Vol. 75/No. 23      June 13, 2011

Iti is a longtime advocate for Maori rights. The 18 were framed up on firearms charges. Iti and four others are also falsely charged with “participating in an organized criminal group.”

Joining Iti on the speakers’ panel were John Minto, of Global Peace and Justice Auckland; David Clendon, Green Party Member of Parliament; and Syd Keepa, the vice president Maori of the Council of Trade Unions. Held at the University of Auckland, the meeting of 100 people was cochaired by Pania Newton and Daniel Haines, officers of two students’ associations.

On the day of the raids, Iti’s house was surrounded by armed police “in what seemed like a bad dream,” he said. He was forced to the ground and handcuffed with guns trained on him and a police dog at his head. Cops subjected him to grueling interrogations. “I didn’t say a word,” explained Iti. “I was brought up that you don’t say anything to anyone” in such situations.

Days later, from behind prison walls, Iti learned that 60 homes around the country were simultaneously raided and his home town of Ruatoki in Te Urewera national park, a center of the Tuhoe tribe, was sealed off and stormed by cops.

Police had spied on the targets for 18 months leading up to the raids. “I found out my car, phone, bedroom, kitchen, work phone, and wananga [teaching sessions] had all been bugged,” Iti said. “The bedroom is a tapu [sacrosanct] place where you talk to someone close to you.”

The raid “was the greatest attack on civil liberties in my lifetime,” said Minto. “It was the end result of a decade of laws tightening the right to dissent in New Zealand and around the world.”

Originally the police and government sought to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act, but the Solicitor-General ruled against this. “It was the big protest marches following the raids that set the political climate” for this victory, Minto pointed out.

The trumped-up weapons charges are based on allegations that defendants participated in training camps in Te Urewera park. For decades, including as part of government-funded projects, Iti has taken people to camps in the Urewera hills, a well-known hunting area, to teach them traditional Maori practices and survival skills.

Iti described the history of unjust land confiscations in the region, and the Tuhoe people’s resistance to this. Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, “Maori were said to be lazy, dirty, dumb. I thought, ‘Maybe I am that,’” Iti said, until as a teenager he began questioning these stereotypes.

The Supreme Court will hear two appeals by the defendants—one on the admissibility of certain evidence presented by the prosecution, the other to reverse a decision to have the case heard by a judge instead of a jury. The trial will likely begin some time next year.

“We’re going to win this!” said Iti, as he thanked people for their support and called for continued united actions until the charges are dropped.
 
 
Related articles:
White House renews broad spy powers of Patriot Act
FBI probe against Somalis targets rights of workers
‘To U.S. capitalist rulers, workers are presumed guilty’  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home