Source: Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)
17 June 2026 – The non-confidential payout received this week follows negotiations after last year’s IPCA (Independent Police Conduct Authority) report finding that police use of pepper spray against Mr Minto at a protest on 6 February 2024 was “excessive use of force and therefore unjustified”.
The Authority also found that Minto’s “arrest for obstruction was unlawful” and “that the force used against you and your arrest were both unlawful”.
“I’m pleased this issue is now resolved but disturbed that even after the IPCA report the police have not accepted responsibility for what in this instance was thuggish behaviour,” says Minto.
“The police say they don’t accept the IPCA report findings and conceded only that they didn’t provide “aftercare” following their gratuitous use of pepper spray on several people in the protest.”
“I’m writing to the Police Minister to ask for legislative change so IPCA findings become legally binding on police.”
The $10,000 will be donated to PSNA to advocate for a one-state solution to Israel’s hundred-years of land theft, dispossession and colonial violence against the Palestinian people.
Under a one-state solution everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea would have equal rights under a democratic constitution where ethnic and religious rights are protected. (Note: Israel has made a two-state solution impossible by building hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements housing more than 700,000 Israelis across the occupied Palestinian Territories.)
John Minto
National Campaign Co-ordinator
Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)