Council sorry for gay stall arrest

Council sorry for gay stall arrest

Twenty years after the fact the Hobart City Council has apologised for banning a gay law reform stall and ordering the arrest of 130 people who defied the ban.

At a civic reception on Wednes-day night, Hobart mayor Rob Valentine officially apologised to those affected by the ban in 1988, as a Council-sponsored exhibition of photographs of the arrests opened.

In September 1988 Hobart City Council banned the stall belonging to the then Tasmanian Gay Law Reform Group, at the popular Salamanca Markets. It had been organised to gather petition signatures and distribute information supporting the repeal of Tasmania’s laws criminalising sex between men. The ban led to 130 arrests and sparked large-scale protests.

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesman, Rodney Croome has welcomed the apology for the arrests. [They] were traumatic for many of the people involved and an apology will help healing and reconciliation, he said.

The apology is also important because when public authorities say -˜sorry’ for past discrimination they make discrimination less likely to happen again.

The protest over the ban is regarded by some as the biggest act of gay rights civil disobedience in Australian history. As a consequence the stall was allowed to operate two months after the ban, in December 1988. in 1997 Tasmania became the last Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality. The stall has become a regular feature of the Salamanca Markets.

The exhibition, TRESPASS: A 20th Anniversary Photographic Exhibition of the 1988 Salamanca Market Arrests, is at the Salamanca Arts Centre until 17 December.

Have your say: Should state governments apologise for sodomy arrests too? Tell us at www.starobserver.com.au.
An activist is arrested at the stall in 1988. Photo courtesy of The Mercury.

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