New Zealand mosque shootings prompt vigils and vigilance
Civil rights advocates called for curbing hate speech online, as the perpetrator’s video continued to circulate on social media.
More than 11,000 people gathered in Wellington, the capital of Aotearoa–New Zealand, on the evening of March 17, 2019, at a vigil for the victims and survivors of a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers two days earlier. Some rights reserved by Kristina Hoeppner.
Each week mosques come to life with Jummah prayer services, as Muslims greet one another with Jummah Mubarak, or “blessed Friday.” On March 15, Muslims around the world had another prayer on their lips: inna lillahe wa inna illaihi rajioon, “to God we belong and to God we shall return.”
Dozens of Muslims at Jummah prayers in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, had been gunned down and dozens more were injured.
An Australian man in his late twenties who claimed responsibility for the shootings left a 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto in which he explained his white nationalist ideologies and described Donald Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
