24 May 2012

Not much has changed in 96 years - 1916 Rua Kenana - 2012 Tame Iti

Rua Kenana 1916 (from Wikipedia)

“Rua was charged with treason, and while he was found not guilty by the jury, Judge Frederick Chapman did find him guilty of resisting arrest and sentenced him to one year of hard labour, followed by 18 months of imprisonment. Eight of the jury members protested the harshness of his sentence and successfully petitioned to have it reduced.”

Tame Iti 2012 (looking at today’s court judgement)

Tame Iti and Rangikaiwhiria Kemara were maligned as terrorists and each jailed for 2 ½ years after Judge Rodney Hansen bypassed the jury’s failure to find that the defendants belonged to an organised criminal gang and on his own found they posed a serious organised threat to New Zealand.

The parallels with 1916 are striking. Hansen today substituted himself for the jury and retried the defendants at sentencing in the same way that Frederick Chapman did in 1916.

Shame.

Global Peace & Justice Auckland
www.gpja.org.nz

ENDS

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