Who guards the guards? Experts call for oversight of New Zealand’s terror laws

The fiasco of the Operation 8 counter-terror operation in 2007 looms over new laws and how police judge who or what poses a threat

In the early hours of an October morning in 2007, teams of armed police stormed Rtoki, a lush green valley in the North Island of New Zealand. Equipped with new anti-terrorism powers, they stopped school buses, set up roadblocks, raided houses, arrested 18 people across the country, and detained many more in their homes for hours.

I was only 7 at the time," Kunere Timoti, one of the children caught up in the raids told the New Zealand Herald. I remember the bus stopping and then looking out my window... What I saw then will stay with me forever," he said. Outside, a balaclava-clad man had a gun pointed at the bus. Whetumarama Purewa, who was six years old at the time, told The Hui that 10 years on from the raids, she still hasn't forgotten. I still feel hurt, I think all of us still feel hurt, we all still feel that trauma that they did to us. Not just to us - the things like they pointed guns at them and they didn't even do anything wrong."