[190317_Korea Refugee Rights Network Statement of Mourning] “We pray for the victims of the Christchurch, New Zealand shooting, and strongly condemn anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant racist terrorism and the voices that sympathize with it.” The activists of the member organisations of the Korea Refugee Rights Network deeply mourn the victims of the brutal indiscriminate shooting carried out on March 15, 2019, by a white Australian man and his accomplices at two mosques in Christchurch, a city on the South Island of New Zealand, and stand in solidarity with everyone who shares their pain and grief.
According to media reports, at the Friday prayer time in the afternoon, local time, on March 15, 2019, the perpetrators burst into the “Al Noor Mosque” and the “Linwood Mosque” in Christchurch carrying firearms and opened fire indiscriminately, and so far 49 people have died and about 20 have been seriously injured.
In a 74-page manifesto uploaded just before the shooting, a white man who appears to be the main suspect called himself an “ordinary white man” with “racist” beliefs, and claimed that “this attack was planned as revenge for the terrorist attacks in Europe,” and that from now on “the non-European Roma, Indians, Turks, Semites and Muslims who are occupying Europe must be driven out” and “even the children of Muslim immigrants must be killed.” Having even stated that he “admires Trump,” he, based on firm racist and anti-immigrant beliefs, broadcast the brutal shooting live on Facebook and proudly announced it.
As the New Zealand Prime Minister rightly said in the statement she issued urgently after the incident, this shooting happened in New Zealand not because “New Zealand is a haven for hatemongers or a place that tolerates racism and extremism, but precisely because New Zealand firmly opposes these things and instead stands for diversity, kindness and compassion,” and the actual victims were chosen as targets solely because they were immigrants and because they were Muslims. This extreme act of terror is therefore a typical hate crime based on hatred such as “racism, white supremacy, anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia.” The political gains being made by the far-right anti-immigrant movement in many parts of the world are now also manifesting as white terrorism based on such firm racist beliefs.
This hatred of “racism, white supremacy, anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia” is happening in the same way in Korea, on the other side of the globe, and is by no means a story from a faraway place. The roots of the hatred behind this horrific shooting are exactly the same as those of racist hatred of immigrants such as “oeno-ja” and “oe-kwi” (derogatory slang for foreign workers and foreign Chinese-Koreans), of the Islamophobia that regards “Muslims” as “terrorists or potential criminals,” and of the hatred toward the Yemeni refugees who came last year to escape war and persecution. In the comments on the portal sites in Korea under media reports about this very incident, we even witness absurd and cruel remarks such as “they nipped future terrorists in the bud” or “refugees are the problem after all.” Once respect as human beings for immigrants and Muslims is stripped away because of differences in race, religion and culture, even the basis for empathy with the victims’ pain is lost. How much crueller can we become? Ironically, we who witnessed the connection between this cruel incident and its roots on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will firmly oppose racial discrimination and hatred, will make known the barbaric world that discrimination and hatred cannot help but create, and will fight against it together with all the citizens who join us.March 17, 2019. Korea Refugee Rights Network [공익법센터 어필, 공익변호사와 함께하는 동행, 공익사단법인 정, 공익인권법재단 공감, 공익인권센터 드림(DREAM), 국제난민지원단체 피난처, 난민인권센터, 동두천난민공동체, 사단법인 두루, 아시아의 친구들,아시아평화를향한이주MAP, 이주여성을위한문화경제공동체 에코팜므, 이주민지원공익센터 감동, 의정부 EXODUS, 이주민지원센터친구, 재단법인 동천, 파주 EXODUS, 한국이주인권센터, 휴먼아시아]