The No Pride in Prisons trans-rights group says it is unhappy that the owner of a cellphone "destroyed" by the president of the Gay Auckland Business Association after a protest scuffle at last year's Auckland Pride Parade has still not been recompensed for the damage. The scuffle between parade security and the No Pride In Prisons (NPIP) group happened after the group gate-crashed the parade to protest the Department of Corrections' poor treatment of transgender prisoners. As protester Emilie Rakete lay on the ground adjacent to the GABA VIP hospitality area, handcuffed by police and with an arm injury, video of the incident shows GABA president Heather Carnegie grabbing and vigorously flinging away a cellphone being used by an associate of the group to film the incident. GABA initially claimed the phone had flown from Carnegie's hand unintentionally. "Back when this happened we asked Heather and GABA for the damage to the phone to be addressed but nothing ever came of it," says NPIP spokesperson Sophie Morgan. "A year has passed and neither of them have taken any responsibility for unnecessarily destroying the phone." GayNZ.com has for several weeks tried to discuss this issue directly with Carnegie but our attempts have not been successful. NPIP will be holding a 'Fuck Pride' rally on the Karangahape Road overbridge at 5.30pm tomorrow, around the time the 2016 Pride Parade is due to start at the northern end of Ponsonby Road. They say Corrections should not be represented in this year's parade despite the Parade's organisers saying they have evaluated the situation at length and believe the Department's plans to address the issues of transgender rights and safety are sufficient to warrant their inclusion in the parade. The activists say Corrections' recently reported likelihood of resorting to the double-bunking of inmates to alleviate prison overcrowding is exactly the situation which contributed to a transwoman prisoner being allegedly raped by a male prisoner she was required to share a cell with.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 18th February 2016 - 11:58pm