French police have shot and killed two men in New Caledonia, stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of a public holiday marking France’s annexation of the Pacific archipelago.

The pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) decried the deaths yesterday as “barbaric and humiliating methods” used by French police resulting in a “summary execution” and called for an independent investigation.

The shootings bring the number of deaths in the Pacific territory to 13 since unrest began in May over French government changes to a voting law that indigenous Kanak people feared would compromise their push for independence.

The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the tribal village of Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement near the capital Nouméa.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a media statement the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for attempted murder of officers and for armed robbery on the Saint Louis road, with “nearly 300 shots noted in recent months.”

“The two deceased persons were the subject of a search warrant, among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe,” Dupas said, adding they had failed to respond to summonses.

Dupas ordered two investigations, one over the attempted murders of police officers and the second into “death without the intention of causing it relating to the use of weapons by the GIGN gendarmerie (elite police tactical unit) and the consequent death of the two persons sought”.

Push back ‘peaceful solution’
Union Calédonienne (UC) secretary-general Dominique Fochi said yesterday the actions of French security forces “only worsen the situation on the ground and push back the prospect of a peaceful solution.”

“The FLNKS denounces the barbaric and humiliating methods used by the police, who did not hesitate to carry out a summary execution of one of the young people in question,” Fochi read from a FLNKS statement at a press conference.

“We demand an immediate de-escalation of military interventions in the south of our country, particularly in Saint Louis, where militarisation and pressure continue on the population, which can only lead to more human drama.”

The statement called for an immediate “independent and impartial investigation to shed light on the circumstances of these assassinations in order to establish responsibilities”.

Prosecutor Dupas said police came under fire from up to five people during the operation in Saint Louis and responded with two shots.

“The first shot from the policeman hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone sniper, who was wounded in the right flank. The second shot hit a 29-year-old man in the chest,” Dupas said, adding three rifles and ammunition had been seized.

One of the men died at the scene, while the other escaped and later died after arriving at a local hospital.

Kanaky-Nouvelle-Calédonie : Une colonie française 🇳🇨

Samir vous raconte l’histoire de la résistance kanak et vous explique pourquoi la France veut absolument garder la main sur cet archipel !

⏬ La vidéo ⏬ pic.twitter.com/gPCZFmlCGH

— Paroles d’Honneur (@ParolesDHonneur) September 18, 2024

Deaths raise Citizenship Day tensions
The deaths are likely to raise tensions ahead of Citizenship Day on Tuesday, which will mark the 171st anniversary of France’s takeover of New Caledonia.

For many Kanaks, the anniversary is a reminder of France’s brutal colonisation of the archipelago that is located roughly halfway between Australia and Fiji.

Paris has beefed up security ahead of Citizenship Day, with High Commissioner Louis Le Franc saying nearly 7000 French soldiers, police and gendarmes are now in New Caledonia.

“I have requested reinforcements, which have been granted,” he told local station Radio Rythme Bleu last week.

“This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988 — we have never had this,” he said, referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the promise of an independence referendum.

Authorities have also imposed a strict curfew from 6 pm to 6 am between September 21-24, restricted alcohol sales, the transport of fuel and possession of firearms.

Kanaks make up about 40 percent of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalised in their own land — they have lower incomes and poorer health outcomes than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

UN decolonisation process
New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three votes were part of the Noumea Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing with the status quo.

However, supporters of independence have rejected its legitimacy due to very low turnout — it was boycotted by the independence movement — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

Earlier this year, the president of Union Calédonienne proposed Septemnber 24 as the date by which sovereignty should be declared from France. The party later revised the date to 2025, but the comments underscored how self-determination is firmly in the minds of local independence leaders.

The unrest that erupted in May was the worst outbreak of violence in decades and has left the New Caledonian economy on the brink of collapse, with damages estimated to be at least 1.2 billion euros (US $1.3 billion).

Some 35,000 people are out of a job.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Three Nouméa municipal policemen are now facing a prosecution after a disturbing video was posted in a Facebook neighbourhood watch group, allegedly implicating them in acts of severe violence against a Kanak man they had just arrested.

The municipal police officers are not part of the French security forces that have been sent to restore law and order, RNZ Pacific understands.

Initial investigations established that the violence took place on at 6th Kilometre, on the night of May 25-26, and that it “followed the arrest of several persons suspected of a theft attempt”, Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas said in a statement yesterday.

The incident was captured in a brief video, later posted on social networks, being shared hundreds of times and going viral.

“It is the management of municipal police themselves who have signalled this to us”, Dupas said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office said it had verified the authenticity of the short footage which depicted a “representative of the security forces striking a violent foot kick to the head of a person sitting on the ground after he was arrested”.

On the same video, the other two officers, all equipped with riot gear, are seen to be standing by, surrounding the victim.

Dupas said a formal inquiry was now underway against the three municipal police officers who were now facing charges of “violence from a person entrusted with public authority and failure to assist a person in peril”.

“This case will be treated with every expected severity, being related to presumed facts of illegitimate violence on the part of officers entrusted with a mission of administrative and judicial police”, the statement said.

It added that “this is the first case being treated for this type of act since the beginning of civil unrest in New Caledonia” and further stressed that law enforcement agencies deployed on the ground have displayed “professionalism” in the “difficult management of the law enforcement operations carried out”.

“The victim remains to be approached by investigators in order to undergo medical examination and assess his current health condition.”

The announcement was made as part of the French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc during his daily update on the situation.

“As a follow-up to the end of the state of emergency since Tuesday, 28 May, 2024, the ban on the platform TikTok has been lifted,” a statement said.

The ban was announced on May 15 in what was then described as an attempt to block contacts between rioting groups in the French Pacific territory.

It had since then been widely contested as a breach of human rights.

Doubts had also been expressed on how effective the measure could have been, with other platforms (such as Facebook, WhatsApp or Viber) remaining accessible and the fact that the ban on Tiktok could be easily dodged with VPN tools.

World Cup 1998 winner Karembeu ‘in mourning’
Earlier this week, former footballer and 1998 World Cup champion Christian Karembeu made a surprise revelation saying two members of his family had been shot dead during the riots.

Speaking to French radio Europe 1 on Monday, Karembeu said: “I have lost members of my family, that’s why I remained silent (until now), because I am in mourning.”

“Two members of my family have been shot with a bullet in the head. These are snipers. The word is strong but they have been assassinated and we hope investigations will be made on these murders”, the Kanak footballer said, adding the victims were his nephew and his niece.

Karembeu’s career involves 53 tests for the French national football team, one world cup victory (1998), playing for prestigious European clubs such as Nantes, Sampdoria, and Real Madrid (where he won two Champions League titles), Olympiakos, Servette, and Bastia.

He is now a strategic advisor and ambassador for Greek club Olympiakos.

Reacting to Karembeu’s announcements, Chief Prosecutor Dupas told public broadcaster NC la Première on Tuesday he believed Karembeu was referring to the two Kanak people who were killed earlier this month in Nouméa’s industrial zone of Ducos.

“I do not know what his family kinship relation is with those two victims who were assassinated in Ducos,” he said.

“But concerning these facts, an investigation is underway, it has gotten pretty far already, one (European) company manager has been arrested and remains in custody. The Justice is processing all the facts, crimes, committed.”

“We have, among the civilian victims, four persons of the Kanak community and it is a possibility that some of those could be related to Christian Karembeu”, he said.

Asked on a possibly higher number of fatalities, he stressed the death toll so far remained at seven.

“We have not received any other complaint regarding people shooting civilians”, he maintained, while encouraging members of the public who would be aware of other fatal incidents to come forward and contact his office.

“We arrived in our car, I saw the roadblock, I barely had time to reverse and go back and they started to shoot. About 10 times,” the unidentified witness said, showing two bullet holes on his car.

“I have lodged a complaint for murder attempt and now the investigation is ongoing,” he said.

Two other Kanaks said the following day, on May 16, while in the streets of their neighbourhood, they were shot at by balaclava-clad passengers of two driving by pick-up trucks.

“We started to run and that’s when we heard the first gunshots. My little brother managed to take shelter at a neighbour’s home, and I went on running with the 4WD behind me. When I arrived at my family’s home, I jumped into the garden and that’s when I heard a second gunshot”, he told La Première.

“We never thought this would happen to us”.

Dupas said another, wider investigation, was underway since May 17 in order to identify “those who are pulling the ropes and who led the “planning and committing of attacks that have hit New Caledonia”.

“This means anyone, whatever his/her level of implication, whether order-givers or just actors”.

Latest update
The state of emergency was lifted on Tuesday in New Caledonia following an announcement from French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in New Caledonia on a 17-hour visit last Thursday.

The end of the state of emergency was described by Macron as being part of the “commitments” he made while meeting representatives of New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement last week and to allow leaders to spread the message to people to lift roadblocks and barricades and “loosen the grip”.

However, a dusk-to-dawn (6pm to 6am) curfew remains in place, including a ban on public meetings, the sale of alcohol and the possession and transportation of firearms and ammunition, French High Commissioner Louis Le France said yesterday.

An estimated 3500 security forces (police, gendarmes and special riot squads) remain on the ground.

Taxis have announced they were now resuming service, but bus services remain closed because “too many roads remain impracticable”.

High Commissioner Le Franc said that since the unrest began on May 13, a total of 535 people had been arrested, 136 security forces (police and gendarmes) had been injured and the death toll remained at seven (including two gendarmes, four indigenous Kanaks and one person of European ascent).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A scene examination is continuing at a construction site in central Auckland after a fatal shooting there shocked the city yesterday morning.

The gunman, 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid, was on home detention but allowed to work at the construction site.

He died at the scene in a shoot-out with police after killing two civilians with a pump-action shotgun. Six others were wounded, including two police officers.

The horror unfolded on the opening day of the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup in Auckland and a minute’s silence for the shooting victims was held at the first game at Eden Park last night when New Zealand defeated Norway 1-0.

Police officers in high-vis vests have today re-entered the high-rise building on the corner of Queen and Quay streets and at least seven police cars are at the cordoned off site.

A man working on the repairs at nearby Queen’s Wharf told RNZ the rules had been tightened at their site and people entering were being checked.

A commuter said there appeared to be extra security at Britomart Station transit hub this morning but he felt safe.

“It was every emotion yesterday,” he said, but he thought the city had coped well in the aftermath of the ‘shock and horror’ of the morning’s events.”

Brown said he supported Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s decision to call for a rahui in the CBD area, and the FIFA fan zone on Quay Street had been closed.

Ngāti Whātua has said this morning that no rahui is in place.

“[The] fan zone was right hard up against the dreadful event and it just didn’t seem to be right to be having a night of celebration right next door to something that had been so horrible,” he said.

“Ngāti Whātua called for, and I supported, a rahui on the area down there so we shut the fan zone and people, with a sad tinge, did go to the game at Eden Park, but with respect.

“They had the one minute’s silence, which was part of our culture and the correct thing to do, and then there was a wonderful game afterwards so, I think … the city took it well.”

‘Good end to dreadful day’
Brown said he had spoken to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins after last night’s match between New Zealand and Norway and they had agreed it was “a very good end to a dreadful day”.

He said FIFA officials had been “very sympathetic” about the shooting.

“They were very understanding, they were very concerned about the impact on the tournament, but also deeply respectful of the losses of — almost innocence — of the people here in Auckland CBD, plus of course the dreadful loss of life from this shocking experience.”

While he had been one of the people raising concerns about ongoing crime issues such as ram raids in Auckland, Brown said he was not thinking about anything on the scale of what occurred yesterday.

“It’s something out of the ordinary and I think this is one random person … and we shouldn’t possibly extrapolate that across the district, but crime on the streets with the ram raids is something which has got to be dealt with.”

Brown had praise for both the police and members of the public regarding how they responded to the unfolding crisis on Thursday morning.

“The police were wonderful, they responded bravely and promptly,” he said.

“People behaved very well considering what an appalling thing had happened.”

Violence like this has no place in city, says Swarbrick
There would be a time for political debate and discussions about how to prevent incidents like yesterday’s shooting, Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick told Morning Report, but that time was not right now.

“I very, very strongly want the message to be here that this violence has absolutely no place in our city or in our country, and we utterly reject it,” she said.

Swarbrick said her thoughts were with the whānau and friends of those who had died as well as those who had been injured, emergency service staff, and the workers who had experienced the traumatic event.

She said questions had been put to police officials at a briefing she attended yesterday, including about how the shooter had obtained a gun without a licence and while he was on home detention.

Swarbrick expected those questions would be answered “in due course” but said it was important the facts were “crystal clear” first.

“I don’t think that anyone benefits from politicians speculating in a vacuum of facts.”

The briefing had made it “very clear that this was a tragic but isolated incident connected to the workplace and that there is no outstanding associated risk”, she said.

Asked whether she believed a broader inquiry was needed to look into the use of home detention, Swarbrick said a number of reports commissioned by successive governments had identified evidence-based policies to address what was a complex issue, but that evidence was often “politically unpalatable”.

The rhetoric and debate around law and order was often reduced to “soundbyte-solutions”, she said, “things that politicians know will not work and oftentimes are contrary to evidence”.

She said New Zealanders deserved evidence-based interventions when it came to tackling crime.

“It is really clear what we have to resource in terms of evidence-based policy but it is the crunchy and the hard stuff which looks meaningfully at prevention, it’s not this knee-jerk ‘tough-on-crime’ nonsense.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

My daughter came into the kitchen early today to tell me her friends were downtown in Auckland at Britomart, the transit hub of New Zealand’s biggest city, and that a construction worker had just run past them saying a man with a gun was shooting people.

I immediately swept all the online news media and saw nothing and was in the process of suggesting to her that maybe her friends were pranking her when it broke on Breakfast TV.

I know the area this shooting occurred in well — I was there a few days ago; most Aucklanders will know it as it is a vital entry point to downtown Auckland. To have a mass shooting event there is utterly outside the norm for Aucklanders.

As the reverberations and shock ease, there will of course be immediate political fall out.

Before all that though, first, let us acknowledge the uncompromising courage of our New Zealand police and emergency services. We all saw them sprint into that building knowing someone was armed and shooting people.

I am the first to be critical of the NZ Police, but on this day, their professionalism and unflinching bravery was one of the few things we can be grateful for on such a poisoned morning.

Let us also pause and mourn the two who were killed and 10 wounded. These were simply good honest folk going about their day of work and not one of them deserved the horror visited upon them by 24-year-old Matu Tangi Matua Reid.

Now let’s talk about Matu.

Troubling pump-action shotgun access
The media have already highlighted that he was on home detention for domestic violence charges and was wearing an ankle bracelet. This is of no surprise nor shock, many on home detention have the option of applying for leave to work — we do this because those on home detention still need to pay the rent, far more troubling was his access to a pump-action shotgun he didn’t have a gun licence for.

We know he had already been in a Turn Your Life Around Youth Development Trust programme.

Political partisans will try and seize any part of his story to whip into political frenzy for their election narrative and we should reject and resist that.

The banality of evil always tends to be far more basic than we ever appreciate.

There is nothing special about Matu; he is simply another male without the basic emotional tools to facilitate his anger beyond violence. In that regard Matu is depressingly like tens of thousands of men in NZ.

His background didn’t justify this terrible act of violence today and his actions can’t be conflated to show Labour are soft on crime.

Another depressing violent male
Matu is just another depressing male whose violence he could not control. There are tens of thousands like him and until we start focusing on building young men who have the emotional tools to facilitate their anger beyond violence, he won’t be the last.

He has shamed himself.

He has shamed his family.

He has shamed us all.

Today isn’t a day for politics, it is far too sad for that, the politics will come and everyone will be screaming their sweaty truth, but at its heart this is about broken men incapable of keeping their violence to themselves.

What a sorrowful day for my beautiful city.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

PNG Defence Force Commander Major-General Mark Goina says “appropriate force” will be dealt to the gunmen who ambushed and wounded two soldiers in Saugurap, Enga Province, last week.

In a statement Major-General Goina said: “A section from the PNGDF contingent deployed in Enga Province were on routine duty, conducting clearance patrol to Laiagam when it sighted a vehicle of interest in vicinity of Saugurap at around 2pm on 1 February 2023.”

The suspects upon sighting the PNGDF soldiers closing in on them got out of their vehicle and escaped into the bush with high powered weapons — M16, SLR, AK as reported.

This prompted the troops on the scene to pursue further with subsequent clearance and search of the vehicle of interest, he said.

The intent was to search the vehicle and bring it to Wabag Police Station for further action.

“Suspects withdrew, then reinforced and fired shots at the soldiers,” Major-General Goina said.

“It was an ambush as the suspects took the high ground on both sides to their advantage. Contact lasted for under 2 hours. Suspects also cut trees to block off troops from withdrawing.

Two soldiers wounded
“During the shootout, two PNGDF personnel were wounded. One sustained an injury (bullet wound) below his chin. The other member; was shot through his mouth with an exit wound through his gum.

“The member was brought to Wabag General Hospital and underwent minor surgery the same night and is in a stable condition. Both members are from Second Royal Pacific Islands Regiment, based in Moem Barracks, Wewak, East Sepik Province.”

Major-General Goina said: “It is reported also that the vehicle of interest was the same one that was used during the killing of 11 locals in [the] vicinity of Tole/Kaiap a fortnight ago.

“As CDF, I am very concerned about ongoing criminal activities and no respect and adherence to the rule of law in the Enga Province.

“The PNGDF will not sit back and let criminal elements undermine the authority of the state.”

Collaborating with the police and in accordance with law,  Major-General Goina said, “we will deploy an appropriate force to deal with those responsible for ambushing the members of the PNGDF on [an] authorised task.”

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A pastor has been shot dead at the weekend allegedly by the Indonesian military, sparking protests by church groups and a call for an investigation.

The pastor, Rev Yeremia Zanambani, was killed on Saturday in the Hitadipa district of Intan Jaya regency, Papua.

He was the former chairperson of the GKII Hitadipa district churches, vice-chairman of the Moni Bible translator, and also head of the STA Hitadipa school.

Neighbourhood community sources in Hitadipa village confirmed the shooting.

“This pastor went to to his pig pen in Bomba, a village not far from Hitadipa, to feed pigs. His body was just found this morning with his hand cut and shot,” the source said on Sunday.

Previously, the Indonesian military (TNI) had warned the Hitadipa communities to immediately return two weapons that had been allegedly taken by the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB) from the Hitadipa Koramil post.

Killing condemned
The Jakarta Post reports that according to leaders of the Indonesian Evangelical Christian Church (GKII) and local media in Papua, the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) chairman, Gomar Gultom, had alleged that Zanambani had been shot by TNI personnel at the same time that a military operation reportedly took place.

“I strongly condemn the shooting that killed pastor Yeremia Zanambani,” Gomar said yesterday.

Gomar said reports that the PGI had received differed from the account of the military, which published a statement on Sunday claiming Zanambani had been shot by an “armed criminal group” in the area.

The GKII, PGI executives and figures of the Moni tribe in Papua – an indigenous group to which Zanambani belonged – were currently investigating the incident, Gomar said.

Suara Papua articles are republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Six Papuan civilians have been killed and at least three others wounded after Indonesian security forces opened fire at a rally in Deiyai regency, Papua, as protests intensified, report news media.

The Jakarta Post cited reports from two eyewitnesses and security forces later confirmed that one soldier had also died and at least two policemen had been injured in the violence.

Agus Mote, one of the protesters, and a local Catholic priest, Santon Tekege, said six protesters had been killed and at least three others injured by shots from security forces, the Post reported.

READ MORE: Asia Pacific Report’s coverage of the Papuan upheaval

According to Suara Papua’s Arnold Belau, the military and police opened fire on the peaceful protesters yesterday after they had reportedly tried to occupy local government offices in Deiyai.

“The people entered the regent’s office to ask him to sign a joint statement. As soon as they tried to enter the office, officers from the TNI and Polri opened fire,” said Mote, spokesperson for the pro-independence KNPB Deiyai Region.

He said the protesters wanted to discuss their demands peacefully, but suddenly the forces opened fire.

Al Jazeera reported that children were among the wounded.

Reporting from Jakarta, Febriana Firdaus cited anonymous witnesses saying that the “demonstrators [were] fleeing into the jungle for fear of being pursued by police and soldiers”.

However, Indonesian national police spolkesman Dedi Prasetyo denied that demonstrators were killed in Deiyai.

Firdaus reported that Al Jazeera and other media organisations found it difficult to gather and verify news from the region because of the Indonesian internet blackout imposed last week.

Protests have raged across the Papuan region for almost two weeks. The region is divided into two provinces, Papua and West Papua.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As the police worked to release victims’ bodies to families by tonight, the first were buried this afternoon.

Father and son, 44-year-old Khaled Mustafa and 15-year-old Hamza, were laid to rest in a Janaza service at Memorial Park Cemetery in Linwood.

The service started at 12.30pm when the bodies arrived by hearse.

READ MORE: RNZ’s tribute to the lost – ‘They are us’

They were wrapped in cloth and carried on a board by several mourners.

At the graveside family members prayed while about 200 mourners stood some distance away. Other ceremonies took place after

Green MP Golriz Ghahraman … politicians bear some responsibility. Image: RNZ

Meanwhile, Green MP Golriz Ghahraman challenged Parliament to “change the way we do politics” in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attacks.

Politicians bore some responsibility for the shootings that killed 50 people at two mosques on Friday, said Ghahraman.

‘Fanned division’
“There sit among us those who have for years fanned the flames of division, who have blamed migrants for the housing crisis,” she said.

“None of us are directly responsible for what happened on Friday – we’re all horrified – but we’re all on notice now, we have to change the way we do politics.”

Ghahraman said although the man accused of the shootings was not born in New Zealand, the ideology that led to the Christchurch mosque shootings existed in pockets of New Zealand.

This rhetoric was not mirrored in other parts of the world, as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a political rally, criticised the Anzacs for their role in Gallipoli. He threatened to send New Zealanders and Australians who came to his country with anti-Islam sentiment back in a casket.

“Your grandparents came here… and they returned in caskets. Have no doubt, we will send you back like your grandfathers.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison today described Erdogan’s comments as “reckless and deeply offensive”.

“I don’t find them very accurate or truthful as well because the actions of the Australian and the New Zealand governments have been consistent with our values of welcome and supporting people from all around the world.

Withdraw demand
“I have asked for these comments, particularly the reporting of the misrepresented position of Australia on Turkish television, the state-sponsored broadcaster, to be taken down.”

Morrison summoned the Turkish ambassador to Australia to his office to demand the comments be withdrawn and said further diplomatic action could follow if they were not.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discussed Erdogan’s comments as part of a press conference in Christchurch but struck a different tone.

She said Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters would confront those issues while in Turkey.

She said she did not anticipate a change in New Zealand’s relationship with that country.

“It is so deeply entrenched. They have cared for our fallen.

“I reject the idea we are losing that relationship.”

Peters left the country yesterday, headed for Turkey after a stop in Indonesia to express his condolences for the Indonesian killed in the Christchurch attacks.

Two-minute silence
At the same press conference, Ardern said there would be two minutes of silence, with the call to prayer broadcast on RNZ and TVNZ.

A national memorial, to be held in Christchurch, was still in the planning stages she said.

“While it will be in Christchurch we want to involve the rest of New Zealand.”

Ardern spoke of her empathy with the frustration victims’ families were feeling at having to wait so long for the bodies of their loved ones to be returned.

However, she said the Muslim community had showed great compassion through this difficult time.

“Their response has been overwhelming that what they seek is justice … but overwhelming they keep reflecting back to me the sense of support they have had from the New Zealand community.

Ardern said although there were global issues involved in Friday’s attacks, such as gun control and moderation of social media content, she would continue to provide the New Zealand perspective on behalf of New Zealanders.

Many ‘loopholes’
She also said there were a “large number of loopholes” in New Zealand’s gun laws and there were a range of things to be fixed.

“Many New Zealanders would be astounded to know that you can access military-style semi-automatics.

“If I could say New Zealand was a blueprint for anything, I would say it was a blueprint of what not to do.”

Ardern hoped New Zealand could now demonstrate what could be done with gun control.

In a press conference yesterday, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police believed the accused gunman in the mosque attacks was going to commit further crimes when he was arrested.

“We absolutely believe we know where he was going and we intervened along the way.”

Friday marks a week since the attacks that killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch and as a safety precaution, many closed their doors.

Open doors
But mosques across Auckland will open their doors to the public on Friday night, their holiest day of the week, to remember the 50 lives that were lost in Christchurch.

The Ponsonby Masjid, Ranui Mosque, North Shore Islamic Centre and Masjid Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq in Pakuranga called for people of all faiths to join them and show solidarity.

Muslim Association president Ikhlaq Kashari said they wanted to encourage an atmosphere of inclusivity and openness, and an opportunity to heal as a community.

However, members of the Muslim community have emphasised that mosques are always open to the public and they were welcome any time.

More than 500 people across the country have registered to give blood since the Christchurch mosque shootings, saying they want to do what they can to help.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ

Police Commissioner Mike Bush says police knew where the suspect from the Christchurch mosque attacks was going after the New Zealand shootings and intervened.

During a media conference today, Bush gave further details of the police response during the attacks that killed 50 people at Al Noor and Linwood mosques last Friday.

He said within five minutes and 39 seconds of being notified the first responders were armed and on the scene and ready to respond and within 10 minutes the armed offenders squad was on the scene.

WATCH RNZ VIDEO: Police Commissioner Mike Bush speaks to the media

“Within 21 minutes the person that is now in custody was arrested.”

Bush said the person was apprehended on the way to another target. He would not say what the target was.

-Partners-

“We strongly believe we stopped him on the way to a further attack, so lives were saved.

“We absolutely believe we know where he was going and we intervened along the way.”

2 assault rifles
He said during the arrest of the suspect, officers seized two assault rifles and at least one semi-automatic rifle.

Police had previously said the suspect was in custody at the justice precinct within 36 minutes, but Bush said the arrest at the roadside took only 21 minutes.

Speaking about identifying the victims’ bodies, Bush said it was an absolute priority to return the victims to their families.

As of at 11.30pm yesterday 21 of the victims had been formally identified, and by midday there would be a further six victims identified and made available to their families.

“By the end of today we should have completed the majority of those identifications. But I have to say that some of those victims will take a little longer.”

While the priority was the families, police also had other obligations, he said.

“The first one on behalf of the chief coroner and all of the coroners is to ensure absolute accuracy in that identification process,” Bush said.

Six coroners
“If we get it wrong, that’s unforgivable,” he said.

Six coroners including the chief coroner are on site. More than 100 specialists and experts including police, the Disaster Victim Identification unit, Defence Force pathologists and odonatologists were working on the identification with overseas assistance.

Bush said the other responsibility was the prosecution of the case.

“We must prove, for prosecution, the cause of death to the satisfaction of the coroner and the judge.

“You cannot convict for murder without that cause of death.”

The investigation was an international one, he said. The FBI were on the ground in New Zealand; Australian Federal Police, other Australian police and other jurisdictions overseas were being consulted.

The threat level remained at high.

Three other arrests
“If there was a specific threat, we would make sure we communicated that,” Bush said.

Along with the accused, there were three others arrested around the time of the attacks.

“There was a lone gentleman who appeared at one of the cordons. He wasn’t involved, he did have a firearm, so that’s been dealt with.

“There was another couple who turned up at a cordon – a male and a female.

“She has been released without charge. I do understand that the male in that vehicle has been charged with firearms offences.

“We do not believe that they are in any way related to the attacker or the attack.”

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Out of the blue:
It was 1:39pm, Friday March 15. As was usual for a Friday, hundreds of people had turned up to pray at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, Christchurch. All was peaceful, women, children, men, people of all ages young and old, both Sunni and Shia, were in contemplative repose free of worry.

It was a mild, late summer, 20 degrees Celsius day. Earlier, the touring Bangladesh cricket team had briefly visited the mosque, but left early to attend a press conference. By 1:39pm, they had returned and were outside exiting a bus, intending to continue with their prayers inside the mosque.

At 1:40pm, ahead of the team, a man entered the mosque walking quickly up the front steps. He was carrying an assault rifle and dressed in combat uniform. He immediately began shooting people who were kneeling in prayer.

The shots rang out and the Bangladesh team members realising they were witnesses to an attack, retreated, and fled on foot to nearby Hagley Park.

Back inside the Al Noor Mosque, scores of worshippers were being gunned down, some killed instantly, others bleeding to death. The victims included little Mucaad Ibrahim who was three years of age. Mucaad was known by his loved ones as a wise “old soul” and possessed an “intelligence beyond his years”.

Eye witnesses said that once the killer began shooting people, little Mucaad became separated from his family. In the chaos, his family could not find him. The next day police confirmed he too had been shot dead by the killer.

The murders continued at the Al Noor Mosque until the killer’s firearms ran out of bullets. Then, he simply walked out of the mosque, got in his car, and drove six kilometres to the Linwood Mosque. There too were people who had gathered for their regular Friday afternoon prayers.

Al Noor Mosque to Linwood Mosque – EveningReportNZ/Google Maps.

Inside Linwood Mosque was Abdul Aziz, a man who had gathered with his Muslim brothers. He had just begun his second pray when he heard gunshots outside. At first he thought it was someone playing with firecrackers (fireworks). But then, within seconds, he heard people screaming.

Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside.

He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: “Who are you”. Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: “Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!”

Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focussed. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing “army clothes”, dressed in “SWAT combat clothing”, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava.

Inside the Linwood Mosque, another witness, Shoaib Gani, was kneeling in prayer. He heard a noise like fireworks but he and others weren’t too concerned and continued with their prayers. Then, as he and his fellow worshipers were kneeling speaking verses from the Koran, the man next to him fell forward with blood pouring from his head. He had been shot and killed instantly, Gani said. Then others too began falling to the floor dead.

Gani crawled under a table. He saw the killer and his firearm. “Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’,” he said.

Victims, who were wounded and bleeding, were pleading with Gani to help them. But he was frozen to a spot under a table knowing that the killer was walking around the mosque killing as many people as he could. Gani believed he too would also soon be dead, so he reached for his cellphone, he called his parent’s back home in India. But no one answered. He tried to call his father’s number, but the phone kept ringing. He saw people around him bleeding to death. Others with fatal head-wounds: “Their brains were hanging out. I just couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Gani phoned 111 (the New Zealand emergency number) and told the authorities people were dead and injured: “The lady on the phone asked me to stay on the line as long as I could.”

Outside, Abdul Aziz picked up one of the killer’s discarded shotguns. Inside the mosque, the killer’s assault rifle ran out of bullets. The killer then “dropped his firearm” and ran back to his vehicle. He got in the driver’s seat. Aziz then ran toward the car. He threw a discarded shotgun at the killer’s vehicle: “I threw it like an arrow. It shattered his window.” Aziz thinks the killer thought someone had shot at him with a loaded gun. The killer turned. He swore at Aziz. When the window burst it covered the inside of the car with glass. Aziz said the killer “then took off” driving in his car. He then turned right away from the mosque driving through a red traffic light and out into Christchurch suburban streets.

Some minutes later, police and ambulance officers arrived at Linwood Mosque. Anti-terrorist armed police entered the mosque. Inside, Gani said the survivors were ordered to put their hands up above their heads. The mass murder scene was covered in blood. The police then secured the area. Some victims survived because they were under the bodies of the dead. Police told survivors to gather near a grassed area outside. There, people began weeping for their husbands, wives, parents, children, friends.

Alleged killer Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court on March 16, 2019, charged with one count of murder. Further charges will be laid. While before the court, he smiled at onlookers and signalled a white supremacist sign with his fingers – EveningReportNZ/Screengrab of TVNZ coverage.

The arrest:
Seventeen minutes later, two police officers identified the killer, apparently driving his car. They drove the police car into the killer’s vehicle, ramming it against a curb. Immediately, they disarmed the killer, cuffed him, and noticed home made bombs in the vehicle – IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They arrested the man and secured the scene.

The rest of Christchurch was in lockdown, children were kept safe inside their classrooms, hospitals began to prepare for casualties, the city’s streets became eerily quiet, people were locked in to libraries, shops, their homes. Police and armed forces helicopters networked the skies. No one knew if the terrorist attacks were committed by a group of people or a lone gunman.

But back inside and at the entrances to the two mosques, 50 people were dead – one of the dead was discovered the next day by police; the body was laying beneath others who had been killed. Scores of others were in hospital fighting for their lives, at least another 10 were in a critical condition in intensive care. Pathologists from all over New Zealand and Australia were heading to Christchurch to help with documenting the method of murder of the dead.

Within hours of the killings, Australian media named the alleged killer as an Australian-born citizen named Brenton Tarrant, 28 years of age. On Saturday morning The Australian newspaper’s front page read “Australia’s evil export”.

Other media in New Zealand followed with details of the man’s background. Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court the next day charged with one single count of murder. Other charges will follow. His duty lawyer did not seek name suppression nor bail, the lawyer told the judge: “I’m simply seeking remand and a High Court next-available-hearing date.” Tarrant stood cuffed, smiling at those in the courtroom, at one point signaling with his fingers a “white supremacist” sign. He will next appear in the Christchurch High Court on April 5.

The aftermath:
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later told media: “It was absolutely his [the offender’s) intention to continue with his attack.” PM Ardern said: “Police are working to build a picture of this tragic event. A complex and comprehensive investigation is (now) underway.” To balance the requirement of investigation with the customs of Muslim burials, PM Ardern said liaison officers were with the victims’ loved ones to help “in a way that is consistent with Muslim faith while taking into account these unprecedented circumstances and the obligations to the coroner”.

PM Ardern said survivors of the massacre had indicated that this attack was not “of the New Zealand that they know”.

One day later, survivor Shoaib Gani (mentioned above) told media he still could not sleep or eat. The sounds and sights were still vivid in his head: “I still can feel myself lying on the floor waiting for the bullets to hit me.” He said, he will travel back to India to visit family, but he will return to Christchurch: “It’s just a few people, you know. You can’t blame the whole of New Zealand for this… It’s a good country, people are peaceful. Everybody has helped me here. One right wing (person) doesn’t mean everyone is bad. So I can come back here and live and hope nothing like this happens in the future.”

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, police were stationed and were ready in case others were involved and were preparing further crimes.

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, like here at Taihape’s Ad-Deen Mosque, people lay flowers as a sign of support and aroha. Image, Selwyn Manning/EveningReport.nz taken Saturday March 16, 2019.

Beside the police officers, people, of all races and religions, began laying flowers at the steps to their local mosques. Messages included read: “Salam Alaikum, Peace be unto you”, and, “Aroha nui”, “Peace and love”, “You are one of us”. The outpouring of grief swept the South Pacific nation, and as this article was written, a mood of support, comfort, reassurance and solidarity with those of Muslim faith was in evidence.

In Australia, Sydney’s landmark Opera House was like a beacon in the night; coloured blue, red, and white – the colours of the New Zealand flag embossed with the silver fern (ponga) an emblem of Aotearoa New Zealand. Australia’s peoples, like in New Zealand, began laying flowers at the steps of its mosques in a gesture of inclusiveness.

In the aftermath, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to ongoing financial assistance to dependents of those who have died or are injured, and assistance, she said, would be ongoing.

Questions are being leveled as to how a person with hate can enter, live, and purchase weapons in New Zealand while expressing hate toward other cultures and harbouring an intent to kill others.

PM Ardern said: “The guns used in this case appear to have been modified. That is a challenge police have been facing, and that is a challenge that we will look to address in changing our laws… We need to include the fact that modification of guns which can lead them to become essentially the kinds of weapons we have seen used in this terrorist act.”

When asked how she was coping personally with the tragedy, she said: “I am feeling the exact same emotions that every New Zealander is facing. Yes, I have the additional responsibility and weight of expressing the grief of all New Zealanders and I certainly feel that.”

That responsibility includes ensuring New Zealand’s police, the nation’s intelligence and security services and “the process around watch-lists, including whether or not our border protections are currently in a status that they should be, and, including our gun laws.”

The backstory:
Indeed, New Zealand is part of the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence network that includes the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Global surveillance is coordinated and prioritised among the Five Eyes member states. While significant resource, technology and sophistication is committed to the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, New Zealanders fear that those who find themselves as targets, or within the scope of intelligence officers, are predominantly of the Muslim faith.

In contrast, the accused killer who allegedly committed the horrific Christchurch mosque attacks, has been active both on social media and the dark web expressing, with an intensifying degree, his ideology of hate and intolerance. It does appear of the highest public interest, certainly from an open source intelligence point of view, to ask questions of why New Zealand’s (and indeed the Five Eyes intelligence network’s) surveillance experts did not detect the expressed evil that had radicalised the heart and mind of the perpetrator of this massacre.

It is also fact that New Zealand is a comparatively safe and peaceful nation. But within its midst are people and groups fermenting on racially-based hate ideas. Whether it be in isolation or among organised groupings, the threat of racially driven terror crimes exists.

The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, has lived among those of New Zealand’s southern city Dunedin for at least two years. It appears he was radicalised around 2010 after his father died and he toured Europe. He wrote about becoming “increasingly disgusted” at immigrant communities. In early 2018, Tarrant joined a Dunedin gun club and began practising his shooting skills and allegedly planned his attacks.

Regarding Christchurch, while it has a history of overt white racist gangs, at this juncture, it does not appear they were directly involved in this series of crimes.

But this leads to many unanswered questions, including:

• Was the killer a lone mass murderer, a sleeper in a cell of one?
• Were those with whom he communicated and engaged with on the web in extreme white racist ideologies aware of his plans?
• Was Christchurch chosen by the killer for logistical reasons?
• Was it because the city is easier to drive around than Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland?
• Was it because Christchurch has at least two mosques within easy driving distance?
• Were the Bangladesh Cricket team in his scope of attacks?
• Was the killer attempting to incite a violent response from Christchurch’s burgeoning Muslim community, or, expecting a response from the Alt-Right, from white racist groups such as the Right Wing Resistance (RWR), the Fourth Reich, and Christchurch’s skinhead community?

New Zealand has in its midst white supremacist neo-nazi groups like this Right Wing Resistance gang. Was the killer of those at the two Christchurch mosques attempting to ignite retaliation and violence? Image: Evening Report

The future:
Survivors of Friday 15th’s terrorist attack say they have complained of an increase in racism and expressed hate in recent times. They say, their concerns have not been taken seriously. These are the concerns that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to listen to, has committed to represent, and, as the prime advocate for her country’s peoples, to act on to ensure cracks in New Zealand’s border, security and intelligence apparatus are corrected.

And, what of New Zealand’s social culture? How will it be affected? That will be determined by the actions of each individual person, each community, town and city and how as a nation New Zealand redefines “The Kiwi Way”.

Members of New Zealand’s media will also need to act responsibly. It is fair to say some have a reputation for argument that verges on alt-right intolerance, for example, on Twitter only two days after the mass murders, a prominent radio journalist, who is employed by one of New Zealand’s largest networks, tweeted: “28 years on an [sic] we still haven’t stopped madmen getting guns. #ChChMosque… [Replying to @Politikwebsite] And the neo nationalist right are the result of the virtue signaling exclusionary left.”

Perhaps such examples are out of step with New Zealand’s population. But such attitudes do create a dialogue of justification for those who harbour intolerance. However, if the outpouring of love and compassion continues to bind rather than divide, then perhaps New Zealand has received, as they say, “a wake-up call”, where racial intolerance and extreme ideologies have no place among peoples of all kinds, Maori and Pakeha, of all religions, political persuasions and creeds.

Flowers at Ponsonby mosque, Auckland, NZ. 17 March 2019. Image David Robie/PMC

One thing is certain; to stamp out the evil of hate extremism, New Zealanders will pay a price that will be charged against the Kiwi lifestyle. Personal liberties of freedom, of expression and privacy will certainly be eroded further as this nation of the South Pacific grapples with how to keep its people safe. The means of how to achieve relative safety will be hotly debated, but it is a necessary juncture in this nation’s history, a moment when we all must confront and challenge ourselves so that people of innocence, people like little three-year-old Mucaad Ibrahim, can go about their days in trust, in peace, in joyful purpose and achieve their deserved potential. Anything less is a second killing for the victims of Friday, 15th, New Zealand’s darkest hour.

Rongotea School symbol of unity since 1881 – image, Selwyn Manning, EveningReportNZ taken Friday 15, 2019.

Selwyn Manning is editor and publisher of Evening Report, a companion publication with Asia Pacific Report. He is also a former chair of the Pacific Media Centre Advisory Board. This article was originally published by the German magazine Cicero.de under the title: Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle. It is republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ

More than 50 New Zealand companies are considering pulling ads from Facebook because it allowed a livestream of the Christchurch massacre last Friday.

Some firms have already stopped advertising and the Association of New Zealand Advertisers predicts dozens of others are likely to follow suit.

A semiautomatic gun for destruction hand-in slip. Image: RNZ

To show more support after the attacks, some gun owners have been handing over semi-automatic rifles for destruction in protest.

“Until today, I was one of the New Zealanders who owned a semiautomatic rifle. On the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn’t outweigh the risk of misuse,” wrote farmer John Hart on Twitter.

“We don’t need these in our country.

“We have [to] make sure it’s #NeverAgain.”

-Partners-

READ MORE:
RNZ’s live news feed – Day 5
What you need to know
A list of the confirmed victims
Find out about vigils around the country

Meanwhile, another terror attack in the Netherlands has overshadowed efforts in New Zealand to reject individual hatreds and come together to support those affected in Christchurch.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Katy Gosset of RNZ

A Syrian-born woman whose husband and son were killed in Friday’s terror attacks says her family was told New Zealand was the safest country in the world.

For Salwa Mustafa, a slim woman in a pale silver hijab, said New Zealand promised a new life for her three children.

“When we were asking about New Zealand … they said, ‘Oh, it is the most safest country in the world, the most wonderful country that you can go.’ You will start a very wonderful life there but it wasn’t.”

On Friday her husband, Khalid, and 16-year-old son, Hamza, were shot while worshipping at Al Noor Mosque on Deans Ave. Her second son Zaid, 13, remains in Christchurch Hospital recovering from his own gunshot wounds.

Sitting on a bed at the hospital where she has been keeping a vigil, she did not want her face shown but she recalled how she first heard of Friday’s horrific attacks when she took a call from Hamza.

“He said, ‘Mum, there is someone in the mosque shooting us and my brother is [shot] in the leg,’” she said.

-Partners-

She heard running and shooting but kept speaking to him.

Complete quiet …
“‘Hamza, Hamza, tell me what’s happening, Hamza?’ And there was complete quiet. I couldn’t hear anything.”

She stayed on the line for 22 minutes until someone else picked up his phone.

“And he told me, ‘Sorry, your son can’t breathe. I think he’s dead.’ ”

She and friends waited outside the mosque for an hour until a friend took her to the hospital where she found her husband with gunshot wounds to his head, neck leg and arm.

“They took me to the room and he was laying there [shot], taking his last breaths.”

“I sat beside him, maybe half an hour, maybe more, I can’t remember, watching him dying.”

It wasn’t what the family expected when they first considered travelling to New Zealand

Her husband had been a farrier in their native Syria, “a very good farrier, a famous farrier” and “a good man”.

Trained horses
He also trained horses and it was these skills that contributed to the family move to New Zealand. After five years as refugees in Jordan, authorities offered the prospect of a new life.

“They said, ‘Would you like to go to travel to New Zealand as refugees there? New Zealand chose us to come here…to die here.”

Her son, Hamza, was also a talented horse rider, a polite, well-loved young man who celebrated his 16th birthday just two days before the attacks.

A piece of his birthday cake was still in her fridge, Salwa Mustafa said.

Now, with an injured son, another dependent child and no relatives in New Zealand, she needs help.

“Maybe if the government [will] allow my family to visit me to support me in these circumstances because I’m alone here.”

Like many others, she also wanted answers as to how someone could acquire so many guns and harm so many.

“How he owned so many guns and entered the mosque without anyone [being suspicious of him]. How [did] he did this thing. . . how is that?”

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

New Zealand’s Fijian community is reeling after three people from Fiji were killed in Friday’s mosque attacks in Christchurch.

The terrorist attacks, which killed at least 50 people and injured 50 more, have also been deeply felt in Fiji itself.

Among those killed in the attacks were Hafiz Musa Patel, an imam from Lautoka, and Ashraf Ali, who had moved to New Zealand from Fiji several years ago.

Imam Hafiz Musa Patel … an imam from Lautoka, Fiji, among the victims. Image: FBC

Another man who died, Ashraf Ali Razat, was in New Zealand on holiday, staying with relatives in Christchurch.

A long time member of Christchurch’s Fijian community, Ravi Prasad, said with the attack so fresh in their minds, people were deeply traumatised.

“People are troubled. Even at homes [they worry] something might happen. So the fear is there,” he said.

-Partners-

“Especially now, we don’t know, when we’re going to worship, you know how we feel about going to churches or mosques or the temples. It wouldn’t be the same as what we were before. Fear will be there.”

Mass outpouring
He said his community appreciated the mass outpouring of support from other New Zealanders.

“A lot of New Zealand, our prime minister [Jacinda Ardern] was just excellent. And they’re all behind us. So at least we can lay down and think we are one, and we do carry… everyone.

“It took just one guy to spoil the whole thing but we are in New Zealand, we are lucky to be in New Zealand, and I think we still believe New Zealand is the best country.”

In Fiji, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama spoke of the need to openly confront hate.

Saying the attacks felt close to home, Bainimarama expressed love and support for the victims and the wider Muslim community.

He called for people to be aware that acts of extreme violence often begin with hateful words and divisive ways of thinking.

“That is why I call on all Fijians across all backgrounds and faiths to join me in making this pledge. And the pledge is: where ever you encounter someone who says something racist and hateful, whether it is online or in person, say something.

‘Have courage’
“Do something, have the courage to call them out, and counter their hatred with vision. Be the voice of love. Be the voice of change.”

Echoing this message of tolerance was New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Fiji Jonathan Curr who attended prayers at Toorak Jame mosque in Suva the previous day.

“In leading our prayers, the Imam spoke words of true grace. He urged us all to be people of peace, regardless of the anger, sorrow, shock and devastation that we feel, we must not open the gates to hatred.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji High Commission in New Zealand has visited families of the three people killed, and is providing consular assistance to the affected community.

A spokesman from the commission summed it up when he said the Fiji community in Christchurch is shaken but resilient, and is taking the opportunity to come together, across all religious and ethnic lines.

The Fiji community in Christchurch will hold a vigil tomorrow at 7pm.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Flowers and messages from the AUT student community on the “aroha” wall at the university’s masjid today. Image: David Robie/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When lives are tragically cut short, it is generally easier to explain the “how” than the “why”. This dark reality is all the more felt when tragedy comes at the hands of murderous intent. Explaining how 50 people came to be killed, and almost as many badly wounded, in Christchurch’s double massacre of Muslims at prayer is heartbreaking but relatively straightforward.

As with so many mass murders in recent years, the use of an assault rifle, the ubiquitous AR15, oxymoronically referred to as “the civilian M-16”, explains how one cowardly killer could be so lethal.

It was much the same in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando three years ago, when one gunman shot dead 49 people in a crowded space and, though the motive appears very different, the same sort of military instrument of death lies behind the 58 deaths in Las Vegas a year later.

READ MORE: Christchurch mosque shootings must end New Zealand’s innocence about right-wing terrorism

An AR15 was used to shoot dead 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue last October and a similar weapon was used to kill six people in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017.

It is a credit to the peaceful nature of New Zealand society that, despite the open availability of weapons like the AR15, the last time there was a mass shooting was in 1997. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rightly identified reform of gun laws as one of the immediate outcomes required in response to this tragedy.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern … “rightly identified reform of gun laws as one of the immediate outcomes required in response to this tragedy”. Image: Rebekah Parsons-King/RNZ

But lax gun laws are arguably the only area in which blame can be laid in New Zealand. Ardern, together with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was also right to refer to this barbaric act of cold-blooded murder of people in prayer as right wing extremist terrorism driven by Islamophobic hatred.

State and federal police in Australia have long warned that, next to the immediate threat posed by Salafi jihadi terrorism, they are most concerned about the steady rise of right-wing extremism.

Some comfort
There has been some comfort in the recognition that the most active right wing extremist groups, and there are many, are disorganised, poorly led, and attract but small crowds.

On the face of it, then, right wing extremism in Australia is nowhere near as serious as the neo-Nazi movements of Europe or the various permutations of white supremacy and toxic nationalism that bedevil American politics. In America, it is conservatively estimated that there were 50 deaths due to terrorist attacks in 2018, almost all linked to right-wing extremism.

In 2017, it is calculated that there were 950 attacks on Muslims and mosques in Germany alone. Many of last year’s attacks in America involved a common right wing extremist hatred of Islam, and a targeting of Muslims, joining a long-standing enmity towards Jews.

Almost all recent terrorist attacks have been lone-actor attacks. They are notoriously difficult to predict. Whether inspired by Salafi jihadi Islamist extremism or right wing extremism, lone-actor attacks commonly feature individuals fixated on the deluded dream of going from “zero to hero”.

One of the main reasons authorities struggle with identifying right wing extremist “nobodies” who post online, before they turn to violence, is that it’s difficult to pick up a clear signal in the noise of a national discourse increasingly dominated by exactly the same narrative elements of mistrust, anxiety, and a blaming of the other.

In Australia, as in Europe and America, mainstream politicians and mainstream media commentators have increasingly toyed with extremist ideas in the pursuit of popularity. Many have openly brandished outrageous ideas that in previous years would have been unsayable in mainstream political discourse or commentary.

Donald Trump can be deservedly singled out for making the unspeakable the new normal in mainstream right wing politics, but he is hardly alone in this. And sadly, for all of the relative civility and stability of Australian politics, we too have now come to normalise the toxic politics of fear.

Not a shocking surprise
No-one put it better than The Project host Waleed Aly in saying that Friday’s terrorist attacks, although profoundly disturbing, did not come as a shocking surprise.

Anyone who has been paying attention and who really cares about the well-being and security of Australian society has observed the steady growth of right wing extremist and right supremacist ideas in general, and Islamophobia particular.

They have seen the numerous attacks on Muslims and Jews at prayer and worried about the day when the murderous violence that has plagued the northern hemisphere will visit the southern hemisphere. But more than that, they have worried about the singling-out of migrants, and in particular asylum seekers, African youth and Muslims as pawns to be played with in the cynical politics of fear.

Scott Morrison is right to say these problems have been with us for many years. But he would do better to point out that our downward trajectory sharply accelerated after John Howard’s “dark victory” of 2001.

The unwinnable election was won on the back of the arrival of asylum seekers on the MV Tampa in August followed by the September 11 attacks, and at the price of John Howard and the Liberal party embracing the white supremacist extremist politics of Pauline Hanson.

Both major parties, it must be said, succumbed to the lure of giving focus groups and pollsters the tough language and inhumane policies the public appeared to demand and reward.

The true price
We are now beginning to see the true price that we have paid with the demonising of those arriving by boat seeking asylum, or looking too dark-skinned, or appearing too religious.

The result has been such a cacophony of hateful rhetoric that it has been hard for those tasked with spotting the emergence of violent extremism to separate it from all the background noise of extremism.

There are, of course lessons to be learned. Authorities need to do better. We can begin with a national database of hate crimes, with standard definitions and robust data collection. Clearly, we need to pay attention to hateful extremism if we are to prevent violent extremism.

But ultimately, we need to address the permissive political environment that allows such hateful extremism to be promulgated so openly. The onus is on commentators and political leaders alike. They cannot change the past, but they will determine the future.

Professor Greg Barton is chair in Global Islamic Politic at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. He is engaged in a range of projects working to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia and in Southeast Asia that are funded by the Australian government. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

OPINION: By Keith Locke

It was heartwarming to be part of such a big and diverse crowd in Auckland’s Aotea Square on Saturday standing in solidarity with the Islamic community after the terrible massacre in Christchurch. There were many passionate speeches highlighting the need to come together to fight racism and Islamophobia.

Many New Zealanders have picked up Jacinda Ardern’s theme “this is not us” but unfortunately this message is only partly true. Islamophobia is deeply embedded in our society.

Former Race Relations commissioner Susan Devoy says that “every single Muslim woman I know has faced racist abuse of some kind right here in our towns, on Facebook, in the media”.

In order to deal with this we have to understand where New Zealand’s Islamophobia comes from, and what sustains it. It goes a long way back.

Settlers in colonial New Zealand were deeply Islamophobic and white supremacist. Our white settlers saw themselves as superior to the “dark” people in the Muslim world and they treated Christianity as the only true religion.

New Zealand supported Britain’s wars in the Middle East and south Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. These wars continue up until today, but with Britain now playing a subordinate role to the United States.

-Partners-

The white supremacist and Islamophobic message presented today is that Islam is a violent religion, or at least has the capacity to take a violent form, and this has to be combated by the intervention of Western powers.

Western excuse
This is the excuse given for Western military action in several Islamic nations including Libya, Somalia, the Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Of course, there have been violent and extreme political currents in some of these Islamic countries, often generating a public flowing from their opposition to corrupt (Western-backed) governments, or their opposition to foreign military intervention.

Now we are in a vicious circle of foreign intervention begetting jihadism, and jihadism begetting foreign intervention, and so it goes on.

And that has set off another vicious circle with the Islamophobia in Western nations upsetting the local Muslim community, motivating a few extreme elements to commit violent acts, which results in more Islamophobia, and so it goes around.

Whether consciously or not, successive New Zealand governments have helped foster this modern Islamophobia by participating in the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and not speaking out against Western military action in places like the Yemen, Libya and Somalia. The Western propaganda around those wars has fostered prejudice towards Muslims living in New Zealand.

If we really want to combat Islamophobia and white nationalism we should withdraw our remaining soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan and not participate further in America’s wars in Islamic countries.

We should also withdraw from the Five Eyes, and intelligence network based on the white supremacist premise that five “anglo” nations (the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have the right to spy on every other nation.

Five Eyes interests
The Five Eyes operates mainly in the interests of Donald Trump’s America helping him, for example, to implement his Islamophobic ban on the citizens of several Islamic nations entering the United States.

It should be noted that the killer in Christchurch, Brenton Tarrant, called Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity” in his manifesto justifying the massacre.

Given the Islamophobic ethos of Western intelligence agencies, led by the United States, we should be against strengthening our anti-terrorist laws or allowing more intrusive state surveillance. Such an approach won’t help the Muslim community.

The reality is that the longstanding Crimes Act, which has been used to charge the current offender, covers all cases of murder, kidnapping, bombing and membership of a criminal group. Separate anti-terrorism legislation is clearly unnecessary.

The only (failed) attempt to use the existing Terrorism Suppression Act has been against local dissenters, in the Operation 8 case.

One takeaway from the Christchurch massacre seems to be that a violent act by a “lone wolf” is very hard to detect. Rather than move towards a surveillance society, our resources would be better devoted to promoting community tolerance and the understanding of diverse cultures.

Reducing the prevalence of Islamophobia in our society is the best path to take.

Keith Locke is a former Green MP and foreign affairs spokesperson, being first elected to the NZ Parliament in 1999 and retiring at the 2011 election. This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz