More charges for anti-Woodside art gallery protester

She glued her hand to the wall of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and spray-painted the Woodside logo over a plastic sheet covering.

Police have laid further charges against an anti-Woodside protester following the execution of a search warrant at her home.

Joana Partyka, 37, has been charged by summons with a charge of fail to obey a data access order.

WA Police issued her with the order on March 2, following a search of her home on February 24 by six State Security Investigation Unit officers, who normally deal with counter-terrorism matters.

Ms Partyka was earlier this year charged and fined over her protest at the Art Gallery of WA, in which she glued her hand to a wall and spray-painted over the plastic cover protecting a Frederick McCubbin painting. Supplied

A mobile phone, a laptop and a notebook used for work were seized in the search. The data access order demanded Ms Partyka give officers access to the information on the laptop and phone within seven days.

She’s since declined to comply with the request, calling it “a massive overreach from authorities designed to intimidate us”.

In January, Ms Partyka glued her hand to the wall of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and spray-painted the Woodside logo over a plastic sheet covering Frederick McCubbin’s 1889 painting Down on His Luck.

She pleaded guilty to criminal damage charges over the incident on February 10, and was forced to pay $7500 in fines and costs. Her property was searched two weeks later.

“I have already pleaded guilty and been convicted for the action I took in January at the Art Gallery of WA and have already paid in full the fine and excessive costs I was charged for that action,” said Ms Partyka in a statement.

WA Counter-terrorism police officers serving Discupt Burrup Hub protester Joana Partyka with fresh charges.

“I have not been charged with any additional offences beyond the action that has already been dealt with fully by the judicial system last month.

“This continuing escalation by state security counter-terror police is baffling and unjustified.”

Ms Partyka’s lawyer Zarah Burgess, of Burgess Criminal Lawyers said it was concerning SSIG was continuing its actions against Ms Partyka.

“These kinds of heavy-handed tactics have been used before by the WA Police against members of other environmental activist groups,” Ms Burgess said.

“It is nothing short of state-sanctioned intimidation designed to silence campaigners and protect the interests of the McGowan government and their fossil fuel donors – particularly Woodside.”

Ms Partyka during her protest on January 19, over which she has already been charged and paid all fines and court costs. Photo: Disrupt Burrup Hub

Ms Partyka’s protest is part of Disrupt Burrup Hub, a group opposed to Woodside Energy’s $50bn gas project being built on the Burrup Peninsula, in WA’s Pilbara.

Aside from environmental concerns, the project would need to see the relocation of the Murujuga rock art, some of the largest and oldest petroglyphs in the world.

Members of the group have also been behind the spraying of paint over the ground-floor windows of Woodside’s Perth CBD headquarters, and the spraying of Woodside’s logo on the doors of WA’s Parliament House.

WA Police have declined to comment on the matter.