item details
Overview
This tennis ball, featuring the hand written message ‘Hands off our kids’, was collected by a Radio New Zealand (RNZ) journalist during an anti-vaccination protest held in Wellington on Tuesday 9 November 2021. The protest began in the central city, with the protesters marching onto Parliament, where a number threw messaged tennis balls and water at media representatives.
The protest comprised of about 2000 people and was led by the Freedoms and Rights Coalition. In keeping with the FRC's membership base, which claims to represent 'Kiwis from all walks of life, with varying frustrations', ranging from Farmers & Growers to Indigenous Peoples and the 'Covid Frustrated', the group was very eclectic and included including mothers with young children, wellness believers, church groups and gang members.
The messages on the thrown tennis balls represented a range of views and concerns, and also included threats against the Prime Minister and other parliamentarians. This particular ball bears the message 'Hands off our kids'.
In August 2021, young people aged 12 to 15 became eligible for Pfizer vaccination. Children over the age of 16 have the right to give their own consent.
Following a succession of threats to media representatives, Richard Sutherland, RNZ’s head of news and the deputy chair of the Media Freedom Committee, commented:
'On the face of it, being in the way of a few tennis balls lobbed at Parliament might not seem like a major, but it's a further escalation… We are all of the view that there is an increasing level of aggression towards journalists from people who are opposed to either the vaccine rollout or the vaccine mandates or the Covid restrictions. What might have started a few months ago with journalists being verbally abused has escalated.' (1)