The Police Commissioner Rob Robinson will be launching the ethnic website tomorrow (Thursday 9 June 2005) afternoon in Auckland.
www.police.govt.nz/service/ethnic
Information about the services offered by NZ Police is now available in seven ethnic languages on the police website. Police Commissioner Rob Robinson says the website pages were developed to provide non-English-speaking migrants, refugees and people visiting New Zealand with information about NZ Police in their own language. The languages are Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Somali and Vietnamese.
"We consulted community members before choosing the languages. The seven languages chosen represent both the demographic make up and the needs in these communities," says Commissioner Robinson.
"The ethnic communities involved were consulted about the development of the pages from the outset. We found members from all the ethnic communities largely had similar information needs and they told us that we needed to have more information available to new migrants and visitors in their own language," he said.
"The way the police work and laws are quite different in many of these countries, so one of the more important aspects of the pages is to explain to people how the law and policing works in New Zealand.
Information on the pages includes how to contact and communicate with police, role of the police and community members’ rights, personal safety and road safety information, ethnic/Asian liaison officer contact details, information about NZ Police Ethnic Strategy, and how to join NZ Police.