For many, the terror attacks on the Christchurch mosques seemed to come from nowhere. But not everyone was blind to the looming danger. I created illustrations to support this seven-part series, See No Evil, where Stuff investigated how a group of women desperately tried to get the attention of officials – and why they failed.
Anjum Rahman, left, and Aliya Danzeisen, right, spent years trying to get attention about the concerns of the Muslim community in New Zealand before the Christchurch terror attacks.
A senior Government official says that it wasn’t until after the Christchurch terror attacks they realised white supremacy was such a big iceberg in this country.
Abuse towards Muslim women began increasing in New Zealand from about 2014. Aliya Danzeisen even received racist anonymous phone calls after working in her own garden.
A 2015 parliamentary select committee hearing in which the issue of New Zealand women becoming “jihadi brides” in Iraq and Syria was raised led to another layer on the pile of discrimination faced by Muslim women in Aotearoa. Information about the issue later needed correcting – but damage had been done.
A crucial meeting in 2017 gave the Islamic Women’s Council of NZ and other Muslim leaders the chance to put their case for help to senior Government officials - but the meeting eventually led nowhere.
The Christchurch terrorist flew a drone over the Al Noor mosque to check it out just weeks before he returned to kill innocent worshippers.
The day after the Christchurch attacks, Aliya Danzeisen got a text telling her money was finally being made available for the Government’s ethnic communities agency – why had it taken a tragedy to find the money?
