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McGill Daily, Thursday 25th October

New Zealand's police accused of repressing indigenous Maori
Maori Solidarity Committee condemns arrests, protests outside UN
building in Montreal

By Ezra Black
News Writer
Over 100 New Zealand police raided the homes of several well-known
Maori sovereignty activists last week to allegedly search for evidence
related to "terrorism" offences.

Supporters of the activists are condemning the government's actions as
an act of repression under the guise of fighting terror, and say that
the activists are in fact peaceful.

The 17 mainly-Maori activists arrested face mostly weapons charges,
although terrorism charges may follow. New Zealand's Counter-Terrorism
legislation, passed in 2002, gave police unprecedented powers,
including imprisoning anyone "who intends to cause significant
disruption to commercial interests or government interests," according
to the Privacy Commissioner's report to the Minister of Justice.

"New Zealand is now waging a militarized campaign against Maori
sovereignty," said Shannon Walsh, a member of the Maori Solidarity
Committee, a Montreal-area group.

"Our goal was to show solidarity with those in New Zealand who
continue to be persecuted by legislation that criminalizes dissent."

The group organized a protest in front of the UN Secretariat of the
Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, coinciding with
protests held around the world this week in support of the sovereignty
campaigners and in opposition to New Zealand for labelling its
indigenous political dissent movement as "terrorist."

This follows demonstrations Friday in Whakatane, a town in northern
New Zealand, where 1,500 protestors rallied in solidarity with those
arrested and carried banners proclaiming, "We are not terrorists –
we've been terrorized."

"We hope [the government of New Zealand] feels embarrassed, especially
since they announced their candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council
last week," said Walsh.

New Zealand's treatment of indigenous activists has been compared to
similar treatment in Canada. Mohawk activist Shawn Brant faces nine
charges for two blockades earlier this year outside the Tyendinaga
community near Kingston, Ontario.

Brant has also been branded a criminal and, like Iti, he was denied
bail and will soon face trial.

"We think Canada is such a progressive society, but we see a history
of repression of [indigenous] peoples in Canada, from the Ipperwash
Crisis where [native protestor] Dudley George was killed, to the
recent imprisoning of Shawn Brant, and we need to pay attention,"
Walsh said.

Last month, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States were
the only four countries to vote against the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The UN General Assembly adopted the
declaration by a vote of 143-4, with 11 abstentions.

In response to the outcry in New Zealand over the raids last week,
Global Peace & Justice Auckland, a network that works on peace and
justice issues, demanded the country's parliament wait until tensions
cool before passing the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, a
proposed amendment to current terrorism laws that was reported back
from the Parliament's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee
yesterday.

If the bill is passed, courts could not review designations of
terrorists or terrorist organizations, and they would be decided by
the UN list, which has been largely drawn up by the U.S. Critics have
claimed that the new bill would harm legitimate political protest and
remove civil rights safeguards at the same time.

"We blatantly refused to sign the declaration when clearly the
struggles are present here," said Walsh.

Tomorrow has been designated an international day of solidarity for
the so-called "Urewera Seventeen," named after the region where they
were arrested.