A veteran environmental protestor who was arrested while protesting in Tasmania’s Styx Valley has had a charge of breaching bail dropped.
Ali Alishah was taken into custody in February for allegedly obstructing loggers.
He was initially bailed with conditions, but returned to the forest five days later, leading authorities to put him behind bars until April.
The charge was eventually dismissed in the Hobart Magistrates Court on Thursday with no evidence presented by the prosecution.
Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said Alishah was one of many people arrested for defending the Styx forests, including former Greens leader Bob Brown, Dr Colette Harmsen and Jim Everett.
“Without explanation, the loggers left this coupe before completing their destruction,” she said.
“So today these old forests, with flowering sassafras are still standing and need secure protection. We will keep returning to the forests to defend them.”
Alishah said the state’s “proven useless and entirely anti-democratic” anti-protest laws should be repealed.
“When the anti-protest laws were being debated … legislators were informed of the parlous state of the Tasmanian justice and corrections systems and how the laws would only serve to clog up the beleaguered courts and not deter forest defenders at all.”
