Thousands gather in solidarity with October 15th arrestees and against the Terrorism Supression Act

Dirty fithy swine, set the dogs on them I say.

"At the end of the day, its trade that makes the world go around - not people with low intellectual capacitance still struggling to make sense of why they were born."
And you're telling everyone they were born to shop, obey and die, right?

couldnt make it ,heard it was a nice day,we need more of these

nice!!

Greed is right and greed works?

Nah, burn Hollywood, BURN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbS2T-50G_w

Imagine if the people arrested were skinheads overheard talking about killing non whites would there have been any complaints if the police had one in with force? the answer is no.

2000 people got together to comfort each other in the fact that they know they are a bunch of losers who will never have any power in New Zealand.

AWESOME! There was a wee stall in Otautahi/Christchurch on Saturday (Cashel Mall) and this morning (Outside Court). Solidarity.

"2000 people got together to comfort each other in the fact that they know they are a bunch of losers who will never have any power in New Zealand"
They have people power - the power that doesn't need to be backed up by pigs, guns, tasers or transnational corporations.

"Imagine if the people arrested were skinheads overheard talking about killing non whites would there have been any complaints if the police had one in with force? the answer is no."
True, but when have the pigs ever gone after their own?

"inward focused views of the world"
I smell an oxymoron.

Aroha, tautoko and solidarity from tianjin, china! :-)

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right

How did spam get on here. Gross!

Freud would be happy
Booming is meant to be bombing

"Ignore the negativity"

That's what the smarmy Pom Michael Cullen does, he thinks your stupid and your mission is to prove it by allowing him to do what ever he wants.

Bollard has never managed anything more technical than his book account at a Universty library- yet you say nothing when he tells you he will bankrupt the workers

"go on dare you"

how old are you?

"how old are you?"

Old enough to know better than to listen to scum like you.
Name the racist Maori who abused the police with racist slurs at the depostions hearing- they are scum and need outing or are you a coward

...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...oh look something exciting is on TV now...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...and there's a good movie on it on Saturday night...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...Dr Phil was exciting to watch today, huh?...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...I'm looking forward to Christmas, so I can have lots to eat and get plenty of presents...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...New Year eve should be fun with lots of booze to have...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...then I'm looking forward to 2008 since there will be lots of fun TV to watch...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...by the way I'm a typical person...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...that lives in Aotearoa...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...

"Ignore the negativity, all of you coming together as a show of support is truly great."

Well said, friend.

"Ignore the negativity, all of you coming together as a show of support is truly great."

nice! to all the organizers, thanks.

...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...who is that rude person trying to wake me up from my slumber...zzz...zzz...zzz...I'm a typical person living in Aotearoa...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...all that I'm worried about is what's going on in Coronation and Shortland Streets...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...and how the All Blacks and the Black Caps do...zzz...zzz...zzz...I wonder if I'll have crandberry saurce with my turkey for Christmas dinner this year and what expensive presents I will get...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...I hope I get laid and drunk for New Years...zzz...zzz...zzz...I wonder what exciting things will happen in Home and Away next year since things are hotting up in it at the moment...zzz...zzz...zzz...so don't bother me with silly things like social justice, animal rights and helping the poor because TV, sport and my personal comfort are more interesting...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...

...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...who is that annoying person trying to wake me up...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...I'm only a typical person living in Aotearoa...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...don't you know I'm in pain because I just found out that Sally will be leaving Home and Away next year...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...so don't upset me furthur with issues like social justice, climate change, animal rights and helping the poor...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...I'll deal with all that after I won Lotto...zzz...zzz...zzz...that reminds me I better buy a Lotto ticket, some ciggies, eggs and milk from the dairy just down the road from where I live...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...then I have to buy some racing tickets from the TAB which is just next door...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...so I have to jump into my car and drive down...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...while burning fossil fuels...zzz...zzz...zz...zzz...so leave me alone...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...oh, look more sport is on TV...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...so I have to do all that work later...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz...



Ruatoki has a long history of resistance to authority. But when she visits Kim Knight discovers they feel more violated than rebellious.

Ruatoki is the end of the line. Tar seal gives way to gravel, then the river. The valley narrows and the hills close in. No cellphone reception in front; bone thin dogs and kids on horseback behind.

Every home here has been issued with a photocopied pamphlet: Dealing with Police. Know your rights. "If police are hassling you and they haven't arrested you and aren't asking your name, date of birth and address, just walk away and say nothing."

Next time, say the people of Ruatoki, they'll know what to do.

On October 15, armed police locked down this eastern Bay of Plenty valley. They searched every vehicle going in and out and photographed occupants holding pieces of A4 paper with blue felt-penned numbers.

It was 6am when Kathleen Taipeti looked out her window and saw three officers wearing balaclavas. One was pointing a gun, one held an axe, "and the other held something that looked like a baseball bat".

A helicopter circled overhead. Within hours, the media was reporting terrorist training camps and speculating on the explosion of napalm bombs.

But in the end at Ruatoki, just four dwellings (including one workplace), and three "non-dwellings" were raided. Of those taken away for questioning by police (and locals believe that was up to five people), only two were charged. In a community of up to 600 residents, that's a lot of ordinary people left picking up the pieces.

"We were very fearful," says Patrick McGarvey, 31. "A lot of people were wondering who was next. I know that sounds like something you only see on TV, but that's how we felt.

"There were houses in Auckland and Wellington that were raided, but they didn't have their communities shut off. We were treated like the whole community were criminals."

McGarvey is chairman of Te Roopu Tawharau a title that encompasses words like umbrella, protection and shelter. It was set up after the raids to co-ordinate fundraising, welfare, counselling, legal assistance and wider communication.

If the police thought Ruatoki was organised before October 15, they should see it now. "We only have to look behind us, to see what's in front of us," says McGarvey.

To come from Ruatoki is to be Tuhoe. It is the tribe who, for longer than any other iwi, stayed out of the reach of colonial control and British cultural influence. There are flags and signs at the borders: liberators, not terrorists. The police set up roadblocks on what is known as the "confiscation line", the area the ancestors of the people who still live here were forced behind when surveyors cut up the land.

In the late 1800s, Tikirau Ata's kuia spent a year in Mt Eden jail for protesting that action. "Stolen" says the faded white paint on the only road into the valley.

On the morning of October 15, Ata ate porridge for breakfast and drank green tea. He drove to the old Anglican mission on the hill that overlooks the town ready to start work at Hauroa Tuhoe, the agency that organises community housing, youth and health initiatives. Tame Iti's desk is just three seats from his.

"All of a sudden the phone rang and they said, `Hey, we've got a road block here."'

Ata thought there might have been an accident. The helicopter, he says, was not close enough to the bush line to indicate a drugs search.

"Half an hour later, I saw a whole swarm of cars coming in." Ata didn't realise he was alone in the rambling old house.

Men came into his office and said, "get out of there... we need you to come out of the building".

"All of a sudden, there were rifles, all pointing. My colleagues had been seized outside and one of them was pinned up against the fence."

Seven people were kept outside the building for three to four hours while police searched inside and underneath. Computer hard drives were removed. Brown paper bag lunches were delivered to police. There was no food for the locals. "I got a bit brassed off," says Ata. "One of my colleagues said, `I don't think they're joking. They might shoot you."'

In another life, Ata was a member of the motorcycle gang, the Filthy Few. He became a building contractor, and has worked with the police as a negotiator during armed offender stand-offs. Three weeks before the raids, he took a call from Iti the Tuhoe activist arrested during the raids: "Bro, I need you to come home, I'm going to retire and it would be great if you could come back."

Ata's wife told him, "Your people need you."

And now? "Some of us used to sit back and just let the day go by... This has created more young leaders. That's something that's come out of this."

The Sunday Star-Times went to Ruatoki in the wake of a visit by Peter Williams QC, barrister Heeni Phillips and private investigator (and former detective inspector) Mike Crawford. The team interviewed around 30 people, investigating the possibility of suing police for their actions on October 15. A letter, outlining complaints, has gone to police commissioner Howard Broad. Friday a week ago, assistant commissioner Rob Pope acknowledged the letter saying, "the complaints you have raised are viewed seriously by police and will involve a level of inquiry before a substantive response can be forwarded". On Friday, a police spokesman said investigations were in early stages and "we do not yet have a timeframe around when we will formally respond to them".

Says Phillips: "The people of New Zealand just don't realise the enormity of what has happened there and the effects on the people, their whole attitude and the effects on the children and their view of the police."

In the living room of the house across the road from Te Rewarewa marae, Kathleen Taipeti's eight-year-old son asked, "Are they going to shoot you, mum?"

The 29-year-old told police she helped Iti run a marae-based youth group and a "hapu wananga".

At her house, they removed seven rifles from a gun cabinet, two boxes of bullets, one camouflage jacket, a diver training manual, a basic scuba certificate and a green balaclava.

"My dad, he owns the rifles and they're all used to go to the bush.

"Just about every household in Ruatoki owns a balaclava to keep our ears warm during our very cold winter months. Sometimes I wear mine when I haven't brushed my hair."

At the roadblock, she says she ducked in shame. "So no one could see me being taken away like a criminal. As I was being driven I cried and wanted my mum and dad to be with me."

Taipeti says she's heard of an eight-year-old boy being thrown to the ground with a gun pointed at his head and later being told to go to the toilet where he was. "One woman was fully strip-searched."

Her children sleep with her now. "I keep teaching them the same thing every night, not that it's working: `Anytime we need help, we go to the police.' And my son says, `but they came into our house with guns'."

Tuhi Ruawai, 47, grew up a stone's throw from his house. He lives in Whakatane, with his partner Centrie Tahere and four children. A day after police swept through Ruatoki, they came to his house with a photograph of his truck, parked in the bush up the valley. It was registered to his 17-year-old son, Tyrone, a Trident High School student who belongs to the local Air Training Corps and wants to join the army.

He says the police "kind of told me I was volunteering to go to the station. I wanted to say no, but I didn't really know what my rights were".

During an interview he estimates lasted only 15 minutes, he was offered a lawyer, "but I didn't know any lawyers, and I didn't really know any of their lawyers. They said they would give me a list if I wanted".

Two guns were taken from the house. Tyrone thinks he last used them in April, to kill possums. He's a tall boy, with a careful voice. Before the raid, he says, he believed police just did their jobs. Now? "I think they went a bit overboard."

Police searched the house before taking Tyrone to the Whakatane station, asking him to wait in the living room with Tahere and his baby brothers.

"I was just in shock," says Tahere. She was allowed to prepare food for her children, "but I got told off for using the breadknife. One of them called out, `What are you doing with that?' I said, `I'm going to cut an apple."'

When she couldn't provide her partner's cellphone number ("Since when has it been a crime to have speed dial?") she says police told her that was suspicious and they would have to search the couple's bedroom.

"I was trying to make jokes, cos, yeah, it was hard... I had the four babies. They're normally really boisterous, but they sat still.

"They started asking, `Are we baddies, mum? Is my daddy a baddie?"'

Two weeks ago, this family were ready to pack up and leave Whakatane. A twitching urban curtain telegraph suspected them of being part of a drugs raid. Tahere heard talk she was a bad mother. They're staying put now, agreeing to front up to media out of a sense of pride and justice.

"Ma te ture te ture ano hei aki," says Ruawai, quoting prophet and resistance leader, Te Kooti. "Pitch the law against the law," he translates.

Last month, when a police officer asked him what that meant, "I reached across and grabbed his pen and said, `Here's my sword mate. I'll beat you with that."'

On the day of the search, Ruawai, who was taken to the Mt Maunganui police station, says he felt "cut off at the knees".

"They said, `We've got your family detained in the house and your son's being taken away for questioning."'

They asked Ruawai senior about his association with Iti. "I said, `He's my cousin."' They asked if he was Tuhoe. "I thought what a stupid bloody question. I looked at him and said, `100% mate."'

Police referred to intercepted conversations between Ruawai and Iti, regarding a container load of AK47 firearms. Ruawai says he was ridiculing Iti. "I shouldn't do that, but I did... of course I was f---ing joking."

Nobody the Star-Times spoke to in Ruatoki believes there were military training camps in Te Urewera. Isaac Nuku, 61, who drove the kohanga reo bus that became the centre of claims police had stormed the vehicle (Nuku confirms one officer searched the bus, after asking its three occupants to disembark), says the community's old people would know if something was going on.

"They would smell it in the air."

Approximately $4000 has been raised to help the people of this town affected by the raids. One woman, who can't be identified because her son was arrested and still has name suppression, has been milking cows from 4am since late October, earning funds to pay for two cattle to be slaughtered to help feed families.

The fallout has spread to the wider Tuhoe community. In Perth, Australia, a couple with the iwi's name on their truck found a note under the windscreen, saying "We don't need your sort over here."

"That's a frightening thing, eh?" says Nuku. "We've got each other to comfort us here, but out of our boundaries, they've got no one."

He's still trying to understand why and what happened.

"Is it because we're Maori and they wanted to use us as guinea pigs to show the people if this crap goes on, this is what'll happen?

"Like that lawyer said, there's no bloody way they'd do that in Remuera."



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aroha.

Mā te rongo, ka mōhio; Mā te mōhio, ka mārama; Mā te mārama, ka mātau; Mā te mātau, ka ora.

Through resonance comes cognisance; through cognisance comes understanding; through understanding comes knowledge; through knowledge comes life and well-being.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz.I find the apathy in NZ frustrating.zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz.and people's selfishness too.zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz

To sleepyhead zzz I understand your annoyance since some people don't even recycle even when it is picked up from their front gate. Let alone changing the world for the better in regards to social justice, global warming, world and local poverty, etc. Grrrrrrrr.......

I agree that most people waste too much time and energy on the wrong things and not on issues for positive social change.

"What apathy?" There is a lack of concern by most within Aotearoa or the Terrorism Supression Act would've never been enacted. Sad but true.

"your a sideshow attraction" I think some of these ppl have more guts and more of a brain than you,you brainless coward!

“Spoken from the safety of your keyboard.” What a nasty little troll you are! Stop hanging around here and being a sock/meatpuppet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_sock_puppet

“If anything you will noted as the schizoid bi-products of the cannabis culture.” What does this mean? You come across as being the schizophrenic, cannibis, crack and/or P user.

STOP feeding the troll, concerned or otherwise! All what this sockpuppet wants, who made the schizoid/cannibis comment, is a rise which they got. Ignore the unhinged loney and they will soon get bored and go away.

Polynesian culture is very human, so is unenlightened as the rest of the human race. Take the Caucasian culture for example and how barbaric it can be: Egyptians use to impale people, the Romans use to nail anyone they like to crosses, the English Kings and Queens use to have people’s heads chopped off at the Tower of London, the French were more efficient by using guillotines and the Nazis had their death camps. And about ten years ago in the Kosovo/Serbian War death camps appeared again. Then there’s the African culture where in Sudan ethic cleansing is going on and in Zimbabwe... Also, rapes, murders, etc happen all over the world no matter what culture is involved. So as anyone can see Polynesian culture is no different from any other. I know it’s a sad indictment on our species but there you are.

recycling is mentioned above... reusing what you have or buying nothing new are perhaps better strategies as only a small fraction of the plastic that is picked up is actually recycled -- only that which will be most profitable.

Don't talk about it,go and solve it