflict of interest as a present editor on Melbourne Indymedia, and therefore I should not post info about Indymedia on the main article page without discussion on this page.

The concept of Indymedia as an open publishing site for participants in protests to file their own text, photo and video news stories came together for the Seattle protests against the WTO in 1999. The open publishing software was actually partly developed by the Catalyst collective in Sydney - a group of computer activists interested in developing alternative grassroots media publishing. A website for Melbourne Indymedia for open publishing of news was established in July 2000, one of less than 30 Independent Media Centres around the globe at that stage. You can see pages from Indymedia 15 August 2000 at archive.org. Unfortunately I could not find an archive of the Indymedia site for September 2000 - these pages were archived by an Indymedia tech around 2003 and I do not have access.

The site served its purpose in allowing activists to post their text reports, photos, and even a few videos to the site and allowing comment and debate on news articles. My website page at Protests against World Economic Forum at Melbourne Crown Casino September 11 - 13 contains the reports I posted on Indymedia each evening over the three days of the protest. The Indymedia site also allowed anti-globalisation activists from around the world to read news reports of protests written by protestors at the same time or even before the corporate media published their reports.

At the time I was not involved in any organised group at the protest, nor was I then a member of Melbourne Indymedia. That came much later. My account is useful as it contain relevant succinct quotes from the media at the time. Maybe some followup research is necessary to accurately source the quotes, and then they can be used in the article. I reckon reference to the use of Melbourne Indymedia at S11 should also go into the article, but I'll open it up for discussion.--Takver 17:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)