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Salient: Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Vol. 32, No. 2. 1969.

Police Battle With Students

page 11

Police Battle With Students

(Sydney Correspondent)

Sydney witnessed its biggest, noisiest and most violent demonstration for a long time when about 2,000 anti - conscription protesters — mostly students — marched through the city last week.

Several students were injured when police moved to contain the demonstrators.

The march had its ugliest moments when the crush of protesters pressed into Chifley Square at the foot of the Commonwealth Centre.

A score of police pushed through the crowd and blockaded the narrow western entrance to the steps of the building.

Hefty constables and sergeants, and the occasional policeman of higher rank, packed into a solid upright scrum, shouldering the marchers, many of them girls, back into the street.

More than one police hat hit the pavement, and several identification badges were torn off and trodden underfoot.

Hard-pressed police had little chance to differentiate between the onslaught and the onlookers.

Not only the mostly scruffy male students, and their young female companions were angered by the display of violence.

About six students were arrested and police said most of them would be charged with obstructing pedestrian.

But, one of them, Mike Jones, president of the Students for a Democratic Society was hauled out of the procession outside the Lottery Office at Central and taken to Long Bay gaol allegedly for disobeying a national service order.