Guest Post: Lucy Rogers is remarkably courageous
A guest post by Mark Adams:
Every Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm Lucy stands in front of Britomart station protesting the Saturday pro-Hamas rally.
Yesterday I went to shake her hand and then stayed with her for over two hours.
She has been protesting for nearly two years, silent and steadfast and usually alone.
Lucy doesn’t fly an Israeli flag, she makes clear her focus is on freeing the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas – and protesting the police who wrongfully arrested her for doing just this, silently standing or sitting in protest.
She arrives and then makes hand-written signs such as “free the hostages”. Lucy does this every time because the pro-Hamas people repeatedly rip her signs away.
They will stand immediately in front of her, pointedly blocking Lucy with their flags and banners, but she doesn’t react.
The pro-Hamas people are there in hundreds. The rally is loud and intimidating to outsiders. But it is well organised and the stewards generally keep the most threatening people a metre or so from Lucy.
Lucy continues to stand or sit quietly resolute, consciously non-aggressive.
Even when faced with verbal aggression she doesn’t react in kind, she either ignores it, or responds calmly.
Yesterday despite the obvious intimidation, the police weren’t nearby. They stood in a group and watched the protest go by and didn’t follow.
Towards the end of the rally, Lucy approached the three police officers standing by, with video of today’s sign-ripping attack – the same woman has done it several times before.
One said that even though there was wrongdoing, they would not go into the crowd to find the woman. It would soon be five and he wanted to go home to his family.
Lucy does this every Saturday, protesting to free the hostages.
She is nearly always alone.
I found the the pro-Hamas people very angry and deliberately intimidating.
Confronted with this, Lucy’s combination of courage and calm non-aggressiveness, was truly remarkable.
If you live in Auckland and have a couple of hours free on a Saturday afternoon, perhaps sometimes you might consider standing alongside Lucy.