Public Art in Remembrance of 15 Oct 2007

This morning life-sized posters of Helen Clark dressed as a 'ninja cop' appeared throughout Wellington...

This morning life-sized posters of Helen Clark dressed as a 'ninja cop' appeared throughout Wellington. Today is the one year anniversary of gun-toting and armoured police terrorising people around the country in the name of terror prevention. Around 60 houses were raided at dawn, an entire community was locked down, and 17 activists were arrested on firearms charges in the NZ police's failed first attempt to use anti-terror law.

The posters have been placed around the city to remind people of the events of last year. Helen Clark's knowledge and support of police actions, and her statements about the guilt of people who have still not been tried in court, show that government and police are working together to criminalise indigenous rights activists. The surveillance of indigenous rights activists, and the treatment of an entire community in Ruatoki as if they have no rights, exposes again the falsity of New Zealand's mythical 'colonisation by consent' and peaceful race relations.

There is a long list of atrocities committed by the Crown during the colonisation of this country. Raids on Maori communities, politically-motivated arrests, charges and imprisonment have been used to tear people from their land for as long as there has been a settler government. The abusive behaviour of the government and its police on October 15th 2007 was nothing new or remarkable in New Zealand's history of violence and oppression towards maori.

We may be in the 21st century, but in New Zealand colonisation never went away.

Related

http://www.october15thsolidarity.info

http://tuhoe.net/