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Wellington Winter Zine Fest

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It's ZineFest time again -  the  Wellington Winter Zine Market  Saturday afternoon  3rd June at  Thistle Hall, Wellington. the Freedom Shop will be there

Wellington Winter Zine Fest

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It's ZineFest time again -  the  Wellington Winter Zine Market  Saturday afternoon  3rd June at  Thistle Hall, Wellington. the Freedom Shop will be there

Book Review - The Trigger, Tim Butcher

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The Trigger, Tim Butcher (London, 2014) A book review by Barrie Sargeant, published in Aargh #4 2014 was the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. In New Zealand “World War I” means Gallipoli and the Western Front. That’s where most of the ANZACs spent their time so that has become the area of interest in this part of the world. It’s understandable that this has happened but it means other aspects of the war are less known or understood. For example, how did it start?  According to Baldrick in Blackadder “ I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ‘cause he was hungry ”. Nice try, but a bit wrong. The truth is, the assassin was a man called Gavrilo Princip, part of a group of Bosnian nationalists who shot Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary when visiting his empire’s outpost in Sarajevo. With millions of people across whole continents having died or been wounded, very little attention has been paid to Princip as an individual. Who was he and w

Book Review - The Trigger, Tim Butcher

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The Trigger, Tim Butcher (London, 2014) A book review by Barrie Sargeant, published in Aargh #4 2014 was the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. In New Zealand “World War I” means Gallipoli and the Western Front. That’s where most of the ANZACs spent their time so that has become the area of interest in this part of the world. It’s understandable that this has happened but it means other aspects of the war are less known or understood. For example, how did it start?  According to Baldrick in Blackadder “ I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ‘cause he was hungry ”. Nice try, but a bit wrong. The truth is, the assassin was a man called Gavrilo Princip, part of a group of Bosnian nationalists who shot Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary when visiting his empire’s outpost in Sarajevo. With millions of people across whole continents having died or been wounded, very little attention has been paid to Princip as an individual. Who was he and w

COPS, COPS, COPS talk

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The Freedom Shop will be showing some short films and having a discussion about how activist groups deal with cops this Thursday (20 April), 6.30pm, at 17 Tory Street. Even within activist and protest groups there are differing opinions about how we deal with police & recently some activist groups in Wellington have complained that they've been harassed by the police. So let's get together to talk about how as activist groups we could work together and protect ourselves more against police. Our zine about interacting with the police can be downloaded here  & imposed copy here

COPS, COPS, COPS talk

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The Freedom Shop will be showing some short films and having a discussion about how activist groups deal with cops this Thursday (20 April), 6.30pm, at 17 Tory Street. Even within activist and protest groups there are differing opinions about how we deal with police & recently some activist groups in Wellington have complained that they've been harassed by the police. So let's get together to talk about how as activist groups we could work together and protect ourselves more against police. Our zine about interacting with the police can be downloaded here  & imposed copy here

From Activist to 'Terrorist' - three messages

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On Tuesday evening, April 4th, Jake Conroy spoke at Tory St in Wellington. Jake describes himself as 'a scrawny white American vegan who got sentenced to time in a US prison'. About 40 people attended his talk 'From Activist to Terrorist'. He left us with three key messages: Think about prisons and prisoners, the lives people are forced to live there - the spaces they are forced to inhabit. One simple thing to do is write letters to people inside.  Don't be scared of the threat of state repression. Do fight-back. Figure out what you can do and find like-minded people and strategise how to bring about liberation. At the Freedom Shop we have a range of books written by people inside or those involved in prison abolition and penal politics, including: Abolitionist Demands: Toward the End of Prisons in Aotearoa by No Pride in Prison Outrage: An Anarchist Memoir of a Penal Colony  by ClĂ©ment Duval Hauling Up the Morning: Writings and Art by political prisoners and pri