Advance Party and crowd rallies against Covid-19 restrictions and shutdowns

The woman jailed for escaping from a managed isolation facility appeared at a protest rally against the government’s use of lockdowns and other Covid-19 restrictions.

A crowd of a few thousand filled Auckland’s Aotea Square this afternoon at the “National Rally for Freedom”, organized by Advanced Party co-leaders Jami Lee Ross and Billy Te Kahika.

There was little social distancing and few people in the crowd wore masks.

Te Kahika told those present that they “regretted” the woman known as “LK” after she “became an example last month.”

“She is a New Zealander who has suffered a considerable loss due to the Government’s responses to Covid-19.”

The woman, who was not named, did not address the crowd.

She was sentenced to 14 days in jail after escaping from an isolation center.

The judge said that he accepted that the pain had probably clouded the woman’s judgment and that her negative tests had given her a false sense of security, but there was an element of “selfishness” in her offense, as she put herself before the protection of the community “did not agree with tikanga.”

Te Kahika introduced her as “a lady who touched my heart enormously through this experience.”

“I tried to hold his hand during the process, this [is] a mother whose ex-partner had died, who came to New Zealand, tested negative when she got here. “

He applied for a compassionate waiver, but was initially denied; the government said it had been working closely with the family, iwi, Maori guards, police and funeral home on a second request, but the woman and her four children eloped a few hours before the decision was made.

Te Kahika told the protest because she was “under threat, she is trying to return to Australia, she will just say hello and leave, she is a brave and brave woman, she was imprisoned for 14 days but they let her go in seven days.” I hit this government on my Facebook page. “

“If you can imprison a mother of four young children, you can imprison any of you, if we say no to the Covid-19 public health bill, you are tyrants, whānau.

“We are a logical people,” Te Kahika said.

The protest then moved down Auckland’s Queen St before heading back to Aotea Square.

Several police officers were present at the rally but declined to comment when RNZ asked if there were any concerns about social distancing given the size of the crowd.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins recently issued a strong warning that “fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories threaten to derail” the country’s response to Covid-19 and impede progress to alert level 1.

He said that when looking abroad, it was clear that the coronavirus was “very, very real” and “very, very deadly”, without vaccine, and while he wanted a cooperative approach, he did not rule out punitive measures for people who continue to deliberately spread “lies. “.