The Campaign To Have Ahmed Zaoui Freed Continues.
This Saturday (22nd November) we have a stall at the Grey Lynn Park Festival. The stall will have Free Ahmed Zaoui
tee-shirts for sale. plus postcards, petitions, an open letter to Ahmed himself, and information on him and his case.
If you and/or a friend can spare an hour or two to help run the stall we would be glad to hear from you Please advise
which time is best for you - we will be running pretty much all day from 9am till 5 p.m.. If we get enough people we
will try to spread our coverage by sending petition gatherers further a field.
Please reply by email to : pastfinders@clear.net.nz
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Events in the last few weeks include:
Fri 24th to Sat 25th October: A 24 Hour Vigil was held outside the Auckland Central Remand Prison where Zaoui had been
moved a week earlier. A small band stayed for the whole 24 hours, numbers rarely fell below 20 (there were 30 at
midnight) and ended with 63 at noon on Saturday. Over 200 people added personal comments or signed a message to Ahmed
which his lawyers took in to him on Saturday morning - when Deborah Manning came out 2 hours later she had a personal
message from Ahmed
Wed November 5th: A small picket outside the Carlton Hotel greeted Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel as she arrived up
for a conference. This was a small opportunity to personalise the issue for her - she saw us and immediately turned her
head sharply away from our banner.
Sat November 15th: Courage Day at St. Matthews in the City honours writers, publishers, journalists, cartoonists, poets,
etc. who have suffered for their craft. Zaoui (who is also a poet) was represented by Deborah Manning, one of about 10
speakers during this 2 hour event.
Sun November 16th: Item on "One News" (6p.m. TV1) about students assisting Deborah Manning to translate thousands of
pages of documents into English for the ongoing court battle Segment on "Sunday" (7p.m. TV1) about Zaoui's family. This
featured strong support from 2 very credible character witnesses [Samir Bennagadi (an Algerian based in Sydney) and
George Joffe (an English expert on Algeria, former personal advisor Middle East to Tony Blair)], both of whom know Zaoui
personally. There was also an interview with Dalziel in which she again refused to provide any meaningful information
(unfortunately the interviewer did not press her very effectively).
November 17th, 18th, 19th Amnesty has a nationwide campaign featuring prominent people being caged for 10 minutes each
(one minute for each month of Zaoui's solitary confinement at Paremoremo). In Auckland this will occur on Monday (Vulcan
Lane), Tuesday (Aotea Square) and Wednesday (not sure).
Saturday 22nd Information stall at Grey Lynn Park Festival. Amnesty will also have a stall.
December 10th International Human Rights Day - main event in Aotea Square - will include Zaoui issue. This will also
mark the anniversary (approximately) of his incarceration - he actually arrived on 7/12/2002 (his birthday?).