Operation Flick: Who set the trap?

The police operation orders for Operation Flick, the police operation to clear student protesters on 1 June from Symonds Street, have been released under the Official Information Act and contain a nasty surprise.

It was the University of Auckland itself which called the police on their own students. Not only this, the University security and the Auckland Council collaborated with the police operation which left 43 students arrested in a day of massive and unprovoked police violence against student demonstrators.

In a complaint to the Police, student group 'Blockade the Budget says police dragged students by the neck and throat, punched and trampled them and held students against the ground when they weren't resisting.'

Fifty five seconds into this video you can clearly see a police officer punch a seated protester. The kettling and arresting of students came after the police promised student leader Jai Bentley-Paine that the police were present to facilitate the demonstration. Operation Flick was clearly a police operation designed to destroy the student protest movement with extreme violence.

One question raised by the release of the Operation Flick orders is how much did the University know about the intentions of the police on June 1?

Another question is: did the police design this operation or did the University administration itself organise to set the trap? The evidence suggests the University.

-Socialist Aotearoa