Celebrities caged in support of Zaoui

By MICHAEL OTTO

Celebrities used to captivating audiences protested against Algerian Ahmed Zaoui's imprisonment without trial by being caged themselves in Auckland's Vulcan Lane yesterday.

Actors Sara Wiseman, Elizabeth McRae and Stuart Devenie were among those "imprisoned" for 11 minutes each in a 1.2cu m cage.

Each minute spent in the cage stood for a month that Mr Zaoui has been in jail in New Zealand.

The lunchtime protest was organised by Amnesty International to help raise public awareness of the case, said spokeswoman Margaret Taylor.

Wiseman, who starred in Mercy Peak and Jackson's Wharf, watched people walking by during her time in the cage. "It's really interesting watching people's faces and making eye contact - they turn away," she said.

"It's quite a confronting visual image. I can understand why people would feel uncomfortable but that's the point of it, I guess."

McRae said sitting in the cage was weird. "People look at you from a distance."

After his time behind bars, Devenie said: "[The Zaoui case] is something we should all feel concerned about. Our freedoms can be abrogated so easily."

The protest will be repeated in Aotea Square at lunchtime today and outside Britomart at 7.30am tomorrow.

Similar protests took place yesterday in Wellington and Christchurch and will be repeated in Wellington today and tomorrow.

Ms Taylor said Amnesty International had been fielding many calls from people worried that "this isn't what we do in New Zealand".

"Kiwis have an innate sense of fair play that is being challenged."

Mr Zaoui has been detained since he arrived in NZ last December, despite being granted refugee status by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority.

Mr Zaoui's lawyers have sought a judicial review of the handling of his case and a hearing has been set down for the High Court at Auckland from December 1 to 3.