Dunedin Solidarity with No Pride In Prisons

Queer and transgender activists in Dunedin this weekend are standing in solidarity with No Pride in Prisons, Aotearoa’s trans and queer prison abolitionist group.

The group has condemned the Auckland Pride Board’s decision to allow New Zealand Police and Corrections officers to march in uniform the 2016 parade.

No Pride in Prisons Ōtepoti member Bell Murphy said “The desire by police and corrections to conspicuously associate themselves with Pride and mainstream gay rights is a form of ‘pinkwashing’ in order to veil their unethical practices.”

Corrections have said they intend to improve their treatment of transgender prisoners in New Zealand over the coming year but according to a report from the New Zealand Herald this week, they are planning to increase their double bunking policy.

Only last year it was found that a transgender woman had been raped as a result of double bunking in a New Zealand men’s prison. This year, No Pride in Prisons has heard from another transgender inmate who was brutally attacked while in Corrections’ custody.

The Dunedin group’s spokesperson, Scout Barbour-Evans has said “It’s really important to us in Ōtepoti to support the kaupapa of No Pride in Prisons and continue their kōrero about the ongoing human rights abuses towards transgender prisoners both in policy and in practice. We are not willing to watch our community suffer any further within prison in Aotearoa.”

According to Barbour-Evans, “Māori make up 61% of the prison population in Aotearoa despite only making up 15% of general population, and evidence suggests that brand of discrimination and inequality extends to other minority groups in the Corrections system too.”

No Pride in Prisons Ōtepoti will be meeting for a solidarity demonstration at the Octagon, in Dunedin on Saturday 20th of February at 5pm.

ENDS

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