Leaders from the Muslim community are hoping for clear action from the Government to prevent another terror attack happening again in New Zealand in the wake of the deadly Christchurch mosque shootings.
Spokesperson for the Islamic Women's Council Anjum Rahman and chairperson of the Khadija Leadership Network Pakeeza Rasheed spoke about the reality of New Zealand’s Islamophobia on TVNZ1's Q+A last night.
Ms Rahman said she was assured there was going to be an inquiry as "we need as much transparency as we can get".
He was asked if there had been failings by New Zealand’s intelligence agencies.
"We hope we can see some clear patterns around what needed to happen and what could be done in the future to prevent this kind of thing happening."
She had been raising her concerns about hate speech and Islamophobia publicly before the Christchurch mosque terror attacks.
"We had been concerned about the rising level of vitriol, we'd been concerned about what we'd been seeing both online and wherever we saw issues they were raised with the authorities.
Ms Rahman said they felt preventative measures were needed before the attacks.
"We needed programmes and resourcing to work on changing cultures, changing attitudes, improving understanding."
Ms Rasheed said she "absolutely" had encountered Islamophobia.
"Any women who wears a hijab has."
"I've encountered it from a very young age because I made the choice to wear the hijab when I was only eight-years-old. I saw it happening with my father."
She has been egged, spat on, had someone try to pull her hijab off.
"It's been other things as well where people feel emboldened to say things to my face and even though there are people around me nobody will support me."
"It's almost acceptable at some kind of level for that to go completely unchecked."
Q+A host Corin Dann asked Ms Rasheed if she thought New Zealand had enabled the tragedy of the Christchurch terror attack, "in the sense that this was a person influenced by globalised extremism, or do you feel that it was enabled in any way by New Zealand culture?"
"I think it's both," she said.
"We can't say as New Zealanders, or as a country exist in a vacuum.
"There's a lot of influences coming from overseas, we are part of the Five Eyes nation, we are following the global trends, there is a global rise in hostility against Muslims and we're seeing that manifest here in New Zealand as well.
Watch the full interview here:
They had been raising concerns publicly about hate speech and Islamophobia before the Christchurch terror attacks.
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