Omar Hamed is an anarchist political activist based in Aotearoa New Zealand who was arrested in the October 15 anti-terror raids. He was born in Greece to New Zealand and Palestinian parents, and raised on Auckland's North Shore. He has told media that he gained his inspiration to become an activist from seeing his mother struggling to stop National and New Zealand First attacks on social welfare in the 1990s. While a student at Takapuna Grammar School he was instrumental in setting up Radical Youth, an anti-capitalist organisation for young people. He has also been involved in the Palestinian rights group Students for Justice in Palestine and helps run an activist social center in Auckland called A Space Inside. He was also a member of the Auckland Anarchist Collective. In 2007, he was involved in a protest in support of Iranian hunger striker Ali Panah at Mt Eden Prison. He, along with six other people, was arrested. He was given diversion and community service. The day following the protest, Ali Panah was freed from the remand prison. Hamed is also a published writer, having won an award for an article he wrote for the College Herald, he has had several articles published on the [ - ]

Omar Hamed is an anarchist political activist based in Aotearoa New Zealand who was arrested in... [ + ]