{"id":41864,"date":"2022-02-21T13:34:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T04:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2022\/feb\/21\/as-new-zealand-police-face-criticism-over-parliament-protests-canada-could-provide-lessons"},"modified":"2022-02-21T13:34:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T04:34:06","slug":"as-new-zealand-police-face-criticism-over-parliament-protests-canada-could-provide-lessons-dominic-osullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=41864","title":{"rendered":"As New Zealand police face criticism over parliament protests, Canada could provide lessons | Dominic O&#8217;Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ottawa police have abandoned their policy of de-escalation against anti-Covid mandate demonstrators<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s action to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/dominion-post\/news\/wellington\/127832249\/occupation-day-14-protest-arrests-as-police-block-vehicle-access-to-parliament-grounds\">cordon off the occupation<\/a> of parliament\u2019s grounds and prevent it growing might go some way to restoring public confidence in the police, which has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/national\/health\/coronavirus\/127830920\/tell-the-protesters-to-go-home-movements-against-wellington-protests-fire-up\">appeared to be eroding<\/a> since the protests began a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n<p>So far, police have pursued a de-escalation strategy, but there have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/covid-19-omicron-convoy-parliament-protest-calls-for-mayor-to-step-up-as-police-backtrack-on-towing-focus-on-de-escalation\/6QI4TLG27OP5HF4CUHBWEL74IE\/\">calls for firmer action<\/a>. The whole event has raised important questions about the relationship between the police and government, and about police independence and accountability.<\/p>\n<p><em>The police are an instrument of the crown [\u2026] but in the two principal roles of detecting and preventing crime and keeping the Queen\u2019s peace they act independently of the crown and serve only the law.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2022\/feb\/21\/as-new-zealand-police-face-criticism-over-parliament-protests-canada-could-provide-lessons\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ottawa police have abandoned their policy of de-escalation against anti-Covid mandate demonstratorsToday\u2019s action to cordon off the occupation of parliament\u2019s grounds and prevent it growing might go some way to restoring public confidence in the police&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,244,1066,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-canada","category-coronavirus","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41865,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41864\/revisions\/41865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}