Freed activist vows to battle on

Maire Leadbeater is grounded again - but she could not be happier.

Describing herself as very tired, the veteran human rights activist touched down at Auckland Airport yesterday morning after three days' detention at the hands of Indonesian police.

As she arrived home to jubilant family and friends, Foreign Minister Phil Goff said New Zealand officials were seeking urgent meetings with their Indonesian counterparts.

"I want answers as to why was a New Zealand citizen was detained, and why was the conference she was attending broken up by the actions of armed police," he said.

"Most importantly, why, in a democratic country, have people's rights to free association, assembly and speech apparently been abridged?"

Ms Leadbeater, an Auckland City councillor, was one of 32 foreigners, including 20 Australians and an American, arrested on Friday after police broke up a seminar on Asian workers' rights.



Police kept the group under armed guard while they were questioned.

They were later allowed to return to their Jakarta hotels after being made to sign statements saying that they had not been harmed.

The police alleged that Ms Leadbeater and her fellow activists broke immigration laws by attending the Asia-Pacific Labour Solidarity Conference while in Indonesia on tourist visas.

But Ms Leadbeater said the detention had only increased her determination to fight harder against human rights abuses.

"Until you're that close up to it, you don't realise the risk they take every day."

The incident had imparted strong images to fuel her campaign, among them the Indonesians singing songs of struggle as the police surged around them.

"What was most moving was the way in which our Indonesian hosts responded (to the raid)," she said.

"They had no personal fear - they threw away fear, because of the extent of their commitment and their belief in human rights."