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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 20. 29th August 1973

Ferret: The Regime Strikes

page 3

Ferret: The Regime Strikes

About three months since their raid on the Christchurch underground printers Koz-mik Krumbia, and about six months since the publication of Ferret 2 magazine, the police have laid an official charge over the publishing of Ferret 2. On Monday August 6, Marty Braithwaite was served with a summons which stated that he, by publishing an article entitled "The Mad Bombers Handbook" in a publications entitled Ferret No 2 did encourage disorder. The charge was laid under section 34 of the Police Offenders Act (1927) with amendments (1967). The charge relates to inciting, encouraging or procuring disorder, violence, lawlessness. "Every person commits an offence and is liable for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding $500."

Practical moves have been made now by the police to put the pressure on Kozmik Krumbia, the publishers of Ferret, and have started by trying to jack up a charge against Marty whom they apparently suspect of being the major force behind Kozmik Krumbia.

The publication containing the offending article was released near the end of Febuary this year. It contains an article, two years old entitled "The Mad Bombers Handbook" which gave recipes etc for various firebombs and molotov cocktails-outmoded and primitive as they may have been. A thousand copies were sold but at the time the summons was served there had not been any bombing incidents.

On April 27, Kozmik Krumbia was raided. Three detectives led by Det. Sgt O'Donovan came in armed with a warrant to search (and to confiscate) relevant material for items relating to the printing of Feret 2. After an hour and a half they left, taking with them a large pile of books and documents relating to the functioning of Kozmik Krumbia. Very little was returned and the majority of the seized documents are being held following their trip to Wellington for finger printing and handwriting analyses.

The police made it clear they wanted to find out Marty's position in Kozmik Krumbia and Ferre, and in taking various accounting documents attempted to balls up the smooth running of KK An attempt was made at slowing the publication of Ferret 3 by the taking of a few pieces of typeset copy and the newspaper clippings which were ready prepared for printing.

The raid took place two months after publication and was undoubtedly prompted by pressure from government. At a public meeting in his electorate Kirk let the cat out of the bag when he made known that Ferret had been discussed in Caucus.

The next move to discredit Ferret was its role in the evidence during the Harewood Weedons Trial. The Crown Prosecutor tried to harass defendants and witnesses into identifying, under cross examination, the printers and publishers of Ferret as individuals, not as the Kozmik Krumbia collective.

Again when the Weedons people were charged the Ferret Harewood-Weedons Special was introduced as exhibit M. quoting various tongue in cheek extracts with reference to vengeful hot blooded activists and so on.

Owen Wilkes was charged after that demonstration with encouraging disorder and once again the magazine was brought in as evidence of the devious intentions of the demonstrators. Owen. Inspector Burrows claimed, was a puppet in the hands of certain elements, implying these elements were the publishers of Ferret.

This charge must be taken in the context with the repression of other alternative publications in New Zealand, and the harrassment of all the Resistance centres.

All three centres have recently been raided in connection with the school kids magazine Itch, although at this stage no charges have been laid. Itch has been of major concern to the CIB and several people in Christchurch have been interviewed by detectives about the selling of Itch There [unclear: deleted onlegal advice] Earwig has also been the host of several raids and after the only arrest, the defendant was found not guilty and awarded $85 in costs.

These cases all add up to a deliberate Labour Party assault on the "free press" concept. Writers and editors are severly restricted by the libel laws which keep even the daily newspapers well tamed, preventing the type of investigative journalism which exposed Watergate. This is also one of the few countries in the world where the printer, as well as the publisher, is liable for the material they print. This in fact leads to the situation where printers leave their role as straight printers and become censors as well. The fear of losing valuable printing equipment puls a stranglehold on anyone endeavouring to print the truth.

Freedom of the press is essential to a free society.