Protesters aren’t terrorists – Protect Protest Aotearoa

The government is looking at changing the Terrorism Suppression Act to give it more powers to define groups as terrorists, and impose new restrictions on behaviour that might be seen as supporting these groups. We’ve already seen what this leads to in the UK, with people protesting the genocide in Gaza being arrested for supporting ‘terrorism’.

There is a clear and identifiable pattern of successive governments introducing measures in the name of counter-terrorism and national security that involve serious risk to human rights. The definition of a terrorist act was significantly lowered in 2021. These proposals would further widen the scope of what and who terrorism legislation would cover. For some time now we along with others have been calling out the sustained creep of terrorism laws and the significant impact on human rights.

Current Status

The Ministry of Justice was doing a secret consultation about these changes but everyone knows about it now so everyone can participate. We’re expecting a paper to be sent to Cabinet at the end of 2025 for them to make a decision about whether to progress this further.

What you can do

The consultation was leaked, and the Ministry has invited submissions more broadly. We urge you to write to Minister of Justice Goldsmith to express your concern! Paul.Goldsmith@parliament.govt.nz You are welcome to use any of the content on this website.

Our concerns

Membership of and support for ‘terrorist’ groups

We question the problem definition here, what is the gap in law that current criminal justice or terrorism laws do not pick up? We strongly oppose making membership of a Designated Terrorist Entity an offence. ‘Membership’ is far too vague to use. The focus should be on prosecuting actual action where it is criminal i.e. planning an attack.

Participating in a terrorist group or entity is already criminalised under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and notably as discussed above the definition of a terrorist act is very broad and sets the bar too low.

We’re concerned that in practice groups don’t necessarily issue membership cards or have subscription fees, so membership offences like this one are overly vague and too broad. Given this we question how it would be implemented in practice. These offences could simply become catchall offences that prosecutors use when they don’t have something more concrete to prosecute. Instead, the focus should be on prosecuting actual action where it is criminal i.e. planning an attack. Without a requirement of participation, it gravely risks including people who genuinely have no intent to commit a crime and becomes very difficult to fairly prove. To misidentify someone as being part of a terrorist organisation would have serious implications for an individual, and as ‘membership’ is a vague term, it may too be hard to disprove. This is an unjustifiable limit on the freedom of association and is unacceptably vague. Regarding ‘public expressions of support’, the key legal question has to be whether the expression incites violence, hatred of discrimination. If it does, then it is acceptable to criminalise it. But where it does not, then it should not be subject to criminalisation.

Deciding who is a terrorist

It is critical that there are procedurally robust checks and the ability to regularly review and repeal any designation deeming an organisation or individual to be a “terrorist”. It should not be a question of doing less, but of ensuring that there are strong processes in place that provide meaningful accountability. To this end, we also strongly oppose designation reviews becoming every five years.

Online content

When determining whether content that is actively spread by a designated entity is terrorist content, it matters what the content being spread is. A blanket approach to banning information is not justified. Online harm is a problem but this proposal will not solve the issue.