Rights groups criticises New Zealand ban on sea protest

Rights groups and conservationists on Tuesday condemned a New Zealand move to ban protests at sea, accusing the government of pandering to the interests of oil companies. A planned new law allows the military to arrest protesters in New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and ramps up the penalties facing demonstrators to include jail terms of up to a year and fines reaching NZ$100,000 ($84,000). Greenpeace said the measures were an over-reaction to a protest against exploration by Petrobras off New Zealand's east coast in 2010, which eventually led to the Brazilian oil giant abandoning its project. Greenpeace campaigner Steve Abel said Resources Minister Simon Bridges was trying to silence opposition to plans to exploit the EEZ, which is believed to contain significant oil reserves beneath its notoriously rough seas. "Bridges has already established himself as little more than a yes-man for foreign oil companies," Abel said. "The most risky activity in the deep-sea for our economy and way of life is not peaceful protest, it's deep-sea oil drilling." More than a dozen groups including Amnesty International, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and the World Wildlife Fund have also signed a joint letter slamming the law as "a sledgehammer designed to attack peaceful protest at sea". "I am opposed to this law and furthermore I am opposed to the way it is being pushed through without proper scrutiny," Thomas Beagle of the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties said. "It demonstrates a government stomping on our civil liberties without even an attempt to show that it is justified." Unveiling the proposed law last month, Bridges said it was aimed at stopping demonstrators from putting lives at risk by taking part in dangerous offshore protests against companies legally going about their work. "We are clamping down on what I think should be seen as properly dangerous, actually reckless, criminal behaviour," he said.