Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Today the New Zealand Parliament voted in amendments to the terrorism suppression laws, allowing the government to designate terrorist organisations and creating a new offence of commiting an act of terrorism (penalty of life sentence). The Prime Minister will have the responsibility of designating groups and individuals as terrorists. Police will have the power to lock people up without charge, under the instructions of politicians.
It’s a move that is said to arise from international response to the existence of groups such as Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah. Only problem is that violent activism has been part of New Zealand’s short history since European invasion. And the raids of Tuhoe land in the Ureweras over the last month would have cut to the bone of the memories that were associated with resistance to land confiscation.
With the restriction of certain rights the Government has a responsibility to ensure that extra efforts are made to protect vulnerable bicultural relationships. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Tags: Maori, New Zealand, terrorism
Posted in New Zealand, Reconciliation | No Comments »
Monday, August 22nd, 2005
Thanks to Neil of Surrey Hills for posting a hefty slice of David Lange’s speech on tolerance at Otago University in August 2004. Asked to speak on peace on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Lange provided some pertinent comments on the US invasion of Iraq.
Link
Tags: David Lange, New Zealand, terrorism
Posted in NZ, Politics, Social Justice, World Events | No Comments »
Thursday, July 7th, 2005
I feel almost a bit guilty about my response to the London bombings. There’s an anxiety that comes from familiarity with people and places. It’s not that long since we were watching Live 8 in London (on TV for most of us). Ross Alexander, who Ennis and I looked after in his teenage years, is living in London working with NEC. I’ve emailed him to check he’s OK. But there’s the recognition that I don’t feel the same concern when bombs go off in cities further away from my circles of acquaintance.
I see Technorati.com is down. Wonder if there’s any connection? Probably the number of blog posts that need to be monitored right now. Technorati tells us that there more than 1300 posts about the blast by 1015 GMT. Mobile phone networks aren’t working. So people are using services like Flickr.
Jason Clark, generating diverse and healthy conversations about church, has posted a prayer inspired by David Cohen.
Turns out Ross is fine. He heard the news at work. So now he’s wondering how he’ll get home if the London Transport system is down.
I see politicans are not ready to place blame, though they agree on this being a despicable, evil act because of its impact on civilians. The press have pointed to the similarities to the Al Qaeda attacks in Madrid. I just hope this is not connected with the protests against globalisation. It would not help their cause.
Tags: Blogging, terrorism
Posted in Blogging, World Events | No Comments »
