Source: Radio New Zealand
Yellow smoke fills the air as an American flag is raised at the start of a Proud Boys rally at Delta Park in Portland, Oregon on September 26, 2020. AFP / Maranie R Staab
New Zealand’s spy agency did not believe the US far-right group Proud Boys met the threshold to be designated a terrorist entity in 2022, but went along with it anyway.
This has come out at a briefing of MPs by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) at a select committee on Wednesday.
SIS Director-General Andrew Hampton said they were also okay about the Proud Boys being removed from the terrorist list last year.
“We didn’t think they actually met the threshold” in 2022, he said.
Dropping them from the list in 2025 meant they ended up in a position that was “probably closer to our original advice” in 2022.
The Combined Threat Assessment group (CTAG), hosted by SIS, did not support putting it on the list back then, but the general view was to do it, and he was part of endorsing that.
“I know I’m sounding a little ambivalent here, but we didn’t necessarily think it was a strongly supported decision first time.”
SIS Director-General Andrew Hampton. VNP/Louis Collins
When it came around in 2025, “we didn’t have a strong view either”, he said.
In 2022, Proud Boys were described as an ideologically fascist group that violently targeted minority groups. Its supporters took part in storming the US Capitol in 2020, and several had their sentences for that commuted by US President Donald Trump last year.
In 2025, the group was removed from the terrorist list here, even though the National Security Board, which includes the SIS, unanimously recommended its designation be renewed.
The board chair then laid out the reasons arguing otherwise, and Hampton said he was happy with those.
“The reality is it’s not making much difference to the New Zealand threat environment because they aren’t subjects for our investigation,” he told the select committee.
Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan asked if the SIS would have endorsed removing it, despite the police saying they were a crypto-fascist group with participation in New Zealand.
The police had compiled a 29-page report of the case for putting it on the list. Under “Proud Boys in other countries”, the report mentioned Canada and Australia but not New Zealand.
Hampton said they had ended up closer to CTAG’s original advice in 2022.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
