May 24, 2013
Māori Party calls for Ruatoki compensation
Māori Party co-leader Pita Sharples wants to see substantial compensation and apologies in the wake of a damning report on the October 2007 police lock-down of the Ruatoki Valley.
The Independent Police Complaints Authority has found police actions in detaining people at road blocks and in houses was illegal, unjustified and unreasonable.
Dr Sharples says the report confirms what the Māori Party was saying six years ago, that an apology was due to those innocent people caught up in the arrests of those suspected of being involved in military style training camps.
"Definitely compensation. Definitely a front on apology, none of this beating around the bush stuff with a selectively worded apology. It's got to come straight out and match the trauma that children and housewives felt when they were ordered out of their house in the dark and some made to lie down on the footpath. That's just ridiculous. There's more to come," he says.
Dr Sharples says the compensation could take the form of some public facility, or raising the standard of housing stock in the Ruatoki area.
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