On 15 March 2019, at 1:40 pm, Tarrant entered the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton and began shooting. The Linwood Islamic Centre opened in early 2018. The Al Noor Mosque, the first mosque in the South Island, opened in 1985. In the 2018 census, some 57,000 New Zealand residents (1.2% of the population) reported their religion as Islam.

Australia, where the gunman, Brenton Tarrant, was from, has also seen an increase in xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia. Sociologist Paul Spoonley called Christchurch a hotbed for white supremacists and the extreme nationalist movement, a suggestion rejected by Christchurch-based MP Gerry Brownlee. While New Zealand has rarely been associated with far-right extremism, experts have suggested it has been growing there. This attack was the first mass shooting in the country since the Raurimu massacre in 1997 prior to that, the deadliest public mass shooting was the 1990 Aramoana massacre, in which 13 people died. New Zealand has been considered a safe and tolerant place with low levels of gun violence and was named the second-most peaceful country in the world by Global Peace Index in 2019, the year of the attacks. See also: List of massacres in New Zealand 5.3 Guilty plea and sentencing arrangements.5.2 Initial plea and pre-trial detention.The commission submitted its report to the government on 26 November 2020, the details of which were made public on 7 December. The government established a royal commission into its security agencies in the wake of the shootings, which were the deadliest in modern New Zealand history and the worst ever committed by an Australian national. Politicians and world leaders condemned it, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as 'one of New Zealand's darkest days'.

The attack was linked to an increase in white supremacy and alt-right extremism globally observed since about 2015. In March 2020, he pleaded guilty to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders, and engaging in a terrorist act, and in August was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – the first such sentence in New Zealand. He had live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook, and prior to the attack, had published an online manifesto both the video and manifesto were subsequently banned in New Zealand and Australia. He was described in media reports as a white supremacist and part of the alt-right. īrenton Harrison Tarrant, a 28-year-old man from Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, was arrested shortly afterward. The attack, carried out by a single gunman who entered both mosques, began at the Al Noor Mosque in the suburb of Riccarton at 1:40 pm and continued at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 pm. Two consecutive mass shootings occurred at mosques in a terrorist attack in Christchurch during Friday Prayer on 15 March 2019. Pleaded guilty to all charges sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole

The Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

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Mass shooting, terrorist attack, shooting spree, mass murder, hate crime

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