Sime (Simon) Juric has been involved in a ten year battle with one of Australia's major banks. He has lost his business and his home as a consequence of a titanic legal battle with this xxxx bank. He has now lost his freedom. Five weeks ago he was jailed for twelve weeks as he was found to be in contempt of an order by The Victorian Supreme Court regarding injunctions that were placed against him, regarding his ongoing public battle with xxxx, one of Australia's major banks.
Simon has spent four weeks in protective custody in Melbourne's Remand Centre and was transferred to HM Prison Ararat, two hundred kilometres from Melbourne, on Tuesday the 11th of June 2002. Mr. Juric a refugee from the former Communist Yugoslavia, made his home in Melbourne over 40 years ago. He is a devout Catholic and was jailed on the eve of a pilgrimage he and his wife were taking with a Melbourne based Croatian church to Lourdes. Mr. Juric is 61, he has lost ten kilograms in prison in the last five weeks and is waiting to have a major bowel operation.
Why have we chosen to highlight this man's plight when thousands of business people and home-owners are shut down by banks and financial institutions every year in this country? The answer is very simple, on the 11th September 2000, believing that the courts had let him down, Simon took his struggle to the people and began to protest outside this bank's offices in Melbourne, raising his case with anybody who cared to listen and collecting signatures on a petition he was circulating.
His campaign has been an embarrassment and a thorn in the bank's side. In an attempt to keep him away trom their offices, the xxxx bank successfully applied for a Victorian Supreme Court injunction to move his protests away from their branches.
He now finds himself in jail because he broke that injunction believing that the courts have been used to stop him speaking and protesting about his predicament. All too often Australia's defamation laws and the courts are being used by trans-national corporations to crush dissent. Mr. Juric's jailing for a civil matter has important ramifications for anybody who is interested in protecting the limited freedoms we have to dissent in his country.
His jailing for contempt on a civil matter is possibly only the second time in twenty years that this has occurred in Victoria. The mass media silence about this important case has been deafening. The Anarchist Media Institute encourages as many of our readers as possible to send Sime (Simon) Juric a postcard, or letter to bolster his sagging spirits while he is in prison. He has lost his business and his home and now faces the very real prospect of having his spirit crushed.
Write To Him Right Now and let him know that he has not been forgotten.
WRITE TO:- MR. SIME (SIMON) JURIC PRISONER, HM PRISON ARARAT, P.O.BOX 431, ARARAT, VICTORIA 3377, AUSTRALIA, FAX MESSAGES OF SUPPORT DIRECTLY TO THE PRISON ON 53524464

Non-urgent email inquiries via the Snakebusters bookings page at:
http://www.snakebusters.com.au/sbsboo1.htm

Urgent inquiries phone:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia:
(03) 9812 3322 or 0412 777 211