Simon Oosterman | |
---|---|
Born | 1980 |
Known for | Social and political activism |
Simon Oosterman is a New Zealand political activist, trade unionist, and syndicalist. [1] He is best known for coordinating the Unite Union campaign 'Supersizemypay.com', which targeted the fast food industry and advocated for the abolition of youth rates and for a $12 minimum wage, and the world's first Starbucks strike, [2] and for his involvement in the World Naked Bike Ride, on which he was arrested for indecent exposure.
He also previously worked as a media liaison in Auckland for the National Distribution Union and the ShelfRespect.org supermarket pay campaign.
Oosterman grew up in Ramarama, an area south of Drury, [1] and on a farm in Rerewhakaaitu, south of Rotorua. Simon and his siblings (twin brother Paul, older brother Jonathan, and sister Kate) were put through private schools by their mother Allison, a journalist and now lecturer of communications at AUT University in Auckland. She told Metro magazine that she wanted the best education for them and "remarkably" was able to send them to King's School (Jonathan), Southwell School (Paul & Simon), King's College (Jonathan, Paul, & Simon) and St Cuthbert's College (Kate), despite being on her own after she and her husband separated when the twins were nine months old. [1]
Oosterman studied for a bachelor's in sociology and women's studies but pulled out of a master's in environmental sociology to join an anti-war protest. [1]
He has been a prominent animal rights and anti-genetic engineering activist, and has been involved in climate change issues. Oosterman is credited with organising the 'Supersizemypay.com' campaign for the world's first Starbucks strike, as well as coining the name and designing its website. [1] [3]
Oosterman's first public protest was in 2003 with a week-long sit-in in downtown Auckland outside the US embassy. He, his brother Jonathan, and other activists, were protesting US actions in Iraq. That same year he was involved in an anti-vivisection protest in Christchurch where he lay in front of a bus carrying scientists. He was arrested but received diversion because this was a first offence.
In February 2005, Oosterman received worldwide attention when he was arrested at the start of the Auckland World Naked Bike Ride for refusing to put on underwear. He was covered in thick blue body-paint at the time. In court he pleaded not guilty to the charge of indecent exposure. To protest this charge, he stripped off in front of the courthouse with three other activists wrapped in a banner reading "STOP indecent exposure to vehicle emissions". He then ran into the court naked, but put his clothes back on for the plea hearing. [4] The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.
On 22 March 2005, he and other protesters publicly complained about police brutality while passively resisting arrest for obstructing a footpath, following a peace demonstration that went inside an ANZ bank. [5] In May 2006 he filed papers at the Auckland district court seeking NZ$50,000 in damages from the New Zealand police after being pepper sprayed at a January 2005 protest against an alleged genetic engineering experiment outside the Forest Research Institute in Rotorua. [6] On 2 July 2008, Judge Chris McGuire awarded Oosterman $5,000 damages and $25,000 [7] court costs, saying police actions had not been reasonable, but rejected Oosterman's claim of assault saying the officer's actions did not quite meet the necessary "high threshold of blameworthiness". [8]
In July 2007, Oosterman, who runs a web hosting service for community groups, was forced to remove a Save Happy Valley Coalition spoof annual report of Solid Energy's environmental record, which included a logo of the state-owned enterprise, due to infringement of their copyright and trademark. [9]
He was involved in a 2007 protest in support of Iranian hunger striker Ali Panah at Mount Eden Prison, during which he was arrested. [10]
In 2008, he was identified as an anarchist after he enrolled to vote in the 2008 New Zealand election [11]
Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different countries. It ranges from outright prohibition of the exposure of any body parts other than the hands or face to prohibition of exposure of certain body parts, such as the genital area, buttocks or breasts.
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.
Brian Raymond Tamaki is a New Zealand Christian fundamentalist religious leader, and politician. He is the leader of Destiny Church, a Pentecostal Christian organisation which advocates strict adherence to fundamentalist biblical morality. Tamaki has been involved with various fringe political parties and movements, and since 2022 he has led the Freedoms New Zealand party. A perennial candidate, he has run for office several times but has yet to be elected.
Tāme Wairere Iti is a New Zealand Māori activist, artist, actor and social worker. Of Ngāi Tūhoe descent, Iti rose to prominence as a member of the protest group Ngā Tamatoa in 1970s Auckland, becoming a key figure of the Māori protest movement and the Māori renaissance. Since then, he has become a renowned activist for the rights of Māori and the process of co-governance and decolonisation.
The World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) is an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport, to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world." The first ride happened in Zaragoza (Spain) in 2001.
The following lists events that happened during 2006 in New Zealand.
Clothing laws vary considerably around the world. In most countries, there are no laws which prescribe what clothing is required to be worn. However, the community standards of clothing are set indirectly by way of prosecution of those who wear something that is not socially approved. Those people who wear insufficient clothing can be prosecuted in many countries under various offences termed indecent exposure, public indecency, nudity or other descriptions. Generally, these offences do not themselves define what is and what is not acceptable clothing to constitute the offence, and leave it to a judge to determine in each case.
Boobs on Bikes is a mostly annual parade of topless men and women riding on motorcycles through large New Zealand cities.
Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA) describes itself as "a network of people who provide a platform for individuals and groups to discuss and organise co-operatively on peace and justice issues." They are well known for organising the Auckland component of the global February 15, 2003 anti-war protest that attracted 10, 000 people to protest the impending United States attack on Iraq.
The Māori protest movement is a broad indigenous rights movement in New Zealand. While there was a range of conflicts between Māori and European immigrants prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the signing provided one reason for protesting. Disagreements in the decades following the signing sometimes included war.
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.
Nudity is sometimes used as a tactic during a protest to attract media and public attention to a cause, and sometimes promotion of public nudity is itself the objective of a nude protest. The practice was first documented in the 1650s with Quakers "naked as a sign" practice. Later the tactic was used by svobodniki in Canada in 1903, and photographs of their nude protests have been published. The tactic has been used by other groups later in the century, especially after the 1960s. Like public nudity in general, the cultural and legal acceptance of nudity as a tactic in protest also varies around the world. Some opponents of any public nudity claim that it is indecent, especially when it can be viewed by children; while others argue that it is a legitimate form of expression covered by the right to free speech.
This timeline of social nudity shows the varying degrees of acceptance given to the naked human body by diverse cultures throughout history. The events listed here demonstrate how various societies have shifted between strict and lax clothing standards, how nudity has played a part in social movements and protest, and how the nude human body is accepted in the public sphere.
Mooning is the act of displaying one's bare buttocks by removing clothing, e.g., by lowering the backside of one's trousers and underpants, usually bending over, and also potentially exposing the genitals. Mooning is used in the English-speaking world to express protest, scorn, disrespect, or for provocation, but mooning can be done for shock value, for fun, as a joke or as a form of exhibitionism. The Māori have a form of mooning known as whakapohane that is a form of insult.
UK Uncut was a network of United Kingdom-based protest groups established in October 2010 to protest against cuts to public services and tax avoidance in the UK. Various sources have described the group as left-wing in its political orientation.
Naturism refers to a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public, and to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both are also known as "nudism". Naturist organisations have existed in New Zealand since the 1930s. Although not a daily feature of public life, social nudity is practised in a variety of other contexts in New Zealand culture.
In the United States, individual states have primary jurisdiction in matters of public morality. The topfreedom movement has claimed success in a few instances in persuading some state and federal courts to overturn some state laws on the basis of sex discrimination or equal protection, arguing that a woman should be free to expose her chest in any context in which a man can expose his. Other successful cases have been on the basis of freedom of expression in protest, or simply that exposure of breasts is not indecent.
There have been several COVID-19 protests in New Zealand held since 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 2020, August 2020, and August–November 2021 and the later vaccine mandates. The protests have been largely condemned by members of parliament, as well as local city and regional councils. Fears were also raised about the protests increasing the spread of the virus.
On June 24, 2021, a woman posted a video to Instagram in which she had confronted staff at Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, about the presence of a nude individual with a penis, most commonly believed to be a trans woman, in the women's changing area of the spa. The video went viral, attracting significant attention from gender-critical feminists and from some media, which led to protests and counter-protests. Some media outlets initially questioned whether the alleged incident had been a hoax.