New Zealand police began evacuating anti-vaccine protesters from parliament grounds on the third day of their demonstration, with more than 120 arrested after clashes.
Police brought in around 150 extra officers from around the country on Thursday to try to clear the protesters from parliament grounds, where they had pitched tents and parked cars, blocking traffic.
The protesters, inspired by the “siege of Ottawa” where truckers paralysed the city and caused a state of emergency, led a convoy of several hundred vehicles to parliament on Tuesday. A number stayed overnight, pitching tents on the lawns.
Tensions boiled over, as the wall of more than 100 police officers advanced their line a few metres every half hour, ripping out tents as they went.
The police picked people off one-by-one at the front of the line, prompting scuffles to break out, and sparking shouts from the crowd of “shame on you, shame on you!” towards the officers.
A drum beat persistently and occasionally the group of a few hundred protesters erupted into songs in Māori and English, including New Zealand’s national anthem. A man egged on the crowd through a loudspeaker: “thank you for standing up for New Zealand!” he shouted.
Away from the frontline, the atmosphere was less volatile, with protesters sitting in deck-chairs, or filming on their phones.
By Thursday afternoon, the police had arrested 120 people and used pepper spray on some members of the crowd, but made little headway in moving the protesters off parliament’s grounds. Two police staff were injured and some protesters suffered minor injuries.
The police expect the protest will continue over some days, requiring a rolling door of officers to be brought in from other parts of the country, said Wellington district commander superintendent Corrie Parnell.
Speaking to media in a location away from the protest, Parnell said the occupation, with its erected tents, was “unprecedented” on the grounds. “We continue to try and really encourage those persons present here to peacefully desist ... That has not come to fruition,” he said.
There had been good lines of communication with some of the organisers, but Parnell said that had “eroded to a point where [the police are] beyond engaging, educating, encouraging”.
He said protestors had been putting their children on the frontline of the protest, which presented a significant risk for those children and was “less than ideal” for officers trying to move people on.
Over the coming days, the police will continue to slowly apply pressure on the crowd.
Earlier in the day Parnell said: “While police acknowledges people’s right to protest, this needs to be conducted in a way that does not unfairly impact on the wider public.”
Most New Zealanders have supported the vaccine: 94% of those aged 12 and over are vaccinated with two doses.
New Zealand has vaccine mandates that cover many workers in jobs designated “high contact” – including in healthcare, teaching, and the police. There are also vaccine requirements for other businesses including hospitality, gyms and hairdressers while the country is at a “red” or “orange” alert level. It is currently at red. The government estimates the mandates affect about 40% of the workforce.
This week’s protest was purportedly to denounce those mandates – but its members are voicing a sprawling mixture of concerns, including about vaccine safety, a “plandemic”, concerns over gene therapy manipulation, accusations of media corruption, and requests to save a Northland oil refinery from closure.
Over the past year, New Zealand’s anti-vaccine and anti-mandate protest movement has been increasingly home to conspiracy theories, threats and violent rhetoric, particularly against reporters, the prime minister, and other members of parliament. Calls for “citizens’ arrests”, “Nuremberg”-style trials, and for the execution of reporters and politicians have become commonplace in the movement’s social media pages and chat apps. At the current protest, some demonstrators decorated their vans with nooses, and scrawled “hang them high” on the parliament paving stones.
The threat of that rhetoric exploding into violence was acknowledged by parliament and the country’s counter-terror services in November last year. Parliamentary services boosted security after a spate of threats or harassment of MPs. In January, prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s van was forced off the road and on to a curb after being pursued by anti-vaccine protesters yelling abuse.
Ardern said on Thursday that it was time for protesters to move on.
“I’m reminded that relative to the people that are at parliament now, on the very day that they’re there, tens of thousands of people went out and got vaccinated. It [the protest] is not reflective of where the rest of New Zealand is at right now. All of us want to actually move on.”
She said the eviction of protesters was a police matter. “Every New Zealander has the right to protest – but when it tips into affecting business, people’s ability to move, and the ability of kids to go to school or emergency services to move around then obviously the police need to manage that,” she said.
Parnell asked the public to avoid the area if possible, and said there would be traffic delays.