I monitor the Moynihan Report.
Monica Smit is one of his favorite people for 2021.
Is she well known in Austrailia?
Letter #19, 2022, Friday, January 28: Top Ten 2021 #4
Monica Smit , an Australian woman who founded the anti-lockdown advocacy group Reignite Democracy Australia in 2020, was charged last year by Australian authorities with multiple counts of “incitement” — and not incitement of others to commit a crime or even disobey Covid restrictions, but simply incitement to “opposition” of those restrictions. We find Monica a true representative of the best aspects of the human and Australian spirit — aspects which the government officials of Australia tragically seem to have lost sight of.
For this reason, we chose Monica Smit as one of our Top Ten People of 2021. —RM
Monica Smit
“It’s our duty as Catholics to act”
One Australian Catholic stands up to the government 
Monic a Smit can wax eloquent about the beauty of her native Australia, but she hastens to add, “Beauty is nothing without freedom.”
Monica, 34, has in fact devoted herself for the past two years to that very ideal: freedom. She is the now-famous Catholic Australian who was arrested in 2021 after breaking the severe lockdown restrictions in her home state of Victoria: she drove her car more than 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) from her home, against the emergency rules enacted by the state’s health authority.
Three unmarked police cars followed her and stopped her car, arresting Monica and taking her to jail. She had the presence of mind to livestream the arrest, which went “viral” on social media and the internet. “If I had merely recorded it, they would have destroyed my phone,” she explains.
Monica, who founded the anti-lockdown advocacy group Reignite Democracy Australia in 2020, was charged with multiple counts of “incitement” — and not incitement of others to commit a crime or even disobey Covid restrictions, but simply incitement to “opposition” of those restrictions.
In other words, she was charged for articulating reasons for people to disagree with the government’s Covid policies—at the time, among the most draconian in the world. Vaccine mandates were in place for large sectors of society, businesses were shut down (as always, excepting fast food and liquor stores) and travel from one’s home was severely restricted to just a few reasons of necessity. People were made depressed, lonely and fearful – all without rational justification.
“It was like a concentration camp in your own home,” says Monica.
The judge in her case imposed unreasonable bail conditions, including the removal of the online content posted by her and Reignite Democracy Australia, a nightly curfew beginning at 7 pm, and even the shutting down of her bank accounts. She had already decided not to let herself and her group be muzzled; she refused to sign the bail conditions; she was remanded to prison for 22 days, in solitary confinement.
, mine isn’t.