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The deaf defendant in the aborted Wanganui murder trial has no legal right to an interpreter, through the Justice Department says it is providing one.

New Zealand Sign Language must be given official recognition as a language or it will die, Deaf Association President Jennifer Brain says.

A television documentary on the plight of a deaf man has spurred the Glen Eden-based New Zealand Association of the Deaf into action. It wants to see the man, wrongly imprisoned for two years, receive compensation for his ordeal.

A shortage of sign language interpreters means as many as 7700 deaf people are struggling to access services in their communities.

A significant step for New Zealand's deaf community has been taken this week. The country's first permanent sign language interpreters' course began on Monday at the Auckland Institute of Technology. At present there are only four official interpreters servicing New Zealand's more than 24,000 deaf people. Sixteen students from around the country started the two-year course this week.

Northland sign language tutor Eddie Hokianga has taken up the task of ensuring the region's deaf Māori community is heard. Hokianga (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Porou) has spent the last three years teaching te reo sign language to help fill a national void of interpreters fluent in the discourse.

Wellington Deaf Society secretary, Pat Dugdale, is expecting 200 people from around New Zealand to take part in its 50th anniversary celebrations.

An interpreter passes on the Pope's message to the deaf during the outdoor Mass at Athletic Park.

The documentary 'The Remand of Ivan Curry (One, Sunday 9.35) was the story of how a man could spend two years in a New Zealand prison without trial. A deaf man arrested for a murder he did not commit who was kept in jail through lack of police investigation then turned back onto the streets with nothing, not even an apology.

The 600 people in Wellington at last have their own sign interpreter. Rachel Locker was appointed as sign language interpreter for the deaf on Monday.

The deaf community believes it has been misunderstood and misinterpreted for too long. Now it wants to be seen and heard as a group with its own cultural identity.

Deaf people can communicate country to country with more ease than those who can speak. It is not because they have an international sign language – each country has its own – but because it is a visual language.