The Freedom Shop Aotearoa

Shock, horror. People are refusing to vote. With only ten days left for voting, not even 5% of Wellingtonians have voted in the local body elections, Radio NZ reports.   How can that be? asks the inquisitive reporter and seeks answers from an academic instead of looking at the voting papers themselves, because that is what they learnt to do at journalism school. And the academic from AUT comes up with some excuses – the Queen’s death has confused people to a degree that they forget what a Mayor is and the long weekend has disrupted people’s routine. Local body politicians continue the series: people forget to empty their letter boxes or there aren’t enough post boxes to put the completed voting papers in. Or it is the fault of the people who do vote. That particular argument goes something like this: the voters are mostly older people who are homeowners, therefore candidates pitch their campaign at older homeowners, therefore young people feel there is nothing for them, therefore they

Gorodey was a member of the Red Scarves movement, a founding member of both PALIKA, the Party of Kanak Liberation which became one of the groups which formed the FLNKS coalition, and the feminist Groupe de Femmes Kanak Exploitées en Lutte (Group of Kanak and Exploited Women in Struggle). She was imprisoned three times between 1974 and 1977 for her political activities.   She was the first Kanak woman to gain a university degree, a teacher, writer and politician. She wrote collections of poems and short stories and the first published Kanak novel L'Épave (translated as The Wreck). As a teacher, she encouraged the use of her own language, Païci, and later became  a leading figure in the Ecoles Populaires Kanak (Kanak Popular Schools) movement, set up in opposition to French state schools Kanak  to teach Kanak children about their history, culture and languages. After the Noumea accord, she worked as an elected member of the New Caledonian congress. "My country is Kanaky" -

International Prisoners' Justice Day on 10 August is a reminder that we must end the violence of human caging and fight against the world that allows it to exist. When you look at who's in prison in countries around the world, it is so obvious that prisons have been and are tools of colonising empires and capitalism. Prisons are blatant examples of the criminalisation of the indigenous, of the poor, of people identified as 'other' and different by states the world over. In this country the reality of our history of colonisation is laid bare: Māori are vastly over-represented in prison statistics. It is in prisons that the racist and class nature of capitalism is clearly exposed. The fight to end prisons is a fight for a just world. At the Freedom Shop we have some books and zines about prison, including: Hell Is A Very Small Place: Voices From Solitary Confinement by Jean Casella Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes by Ann Hansen Hauling Up the Morn

Come along for a film screening and discussion about 'No Fire Zone' and - The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka Newtown Hall, 71 Daniel Street, Newtown FRIDAY, 29 JULY 2022 FROM 18:30-21:30 The film details the final days of Eelam War IV in 2009 and its aftermath. It helps explain why Eelam Tamils continue to flee the country. The documentary depicts the Government of Sri Lanka's assault on the territory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north of the island. The war followed the end of the Sri Lankan Peace Process which began formally in 2002. A central player in the film is recently deposed Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the then Defence Secretary. The story is told by the people who lived through the war and through dramatic and disturbing video evidence. Following the screening researcher Umesh Perinpanayagam will provide critical comment on the film: does the film hide the British/US role in the killings? what is the relevance of the events depicted i

It's happened - we've moved. We're now next door at the front of Book Haven , a second-hand book shop that shares the alley way with the Opportunity for Animals . It's exciting stuff for both the OpShop and us: the OpShop gets more space and are able to expand and we get to be open seven days a week from now on! So please do come and check the new space out, and when you're visiting us also drop in and see what Opportunity for Animals are doing with their reclaimed space at the back.  And once more, thank you so much to all the people at Opportunity for Animals for the support you have given us over the years whilst we have lived in a corner of your Newtown shop. It was great, we may not have been able to survive without your support. Thank you.