Christchurch mosque shootings

Two consecutive mass shootings took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. They were committed by a single perpetrator during Friday prayer, first at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, overlooking Hagley Park, at 1:40p.m., and second, after driving at speed across town, at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52p.m.

The perpetrator, Brenton Tarrant, was arrested after his vehicle was rammed by a police unit as he was driving to a third mosque in Ashburton. He live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook, marking the first successfully live-streamed far-right terror attack, and had published a manifesto online before the attack. On 26 March 2020, he pled 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 parolethe first such sentence in New Zealand.

The attacks were mainly motivated by white nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white supremacist beliefs. Tarrant, who described himself as an ecofascist and voiced support for the far-right "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory in the context of a "white genocide", cited Anders Behring Breivik and Dylann Roof as well as several other right-wing terrorists as inspirations within his manifesto, praising Breivik above all.

The attack was linked to an increase in white supremacy and alt-right extremism globally observed since about 2015. Politicians and world leaders condemned it, and then-Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern described it as "one of New Zealand's darkest days". 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. The commission submitted its report to the government on 26 November 2020, the details of which were made public on 7 December.

The shooting has inspired copycat attacks,}} especially due to its live-streamed nature. In response to this incident, the United Nations designated March 15 as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Provided by Wikipedia