Photo Recall: Strong arm of the law

Photo / Nigel Marple, Photo Researcher / Emma Walter

Six years ago, an Auckland teenager found himself in the news after a scuffle with a police officer during an anti-war protest in Auckland's Queen St.

It was a roughing up that took the 16-year-old Takapuna Grammar boy by surprise.

Omar Hamed had travelled into Auckland City with a school mate, in March 2005, to take part in a protest against the occupation of Iraq.

After the protesters crowded into a Queen St bank, the police turned up and arrested one of the protest leaders, political activist Simon Oosterman. Hamed, now 23, remembers shouting and chanting, and a scuffle breaking out as protesters tried to stop police from dragging Oosterman towards a patrol car.

Photographer Nigel Marple says Oosterman was "carted away quite forcibly" which "set the tone and rarked everybody up". "There was a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of grabbing."

During the scuffle, the police officer's hat was knocked askew, an incident "that set the cop off", according to Marple. Moments later he saw the officer get hold of Hamed by the throat and took a photo.

It was an image that understandably alarmed Hamed's Kiwi-born mother and Palestinian-born father, living in Auckland.

"I remember there was a bit of concern and worry in my family after that photo was in the paper," Hamed says.

But the most sobering experience was his arrest as one of the Urewera 18 in the 2007 "terror raids". Charges against Hamed have been dropped but he spent an anxious month in Mt Eden prison. And what about his parents?

"It was pretty hard on all the parents. Very, very hard, very stressful situation.

"No parent wants to have to come into jail and visit their child. I was 19 at the time, the youngest. And the cops were applying to the Solicitor-General to lay these Terrorism Suppression Act charges on us. It seems ridiculous now but four years ago ... I was deeply worried."

But he wasn't put off protesting and admits to having been arrested "several times".

This week Hamed was one of 300 students who stormed Auckland University's Business School and occupied the top floor, protesting at fee increases and other issues.

Hamed is finishing his MA in history this year but is vague when asked about career plans for next year. He says "no comment" before saying: "You sound like my mother."

He thinks his protest action makes a difference. "We got rid of youth rates through protest action."

And in 2007 Hamed was one of three protesters who chained themselves to the roof of Mt Eden Prison in support of Iranian asylum seeker Ali Panah, then on his 52nd day of a hunger strike and near death. The protesters were arrested and spent a night in prison but Hamed says their action "broke the news drought". Panah was released on bail the next day. "So yeah, you do make a difference. That's what I've learned. And everyone has a role to play."