SST should be prosecuted

Just received this press release:

A newspaper stunt at major provincial rugby games last weekend could easily have resulted in matches being called off and stadiums evacuated, Police Minister Judith Collins said.

Ms Collins was advised that a newspaper commissioned people to masquerade as terrorists who then gained access to restricted areas at Super 14 matches in Hamilton and Christchurch.

“The actions are unbelievably stupid and irresponsible. This stunt had the potential to result in games being called off and stadiums evacuated,” Ms Collins said.

“This would have caused not only great public inconvenience and cost, but possibly presented a risk to the safety of spectators.

“Common sense would tell you that running around a stadium dressed as a bomber has the potential to end very badly.

“If there had been panic there was the very real possibility that people – particularly the elderly, children and those less mobile – could have been hurt.

“Police are taking this matter very seriously.”

This is beyond moronic. The newspaper responsible is the Sunday Star-Times. I’ve often criticised the media for creating news, instead of reporting it, but this goes to a new low.

Ms Collins said security at major events is based on risk, and that security at a provincial rugby game will be much less than for a major international match.

“The only thing people masquerading as bombers will achieve is an unnecessary increase in security at considerable cost and inconvenience to the public,” she said.

“The last thing people want is the situation where people have to be body searched before attending provincial rugby matches.”

What were the SST trying to prove? Of course a suicide bomber could blow themselves and lots of other people up at a provincial rugby game.They could also blow lots of people up at a school rugby game, or the McEverdy Shield in Wellington.

I suspect their real intention was to scare monger about the Rugby World Cup. So their aim was to scare tens of thousands of people off globally from coming to New Zealand.

I’m pretty sure there will have been some laws broken by the people who posed as terrorists, but they should not be the ones prosecuted. The people who paid or commissioned them to do so, should face some consequences for such stupidity and malice.

Again I wonder what the SST saw as the end point for this. Do they want every provincial rugby game to have armed police officers, bomb checks, metal detectors?