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The Christchurch terror attack was a “surprise” because the official security narrative framed Muslims as perpetrators, not victims, says a Kiwi Islamic organization.
The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ), the country’s Muslim organization, released its presentation to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the March 15 attacks on Monday morning for the first time.
The 208-page report, led by Muslim youth from a variety of academic backgrounds, including an injured victim, is an in-depth look at how he believes the government failed to protect the nation.
The presentation regularly states that it is intended to positively influence the protection of the nation’s security for the future.
READ MORE:
* The report of the royal commission of the Christchurch terror attack is expected to be published ‘by Christmas’
* Muslim group warned police of a threat on March 15, weeks before the Chch attack.
* New Zealand’s way forward, one year after the Christchurch mosque attacks.
But the threat from right-wing extremists could not be analyzed and assessed until nine months before the attack occurred due to “systemic dysfunction” in the intelligence community. His commitment to Muslims was flawed, lacking diversity, and “institutionally racist and Islamophobic.”
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Muslim Imam Mustenser Qamar answers ridiculous but common questions about Islam, hoping to better understand the faith. (Video first published on September 25, 2019)
The “threat of extremist Islamist terrorism is high and the threat of right-wing extremist terrorism is avoided or downplayed.”
The Prime Minister’s Department and the Chief Executive of the Cabinet are criticized in the report as they fail to identify, assess and monitor the threat to security from right-wing extremists, it says.
The degree to which the official is responsible depends on their actions in their first months in office, and whether they played a role in drawing the attention of the intelligence community to right-wing extremism or continued down the path traced by their predecessor. , He says.
NZSIS Director General for Security Rebecca Kitteridge described in her keynote address to Parliament’s Security and Intelligence Committee on February 20, 2019, the “rise of right-wing extremism [internationally]”Like” slow, but worrying. “
After detailing the monitoring of Islamic extremists, only the final paragraph has a single sentence that mentions the threat of right-wing extremism.
In a speech to the University of Victoria Law School in 2016, he said that “the unfortunate reality is that a terrorist event in New Zealand would likely have a very negative impact on Muslims in New Zealand, due to the likely public reaction ”.
This was not “a mere slip that revealed an implicit bias from the Director General,” after 10 years of public NZSIS documents implicitly framing terrorism as a Muslim issue.
It reveals a deeply ingrained way of looking at the world that prevented New Zealand from understanding the situation at the time and the evolving threat landscape, he says.
“Because the official security narrative framed Muslims as perpetrators, not victims, the Christchurch terror attack was a surprise.”
To his credit, Kitteridge personally tried to shed the “old image” of the NZSIS made up of “Cold Warriors.”
But its 335 employees were disproportionately white and male compared to the general population.
“We call on the intelligence community to be open to constructive criticism and admit it, fix it, learn from it and move on.”
Furthermore, the report says that the police failed to properly assess the terrorist as “fit and proper” to possess a firearms license, allowing the terrorist to acquire his arsenal.
“The strongest evidence to monitor, measure and assess the scale of the threat from RWE (right wing extremism) is data on hate crimes. New Zealand does not record data on hate crimes. “
The terrorist had a history of international travel to places related to the Muslim-Christian unrest, including Pakistan, North Korea and Bulgaria, he says.
“This unusual travel history could and should have generated a lead from Immigration or Customs.”
Muslims in New Zealand knew from lived experience that the environment was becoming increasingly hostile, “even if we could not base our claims on empirical evidence, as hate crimes were not officially recorded.”
“We ask for help. We knew we were vulnerable to such an attack.
“We did not know who, when, what, where or how. But we knew it. “
But the intelligence community’s official security narrative was “New Zealand inaccurate and misinformed.”
The Muslim community was “disappointed that certain agencies did not take seriously or did not follow up on concerns raised about racism and Islamophobia.”
FIANZ proposes a multi-point program to protect and promote the security and well-being of the nation, which includes security, hatred, terrorism, weapons, racism, nationality, information and super-diversity.
