Update: Tame Iti was found guilty in the Rotorua District Court this morning!!! He was fined $300 on each charge and has to pay court costs ($260). He will appeal this decision. The flag and the shotgun shells were being sold on tradme to raise moeny to pay the fine. These were withdrawn by trademe. This of course is absurd considering they allowed the sale of the 'Minto Bar', which is a police baton used to assault people during the protests against Springbok Tour in 1981.

Tame Iti (pictured) will be going to court once more this Friday in Rotorua to hear the verdict of his firearms case. He was charged with two counts of unlawfully possessing a firearm after a Waitangi Tribunal hearing in January 2005. At that powhiri in Ruatoki (Bay of Plenty), Tame Iti ceremonially shot the New Zealand flag "to show the disgust of Tuhoe of the atrocities that happened to Tuhoe." [ Indymedia Feature ]

About the protest Tame Iti says: "We wanted them to feel the heat and smoke, and Tuhoe outrage and disgust at the way we have been treated for 200 years. (The Crown) destroyed people's homes and burned their crops and we wanted them to feel that yesterday. We wanted to demonstrate to them what it feels like being powerless. The confiscation and subsequent colonisation have had a devastating effect on Tuhoe over the past 100 years."

Links: Tame Iti | Aocafe | Tuuhoe | Ngai Tuuhoe