Peace Action Wellington

Last updated

Peace Action Wellington (PAW) is an organisation in Wellington, New Zealand, that campaigns for peace, justice and self determination.

Contents

History

The group was founded in 2001 from a series of meetings of Wellington-based peace, social justice, human rights, women's and union groups that were called by Peace Movement Aotearoa in response to the invasion of Afghanistan following the 11 September attacks in the United States. The group was established to promote peaceful, instead of violent, responses to conflict. It later opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and played a local role in the New Zealand anti-war movement's opposition to the war, organising several nationwide protests. [1] PAW has called for the New Zealand Government to reveal the actions of the SAS soldiers fighting under US command in Afghanistan. [2]

The group has also organised protests against the annual arms industry fair held at Te Papa, along with Peace Movement Aotearoa, for self-determination in Palestine, Aceh and West Papua, and against the New Zealand Government restricting human rights as part of the "war on terror". [3]

On 25 April 2007, PAW members took part in a demonstration at the dawn ceremony for ANZAC Day to protest against the New Zealand military's involvement in wars and occupations in Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. [4] Two banners were held and two New Zealand flags were burnt, resulting in two arrests. The charges were later thrown out by the Supreme Court, in a precedent-setting case in which ceremony attendees were compared to the Ku Klux Klan. [5] [6] [7] [8]

In 2014 and 2015 PAW again focused on ANZAC Day. This was in response to the Government's suggestion of an ANZAC force which would be sent to the war with ISIS in Syria. At the same time massive amounts of energy and money was being invested in commemorations of the centennial of the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The group felt that the centennial was being used to promote the military and build support for another overseas deployment of NZ troops. [9]

In 2015 PAW also held a campaign against the arms industry fair which was held in the TSB arena, [10] a Wellington City Council owned venue. A petition was presented to the city council and when the chair of the council committee dismissed it plans began for a blockade of the TSB arena. At the protests on the 17th and 18 November there was a human blockade to prevent people getting into the venue. 27 arrests were made. PAW spokesperson Valerie Morse criticised the police for their allegedly violent response. [11] [12] All charges were dropped over a year later. Spokesperson Emma Cullen said "Their (police) evidence was flimsy. From the first day and the first witness their case started to crumble." [13] Pressure from Peace Action Wellington led to Wellington mayor Justin Lester banning the weapons expo from all Wellington City Council venues. [14]

In mid-May 2018, Peace Action Wellington and Auckland Peace Action called for the Documentary Edge Festival to drop screenings of the Israeli film Ben Gurion, Epilogue as part of its endorsement of the Palestinian –led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. [15] On 14 May, Peace Action Wellington protested outside Wellington's Roxy Cinema and were assaulted by cinema-goers. [16] [17] The protesters also reportedly brought fake bombs in an attempt to scare cinema goers into leaving; although the screening went ahead regardless and there was no evacuation. In response, Doc Edge Film Festival director Alex Lee rejected claims that the Ben Gurion film was propaganda and stated that the Auckland film screening would go ahead despite warnings of further protests by local Palestinian solidarity groups. [18] The film's director Yariv Mozer urged the protesters to watch the film instead of boycotting it. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, commonly known as the Greens, is a green and left-wing political party in New Zealand. Like many green parties around the world, it has four organisational pillars. The party's ideology combines environmentalism with left-wing and social-democratic economic policies, including well-funded and locally controlled public services within the confines of a steady-state economy. Internationally, it is affiliated with the Global Greens.

Royal New Zealand Navy Maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force

The Royal New Zealand Navy is the maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force. The fleet currently consists of nine ships.

New Zealand Security Intelligence Service

The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service is New Zealand's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for providing information and advising on matters including national security and foreign intelligence. It is headquartered in Wellington and overseen by a Director-General, the Minister of New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and the parliamentary intelligence and security committee; independent oversight is provided by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

S11 refers to a series of protests against meetings of the World Economic Forum on 11, 12 and 13 September 2000 in Melbourne, Australia, where approximately 10,000 people of many ages and a wide cross section of the community were involved. One of the groups involved in the protests called itself the S11 Alliance. This group was dominated by various socialist parties. The success of the protest led them to the creation of the M1 Alliance on 1 November 2000 in preparation for the next year's May Day events and the S26 Alliance, in solidarity with protest against the International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings in Prague. The other main organising network for the protest was the autonomist & anarchist s11 AWOL.

MultiCultural Aotearoa (MCA) is an anti-fascist group that was formed in 2004 in response to racist attacks in the New Zealand capital, Wellington.

The Māori protest movement is a broad indigenous-rights movement in New Zealand. While there were a range of conflicts between Māori and Europeans prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the signing provided a legal context for protesting, as the Treaty of Waitangi made New Zealand a British colony with British law and governance applying. The British authorities had drafted the Treaty with the intention of establishing a British Governor of New Zealand, recognising Māori ownership of their lands, forests and other possessions, and giving Māori the rights of British subjects. However, the Māori and English texts of the Treaty differ in meaning significantly; particularly in relation to the meaning of having and ceding sovereignty. These discrepancies, and the subsequent colonisation by the British, led to disagreements in the decades following the signing, including full-out warfare.

In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones. This has since remained a part of New Zealand's foreign policy.

2007 New Zealand police raids Series of armed NZ police raids in October 2007

The 2007 New Zealand police raids were a series of armed police raids conducted on 15 and 16 October 2007, in response to alleged paramilitary training camps 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 raids, which involved the execution of search warrants at various addresses throughout New Zealand, and the establishment of roadblocks at Ruatoki and Tāneatua. The police seized four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition and arrested eighteen people. According to police, the raids were a culmination of more than a year of surveillance that uncovered and monitored the training camps.

Cannabis in New Zealand Use of cannabis in New Zealand

The use of cannabis in New Zealand is regulated by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which makes unauthorised possession of any amount of cannabis a crime. Cannabis is the fourth-most widely used recreational drug in New Zealand, after caffeine, alcohol and tobacco, and the most widely used illicit drug. In 2001 a household survey revealed that 13.4% of New Zealanders aged 15–64 used cannabis. This ranked as the ninth-highest cannabis consumption level in the world.

Celia Wade-Brown New Zealand politician

Celia Margaret Wade-Brown is a New Zealand politician who served as the 34th Mayor of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, from 2010 until 2016.

The political philosophy of anarchism has had a small presence in New Zealand politics.

James Shaw (New Zealand politician) New Zealand politician, born 1973

James Peter Edward Shaw is a New Zealand politician and a leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. Voters elected Shaw to the New Zealand parliament at the 2014 general election as a list representative of the Green Party. The party selected Shaw as its male co-leader in May 2015. Following Metiria Turei's resignation in August 2017, Shaw became the party's sole leader for the duration of the 2017 general election.

Marama Davidson New Zealand politician

Marama Mere-Ana Davidson is a New Zealand politician who entered the New Zealand Parliament in 2015 as a representative of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, of which she is the female co-leader.

Whakamana Cannabis Museum

Whakamana, or The New Zealand Institute for Cannabis Education, Research and Development is New Zealand's first museum dedicated to the history of cannabis use and culture. It was first opened in October 2013 in Dunedin as part of a project spearheaded by Abe Gray, former deputy leader of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (ALCP), and Julian Crawford, former ALCP regional spokesperson.

Chlöe Swarbrick New Zealand politician and entrepreneur

Chlöe Charlotte Swarbrick is a New Zealand politician and entrepreneur. Following a high-profile but unsuccessful run for the 2016 Auckland mayoral election, she became a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, standing in the 2017 New Zealand general election and was elected as a member of the New Zealand Parliament at the age of 23. In the 2020 election, Swarbrick was elected as the Member of Parliament for Auckland Central, becoming the second Green Party MP to win an electorate seat in the history of the party, and the first minor party MP since the inception of MMP to win a general electorate seat without a tacit endorsement from a major party leader.

Organise Aotearoa

Organise Aotearoa is a New Zealand socialist organisation launched in October 2018, following two years of less formal meetings. The group describes itself as a movement "for liberation and socialism" with an extra-parliamentary focus, and a membership composed of various prison-abolitionist, anti-imperialist and anti-poverty activists.

Shortly after protests seeking justice for George Floyd, an African-American who was murdered during a police arrest, began in the United States, people in New Zealand protested to show solidarity with Americans and to demonstrate against perceived issues with police brutality and structural discrimination in New Zealand. Vigils and protests of thousands of participants have taken part nationwide.

There have been several COVID-19 anti-lockdown protests in New Zealand held in 2020, where people protested the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, in particular the lockdown measures in place in March–May and August 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand has had far-reaching consequences on the country that went beyond the spread of the disease itself and efforts to eliminate it, including education, faith communities, Māori, mass gatherings, sports, recreation, and travel.

Abe Gray Cannabis activist from New Zealand

Abraham Gabriel Gray is an American-born New Zealand cannabis activist, politician and founder of the Whakamana Cannabis Museum, New Zealand's first and only cannabis museum. Gray was a University of Otago lecturer and tutor for over a decade before founding the museum.

References

  1. ↑ "Archive: International Week of Action Against War, 13 to 22 February 2003 Reports and photos from Aotearoa New Zealand". Converge. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  2. ↑ "Who the police were spying on". Sunday Star Times. 25 April 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  3. ↑ "2006 Press releases". Peace Action Wellington. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  4. ↑ "2007 Press Releases". Peace Action Wellington. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  5. ↑ "Anzac Day flag burning 'a right'". The Dominion Post . 14 August 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  6. ↑ "Court throws out flag burning charge". The Dominion Post . 6 May 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  7. ↑ "Valerie Morse". The Listener.
  8. ↑ Harder, Justin (2011). "Morse v Police". Auckland University Law Review. 17.
  9. ↑ "Lest We Remember: War and ANZAC Day". Peace Action Wellington. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  10. ↑ "New report on NZ's weapons and military-related industry". Peace Action Wellington. Scoop. 12 November 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  11. ↑ Boswell, Ryan (17 November 2015). "Anti-war protesters clash with police at Wellington weapons conference". 1 News . Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  12. ↑ "Protesters arrested at Wellington defence forum". Radio New Zealand. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  13. ↑ Irwin, Ben (23 February 2017). "All charges dropped against Wellington weapons expo protesters". Newshub. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
  14. ↑ "WCC-controlled venues spurn arms forum under mayor's watch". Stuff. Retrieved 24 June 2018.
  15. ↑ "Doc Edge Festival supporting apartheid Israel - protest". Peace Action Wellington. Scoop. 14 May 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  16. ↑ Woolf, Amber-Leigh (15 May 2018). "Person assaulted during protest over Israeli film at Wellington's Roxy Cinema". The Dominion Post . Stuff.co.nz . Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  17. ↑ "Doc Edge film interrupted in Wellington". Peace Action Wellington. Scoop. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  18. ↑ Small, Zane (18 May 2018). "Film festival director reacts to Wellington protests". Newshub . Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  19. ↑ "Controversial director Yariv Mozer speaks to the AM Show". Newshub. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.