Press Release
A Statement on the Terrorist Attacks in New Zealand
(Translated)

On March 15, 2019, in New Zealand's Christchurch, two mosques were attacked during Friday prayers, where an attacker stormed the mosques and opened fire on the worshipers with his machine gun, killing 50 Muslims and seriously wounding dozens. Among the victims were women, young men and children. The courage of one of the worshipers prevented the fall of more victims, by facing the attacker and forcing him to flee.

What distinguishes this attack in Christchurch is that the attacker committed the crime in clear daylight. He announced his plan very clearly and showed his face, live-broadcasting the attack on social networks. He did not hide his motives behind vague words, but expressed them in clear language, mentioning the names of his role models and the names of his enemies, airing the tone of the song "Brothers in Spirit", proving national ethnic symbols.

This behavior leads us to a clear conclusion:

The aggressor was sure to reach a large number of the public, confident that the "moral majority in the West" was behind him. He committed his crime in a socio-political context alert to the alleged Islamic threat. In other words, his behavior was not the same as the actions of a meager group of widespread violence groups, but his work and publications took on a clear trait as one of the episodes of the global conflict between the West and Islam.

Objectively, we can easily define the scope of his convictions: the dangers of Muslim immigration to European identity, the civilizational conflict between two views of life. The Christchurch attack can be attributed to a pivotal event in 2001... It is the Bush administration's "War on Terror" that created the political framework for a completely new perspective on Muslims and their lives in Western societies. The "War on Terror" link to security measures and the fight against “terrorism“ were in fact only partially linked. The real purpose of this war - announced by the US government in public and its allies so far - was to transfer democracy and the idea of freedom to the Muslim world. This has resulted in the perception that the security of Western societies can be achieved only through the equalizing of views of life and the view of man in all people to become a monolithic view. This dangerous confusion between security policy and the policy of spreading the principle pursued by governments in the West has been the reason for all Western societies to rethink their dealings with Muslims. The result was a policy of aggressive integration and even a policy of defamation practiced by governments at the expense of Muslims. The systematic pursuit and attack on everything that represents Islamic life began: Politicians from various parties have made Islam an enemy and openly declared the superiority of Western civilization.

In Germany, the term "pioneering culture" was formulated and introduced by the former Interior Minister, Thomas de Mezier, which he has always emphasized. In Switzerland, the government gave the angry citizens the right to vote for banning minarets. In Austria, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz put the fight against "political Islam" at the top of his priorities.

The media have also participated in this campaign. They dehumanized Muslims by distorting their image, raising fears, and explained that the struggle to repel Islamization is inevitable at all levels. And provided those spiteful on Islam discussion platforms on television, propagating their provocative writings, and falsely made them “experts in the affairs of Islam”.

The dramatic effects in society did not take long before they appeared. Schools banned students from practicing their prayers inside the school campus. Universities closed prayer halls, prevented veiled (niqabi) women from entering lecture halls, companies banned their employees from wearing headscarves, and Islamophobia became a norm in social media. The result was the emergence of a culture of hatred and incitement, a culture of "demagoguery", a culture of defamation and condemnation, humiliation and abuse! In the wake of the "War on Terror", populisy parties and extremist right-wing movements emerged throughout the Western world, openly and blatantly calling for a homeland without Islam and Muslims.

Today, the world has become witness to the emergence of a new type of terrorists. Terrorists working in the "tracks" of the state doctrine imposed on all, derive their legitimacy from them, and commit on this basis a "war at a low level." Christchurch's murderer considered Muslims living in the West with their cultural differences constituted an existential threat and could only be overcome by military means. The murderer compared his combat mentality by the beginnings of Western integration and disintegration policies, which emerged in the context of security policy debates, and thus aimed at eliminating the alleged enemies of the state.

Hizb ut Tahrir calls on Western countries to immediately end this irresponsible confusion between two different political spheres. As long as sociopolitical issues, such as ideological and religious pluralism of society, are weighed against the background of foreign and security policy considerations and discussed publicly under this light, uncontrollable disturbances and violence are always expected. It is time to recognize that this campaign against Islam has failed internally and externally. Rather than endangering the internal peace of society because of this blind intolerance, the Western world should reconsider its dealings with Muslims and end this campaign for its own benefit.

We say to the Muslims in Christchurch and throughout the world that this kind of crime requires attention not only to the perpetrators, but, above all, to their role models, as well as to the real instigators. And they are known to us.

Those do not sit in the back rooms, planning with their craziness to take out such massacres. They are in high positions and in places of honor in the center of society: in the political establishment, in the editorial offices of the main media outlets, and in any place where public opinion is formulated.

We, as Muslims, must realize that this campaign against Islam is taking place at all levels: on the ideological cultural level in Western countries through intimidation, incitement and the policy of forced assimilation against the Muslims living here, and in the Muslim countries through those levels as well as political control through puppet rulers, economic plunder and direct military aggression0 and occupation.

This campaign can only be confronted by invoking Islam as a comprehensive system of life, as a truth inspired by Allah, and that this truth is the only thing that can end this deplorable situation of Muslims and achieve real renaissance. We must - even as Muslims living in the West - move in unity and resolve to bring about comprehensive political and societal change in the Islamic countries through the establishment of the State of Islam, the Khilafah Rashidah (righteous Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood, which will apply Islam as a system of life, the system of mercy and justice in all fields. Only then will the state of Dengism that we live end, and only then will the Muslims regain their strength to be under the protection of the Khilafah state even in the Western countries, and only then will Allah be pleased with us.

(يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَجِيبُوا لِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ إِذَا دَعَاكُمْ لِمَا يُحْيِيكُمْ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَحُولُ بَيْنَ الْمَرْءِ وَقَلْبِهِ وَأَنَّهُ إِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ)

“O you who Believe! Respond to the call of Allah and the Apostle whenever He calls you unto that which will give you life; and know that Allah intervenes between man and [the desires of] his heart, and that unto Him you shall be gathered” [8:24]

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in the German-Speaking Countries