The biggest challenge charging Tarrant with terrorism is the media’s self censorship

16
10

My first thought when it was announced last week that white supremacist and terrorist Brenton Tarrant had been charged with committing an act of terrorism was how the media’s agreed self-censorship of their coverage will impact the trial.

The addition of the charge of terrorism would require the prosecutors to prove Tarrant’s motives when it comes to politics and extreme views, denying him any coverage of his defence of those charges seems to fly in the face of open justice.

When Stuff, TVNZ, Mediaworks, NZME & RNZ signed this agreement, they wouldn’t have known that the Police would add terrorism to the charges, so there is an opportunity here for them to pause and reconsider how this forces them to cover his defence because this trial has to be seen serving justice as well as actually providing it.

The entire world is looking on, New Zealand’s legal system is being tested and we must pass that test with transparency.

 

 

16 COMMENTS

  1. trial him, charge him and ship him back to where he belongs we don’t want him here and we should not have to pay the cost of keeping him here he is an Australian.

  2. Until we start charging the good old boys with terrorism they will be free to claim that this country doesn’t see them as terrorists. It is clear that America does not given that the boys that blew up Oklahoma City FBI building were not charged with terrorism and Trump has pardoned Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond who were charged and convicted with terrorism. I want him to sit in an NZ prison for as long as he lives – send him to Oz and he’ll be released!

  3. why should our taxes pay to keep him here we need to do a deal with Aus to ensure he remains in prison there they are sending our people back non have done anything so horrendous we need to do the same we cant have him here and Lucy on what grounds would the Australian government release him he is a mass murderer even they don’t release people like him.

  4. We need to know everything about him and who influenced him…I am told he belonged to a group in Sydney who terrorised Muslims

    He was known to the Australians !…and yet he was able to do what he did in Christchurch New Zealand!

    …security slipped up and must be held accountable…this wont happen if things are kept secret!

    …and innocent New Zealanders are scapegoated and victimised

    • Tarrent also went to some pretty unusual countries on his OE, which again was odd and maybe he was radicalised there. Who the hell knows what happened because he also went around polar opposite countries in terms of culture aka both Israel and Pakistan it was reported.

      I am not interested in Tarrents views but am interested in what tipped him over the edge and whether their was a foreign aspect to it. If terrorism is defined as creating fear in a population, then I would guess by all the gun touting police, post attack in NZ, he meets the standard.

      Also time to have the exact reciprocal agreements with OZ and their treatment and rights and benefits given to NZer’s is the same as those of Australians in NZ.

      Currently Australians get a lot more benefits in NZ including voting and health care and social welfare than NZer’s get in Australia and our government is ok for Kiwi nationals to be screwed over (well they did campaign for Rogernomics and the Natz believe NZ workers are lazy, hopeless drug users). Just like Chinese can buy property in NZ but NZ can’t by property in China. Again seems like as usual our government got us a deal that is not reciprocal. Chinese should only be able to buy leasehold property in NZ and not vote just the same as Kiwis in China.

      It seems to be the NZ government way, to give away free services and significant benefits to foreigners which is not reciprocal to Kiwis, while telling NZer’s to tighten their belts and expect significant delays on wellbeing, from everything to health care, housing, justice, prisons, etc…

      The world is increasingly attracting overseas criminals under the loosening of visas and cheap travel, and other countries have twigged and getting rid of criminals and trouble makers while in NZ, we seem to be encouraging them and giving them more and more reasons to come here.

      Once convicted they seem to be able to come back aka Joanne Harrison can come back to NZ in 2020 it was reported. Crazy!

      NZ government seems to turn a blind eye and make it easy for overseas criminals to plan their crimes and live here for years , while NZ toddlers live in pain because they can’t see a dentist for months or 16 yo kids go blind waiting for an eye appointments, as well as the growing homeless and working poor and increasing poverty of the average Kiwi.

      Even the figures are fake, masked by census screw ups and creative accounting of what is a job and employment (1 hour a week of work) and who is a Kiwi, aka becoming a permanent Kiwi resident straight away for OZ and 11 days for Thiel, and in 2 -5 easy years for the rest of the world.

    • yes he was able to do what he did because he is a little white boy so there would have been no checks or balances now if Aussie know of these people why aren’t they intercepting them at the border at least informing us so we know they are coming and can do something about it.

  5. For a start the media should stick to the facts instead of spinning them to suit a particular narrative.
    For a start show us where this offender states he’s a white supremacist.

    • He didn’t state that, the term he used was ethnofascist I believe. But a lot of people don’t know what that means and white supremacist is more derogatory.

  6. Yes, you’re right, Jason. He’s an ethno-nationalist. It suits some elements of the left to claim he is a white supremacist because that enables them to fit him into their narrative of the evils of colonisation. It also suits them that the manifesto is banned (and that most news outlets will refuse to carry any analysis or even mention of it).

    • Australia is a federal parliamentary constitution monarchy. New Zealand is a constitutional Monarchy. What ever common linkages New Zealand and Australia has would end there. Indigenous have been around Australia for 40,000 years at least and Māori about 2000 in New Zealand, they share no common language that I know of. Perhaps Tarrant is just a typical lone wolf. It would be no good for anyone arguing that New Zealand has any closeness with Australia there fore could produce a pakeha terrorist group.

  7. It seems that Tarrant is not the only vicious right wing attacker whose identity is being protected.

    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/james-shaws-attacker-admits-assault/

    The man accused of assaulting Green Party co-leader James Shaw has admitted the attack, but disputes some of the facts.

    The man, 47, appeared in Wellington District Court today. He has been charged with injuring Shaw with intent, which he today pleaded guilty to.

    He has requested a disputed facts hearing, though it is not known what part of the summary of facts he disagrees with.

    He has had interim name suppression since first appearing in court several months ago. His lawyer today argued for that to continue for now.

    Shaw was grabbed and hit in the face as he walked to work in central Wellington just before 8am in March.

    He told media he’d suffered a small fracture in a bone in the eye socket.

    ……just before 8am in March.

    What is not reported is that this violent and unprovoked attack was on James Shaw occurred on the 14th of March. The day before Tarrant’s violent outrage.

    There are some serious questions, that are in the public interest that are being kept hidden.

    What motivated this man to attack James Shaw?

    Is this man a dangerous white supremacist, like Tarrant?

    Is that what motivated him to attack Shaw?

    Is his attack related to Shaw and the Green Party’s support for the United Nations convention on Immigration, which the right wing National Party has tried to inflame and exploit for political gain?

    Are immigrants and/or darker skinned people in danger of also being assaulted by this man?

    If Shaw’s attacker is a dangerous and violent extremist don’t the public need to know his identity?

    Are right wing political attackers motives and identity being hidden to protect those who hold similar views in the mainstream?

  8. well he would be a target when his name comes out if he is white supremacist living in Wainuiomata

    • well he would be free to target immigrants if his identity is kept hidden if he is a white supremacist living Wainuiomata.

Comments are closed.