More drawings of the art gallery protester against Woodside

Police filed further charges against an anti-Woodside protester after executing a search warrant at her home.

Joanna Partyka, 37, has been charged with failure to comply with the data access order.

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

During the search, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, and a laptop used for work were seized. The data access order required Ms. Partyka to give the officers access to the information on her laptop and phone within seven days.

She has since refused to comply with this request, calling it “a massive overreach on the part of the authorities designed to intimidate us”.

In January, Partyka taped her hand to the wall of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, painting a Woodside crest on a plastic sheet covering Frederick McCubbin’s 1889 painting Down On His Luck.

She pleaded guilty to criminal damage charges over the February 10 incident, and was forced to pay $7,500 in fines and costs. Her belongings were searched two weeks later.

“She has already pleaded guilty and found guilty of action taken in January at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and has already paid the full fine and excess costs incurred as a result of this action,” Ms Partyka said in a statement.

I have not been charged with any additional offenses beyond the action which was fully dealt with by the judicial system last month.

“This continuous escalation by the State Security counter-terrorism police is baffling and unjustified.”

Partica’s attorney, Zara Burgess of Burgess Criminal Attorneys, said it was a concern that SSIG would continue its proceedings against Ms. Partica.

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

“It is nothing less than state-sanctioned intimidation designed to silence activists and protect the interests of the McGowan government and fossil fuel donors – especially Woodside.”

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

Environmental concerns aside, the project would need to see the transfer of Murujuga rock art, some of the largest and oldest petroglyphs in the world.

Members of the group were also behind spray painting the ground floor windows of Woodside’s Perth CBD headquarters, and spraying the Woodside logo on the doors of Parliament House in WA.

WA police declined to comment.