Christchurch
New Zealand’s leader Jacinda Ardern admitted Friday 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.
But 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. “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 on Sunday, said the best way to honor victims was to call out racism, bullying and discrimination.
“People will feel safe when they feel supported,” she said. “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.” 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 among New Zealanders that we wish to be defined by what we are not as much as what we are,” she said. Her remarks come 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. —Agencies.
