New Zealand authorities adopted this Sunday (13) an unusual strategy to try to disperse protesters who, for a week, have been protesting against sanitary measures to contain the pandemic: they played songs like “Macarena” and “Baby Shark” to annoy them and make them angry. them leave the surroundings of Parliament.
The measure, however, appears to have had no effect. Videos shared on social media show that, despite what the authorities expected, the protesters took advantage of the songs to dance on the lawn of the place and make fun of the unsuccessful attempt. “You’re Beautiful”, by British artist James Blunt, also composed the playlist.
The police superintendent of the capital Wellington, Corrie Parnell, criticized the tactic adopted by Parliament authorities, which appears to have encouraged protesters to remain where they are. “It’s certainly a tactic and methodology that we don’t endorse and would rather it hadn’t happened,” she told Radio New Zealand.
Hundreds of protesters are concentrated in the place, inspired by the “freedom trains”, acts against the mandatory vaccination passport that occupied cities in Canada three weeks ago and came to block the Ambassador bridge, an important economic link with the United States, on the border between the two countries.
Not even Cyclone Dovi’s passage through New Zealand this weekend took people away. Winds of up to 130 kilometers per hour hit Wellington and other regions, causing power outages, landslides and evacuations. Police urged people to avoid non-essential travel, and many roads were blocked.
The manicured lawns in front of the national parliament building, where protesters are concentrated, have turned into a muddy swamp. In the recorded images, however, it is possible to see them dancing and singing with capes and umbrellas.
Local police arrested more than 120 protesters on Thursday (10), when there was a confrontation with the group, but now they have advocated a more discreet approach. Superintendent Parnell said that this is not an issue that will be resolved with arrests and that negotiation is needed in good faith on both sides.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and figures around her declined to comment on the strategy used by parliamentary officials over the weekend. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, however, gave an interview to a television channel and said that every New Zealander has the right to peacefully protest, but that the acts of the last week “went far beyond that”. “I find the rhetoric of these protests highly disturbing. There’s a sad element to this, conspiracy theory, that people got sucked into.”
Appointed as the articulator of the failed attempt to disperse the protesters with music, the leader of Parliament, Labor Trevor Mallard, was the target of criticism. Chris Bishop of the National Party described the move as shameful and ineffective. ACT Party leader David Seymour said Mallard “behaved like a child”.
With one of the strictest Covid control policies, New Zealand, a country of just over 5 million inhabitants, managed to mitigate the health impacts of the coronavirus. The nation has about 21,500 cases of the disease since the beginning of the pandemic and 53 deaths, according to the platform Our World in Data.
The omicron variant, as in other parts of the world, has led to a rise in cases. With consecutive records, the moving average of new cases, once below 10, reached 512 this Sunday (13).
Approximately 77% of the inhabitants completed the first vaccination schedule, and 38% of the population received the booster dose. National authorities recently announced that the country’s borders are not expected to fully reopen until October.
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