Scoop Talks To Raided Organic Vegetable Grower

Thursday, 18 October 2007, 9:49 am
Article: Kevin List

Scoop Talks To Raided Organic Vegetable Grower

There have been more Police raids yesterday in the central North Island related to the wider anti-terrorism operation launched on Monday morning.

Scoop spoke this morning to one of the residents of a Taupo household raided yesterday around lunchtime, Joanna Pearfell.

Ms Pearfell conversed with Scoop on a mobile phone that had only this morning escaped from police custody. While the household mobile phone had been liberated from Police custody the household's computer was still in Police custody. No-one from the house had been arrested. Ms Pearfell explained that the Police had arrived while an organic vegetable exchange had been in process.

While Ms Pearfell was herself not political she thought two members of the household may belong to the Green Party.

There are two families living at the household. Ms Pearfell assumed that the reason the Police had been interested in raiding the house was because one of the family members was in a relationship with someone who had lived in Ruatoki. Ruatoki is the scene of the Police's main thrust of operations although various activists from different causes have been arrested in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton and Palmerston North.

The Police that raided the Taupo household were evidently not 'tooled up' or wearing riot-gear but were in the more traditional Police uniform. According to a Radio NZ report the number of Police in the operation was 15.

ENDS

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