Over the last few months, there has been a campaign for the rights of asylum seeking detainees in New Zealand.

The recent release of Thomas Yadegary after two years and five months motivated 5 other Iranian detainees in similar conditions to make their cases publicly known. To These men were being held in Mt Eden Prison without charge, because they refused to sign papers allowing the NZ government to send them back to the country they were fleeing. All had been through the proper channels to seek refugee status, but all 5 would rather stay indefinitely imprisoned than be forced to return. Fortunately, there is now only one man yet to be released on bail, Amir Mohebbi. He has been imprisoned for over three and a half years now and is New Zealand’s longest serving remand prisoner ever. Three others have been released on bail and one was sent back to Iran.

As anarchists, we believe that all people regardless of race, class, gender or financial means deserve to live in freedom and peace where ever they may chose to. Artificial borders, constructed by the powerful elite (to whom their existence poses no hindrance to movement or profit) should not govern the lives of people born by chance therein.

Initially, Global Peace and Justice Auckland organised monthly protests outside Mt Eden Prison, in an attempt to bring some attention to the plight of the detainees. Some media coverage was achieved, but everything kicked into another gear when detainee Ali Panah decided to refuse all food to protest his indefinite detention. Protests were held every week, and his story made the media a few times. Around day 34 of his fast, Ali was moved to the hospital, but he refused a drip and was taken back to the prison. Again on day 49 he was transported to the hospital and this time agreed to take vitamin supplements that would help minimise permanent brain damage from such a long time without food. He was sent back to Mt Eden Prison once more.

As activists, we watched on with disbelief as this saga continued. Some hunger strikers only last around 40 days before death. The longest hunger strike to date was carried out by Joseph Murphy, during the Irish War of Independence. He lasted an incredible 76 days. As Ali Panah’s condition worsened, the government failed to respond, and the media neglected to continue reporting, we decided to take action ourselves. We decided that we had to do something immediately to make New Zealanders aware how the unjust immigration system works and to show immigration minister David Cunliffe that he needed to act, to save Ali’s life. We agreed that gaining media attention by locking ourselves to Mount Eden Prison would best way to achieve these aims in the short time that we had.

So on a Saturday morning, shortly before the usual protest was scheduled to start on day 51, five activists walked casually down Lauder Rd towards the prison with bicycle D-locks hidden around their necks by jackets and jerseys. Three of us climbed quickly up an I-beam and on to the balcony roof above the entrance to Mount Eden Central Remand Centre, and the other two sauntered over to the two flagpoles in the courtyard. Once on the roof, one activist locked his neck to a steel beam and a banner was suspended between him and the other two who had locked their necks together. The two activists at the flagpoles had each locked their own neck to a pole and also had a banner between them. The set-up was all done in about 30 seconds and we wondered if the guards had even noticed.

Apparently they had, because the cops showed up fifteen minutes later and politely told us that we needed to leave. We politely refused. One of the activists on the roof had been madly making media phones calls since we arrived and TV3 had showed up to film. These calls to radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and who ever else we could think of continued until we were eventually all cut down.

The police pulled an enormous pair of bolt cutters out of one of their cars and one of the activists on a flagpole was cut off with considerable effort, but relatively unspectacularly. We thought after that it would be over quickly, but the other protesters had now gathered at the prison entrance with banners and chants, and began to march towards us. Immediately the police abandoned the bolt cutters and charged down to stop them entering. The marching protesters wanted to keep coming forward and as the police tried to force them back, they felt the need to arrest two of the nearest demonstrators to show that they meant business. Those two were charged with Trespass, which is laughable, as there is no way they could have been warned that they were trespassing during the short confrontation, especially with the noise of the chants.

There were by this time, eight police cars and three fire engines in attendance. This seemed a little extreme considering the peaceful nature of our protest, and the lack of fire it involved, and in the end the only contribution the fire department made was supplying the cops with a short ladder to access the three metre high roof.

After the run in with the other protesters, the rest of us were cut loose, and we were run back to the cells by a surprisingly trusting female officer to be processed. While in the cells there were still two protesters sporting D-locks about their necks that had not needed to be cut. The cops cut one of them off successfully, but on the sixth and final lock their bolt cutters broke instead. A small victory, but a satisfying one.

We were all released on bail later that night and required to report to court on various days over the following week. Two days later, on Monday, September 3 Ali Panah was also released on bail and entrusted to the care of his Anglican priest. That news was a huge relief, but far from victory. Amir Mohebbi was released earlier this month.

At our first court appearances, the police tried to impose bail conditions of non-association and that we weren’t to go within 500m of Mt Eden Prison. (This cuts out sections of the central city that we commute through every day and also contains my church). Fortunately a judge threw out these conditions upon appeal, because it was obvious they were an attempt to prevent us from participating in any further legitimate protests. At the moment we are still awaiting out final status hearing where we will seek discharge without conviction from the judge, or pursue a not-guilty plea to the charge of Trespass.