On 15 March 2019, two consecutive mass shootings occurred in a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.[2][7] The attacks, carried out by a lone gunman who entered both mosques during Friday prayer, began at the Al Noor Mosque in the suburb of Riccarton at 1:40 pm and continued at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 pm.[8][9][10] 51 people were killed and 40 were injured.[11][12]
The gunman, 28-year-old Brenton Harrison Tarrant from Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, was arrested as he was driving to a third mosque. He was described in media reports as a white supremacist[13][14] and part of the alt-right.[citation needed] He had live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook,[15] and prior to the attack, had published an online manifesto; both the video and manifesto were subsequently banned in New Zealand and Australia.[16] On 26 March 2020, he pleaded guilty[17][18] to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders, and engaging in a terrorist act,[19][20] and in August was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – the first such sentence in New Zealand.[21][22][23]
The attack was linked to an increase in white supremacy and alt-right extremism globally[24][25] observed since about 2015.[26][27] Politicians and world leaders condemned it,[28] and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”.[29] 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.[30][31][32] The commission submitted its report to the government on 26 November 2020,[33] the details of which were made public on 7 December.[34]