Police and protesters clashed on Sydney's Bondi Beach this morning, as more than 100 local residents tried to prevent work starting on a 10,000-seat stadium to host Olympic beach volleyball this September. Two men, including protest organiser Lenny Kovner, were dragged from the world-famous beach and thrown into police vans. But Kovner and local musician Andy Holm were soon released and returned to the protest.
Kovner and his group, dubbed "The Bondi Warriors", say the temporary stadium will rob the city of its main beach and do permanent environmental damage. The protest began with brief scuffles when demonstrators tried to scale building equipment, including a bulldozer and two trucks. The scuffles settled down and workers fenced off most of the beach ready for preliminary work. But protesters sat in front of the bulldozer, chanting and singing "Don't Fence Me In" and preventing work from starting on the site.
Around 100 police were at the site, including a dozen on horseback and others aboard two boats offshore. "This is a demonstration of passive resistance," Kovner told reporters at the beach. "This is the first battle of a long, protracted war. We are prepared to take this all the way to Olympics".
Sydney Olympic organisers have already delayed construction work on the temporary stadium because of local hostility and scaled back the construction designs. The stadium will cut off the central part of the surf beach for the next six months for the sport's Olympic debut.
