New Zealand tightens anti-terror law after stabbing attack

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – New Zealand lawmakers on Thursday made planning a terrorist attack a crime and strengthened the country’s security legislation following a mass attack earlier this month.

Officials say the new law, which also gives police more powers to conduct searches without a warrant, is in line with counter-terrorism laws in Australia and the UK and is less extensive than laws in the United States. However, critics have expressed concern about the potential impact on civil liberties.

The new law, which is expected to go into effect on Monday, is intended in part to protect against attacks by “lone wolves” such as the stabbing this month and the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, the worst terrorist attack in New Zealand history.

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said after the vote that the bill “strengthens our laws to combat the evolving nature of terrorism and closes long-standing loopholes in our counterterrorism laws to better protect New Zealanders”.

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The passage of the law accelerated this month following the knife attack by a Sri Lankan national who was recently released from prison. The 32-year-old man was under 24-hour police surveillance for almost two months, and on September 3, officials followed him as he walked into a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, grabbed a knife and turned it on to shoppers. In the chaos, six people were stabbed to death and two others were injured before the man was shot dead by police.

The attack in Auckland was shocking for a country that typically has one of the lowest homicide rates in the developed world. Public outrage was heightened when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who had been briefed on the man’s case before the attack, admitted that he was a “known threat” that had been on the national intelligence agency’s radar for years. The man had been found guilty of possession of Islamic State propaganda, but prosecutors were unable to prosecute him for terrorism under current New Zealand law.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the attacker was a “known threat”.MARK MITCHELL / AFP – Getty Images

After a long debate that lasted late Wednesday night and continued Thursday morning, lawmakers from New Zealand’s two main political parties voted for the stricter legislation, while center-left and libertarian parties opposed the handover concerns the surveillance had expressed.

Opponents opposed the speed with which the law was changed and the bill’s expanded definition of terrorism, which was intended to intimidate rather than incite terrorism. Others cited experts who claimed that prosecuting suspects on charges of planning or preparing an attack verged on “thought crimes”.

There are also concerns that some of the new offenses, including gun training, are intended to enable prosecutions in cases such as the 2007 police raids against human rights activists belonging to the New Zealand indigenous Maori group who were arrested on terrorism charges over their paramilitary camps allegedly in a mountainous area of ​​New Zealand’s North Island set up. Prosecutors later said the country’s laws were inadequate to prosecute the charges.

“The government denies that their new law would apply to such circumstances, but the way the new law is written and the expanded definition of terrorism means that this is a real problem,” said Graeme Edgeler, attorney and Legal commentator in Wellington. New Zealand’s capital.

Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, a Maori sovereignty activist who was the focus of the 2007 raids, told NBC News that he feared the new law could undermine the rights Maori claimed to be guaranteed in New Zealand’s founding document.

“In the hands of racist police and judges, this law does not, in my opinion, protect against the criminalization of legitimate self-determination movements,” he said.

Other New Zealanders cautiously welcomed the move.

“Of course we don’t want Big Brother watching over us, but we don’t want terrorism either,” Joanna Church, 22, a student from Robinson’s Bay, near Christchurch, told NBC News.

Residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, lay flowers for the victims on March 16, 2019, the day after a shooting in two mosques that killed 51 people. File Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images

A royal commission investigated New Zealand’s anti-terrorism laws after the March 2019 attack in Christchurch in which a 28-year-old armed man from Australia opened fire on Muslim worshipers in two mosques, killing 51 people. While the commission concluded that little could be done to stop this attack, it made a number of recommendations to prevent future misconduct, including updating laws to criminalize the planning of a terrorist attack.

After the attack in Auckland, opposition lawmakers said Ardern’s Labor Party had not acted fast enough to change the law.

In a statement Thursday, Opposition National Party spokesman Mark Mitchell said that while the updated legislation was a step in the right direction, the government should adopt other recommendations from the commission.

“Time is of the essence if we are to protect kiwis and the government needs to implement these recommendations as soon as possible,” he said. “This threat will not go away.”