Police Raids Provoke Protests
200 people protest in Christchurch, 20 October 2007
Heavy handed Police action, taken partly under the aegis of the Terrorism Suppression Act, has provoked an enormous backlash from people concerned about the use to which the provisions of the Act are being put.
At the time the Terrorism Suppression Act was originally passed through Parliament, right wing proponents scoffed at suggestions the Act might be used against protest organizations, dissidents and so on - people who have nothing to do with so-called "terrorism", but who have different points of view from the commonly accepted.
If the raids were supposed to re-establish the good name of the Police in occupied Aotearoa in the wake of all the bad news stories that have been generated by their activities lately, the move has badly misfired!
The raids in Ruatoki proved that the Police can't tell the difference between terrorism and anti-colonial resistance, or terrorism and environmental activism - or any kind of dissent for that matter. Terrorism has become the paint with which the face of repression has been newly painted. Does the word make that face any more attractive?
Protests have taken place - and continue to be organized - in Tamaki Makau Rau (Auckland), Kirikiriroa (Hamilton), Rotorua, Whakatane, Awapuni (Palmerston North), Te Whanga Nui A Tara (Wellington), Otautahi (Christchurch) and Otepoti (Dunedin), and also in Sydney, Melbourne, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Berlin, San Francisco, Cape Town, Hawai'i, Spain and no doubt many other places around the world.
ARENA has collected a variety of viewpoints and articles on the raids and their significance.
You can access these items here. Please take a look - while you're still allowed to ...