MEDIA RELEASE
“We Were Right – Again” - GATT Watchdog on APEC SIS/Police debacle.
GATT Watchdog is celebrating another victory over the Government following the High Court ruling that the July 21 1996
police search of Dr David Small’s Christchurch house was unreasonable and its award of $20,000 compensation.
The search of Dr Small’s house arose directly from him having caught SIS agents illegally breaking into the house of
GATT Watchdog campaigner Aziz Choudry on 13 July 1996, during the GATT Watchdog-organised “Trading With Our Lives”
conference focussing on the human cost of free trade. Mr Choudry successfully sued the SIS and settled out of court with
the Crown last year.
“This chain of events (which also includes a police search of Mr Choudry’s house and a mysterious hoax bomb at the
Christchurch City Council buildings days after the botched SIS break-in) took place in the context of GATT Watchdog
organising activities opposed to the government’s slavish adherence to extreme policies of unrestricted free trade and
foreign investment just prior to 1996’s APEC Trade Ministers Meeting”, says GATT Watchdog spokesperson Leigh Cookson.
“Presumably the National Government regarded GATT Watchdog and associates as enemies of the state.”
“We demand to know if the present government still holds to that view, and if so on what grounds”.
“From day one, GATT Watchdog correctly identified the burglars at Mr Choudry’s house as SIS agents. We have consistently
been proved correct and legally vindicated in courts of law over the past four years, in spite of being officially
stonewalled all the way in pursuit of the truth. Who knows what would have happened had we not nipped in the bud what
was obviously a politically-motivated, secret State dirty tricks operation. The hoax bomb episode alone has all the
hallmarks of classic agent provocateur tactics.”
“As if the bungled, illegal SIS operation was not bad enough, the Small case reinforces concerns that the Police’s own
Criminal Intelligence Service (CIS) conducts routine information collection and surveillance of political organisations
and activists.”
“And the CIS clearly equates such activism with the commission of criminal offences or a propensity to commit criminal
offences. This criminalisation of dissent is outrageous and unacceptable. Who else is being spied on by the CIS because
of their political views?
“Now that the international pendulum is swinging so firmly towards GATT Watchdog’s point of view on globalisation why
are organisations such as ourselves still being treated as enemies of the State?” asked Ms Cookson.
Contact Leigh Cookson (GATT Watchdog) ph (03) 3662803 (w); 3812951 (h)