PAM Anti-Spray Activist Banned

Anti aerial spray protest organiser, Helen Wiseman-Dare of West Aucklanders Against Aerial Spraying, said that attempts to ban her from the Waitakere City Council Building for two years, after a peaceful protest today, would not stop people protesting against the aerial spraying. "Whether I am banned from the building or not, protests will continue" she said.

She deplored the heavy handed tactics of Henderson Community Constable Brendan Stewart, who in conjunction with a Council officer tried to prevent her from using the toilets in the Council building and then sent a female Council officer in to accost her.

When she emerged from the toilet and attempted to use her cellphone to call a taxi the policeman and the Council officer told her she would be charged with trespass and would be banned from entering the building for the next two years.

As a justification for the banning the policeman tried to accuse her of swearing in front of children although there were no children to be seen and she had only used the words "arrogant arsehole" to describe Dr David Sinclair, from the Auckland District Health Board - the subject of the protest.

She describes her threatened banning from the Council building as having serious implications for all other protest groups similarly engaging in exercising their democratic rights to peaceful protest on Council premises.

"The Council and the Auckland District Health Board obviously felt threatened by the presence of the protesters", she said. "Attempts to silence us will not succeed as long as people's health and lives continue to be devasted by the aerial spraying".

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