‘WORDS WILL NOT REMOVE THE FEAR’: NEW ZEALAND MARKS TWO YEARS OF MOSQUE ATTACK

Sat 13 March 2021:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Governor-General Patsy Reddy joined hundreds of community members at Christchurch’s Horncastle Arena on Saturday for the service.

Ardern told an emotional memorial service marking two years since the Christchurch mosque attacks that the country had “a duty” to support its Muslim community.

Ardern said words “despite their healing power” would never change what happened.

“Men, women and children … were taken in an act of terror. Words will not remove the fear that descended over the Muslim community,” she said, adding the legacy should be “a more inclusive nation, one that stands proud of our diversity and embraces it and, if called to, defends it staunchly.”

The lost were remembered in song, in prayer, in tears and with defiant pledges to rebuild lives, bodies and community.

The centrepiece of the service was the names of the dead read aloud as their pictures were displayed on a big screen alongside descriptions provided by their families.

For Hussein Al-Umari, it read “Lovely and always helpful from the bottom of his heart towards others. Courageous and loyal till his last breath”.

Mr Al-Umari died attempting to confront the terrorist, Australian man Brenton Tarrant, at Al Noor Mosque.

Representatives of bereaved families, affected youth, the injured and the community gave speeches for the hundreds assembled.

Today marks one week after the New Zealand mosque massacres.

Here are the names and faces of the 50 victims: pic.twitter.com/7SRw4tznq7

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 22, 2019

Atacocugu said it was a miracle he was still alive.

“I have since had seven major surgeries and there are more to come. I will carry lots of shrapnels in my body for the rest of my life. Every time I have an X-ray it lights up like a Christmas tree.”

Kiran Munir, whose husband Shaheed Haroon Mahmood was killed in the attack, told the service that the best revenge was to “not be like the enemy. We are learning to rise up again with dignity and move forward as best we can.”

She said her husband was a loving father of their two children. He had just finished a doctoral degree and was looking forward to his graduation ceremony when she last saw his smiling face.

“Little did I know that the next time I would see him the body and soul would not be together,” she said. “Little did I know that the darkest day in New Zealand’s history had dawned. That day my heart broke into a thousand pieces, just like the hearts of the 50 other families.”

The gunman, self-proclaimed white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, was arrested minutes after the attacks on the Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.

He pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism, and was sentenced last year to life imprisonment without parole, the first time a whole life term has been handed down in New Zealand.

Last week, police arrested a 27-year-old man in Christchurch and charged him with threatening to kill following online threats to the same two mosques.

During the memorial service, armed police were stationed outside the venue and a sniffer dog checked the bags of people entering the building.

Photo: Reading of the names of the people who lost their lives by Zahra Omar and Sara Qasem | CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF

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