44 media stories
from the most recent to the most distant
Radio NZ Wed 24/3 Nine to Noon, with Robert Lithgow QC (Legal explanation)
Press NZHerald Opinion Wed 24/3 0400 (Brian Rudman, I like it.)
(“Up to 1670, English juries had defied the instructions of judges at their peril. The change came in 1670 when William Penn was arrested for illegally preaching a Quaker sermon. Despite the judge’s instructions to convict, the jury acquitted him and were promptly imprisoned and fined for their impudence. On appeal they were released and the precedent set that jurors could not be punished for their decisions.“)
Press NZHerald Tues 23/3 0400 (news – Adi Leason talks common law)
RadioNZ Tues 23/3 “Morning Report” (Review of Claim of Right defence is knee jerk)
some comment from Peter Murnane
Blog Mon 22/3 Workers’ party response to verdict
Press NZHerald Mon 22/3 0919 (PM Key doesn’t rule out law change)
(“If that ruling was to stand does that set a precedent and if so does the law need to change in New Zealand like we changed the law around provocation?”)
Press Sunday Star Times Opinion Sun 21/3 0500 (Michael Laws – “Wingnut”)
(“Except in Wellington. Where 12 complete morons can only have decided one of two things. First, that the radicals’ cause was right. Or, second, that being delusional is always a defence. Which is why the 12 jurors need to be arraigned themselves.”)
Press NZHerald Opinion Sun 21/3 0400 (Kerry Woodham – zealots)
Blog Sat 20/3 (A considered and very informative blog response to the confected hysteria)
Press Dominion Post Editorial Sat 20/3 0500 (logic-of-the-righteous)
(“Electronic eavesdropping is an unpleasant necessity in the 21st century. New Zealand and New Zealanders are part of a world where there are terrorists who have no compunction about murdering the innocent in pursuit of their goals.”)
Press NZHerald Opinion Sat 20/3 0400 (John Roughan – senseless act of vandalism)
(“Jury decisions can be perverse and do not set precedents we are told. But this one hurts because the senseless act of vandalism, as Helen Clark called it at the time, was a slight to the rights of all of us and the acquittal compounds it.”)
Press Marlborough Express Editorial Fri 19/3 11.54 (Waihopai’s district – a peculiar jury with enough women)
(“The jury would have been middle class, possibly with many civil servants and at a guess, with enough women to bring in such a verdict. Wellington is a liberal city. If it had been moved to Auckland, for argument’s sake, it is doubtful the decision would have been the same. In Marlborough there has been disbelief that people can break into a property, vandalise it and get away with it. The break in lead to damage that cost taxpayers more than $1 million to fix. It has set a precedent for such actions.”
Press on-line Fri 19/3 0500 (news about public opinion in Marlborough)
(“Marlborough District councillor Gerald Hope said the saga was an “absolute waste” of taxpayers’ money, as well as disruption to the work that the base did. “If I was a juror I would have wanted a conviction. The cost alone was worth a conviction,” he said”).
Press on-line Editorial Fri 19/3 0500
(“For many other New Zealanders, however, the verdict will leave a sour taste as they will see it as allowing three people who admitted breaking into a sensitive installation and damaging it to escape the consequences of their actions.”)
Scoop Fri 19/3 (Society for the Promotion on Community Standards)
(“The highly publicised pantomine they undertook brandishing sharpened self-serving sickles and declaring “In the name of Jesus Christ we release you” (or similar words from the fundamentalist dictionary) with reference to a balloon canopy, serves to highlight the extraordinary attempt they undertook to dress this illegal action up as some sort of benevolent work of god’s righteous holy-than-thou agents.”)
Press NZHerald – INFO Fri 19/3 0400 (Echelon, accurate if limited, David Eames)
(“When peace activists used a sickle to puncture a plastic radar cover at Blenheim’s Waihopai spy base, they temporarily deflated a key link in an organisation that is a global eavesdropper.”)
Press NZHerald – INFO BOX Fri 19/3 0400 (how Echelon catches terrorists)
(although it never caught the French terrorists who bombed the Rainbow Warrior)
Press NZ Herald Fri 19/3 0400 (“news” a US nobody from nowhere reckons “security” is a good thing)
(“”It certainly seems that you could have made the counter-argument much more successfully [for] collecting intelligence which saved the lives of military forces, including New Zealand forces, who would be otherwise putting their lives at risk in order to defend their own country and the international community from terrorists.”)
Press NZHerald Editorial Fri 19/3 (explains the defence OK, but goes all uninformed on the actual verdict)
(“The trio said they believed that damaging the satellite would stop, even if temporarily, human suffering in Iraq. But they did not, and could not, prove a direct connection between the two or prove their activity had had an impact. It could just as easily be argued that their action put other lives at risk, perhaps even exposing this country to terrorism. One aim of Waihopai’s interception of communications is to pick up the planning of such assaults.”)
Radio Live Talkback Thurs 18/3 (Wing-nut Michael Laws on the 12 Douchebag jurors and the beardie wierdies – A hoot as long as you don’t take it personally).
(“ It’s a vanguard for completely mad people”) ‘0
RadioNZ Thurs 18/3, RadioNZ “Nine to Noon” (story with comment from the 3)
PLUS
(Waihopai acquittal won’t create legal precedent)
TVNZ Thurs 18/3 (Solicitor-General considering an appeal.)
Kiwiblog Thurs 18/3 (Right wing blog with discussion – I contributed to the Kiwiblog discussion))
Blog Thurs 18/3 (Left wing blog with discussion)
Radio Live Thurs 18/3 (interview with Peter Murnane)
Press Dominion Post Thurs 18/3 0851 (news, mostly factual and accurate, Emily Watt).
(“Three activists who freely admitted breaking into a government spybase near Blenheim and slashing an inflatable plastic dome covering a satellite dish have walked free. Their defence – that they mounted the attack to prevent others’ suffering – has been successfully used by Iraq-war protesters overseas, but is thought to be a New Zealand first.”)
Press NZHerald Thurs 18/3 (news story, by Vaimoana Tapaleao, factually correct, reasonable)
New Media Scoop Thurs 18/3 (Gordon Campbell’s opinion)
(“The acquittal of the Waihopai Three for their attack on the Waihopai spy base is as welcome as it is surprising”)
RadioNZ Thurs 18/3 Radio Nine to Noon
Radio Live Thurs 18/3 Radio Live (Sam Land calling it a moment in history)
TVNZ Thurs 18/3 0629 (TV news – Greens, ABC responses)
TV3 Thurs 18/3 (“Saboteurs”)
TV3 Thurs 18/3 online discussion. What do you think?
My reports Scoop (Thurs 18/3 (I got a lot of compliments for writing these – and a talk with the judge)
(the last report I wrote for Scoop. All my other reports are linked here).
Press Otago Daily Times online Wed 17/3 (Triffic report. Quotes me quoting Ciaron, and adding a bit of optimism)
(“Australian non-violence activist Bryan Law, who had come across the Tasman to support and blog about the trial, said the jury’s decision accorded with those made by other jurors in similar cases in other countries.)
(“Of all of the millions of people that marched in 2003 (to protest the Iraq War), had only 1 percent of them taken this sort of action, the war would not have been possible. We don’t need to be saved by the politicians – we can save ourselves.” )
TV3 Wed 17/3 (Adi and Peter reflect on the verdict)
TV3 Wed 17/3 (the Jury’s considering) report
TV3 Wed 10/3 (Adi’s testimony)
e-newsletter Tues 9/3 (Global Peace and justice, Auckland applaud Waihopai Ploughshares).
TV3 Mon 8/3 (TV3 Report on start of trial)
Catholic News 4/3 Debate within the Catholic Church – officially unofficial.
Press NZHerald PIX photos of Waihopai ploughares and damage
57 photos from the pre-trial and trial support actions
Catholic Workers Unofficially Official