Sign-wearing activist considers legal action following arrest
Sign-wearing activist Danny Lim is considering taking legal action against police after being arrested and charged for offensive behaviour last week.
Inner West
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Sign wearing activist Danny Lim is considering taking legal action against police after being arrested and charged for offensive behaviour last week.
The 74-year-old Strathfield resident was fined $500 after three police officers arrested him at Exchange Place, Barangaroo at 9.20am on Friday.
Witnesses have made formal complaints over the force used to cuff Mr Lim with video footage of the arrest more than one million views by Sunday.
It is unclear what the offensive behaviour involved or who made the complaint though one woman, on Facebook, said she called the police because Mr Lim was “in the way” and “disturbing”.
NSW Police declined to comment when asked about the physicality of the arrest on Friday.
Mr Lim told the Courier officers approached him and said the wording in his sign, which read `SMILE CVN’T! WHY CVN’T’, was “rude”.
“The police bullied me, they took my sign off me, dragged me and my dog,” he said. “I told them it’s the same sign I’ve been using for the last three years.”
The arrest comes after Mr Lim overturned a 2015 conviction for offensive conduct over the wording of a sign mocking former prime minister Tony Abbott, also containing a rewriting of the word “can’t”
In his ruling last year, District court Judge Andrew Scotting said it was unlikely the sign would offend the average Australian.
Mr Lim’s lawyer Bryan Wrench said Mr Lim, who is awaiting a court date, was considering legal action against NSW Police.
“From what I have seen it was a disappropriate use of force for what is a $500 fine for a sign that is sending a message out there for us to smile,” he said.
“One view is that it’s censorship by criminal punishment.”
A rally attended by 200 supporters on Sunday, Mr Lim told the crowd “when they try to break you, your mind, your heart, don’t let them do it”. A GoFundMe Page set up to pay Lim’s $500 legal expenses had received $2,821 at press time.