Police threaten charity ride

Queensland; beautiful one day, fascist the next!

The Newman/Bleijie anti biker laws are a gross case of legislative over-reach in their own right, with their draconian penalties for being a member of particular groups that the government deem to be undesirable.

When overzealous and petty minded police action is added to the mix though, the authoritarian actions of an unrestrained out of control government are rendered intolerable by its accompanying police state.

Police on the Sunshine Coast have put their insensitivity on full display with their threats towards a charity ride to raise funds for medical treatment of a victim of Lyme disease: 

A CHARITY motorbike ride will go ahead today despite police warnings that any outlaw bikies who participate would risk being arrested and put the event in jeopardy. 

Sunshine Coast resident Marc Revere has organised the event to raise funds for 20-year-old Lucy McGrail, a family friend who is suffering Lyme disease. 

Unfortunately, the innocent event has been caught up in potential pitfalls due to Queensland's strict anti-bikie laws. 

"I just want to see a good day for Lucy. I just want to see people come out and ride their bikes and have a good day with no harassment," Mr Revere said. 

While the event does not need a permit, police have been informed of the ride as required.  "We do know police will be there, undercover, and out on the roads as well, not there to harass, just to keep an eye on things," he said. 

Mr Revere has been warned that, if the event involves three or more outlaw bikie gang members or associates, those riders could risk arrest.  "We will be watched, they will be watching for club members who attend," Mr Revere said. 

"If there's more than three members together - it doesn't matter if it's from one club or different clubs, or an associate - they'll be locked up for six months, no bail, and lose their bikes.”

It has to be questionable at best, just what the problem would be in having members of so called ‘outlaw’ clubs attend a charity event.  Logic suggests that it would be better that they are out there doing good for someone rather than engaging in the sort of activity Bleijie implies, assuming that those present are such people.

It would be nice to think that this sort of situation is an untended consequence of an ill thought out law, but this is not the case.  The way these laws are framed, once the club a person is a member of is declared illegal, that person is a criminal with no scope nor hope of redemption, even by leaving it.  The government has made it clear that even those who have been members in the dim distant past (15 years or more) can still be prosecuted under them.

In civilized countries it is a principle of law that prosecutions are launched on the basis of wrongdoing, not on the basis of associations.