Some international locations may ship in a riot squad to disperse trespassing protesters. In New Zealand, authorities turned on the sprinklers and Barry Manilow.
Preliminary strikes to attempt to flush out a number of hundred protesters who've been camped on Parliament's grassy grounds since Tuesday had little impact.
The protesters, who've been voicing their opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates, responded to the soaking from the sprinklers by digging trenches and putting in makeshift drainpipes to divert the water.
When a downpour hit on Saturday, their numbers solely grew. Protesters introduced in bales of straw, which they scattered on the more and more sodden grounds at Parliament. Some shouted, others danced and one group carried out an Indigenous Maori haka.
By night, Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard had provide you with a brand new plan to make the protesters uncomfortable: utilizing a sound system to blast out vaccine messages, decades-old Barry Manilow songs and the Nineties earworm hit 'Macarena' on a repeat loop.
Protesters responded by enjoying their very own tunes, together with Tornado Sister's 'We're Not Gonna Take It'.
The protest started when a convoy of vans and vehicles drove to Parliament from across the nation, impressed by protests in Canada. At first there have been greater than 1000 protesters however that quantity dwindled because the week wore on earlier than rising once more on Saturday.
Police have been taking a extra hands-off strategy since Thursday, once they arrested 122 individuals and charged lots of them with trespassing or obstruction. Police, who've been sporting protecting vests however have not been utilizing riot gear or carrying weapons, had tried to slowly advance on the protesters.
However that resulted in quite a lot of bodily confrontations. A video of two feminine officers briefly dragging a unadorned girl by her hair from amid a scuffle went viral.
In a response to questions from The Related Press, New Zealand police stated they didn't take away the girl's clothes as some individuals had claimed on-line, and that she had been bare for "a while" earlier than her arrest.
Police additionally stated the photographs and movies did not present the total context of the protest exercise or the state of affairs that police confronted.
Nonetheless, the scuffles appeared to immediate a strategic rethink by police, who appeared extra content material to attend it out because the week wore on. However by Friday, Mallard, the Parliament speaker, had seen sufficient, and advised workers to activate the sprinklers in a single day.
"Nobody who's right here is right here legally, and in the event that they're getting moist from beneath in addition to above, they're more likely to be somewhat bit much less snug and extra more likely to go house," Mallard stated, in response to information organisation Stuff.