Booming indigenous Maori “haka” chants yesterday rang out across New Zealand’s capital, as tens of thousands rallied against a conservative push to redefine the nation’s founding treaty.
More than 35,000 demonstrators poured into the harborside city of Wellington, police said, shutting down busy streets as their spirited procession inched its way toward parliament.
Bare-chested men draped in traditional feather cloaks were joined by horse riders waving the red, white and black Maori flag. Children marched alongside adults bearing distinctive full-face Maori moko tattoos and clutching ceremonial wooden weapons.
Photo: AFP
Protests have been swelling throughout New Zealand after a minor party in the conservative coalition government drafted a bill to redefine the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Although the bill has almost no chance of passing, its mere introduction has triggered one of the largest protests in the nation in decades.
After it was presented for debate in parliament last week, 22-year-old Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke took to her feet in the chamber, ripped the bill in half and launched into a haka. She joined the crowds of protesters gathered on the lawns yesterday outside New Zealand’s beehive-shaped parliament building.
“I may have been suspended for 24 hours and not let into the gates of the debating chambers, but the next day I showed up outside the steps with a hundred thousand of my people, marching with our heads held high and our flags waving with pride,” she told them.
Photo: AFP
“We are the king makers, we are the sovereign people of this land and the world is watching us here,” she said.
Many critics of the bill — including some of New Zealand’s most respected lawyers — see it as an attempt to strip long-agreed rights from the nation’s 900,000 strong Maori population.
“It’s not the best way to have a conversation. We will not accept unilateral change to a treaty that involves two parties,” said Ngira Simmonds, a key adviser to New Zealand’s Maori queen.
“There is a better way,” he said.
Many demonstrators arrived in Wellington after a nine-day hikoi (protest march) that began hundreds of kilometers away at New Zealand’s northern tip.
At the center of the outcry is government minister David Seymour, the outspoken leader of the libertarian ACT Party — a minor partner in the governing coalition.
Seymour has long railed against affirmative action policies designed to help Maori, who remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or wind up in prison. His bill would look to wind back these so-called “special rights.”
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has voiced his opposition to Seymour’s bill, meaning it is all but doomed to fail when it comes to a parliamentary vote.
However, former conservative prime minister Jenny Shipley said just putting it forward threatened to “divide New Zealand in a way that I haven’t lived through in my adult life.”
Seen as the nation’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 to bring peace between 540 Maori chiefs and colonizing British forces. Its principles today underpin efforts to foster partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous New Zealanders and protect the interests of the Maori community.
The anniversary of the treaty’s signing remains a national holiday.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS