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Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira has been arrested at a state housing protest in Glen Innes.
The Mana Party leader says the Government has broken its promises to let tenants stay in the area, and it is destroying a community so it can free up land for private developers.
When he went out there last night to show solidarity with residents attempting to stop a house being removed, he was concerned police would assault three women who were sitting on a roof.
“When I saw them and I heard the story about them being beaten up in the dark (the previous week) I thought ‘never again.’ So I parked my car in front of a truck, one so it couldn’t move and two to shine the lights on these women up on the house, I didn’t want anything happening to them in the dark. The police come along, started bullying everybody around and tried to get me to move. I didn’t hear what they were saying, I had my radio on, and they started waving at me through the window, I just ignored them. Next thing I know my window is smashed and they are hauling me out and arresting me,” Mr Harawira says.
He feels insulted by the pettiness of the charge, failure to remove a vehicle from a road.
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