Police have lost patience with vaccine mandate protesters outside New Zealand’s parliament, using serious force and making mass arrests in an effort to end the protest.
As of 9am NZDT (7am AEDT), police say they have arrested 20 protesters as part of a premeditated operation to clear out the protest on day 23 of their illegal campout.
Police surprised the protesters by moving before dawn.
“WAKE UP” was the 6:06am message sent by protest organisers through their social media channel, followed by “All who can be on the ground need you all now please” at 6:31am.
Radio NZ reports police have deployed pepper spray against protesters, who police say have made handcrafted weapons including pitchforks.
Protesters have dug in to resist arrests, forming human chains and confronting police at various flashpoints around parliament.
At least one attack on media has been reported, with a Stuff cameraman assaulted by a protester saying “this wouldn’t have happened if you guys had told the truth”.
They retain control of loudspeakers outside parliament, playing songs including ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believing’.
While other protesters are choosing to leave of their own accord, police are also towing cars of those who refuse.
The “Convoy 2022 NZ” protesters came from all corners of New Zealand, descending on Wellington on February 8 to protest on the first day of the parliamentary year.
They haven’t left since, setting up camp on the parliament grounds, leaving cars on CBD streets, installing all sorts of facilities in readiness for a long stay.
That includes laundry, daycare, food and coffee trucks, as well as crystal healing tents, cryptocurrency stalls, a playground for children, even toilets plumbed in the middle of a road into Wellington’s sewage system.
The whole while – to the irritation of Wellingtonians, the local university and businesses – protesters have staged daily rallies to shout invective at the government, journalists and health officials.
They regularly call for prime minister Jacinda Ardern and government MPs to be tried and hung, they have thrown human waste at police officers and abused children for wearing masks as they walk to school.
The protest has coincided with New Zealand’s biggest outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least 20 protesters, many of whom are unvaccinated, and all of whom are maskless, have tested positive to the virus during the occupation.
Health officials said their unwillingness to get tested masks the true number, and COVID-19 is rampant among protesters.
Some protesters delusionally believe they have caught “radiation poisoning” from government-installed towers designed to end the protest.
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