A group linked to Brian Tamaki disrupted a march by Sikhs in South Auckland. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n
MP for Takanini Rima Nakhle took to social media to share her disappointment and frustration over what she described as an aggressive and threatening demonstration against the Sikh community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am deeply disappointed with the way our Sikh community in South Auckland was targeted yesterday,\u201d Nakhle wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n
National MP for Takanini Rima Nakhle during her maiden speech in Parliament in 2024. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I understand, our Sikh community in Manurewa had received a permit to hold this procession, honouring the birth of their first guru. They had gone through all the right channels- required by the laws of our land- before going ahead with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the footage of the inflammatory and threatening behaviour of the people who tried to stop the PERMITTED procession has filled me with sadness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Nakhle said the Sikh community has done a lot for New Zealand, saying \u201cnot only do they work hard, pay taxes and often do the jobs many others don\u2019t want to do, they also contribute tremendously to the social wellbeing of our local communities\u201d.<\/p>\n
She pointed to initiatives like the donation of thousands of food parcels during Covid, the fundraising of $80,000 to the victims of the March 15 Christchurch mosque terrorist attack, and the gifting of Community Patrol cars, all done by the local Sikh community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Christian myself\u201d, she wrote, \u201cI do not think Jesus would want me to target a group of people who do not threaten, rather, just carry on while working hard but also celebrating their values and being charitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participants in a 2023 Sikh Nagar Kirtan Parade in Rotorua. Photo \/ Andrew Warner<\/p>\n
The Free Speech Union, which advocates for New Zealanders\u2019 right to protest and counter-protest, has condemned the Tamaki-linked disruptors.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Jillaine Heather said while her organisation supports Tamaki\u2019s right to disagree with immigration policy or criticise other religions, the display was not a counter-protest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 50 people form a barrier to stop a Nagar Kirtan procession, that\u2019s not counter-protest \u2013 it\u2019s obstruction that limits others\u2019 legal expression,\u201c Heather said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFree Speech and our culture of tolerance have made New Zealand a haven for many persecuted groups over the years. Attempts to drive any group out of public life are antidemocratic and cruel, and we call on all New Zealanders to use their voices to condemn such tactics, regardless of who is applying them\u201d. <\/p>\n
In the caption of a video<\/a> of the incident posted to his social media, Tamaki said \u201cTHIS IS OUR LAND. THIS IS OUR STAND.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday, True Patriots stood their ground in South Auckland.<\/p>\n \u201cNo violence. No riots.<\/p>\n \u201cJust my young men performing a haka\u2026face-to-face\u2026to send a clear message:<\/p>\n \u201cKEEP NZ, NZ.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past week, police have stepped up reassurance patrols, particularly at Jewish sites<\/a>, following the Bondi Beach shooting that left 16 people dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tamaki took to social media after the terrorist attack to claim \u201cmulticulturalism is ruining Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group linked to Brian Tamaki disrupted a march by Sikhs in South Auckland. Photo \/ Facebook MP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1975,51,49324,41638,5159,100810,120779,17752,38115,4975,209,671,2344,15220,6368,3556,111,43,139,69,34258,120778,25394,1111,37450,312,101122,1240,9345,120054,1961,19137,4483,102,11587,80],"class_list":["post-194837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-banner","tag-brandishing","tag-brian","tag-criticise","tag-crosses","tag-disrupted","tag-filled","tag-free","tag-group","tag-incident","tag-india","tag-line","tag-mp","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parade","tag-procession","tag-protest","tag-reading","tag-sadness","tag-says","tag-sikh","tag-south","tag-speech","tag-tamakilinked","tag-this","tag-traditional","tag-union","tag-with","tag-yesterday","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}