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More on the terrorism raids court case that was recently quashed. Within 24hrs of the Solicitor General’s decision not to prosecute the arrested activists under the Terrorism Suppression Act, an anonymous source illegally leaked evidence collected under authority of that legislation. Many supporters of the arrested group were predictably outraged, as this evidence would never otherwise have seen the light of day, and is not even in the hands of the defense counsel.

This has interesting parallels with an earlier case in which a high profile rape case involving former police officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum and then-current police Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards, was marked by the illegal release of the former two’s conviction history. At the time the people who committed the act - and many others were sympathetic with their actions - felt it was morally correct to release this information. I wonder though if all of the people who supported the leaking of information in the rape case would also morally support the release of evidence of the Terror trial, if they knew it to be equally damning?

It was all over the news here today: The Solicitor General has declined NZ Police permission to prosecute the group of arrested individuals under the relatively new Suppression of Terrorism Act. This was a major blow for the New Zealand Police as they have had a lot of negative publicity and scandals over the last couple of years. However, Police Commissioner Howard Broad seems to have taken the decision with professionalism and grace, accepting that there were some elements of the operation in Ruatoki (the settlement closest to where the supposed Military-style training camps were ensconced) that he finds regrettable, talking about the need for the rebuilding of relationships between the police and affected communities.

It’s interesting to me how everyone reacts to these types of issues. I just had a brief argument with my flatmate over the emotiveness of Pita Sharples (Maori Party co-leader, and a strong critic of the whole operation) when his opinion was sought on the current events show Campbell Live. Sharples has a very melodramatic style that really gets on my nerves. The thing is, I might have been more sympathetic with the substance of his comments had they been made with a little less of the hyperbole in which he seems to often indulge. A couple of weeks earlier he had famously claimed that race relations in this country had been “set back 100 years” by the actions of police, and on this occasion he used language like “police ninjas” and “gung ho” and all the rest. Just not necessary, in my view. But my flatmate, who knows a few of those arrested, is very much against the case, and was agreeing wholeheartedly with Sharples. A brief but uncharacteristically heated exchange followed between us; let’s just say that we disagreed over the significance on how something is said, over what is said. It left me wondering what it is that we are reacting to when we can become polarised so easily even when many of the facts are not in dispute.