New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday said there was “much more” her country could do to tackle white supremacists a year after the Christchurch mosque massacres.
Ardern was widely praised for her compassion toward the Muslim community after a lone gunman attacked two mosques on March 15 last year, killing 51 in New Zealand’s worst modern mass shooting.
However, she said some in the South Pacific nation continued to espouse the views of the Australian attacker, a self-avowed white supremacist who targeted Muslims at Friday prayers.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“New Zealand is not free of those groups who define themselves as extremist white supremacists, those groups exist here,” she told reporters.
“The responsibility we have is to combat not only that existence, but the precursors to that existence. There is much more that we can do,” she said.
Ardern, who was speaking ahead of a national memorial service tomorrow, said the best way to honor victims was to call out racism, bullying and discrimination.
Photo: Reuters
“People will feel safe when they feel supported ... when they feel the community is looking after them and when they feel they are not facing discrimination or jibes in the street or comments that make them feel unsafe,” she said.
Ardern said the March 15 attacks “fundamentally changed” New Zealand, she hoped for the better.
“I would like to think there is a growing resolve amongst New Zealanders that we wish to be defined by what we are not as much as what we are,” she said.
Her remarks came after police arrested a 19-year-old man this month over a threat against one of the mosques attacked last year.
“It is unfathomable to me that, after everything the Muslim community has experienced, we have people who are ... [making] threats against our Muslim community,” she said.
Ardern later joined more than 1,000 Muslims for their Friday prayers as the Al Noor and Linwood mosques held a combined service and were joined by fellow Muslims from around New Zealand.
Nasir Ali, who flew in from Auckland with his family, said it was important to share the “sorrow and hardship” and keep the memory alive.
“We need to keep it on the radar that this sort of tragedy and this sort of extremist ideology does exist and we need to continue to be vigilant about it,” he said.
Farid Ahmed, whose wife was killed by the gunman, said 12 months on he was still at a loss to understand why the killing occurred.
Ahmed has publicly forgiven the gunman and said he refuses to be cowed.
“I feel I could die anytime and I should not be afraid, because I have got my freedom not to be afraid. No one or nothing can take that away,” he said.
“The lesson is that hate does not solve any problem. If there are differences there is another way and that is the peaceful way,” he said. “We should talk, we should dialogue, we should ask one another questions and we should not be afraid of one another.”
Taj Mohammed Kamran, who was shot three times while his friend beside him was killed by the gunman, said he felt safe at the Friday prayers because of the large police presence.
“But I was sad because my friend was not there,” he added.
The alleged mosque attacker Brenton Tarrant, an Australian national, is due to go on trial on June 2 facing terrorism charges, plus 51 counts of murder and 40 of attempted murder over the killings.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS