No Pride in Prisons are yet to make a decision as to whether or not they will march in this year’s Auckland Pride Parade. “No Pride in Prisons will be deciding whether or not to march in this year’s parade once it is known whether Corrections and Police officers will be marching as they did in 2015,” says Emmy Rākete. Last year No Pride in Prisons protested the marching of Police and Corrections staff, unfurling a banner reading “no pride in prisons” in front of a police officer as police were marching. Rākete suffered a broken arm in an ensuing struggle with security staff, as the protesters resisted being moved off the parade route. In February, following the events at the parade the group released a statement saying, “We, No Pride in Prisons, took this non-violent action to highlight the fact that the queer, Māori and Pasifika communities are disproportionately harassed and targeted by police. “We are a group of queer and trans activists who did not want to see the violence of the settler colonial state ‘pinkwashed’ by the inclusion of uniformed Police and Corrections officers.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 20th January 2016 - 10:20am