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David Arthur Johnston Update
- Tavis Dodds

 

I have been following David's story now for 3 years.

David has been sleeping out, getting arrested and fighting for the rights of those who have nowhere to live to sleep without being harrassed for 3 years now.

I am compelled to honour his tenacity and committment. Is it perhaps not an irony that his first two names {David, Arthur} are both the names of historical Kings? I think not.

This is the latest email I recieved regarding David's progress...

Today, July 24th, marks the twentieth day since David Johnston last ate. He fasts in prison out of protest against what he sees as unbearable injustices. Whether someone chooses to live without money, as Johnston has, or whether someone finds themselves in dire economic straights, poor people find more and more that they are treated like criminals. We are denied our rights to assemble for benevolent causes. We are continuously harassed. The court system and police force routinely rail-road us into the jails. The whole of society views the poor as sub-human, and we, in turn, are denied our basic human rights. David Arthur Johnston, 34, is not prepared to live in a world with such blatant injustices. He insists that he has a right to sleep in public-access green spaces. When the courts, police, and security deny him this right, he insists they quit their jobs rather than subject him to what he calls torture. This pacifist fight of his has led to over 80 days fasting in state custody over the last two years, being driven out of town by police on six occassions, and having all his posessions removed from him by Victoria Police with no option for him to retrieve his posessions. David Johnston has been the victim of such unwarranted persecution that he is willing to die to expose the corruption inherrent in our system.

Brett Hendry, 48, long-time friend of Johnston, visited Johnston in Wilkinson Prison on July 22nd, Johnston's 18th day without food. "He was very slow moving," said Hendry, "and he was very quiet. I think this fast is taking a toll on him a lot faster than the other times he's fasted."

"Any attempts to feed me I will refuse," said Johnston, "I understand that if I go unconcious that will imply consent, so I plan to pin a note to myself that reads 'Do Not Recussitate'.

[Requests from Johnston that he be transferred to segregation (Canadian solitary) have been denied.]

It has been one year since Johnston has undertaken a solemn vow of poverty to not allow so much as a dollar to cross his palms. When he is not fasting in state custody, Johnston lives off what he can find in the garbage. It's been five winters living outside for the man. He owns only the clothes on his back. He does not have a substance abuse problem, and he offers support and conselling to those in our community who have fallen victim to the terrible drug epidemic that is plaguing our streets. He is the kind of man that would rather receive a beating than to resort to violence, even if the violence is in the form of self-defense. He is an innocent man, spreading his philosophy that we are all God, in the sense that God is within and amongst us, that the love of money is the root of all evil, that you cannot serve God and money, that pride is a sin, and that patience and humility are virtues.

David hasbeen writing letters about this to his representatives for at least two years. I don't think there has ever been a response unless you count hiring security guards expressly for the purpose of making Johnston's life uncomfortable. I had the opportunity to address Victoria City Council at last weeks meeting, but ther is still no response. I wonder what it is with these black holes of email addresses where you can write to police or city council for years and NEVER get a response. I went in to ask to speak to someone at the police station about Johnston and they arrested me. And this is not an exception to the rule, it is the rule. There has never been disclosure in this matter by the crown. There has never been due process. Judge Neal has said that if he chooses between people living according to their consciences and injustice, he chooses injustice. David has been assigned council that calls him obsessive and makes none of Johnston's valid arguments.

These people claim to have God's support in their courts and councils, and I know that vengeance is God's, but there is a part of me that hopes very much that all these people who wash their hands of this business will receive so much wrath that their families will feel it for generations and generations. David would not agree. I'm sure he forgives everyone that ever played a part in his persecution.

--Tavis Dodds