WELLINGTON:” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday she’ll provide an official apology into New Zealand’s Pacific community within”demeaning” police raids that targeted them from the 1970s.
Ardern reported the infamous”dawn raids” were completed by immigration and police officials trying to identify and deport visa overstayers.
Furthermore, she stated Pacific islanders were racially profiledwith officials subjecting them to arbitrary stop and search with no rationale.
“They have been regularly acute with demeaning physical and verbal therapy,” Ardern informed reporters.
“The raids and the things they represented generated deep woundswhile we cannot alter our foundation, we could admit it seek to correct a wrong” Ardern said that the apology could happen on June 26 in Auckland Town Hall.
New Zealand encouraged migration out of Pacific islands like Samoa, Tonga and Fiji following World War II to fulfill employee shortages since the market expanded.
However, they faced a backlash if there was a recession in the 1970s, together with claims that they were taking projects out of New Zealanders.
Minister for Pacific Peoples William Sio, with a Samoan history, said that the raids were”homosexual and bisexual”.
Sio fought back tears as he explained his family’s experiences.
“The memories are piled from my dad being helpless…
somebody knocking at your door at the wee hours of the afternoon using a flashlight on mind, disrespecting the proprietor of the house,” he explained.
“An Alsatian dog frothing in the mouth, needing to come without any respect for those folks who reside there.
It had been fairly traumatising.”