Across the world, people demand freedom for political prisoners!

I hear a wahine toa has been released from the hands of babylon. I hope she is well and i send my deepest aroha to her and family. Lets hope they release all the accused soon.

You guys need a vigil in front of Parliament for a week or more.There should be clear messages for MPs, to remind them this country is turning to Stalin soviet union.

"But I don't know whether a majority white neighbourhood would be raided by masked and commando equipped cops with guns out."

Really? What happened when the Hells Angels pad based in the middle of an extremely wealthy suburban street in the middle of Mt Eden got raided?

Oh thats right the AOS those masked and commando equipped cops did it and even used 'distraction devices' when raiding it.

"Who’s really playing the race card, Pita Sharples?
Colin Espiner in On The House | 1:31 pm 29 October 2007

It’s been a considerable while since I’ve last been able to say this, but Winston Peters is absolutely right.

The New Zealand First leader used his platform at last weekend’s annual conference to lash out at the Maori Party for inciting racial hatred over the police raids on Maori (but mostly non-Maori) activists a couple of weeks ago.

“New Zealanders are sick and tired of being called racists by those who are clearly the most militant racists in the country,” Peters said.

“New Zealanders wonder why a political party based solely on race is held up as the moral compass for the country. In South Africa, we called that apartheid.”

OK, there’s a little hyperbole in here. But Peters’ central point is that anyone who either says or does anything that impacts on the tangata whenua must, according to the Maori Party, be motivated by racism - rather than, say, dislike of their actions or, in the case of the police, a belief that they broke the law.

So, says the Maori Party, the police must be racist. I haven’t heard anyone accuse the cops of being anti-Pakeha, however. Anti-activist, yes. Authoritarian, heavy-handed, and even stupid. But criticism from Pakeha upset at the way the police raids were conducted has mostly centred on the actions of those involved, rather than ascribing some racial motive.

That, as Peters correctly points out, is racism - and it makes a mockery of Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples’ claim that Peters is “playing the race card”. Sharples has been playing that one for all it’s worth for weeks, even claiming that the raids “set back race relations by 100 years”.

Sharples followed this up at the weekend with the preposterous claim that somehow the Government was behind the arrest of Tame Iti. “There is no way the Government is going to let Tame Iti free … they’re getting back at him now,” he said.

Of course. This entire police operation was orchestrated by the Government so that it could extract revenge for Iti shooting a New Zealand flag two years ago. This is the kind of delusional paranoia indulged in by conspiracy theorists who think the New York terrorism attacks were staged by the US Government. They do Sharples, the thinking man’s radical, no honour at all.

Sharples and the party’s other MPs seem to believe that it is impossible anyone who is Maori could be guilty of terrorism because of their ethnicity. This, too, is racist. It’s arguing that one race is superior to another. I haven’t heard Sharples defending any other ethnicity involved in the raids.

Has the Maori Party gone too far? It depends. Some of its core constituency - those that harbour a grudge towards non-Maori and still believe colonisation to be on a par with the Holocaust - will doubtless applaud the sentiments. But more conservative Maori, who don’t necessarily want their children growing up hating the police and anyone who isn’t brown, may be alarmed.

Criticising the impact the raids had on ordinary Tuhoe people was one thing. Questioning whether they could have been conducted in a more civilised manner was equally fair enough. But some of the invective spat in Parliament by Hone Harawira and Te Ururoa Flavell has been downright dangerous. If a non-Maori MP accused the police of racism for arresting a white supremacist they would be rightly pilloried. Again, however, it seems different standards apply to Maori.

Veteran activist John Minto reckons Peters’ invective was “spittle-flecked dog whistling”. It’s a nice turn of phrase and Minto is probably right, to an extent. Peters had one eye firmly fixed on his party’s abysmal poll ratings when he made his speech. He is hoping to tap into a vein of middle-class anger at the way the Maori Party has hijacked this debate.

It could well be a fertile source. Peters is voicing the feelings of both Labour and National, but neither big party can afford to get caught up in such a debate. The question is how well he can manage it. Peters has a bit of form as a stirrer of racial tensions himself.

He must be careful not to end up looking as if he is Maori-bashing himself, and inadvertently whistling up the sort of mongrels that may reflect poorly on his status as an elder statesman of Parliament and Foreign Minister. Properly handled, however, Peters could yet sink his teeth into some of the softer Maori Party vote and pick up some lost ground in the centre as well."

i met a person who was living with kyle not so long ago, as far as i can tell he is doing his own thing. was running for mayor in chch
as far as i'm aware their is no relationship anymore between kyle and the national front.
i'm not even sure it exists anymore.

colin espiner and his brother guyon are mainstream media pawns, so that review bears little credibility

i would like to see the maori party, tuhoe, and all maori rights activists - emphasize that these raids and the terror laws are affecting all new zealanders,
its always a bit disappointing when the bigger picture overlooked.

Having huge problems , trying to get into to tino rangatiratanga site( not the cafe site as that went down immediately) , took a while to get into this site!!! whats up its been ok for the last week...my thoughts are that slowly all sites like this will be shut down..can we have someone look into this...its been the most effective way of being informed & updated...so whats the strategy...to keep in touch???

Mi amigo, todo el poste en este sitio está siendo supervisado y mirado por (spys).

.My friend,all post on this site are being monitored and watched by(spys)

"my thoughts are that slowly all sites like this will be shut down..can we have someone look into this...its been the most effective way of being informed & updated...so whats the strategy...to keep in touch???"

Re: sites going down and servers being confiscated.

If this site goes down also, there are several sites going up but take a lot of time to set up and keep updated. Email lists such as the TR list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tino-rangatiratanga/
may be faster and simpler for more people to contribute to. If that site goes down, hopefully a moderator there has the email addresses and it can continue that way.

Kia ora

This site has been having database problems in the last 2 weeks, I assume due to a lot of people viewing and posting to the site, especially when photos from demos are being uploaded.

Rest assured Indymedia has strategies in place to be able to restore the site if we are taken down. For one thing, we are hosted outside Aotearoa, so that the cops can't just take the server as they did with AoCafe. Also we have back-ups we could restore from, even if they somehow hacked us. If all else failed, the global Indymedia network would help up set up a replacement site in hours. We aren't going anywhere.

If anyone knows of back-ups that AoCafe could be restored from, we could probably organise hosting to put it back up. Please contact me: strypey@indymedia.org. Ma te waa, ki te whanaunga o AoCafe, nau mai, haere mai ki Indymedia.

Strypey

I reckon its about time we had something similar to the Public Defender as they do in the states. The crown has crown solicitors and they also have access to the courts over and above all other parties. Hugely unjust and unfair. Wheres the balance? And on top of that they are being funded by the taxpayer.

I'm extremely pleased to see that Peter Williams QC is now being engaged to participate regarding the concerns in Ruatoki and also the arrests , what another brilliant lawyer ( alongside , Annette and Moana & others.) He has a recent article in Scoop regarding this. Anyway he is also involved in Howard League Society ( President ) ( www.howardleague.co.nz & www.criminalbar.org.nz ) Awesome site for information re Penal insitutions etc.... Also www.corrections.govt.nz is good to get an understanding around the policies & procedures in those nasty institutions , and what they should adhere too!!! Finally , my partner was the first on Electronic bail for Hamilton City & Waikato , at the end of the term , was second longest serving , really happy to support whanau that end up on this option , it was a nasty process to get through the application but worth iT!!it had its own pressures. My email for honest , genuine persons , Please respect :ajb10 (at) waikato.ac.nz

hey crew,
i got a coupla pics, a video and a report i wanna post from over here in the land of canada...we been in solidarity on sat 27th in da giant mountains and today for bail hearings(but ALL the time really, the past 2 weeks, in spirit aye)and i aint got round to gettin any of it on here yet...

so....help!?!

i never done this b4...i can see the links where it says 'post an article' and 'upload media' etc but what if i want to add it onto the existing 'global day of action' article, y'know so its together with the other worldwide solidarity***
????????????? thanks for help

stoked to hear sum whanau been released back home to their family and crew, wicked :)
the reaction i keep getting here over this is SHOCK***
and questions like, how is that legal? are any international governments standing up and condemning this?(does anyone know the answer to this by the way??)disbelief and the like...
PEACE
xxooxxoo
arohanui katoa
love u all
katrin

So you assume it is all a big mistake and a misguided police state operation.

I think it was a very smart and beneficial thing.

A bloodbath was averted.

A bloodbath like Bologna 1980...
http://www.google.com/search?q=bologna+gladio
Or Madrid, Bali, London 7/7 ...

My (crazy) theory is that our wonderfully foresightful intelligence service arrested the patsies and stopped the US-Israeli-private-banker-mafia atrocity that was to shock the world:

"Even in peaceful New Zealand you can't be safe!
Lefty arab-lovers just snapped and fire-bombed a bus."

Weird? Check out the KNOWN FACTS:

Since it was neither police nor armed offender squad but

a) SPECIAL OPERATIONS ("licensed to kill, wet job ninja") who did the "operation" in the urewera

b) prevented a FUTURE atrocity

c) the govnmt knows what we DO NOT KNOW

put a+b+c together!

Some (***western) secret service was preparing these "impressionable greenies" and "whacko Maori Sov phantasists" as patsies for a "flase flag" "strategy of tension" OUTRAGE in order to instill fear into the WORLD (western) population

"even in peaceful New Zealand you cannot feel safe. Seemingly harmless greenies turn their anti-establishment hatred into violence and bloodshed, we need more gov-control and lots of money for private security and gadgets"

Of course our NZ spooks prevented the whole shabang by arresting the patsies and taking the blame.

In court we will hear of some strange dark figures... Shane Wenzel is just a minor go-between? Was there a swiss national like Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieure were swiss?

Of course the murderous *** people are UNMENTIONABLE (like CIA MOSSAD) and even if our government had SOLID PROOF of their involvement they could not go public for fear of
trade-sanctions. Remember how long it took to name the french in the Rainbow Warrior murder.

Of course you will dismiss this posting.
Just remember.. if your theory (right-wingers try to turn NZ into a police state) seems ridiculous and not based on facts, nor fitting the known facts....

my theory does.

Zzzz... www.safe.org.nz is more important than this!