The Bradley Manning support group: bradleymanning.org
called for an international day of action on 23 February 2013 because on that day Bradley Manning had been illegally incarcerated by his own government without trial and under circumstances which can only be described as torture - for 1000 days.
The Melbourne rally took place on 22 February 2013 starting at the Melbourne landmark Flinders Street Station at 4pm.
The rally lasted about 2 hours - the scheduled time span - and from the station the rally moved to Federation Square, then to Bourke Street and Bourke Street Mall.
Melbourne has a population of about 4 million people, of which a few hundred call themselves socialists.
The demonstration consisted of about 20 people, 2 of which were us 2 geriatrics aged 90 and 86 respectively.
There was no indication of the presence or support of any of the socialist groups active in Melbourne.
One has to wonder at their activist claims and their support for people in the same position as Bradley Manning - people like David Hicks, Mamdouh Habib, Dr Haneef, Ben Zygier, Julian Assange and many others come to mind.
If these socialist groups don't believe it could happen to them in Australia, they need to look at Australia's current and past history of dealing with people that governments deem to be "undesirables".
If there are any social consciences and feelings of human rights abuses in the communities, now is the time to show them
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