page_title: 2007 New Zealand police raids
section_title: Protest
hierarchical_section_title: 2007 New Zealand police raids / Reaction / Protest
caption_attribution_description: English: Protesters against the 2007 New Zealand police raids on November 3 at North Shore.
context_page_description: The 2007 New Zealand raids were a series of armed police arrests conducted on 15 October 2007, in response to the discovery of an alleged paramilitary training camp in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki.
  About 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad and Special Tactics Group, were involved in the arrests, in which four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition were seized and 17 people arrested. According to police, the raids were a culmination of more than a year of surveillance that uncovered and monitored the training camps.
  Search warrants were executed under the Summary Proceedings Act to search for evidence relating to potential breaches of the Terrorism Suppression Act, but on 8 November the Solicitor-General declined to press charges under that legislation, which he described as "incoherent and unworkable", and "almost impossible to apply to domestic terrorism in New Zealand as it was too complex".
  According to Helen Clark, the Prime Minister at the time of the raids, one of the reasons police tried to lay charges under anti-terror legislation was because they could not use telephone interception evidence in prosecutions under the Arms Act.
context_section_description: On 16 October, supporters of Tame Iti protested at the Rotorua District Court, and peace and environmental protesters gathered in Christchurch's Cathedral Square chanted and held signs such as "Protest is not terrorism" and "Arrest me. I'm protesting, I must be a terrorist". Indigenous rights protesters also rallied outside the New Zealand Consulate in Melbourne to condemn the raids. Another protest occurred on 17 October outside the Wellington district court. On 19 October up to one thousand people participated in a hikoi in Whakatane, including people from the Ruatoki Valley and children from the Ruatoki primary school. One Māori elder speaking at the protest called for the overturning of the Suppression of Terrorism Act. The following day hundreds of protesters took to the streets across New Zealand, targeting local police stations. Protesters demanded the government withdraw the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill and called for immediate bail for those arrested in the raids. Global Peace and Justice Auckland spokesperson Mike Treen said a 'Darth Vader police force in para-military uniforms has been terrorising whole communities' and called for a national day of action the following week. On the day Tame Iti appeared in the Rotorua district court 500 people protested causing police to close off streets around the Rotorua Courthouse. There were protests on 27 October 2007 in 13 cities around New Zealand, and around the world including; the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Greece and Australia.
  On 3 November, a demonstration involving about 150 people took place outside a Labour Party conference. Some protesters wearing orange boiler suits had chained themselves together with gags in their mouths and a word such as "terrorist", "Māori" or "anarchist" on their backs. Others held placards with the slogans "State terrorists kidnapped our friends" and "Free political prisoners". Len Richards, a Labour Party delegate allegedly struck a protester in the face with a megaphone, though he claims "there was no violence" despite TV3 showing footage of the incident. According to the Workers Party, the protester was one of their members. Three arrests were made at the protest, one a man attempting to break the police line and enter the Bruce Mason Centre where the conference was held, a second had been pulled off the top of a police van and a third was taken out the crowd, he claimed he had been trying to perform a haka. Security personnel at the venue had been significantly increased from the previous day.
caption: Protesters dressed as terrorism detainees outside the Labour Party conference, 3 November 2007.
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