For the activists desperately trying to draw attention to what is happening on Manus, the Australian media has rediscovered a well-worn nickname: hooligans. It may be a slightly more tasteful pick than the often bandied about alternative “ferals”. They both arouse familiar images – mindless, attention-seeking youths who don’t believe in a progressive movement as much as they believe in causeless dissent; idealistic people with unachievable expectations of their reasoned superiors who are “just doing their job”, socio-political opportunists with a reckless disdain for authority.

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It’s clever typecasting by a media that knows how to pull public opinion with a swift tug. Footage of young, justifiably upset and energised students is quickly harnessed in soundbites for current affairs programs. Police brutality against peaceful protesters is labelled as a demonstration randomly “turning violent”. The message this endeavours to spread is: the Australian public unanimously supports offshore detention, and the dissenters are merely dogmatic unemployed students complaining about whatever comes their way. The “majority”, it suggests, feels that imprisoning refugees is necessary for protecting our borders and therefore our conception of Australian identity and lifestyle.

But the material reality reveals something else. It shows hundreds of regional Australians standing with Rural Australians for Refugees, protests in Bunbury, and grandmothers in Kyogle establishing a communication line with men on Manus. It illuminates the broad, diverse band of protestors from all age groups – white-haired women with the expression of steely determination perhaps more prominent than any other demographic. These aren’t just students in Sydney and Melbourne, although they are among the many leading and organising these actions.

Even among young people, the crisis of vulnerable refugees held without food, water or medicine is often seen as irrelevant to our life. Unlike the easy exuberance of marriage equality, which quickly spawned a “come one, come all” attitude in the wake of a hopeful cultural moment, refugee rights requires stringent self-analysis and discomfort. Our politicians are absolutely to blame on every front – this is unmistakably the doing of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek as it is Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton – but our silence does nothing to challenge the pre-existing plans and manoeuvres of those in power. Refugees are far beyond our shores, and despite our 61.6% yes vote, queer refugees held in these fortresses are somehow not our concern.

The government has made it clear that no matter what, our actions cannot ever produce a “result”, unlike the marriage equality campaign. Dutton says that despite what the Australian people want, “these men are never coming to Australia.” Is this not cause for concern – that all possibilities are ceded no matter what the public chooses? And is this quashing of diplomacy evident in the way police have shown up at the homes of protesters, demanding information about future actions and intimidating organisers?

Refugee ally activist Anna told us, “plain-clothed police officers visited me at my home, refused to show me their badges and demanded information about protests. It felt highly invasive and unwarranted, especially given I had committed no crime in attending protests against the government’s actions”. Police also released images of activists to the media and had heated stand-offs with protesters in Melbourne. The specific type of policing, as well as harassment at the homes of activists, poses a potential threat to our civil liberties.

We know that our ability to voice concerns is narrowed under a dysfunctional system and that we are made to feel we cannot vote with our conscience – we know that our prime minister is treading down the path of many oligarchs that came before him – that he is an expert at appealing to monied Australians under the guise of so-called egalitarian policies; of utilising superficial engagement with rural and elderly citizens in media packets and embellishing a narrative of Australianess for a gullible international audience, and speaking only on behalf of the few minorities that coincide with his own interests. We also remain consistently aware of his dearth in integrity, of a tidy claim over a blatantly hollow image.

As footage from Manus illustrates the violence, depravity and inhumanity being weaponised against refugees and asylum seekers, so too does the democratic right to protest escalate in all the major cities of our country. Spinning the narrative against protesters perpetuates the expedient myth of the “feral” activist and blindsides the advocacy of groups like Mums 4 Refugees, Doctors For Refugees and the Christian group Love Makes A Way, as well as the huge subset of Australian society taking a stand against government policy that tortures and abuses those who deign to ask for help.

The citizen journalism of Behrouz Boochani and dozens of other men on Twitter have been instrumental in exposing the abject human rights abuse being rolled out under the watch of the Australian Border Force, the Australian federal police and our federal parliament. As our politicians remain wilfully unresponsive, activists taking direct action to highlight the issue nationally and internationally are falling victim to police crackdown.

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This targeting of activists is an attack on freedom of speech and the fundamental right to protest, with potential as a threat to our democracy. We need to call attention to the truth: that the Australian population that rejects the government’s actions is wide and diverse, and that no matter the background of those speaking out against government policies like offshore detention, whether unemployed students or rural farmers, this response of escalated police presences and violence within the community weakens any moral basis to Dutton’s response to the crisis on Manus.