2 arrested in New Zealand for online threats to Christchurch mosques
which saw deadly white supremacist attack in 2019
4 Mar, 2021 09:34
Visitors leave Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand (FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Police in New Zealand have detained two individuals accused of making online threats against two Mosques in the city of Christchurch, both of which were the scene of the country’s most deadly shooting in 2019.
“Any messages of hate or people wanting to cause harm in our community will not be tolerated – it’s not the Kiwi way,” said John Price, Canterbury District Commander Superintendent in an emailed statement on Thursday.
Police in the South Island city said that no charges have been made and did not elaborate on the nature of the threats. “We take all threats of this nature seriously and we are working closely with our Muslim community,” the police statement added.
The pair were arrested as the country approaches the two-year anniversary of the deadly attack on the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch. On March 15, 2019, white supremacist Brenton Tarrant opened fire on worshippers, killing 51 people and injuring dozens more. The 29-year-old Australian livestreamed the massacre on Facebook.
Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the first time anyone in the country has been confined for the rest of their life.
On Wednesday, France outlawed far-right and anti-migrant group Generation Identitaire. Tarrant had previously donated to the group, which has recently been carrying out patrols along France’s border with Spain.
20 killed in Somali capital after suicide car bomb
detonates outside restaurant
5 Mar, 2021 20:48
FILE PHOTO: Somali government soldiers © Abdirazak Hussein FARAH / AFP
At least 20 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a suicide car bombing in Mogadishu. The incident occurred on the same day Somali Islamist militants stormed a jail in the semi-atonomus Puntland state.
The blast struck outside the Luul Yemeni restaurant on Friday evening, with eyewitness footage of the scene showing the scale of devastation as locals and first responders bearing torches searched through the debris in the dark for other victims.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and local medics have warned that the death toll may rise. Local reports say the scale of the blast brought down one building.
“So far we have carried 20 dead people and 30 injured from the blast scene,” Dr. Abdulkadir Aden, founder of AAMIN Ambulance services told Reuters.
The Mogadishu blast occurred on the same day Somali Islamist militants stormed a jail in the semi-atonomus Puntland state. At least seven soldiers were killed when members of the al-Shabaab terrorist group targeted the site in what one prison guard told Reuters was a “hellish battle.”
The militants claim to have released some 400 prisoners, including members of their group, though that figure has not been confirmed by the authorities.
Al-Shabaab has carried out repeated attacks in Somalia in its efforts to overthrow the government and establish its own sharia law-based governance.
Beheaded over a LIE? French teen whose story of schoolteacher & Prophet Mohammed cartoons led to his murder wasn’t even in class
9 Mar, 2021 17:39
© Reuters / Charles Platiau
The schoolgirl who claimed a teacher asked Muslim students to leave the lesson before displaying obscene caricatures of Prophet Mohammed as part of his freedom-of-speech class lied about being there to avoid parental punishment.
The unnamed 13-year-old girl, whose story was deemed offensive by many Muslims, effectively set off a chain of events leading to teacher Samuel Paty’s gruesome murder in October 2020, having apparently admitted to lying about being present in the controversial class, according to her lawyer.
The girl hadn’t even been at school in the Paris suburb on the day history and geography teacher Paty supposedly showed the obscene images to the class, her lawyer Mbeko Tabula told the AFP news agency on Monday. Her name has not been made public due to her age.
“She lied because she felt trapped in a spiral, as her classmates had asked her to be a spokesperson,” Tabula explained, without making it clear for whom or what she was supposed to be speaking.
Islamic Hysteria
The story, with all its controversial details, blew up after being shared on Facebook by her father. The reaction to the claims was swift and vicious. Paty soon began receiving death threats and was subject to a coordinated hate campaign by Islamic extremists both domestically and abroad, ultimately culminating in the 47-year-old’s murder by a complete stranger who had lived in France as a refugee after his Chechen family emigrated there.
The 18-year-old killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, allegedly paid several students to help him identify Paty, followed him as he walked out of the school, and murdered and beheaded him in a street nearby.
The girl’s bombshell confession first appeared as a report in Le Parisien on Sunday. The newspaper said the girl was not in the class because of her “bad behavior,” and suggested she was motivated to cover up her failure to attend classes so as not to upset her father.
The father not only filed a complaint with the police and submitted his grievances to the school administration in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, but also launched the aforementioned hate campaign on social media, including a video detailing the supposed crimes of the teacher.
When the details of the case came to light, however, the girl’s father was arrested for “complicity in a terrorist killing,” while his daughter was charged with “slanderous denunciation.” Three other teens were charged with complicity in a terrorist murder for allegedly identifying Paty for the benefit of the attacker.
Anzorov may also have had contact with the 13-year-old’s father, according to police sources. Those sources suggested the Chechen Islamic extremist, whose half-sister had joined Islamic State in Syria, had spoken with the father over WhatsApp.
Paty’s killing set off belated efforts at enforcing seldom-used anti-radicalization laws already in place in France. Another student commented less than a month after the murder that he had somehow “deserved” it for “making fun of religion” – a comment that got the child expelled. By mid-December, the Ministry of National Education had reported 793 “incidents” during official tributes to Paty’s death. Some 131 students were subsequently suspended, and 44 expelled.
The End of Free Speech
The shocking murder had a ripple effect outside France as well, with Norwegian teachers reporting they were afraid to show cartoons of the prophet, despite Norway supposedly being committed to free speech. Just eight percent of teachers polled in November said they would use caricature images of the Prophet Mohammed in their lessons, with 37 percent admitting they were “afraid of the consequences.” Over a third of Norwegian teachers who responded to the same poll admitted they habitually avoided bringing up issues of religion, sexuality, suicide, and other hot-button topics, suggesting self-censorship was the rule rather than the exception.
Anzorov’s brutal actions triggered a troubling wave of support from some young Muslim students. An 11-year-old child was sent home from their Berlin classroom in November after declaring it was “OK to kill someone who had “insulted the prophet,” and children as young as eight have come out with similarly shocking statements.
While French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to crack down hard on Islamic extremism, many are concerned it’s too little, too late. Others have been concerned about the mixed messages being sent by the Western mainstream media when it comes to Islamist extremism: a headline of an AP story published in the wake of the murder, for instance, blamed France for “inciting anger in the Muslim world.”
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