Although what is happening now is far worse, this travesty is worth revisiting.

Tame Iti figured among the at least 17 people arrested by Police on 15 October 2007 during the reign of the Helen Clark government in a series of raids in which they were accused of being terrorists. In September 2011 most of the alleged ‘terrorists’ originally arrested with Tame Iti had all terrorism and firearms charges dropped. Iti and three others were charged with belonging to a “criminal group.”

Eventually, in August 2014, the National Government’s Attorney General Chris Finlayson delivered an apology to Ngāi Tūhoe for historic grievances which were among the worst in NZ history.

This address from 2014 is moving:

The terrible saga of gung-ho cops running around Rambo-style terrorising everyone in this area is covered in this video below.

In the first minute of the video you will hear a 12 year old child describing what happened:

I saw all these people in black, and this man had a dog and it was right behind me and, just saw all these lights and, these guns, and it was really scary. All of us had to get down on our knees and put our hands on our heads. They asked for my name, did I know anything about terrorist things, or if I’ve been in trouble with the Police … I just started crying, and crying and … my nan tried to come over to me and asked me if I was okay, and then the Policeman behind us said ‘Shut up, don’t talk to her’ and moved closer towards me and pointed the gun down at my head.