The Human Rights Foundation promotes and defends human rights in Aotearoa New Zealand and abroad, through research-based education and advocacy.
Last week, the apology and compensation extended to Nicky Hager was justly celebrated as a victory for investigative journalism – and as a denunciation of a Police raid that, as Hager said in one interview, had almost derailed his subsequent book Hit & Run. Fine. All good. Yet with a minimum of publicity, a High Court ruling
Last week, we asked ActionStation members to tell us what they think needs to be done to fix New Zealand’s justice system. More than 1000 people responded. Here are the results: Almost all of us agree with the Prime Minister’s chief science advisor that one of the most effective ways to reduce the number of people in prison is
New Zealand’s domestic spy agency has launched an internal investigation into “possible bias” towards a private eye firm, as a cache of documents paints a picture of a longstanding mateship between staff at the two organisations. Security Intelligence Service director Rebecca Kitteridge said while the SIS had never procured services from the controversial firm Thompson & Clark,
Nicky Hager describes how police targeted his daughter’s mobile number and even his TradeMe records of tadpole purchases in their hunt for the sources behind “Dirty Politics”. He explains the chilling effect of the police raid and why it should never happen again. I was in Auckland to give a university lecture about my new
Escaping the clutches of the Taliban to becoming head boy at Pakuranga College, the story of 17-year-old Mortaza “Taza” Sahar is awe-inspiring. Taza and his family belong to the Shia Muslim community known as Hazaras, a minority group in the mostly Sunni Muslim occupied Afghanistan. They have been targeted by the Taliban, infamously known for their extremist Muslim
Bold legislation to drive emissions down to zero would come with massive implications – ranging from slower-growing household incomes to major impacts on industry. The most ambitious of three options tabled this afternoon – achieving a net-zero 2050 across all emissions, not just carbon dioxide – would mean a 10th of New Zealand would need
The shocking story of a woman who went to the police to complain of rape and ended up charged with having underage sex with her alleged assailant. A Wellington woman who found herself on trial after alleging that she’d been raped by a teenage boy says she has lost all faith in the police. The
The Aotearoa New Zealand Human Rights Foundation today signed an open letter along with over 200 New Zealand businesses, community organisations and leaders, which we together delivered to climate minister James Shaw. The open letter was coordinated by WWF-New Zealand and Generation Zero. The letter congratulates the government on setting “a new, bold, ambitious goal of
Must be that time again. Time for the Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) to produce yet another review of the high speed pursuit policy, which the Police will no doubt ignore, and shelve alongside all the others. They’re consistent like that. This week, the Police were saying the pursuit policy was ‘fit for purpose.’ Flashback
This week I attended a seminar at Parihaka, probably the most significant site of colonial racism anywhere in New Zealand. Despite an agreement between Crown and Maori, land was taken and sold by the Crown without purchase from Maori to local settlers who set up farms. They just pinched it, so Maori asserted their ownership
