On Monday, October 15th 2007, more than 300 police carried out dawn raids on dozens of houses all over Aotearoa / New Zealand as part of ‘Operation 8′. Police claimed the raids were in response to ‘concrete terrorist threats’ from Māori activists. What initially started with 20 defendants resulted in the trial of four – Taame, Emily, Rangi and Urs – which concluded on 20 March 2012.
Six years later, most of the charges have been dropped, Rangi and Taame are out on parole, Emily and Urs have almost finished serving their home detention, but the impact of these raids on those arrested, raided, their whānau and communities continues.
KaupapaNever Forget is about:
- Commemorating the raids and acknowledging the pain they caused.
- Understanding that these raids were part of a long history of colonisation and dispossession in Aotearoa.
- Building solidarity with Indigenous people struggling against colonization globally.
- Creating dialogue and alliances between tangata when and tauiwi ethnic minorities.
- Discussing how tauiwi ethnic minorities can actively support Māori in the struggle for tino rangatiratanga.