Thank you for PRE-ORDERING the book — Heart of the Protest ! Two weeks ago we received SIX advance copies and we are so happy — they're beautiful. The books are now on a ship and currently on-route to New Zealand. Please expect to see your copy or copies arrive after 18 March 2026.
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THANK YOU for being foundational supporters of this project! Through your help, we've sold over 700 copies. This has enabled us to print, publish and ship. This is an extremely good pre-sales figure for a non-fiction New Zealand book, usually signalling a top-seller. Nevertheless we are still being 'ghosted' by media, bookshops and book distributors. We have tried hard to connect with them ...
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Why has it been slightly delayed? While we are working with a New Zealand printer — they use a factory in China and we had a slight hiccup when certain words and phrases in the book were censored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The A-Eye of China spied our text during telecommunication transfers and objected to some phrases — 'Sensitive text' — oh no, bad words. Below is an example of a comment they needed us to remove in order to use their factories:
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The Communists wanted us to rewrite history! Nor could they cope with the cover — it has the word "protest" in the title — that word does not exist in communist totalitarian regimes. :) But we say - Freedom!! Fortunately, our experienced New Zealand-based agents, quickly found us another printer in another country. But it cost us some time.
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Interestingly, the wonderful Chinese people also had massive "Freedom" protests during their harsh Covid restrictions. Known as the A4 Movement, they held up blank pieces of A4 paper to protest their autocratic government as they sought freedom and democracy. Their leaders, just like our Labour Government at the time, also tried to blame "nefarious foreign forces" for their Covid protests — refusing to admit it was a result of their own draconian rules and unnecessary regulations. All mention of that wide-spread protest in communist China has now been censored, rewritten.
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It was a good reminder of why we went to Parliament in February 2022 - to stop the tyrannical non-sensical harsh mandates and vaccine pass regulations in New Zealand and also the silencing and censorship that was happening. We did not tolerate it then, and we will never tolerate it again. We know how much of our story, even now, is being rewritten or interpreted falsely — which is why we made the film and why we have also written this book. :)
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We have our first review! Emanuel Garcia read the book before an interview with Gaylene Barnes and Siân Clement for his Substack "NewZealandDoc"
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REVIEW: “Heart of the Protest is a must-have for all of us who questioned the covid dictates and governmental oppression, a book which documents a unique and powerful chapter in the social and political life of Aotearoa New Zealand. When I look back at the protests, which I was a part of, there are a lot of things still hazy for me that I can't remember so accurately. And one of the things your book does is it puts the context in. It gives us the dates: the dates of the lockdowns; the dates of the beginning of the protest; the contour of the whole thing, which I think is really a wonderful scaffold. And it's very important for history and for posterity. And much as I like film, much as I appreciate the visual arts, there's nothing quite like the written word. And in your book, you've got great details and you've got the testimonies of a large variety of people, which I think are quite invaluable. So I'm going to, first of all, heartily recommend it to everyone. It's a wonderful book. I read it in one day. And it was just a joy to read.”
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Gaylene and Siân discuss free speech and censorship with Paul Brennan.
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Co-writer and director, Gaylene Barnes, sat down with Chris Lynch at a Black & White Cafe for a conversation to discuss her projects; including the struggle to release River of Freedom amidst media and cinema disdain; the importance of the new book Heart of the Protest; and her new weekly web series The Tribute which gives voice to the many Covid jab casualties. She also politely, proportionally and reasonably described Jacinda Ardern as "delusional" and that Chris Hipkins "cannot be Prime Minister" based on his role signing in to law the most egregious Covid Orders during 2020-22. This YouTube video has since been viewed over 81,000 times and is now Chris Lynch Media's most viewed NZ video ~ who knew that casual conversational TRUTH was so popular?
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We are pleased to let you know that quite a few copies of the book have been requested by Libraries. Please let your local library know they can buy the book from their preferred supplier: Wheelers.
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Thank you for being a crucial part of this historic project.
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Warmest regards and aroha,
Gaylene Barnes, Siân Clement & the River of Freedom team
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