The Latest: 2 New Zealand burials set for Wednesday morning
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — The Latest on the mosque shootings in New Zealand (all times local):
4 p.m.
Australia’s prime minister says he has asked the Turkish president to withdraw his accusation of an anti-Islam motive behind Australia and New Zealand sending troops to Turkey in the World War I Gallipoli campaign.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was denouncing Islamophobia after an Australian was arrested in the killings of 50 worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “all options are on the table” if Erdogan does not withdraw his comments.
Turkish ambassador Korhan Karakoc said he had a “frank” conversation with Morrison when the envoy was summoned to Parliament House on Wednesday.
Thousands of Australian and New Zealand citizens gather at the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25 each year to commemorate the start of the failed British-led campaign in 1915 to open a new front in the war against Germany.
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3:10 p.m.
A man accused of sharing video of a massacre in New Zealand has been jailed by a judge until his next court appearance in mid-April.
Philip Arps, 44, appeared in a Christchurch court Wednesday on two charges of distributing the killer’s livestream video of last week’s attack on Al Noor mosque, a violation of the country’s objectionable publications law. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Arps, heavily tattooed and dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, hasn’t entered a plea. He remained expressionless during the hearing, his hands clasped behind his back.
Judge Stephen O’Driscoll denied him bail.
Charging documents accuse Arps of distributing the video on Saturday, one day after the massacre.
Arps owns a Christchurch business that had company vans emblazoned with neo-Nazi references.
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1:15 p.m.
The first two people to be buried after last week’s mosque attacks that killed 50 people are a father and his son.
Khalid Mustafa was 44 and Hamza Mustafa was 15. The teen was a student at Cashmere High School and was compassionate and hard-working, according to the principal Mark Wilson.
Hamza was an excellent horse rider who aspired to be a veterinarian, Wilson says.
Hamza’s younger brother Zaed, 13, suffered gunshot wounds to the leg in the attack.
Mourners on Wednesday carried the bodies to a freshly dug gravesite, where hundreds gathered around to watch. Some were invited to scoop handfuls of dirt on top of the bodies.
Authorities spent four days constructing a special grave at a city cemetery that is designated for Muslim burials.
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12:50 p.m.
New Zealand police have officially released the first names of the 50 people killed in last week’s shootings at two New Zealand mosques.
Police said the five people they have named were all male and died at the Al Noor mosque.
Hati Mohemmed Doud Nabi, 71, of New Zealand.
Mohsen Mohammed Al Harbi, 63, of New Zealand.
Kamel Moh’d Kamal Kamel Darwish, 38, of Jordan.
Junaid Ismail, 36, of New Zealand.
Mucaad Ibrahim, 3, of New Zealand.
New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police have now formally identified and released the bodies of 21 people to family members.
He said they hope to finish formally identifying most victims by the end of the day although some will take longer.
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12:35 p.m.
The first funeral for two of 50 victims of last week’s shootings at two mosques in New Zealand has begun.
Hundreds of people are at the services in Christchurch.
The identity of the victims was not immediately known. Authorities spent four days constructing a special grave at a city cemetery that is designated for the Muslim burials.
An Australian white supremacist killed 50 worshippers in two mosques last Friday.
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11:50 a.m.
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will protest to the Turkish ambassador on Wednesday against the Turkish president’s accusation of an anti-Islam motive behind Australia and New Zealand sending troops to Turkey in the World War I Gallipoli campaign.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was denouncing Islamophobia after an Australian white supremacist killed 50 worshippers in two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
Morrison said the comments were not helpful.
Thousands of Australian and New Zealand citizens gather at the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25 each year to commemorate the start of the failed British-led campaign in 1915 to open a new front in the war against Germany.
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11:30 a.m.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has visited a school where two boys killed in last week’s mosque attacks were students.
In a speech at Cashmere High School, Ardern renewed her call for people to focus on the victims rather than the perpetrator.
She says there will be interest in the terrorist but asked the students not to say his name or dwell on him.
The Cashmere High students killed were 14-year-old Sayyad Milne and 16-year-old Hamza Mustafa. A third Cashmere student, Mustafa’s 13-year-old brother Zaed, is recovering from gunshot wounds to his leg.
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10:45 a.m. Wednesday
New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush says police have now formally identified and released the bodies of 21 people out of the 50 who were killed in last week’s mosque attacks.
Bush said that releasing the bodies was a priority for family reasons, compassionate reasons and cultural reasons.
Islamic law says that people should be buried as soon as possible after death, preferably within 24 hours.
Bush’s comments came after it was announced that the first two burials of the victims are scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
He says they hope to finish formally identifying most victims by the end of the day although some will take longer.
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10 a.m.
The first two burials of the victims from last week’s mosque shootings in New Zealand are scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Christchurch City Council spokeswoman Jocelyn Ritchie says the Muslim burial ceremony for the two of the 50 people killed will take place at 11 a.m. She said she did not know the identities of the two bodies to be buried first.
Authorities spent four days constructing a special grave at a city cemetery that is designated for Muslim burials.
It’s uncertain how many of the victims will be buried there. Officials have received some requests to send bodies to the native countries of those killed.
The alleged Australian gunman who opened fire inside the mosques last week was a self-proclaimed racist.
About 60 men in Muslim attire held meetings at the grave site ahead of the burials to survey the area.
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12:30 a.m.
A group of big internet companies says it has added more than 800 different versions of the New Zealand mosque shooting video to a shared database used to block violent terrorist images and videos.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism said Monday that it added “digital fingerprints” for the visually distinct videos to its list.
The group, led by Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter, was responding to attempts by internet users to share the video by editing or repackaging versions with different digital fingerprints to avoid detection.
The forum said in a brief statement that the “incident highlights the importance of industry cooperation regarding the range of terrorists and violent extremists operating online.”
The group formed in 2017 in response to official pressure to do more to fight online extremism.
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12:30 a.m.
Ignoring widespread criticism, Turkey’s president has again shown excerpts of a video taken by the attacker who killed 50 people in mosques in New Zealand.
Speaking at a campaign rally in the northern town of Eregli, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on New Zealand to amend its laws to ensure that the attacker is severely punished.
Erdogan said, “If New Zealand fails to hold the attacker accountable, one way or another we will hold him to account.”
He went on to criticize New Zealand and Australia for sending troops to Turkey in the World War I Gallipoli campaign, claiming their motive was anti-Islam-oriented.
Erdogan has been using clips from Friday’s attack to denounce Islamophobia ahead of March 31 local elections as he tries to stoke nationalist and religious sentiments.
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11:25 p.m. Tuesday
Facebook says it received no reports of the video of the Christchurch mosque attacks while it was being livestreamed by the gunman.
Chris Sonderby, vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, says “no users reported the video during the live broadcast,” which was viewed fewer than 200 times.
Sonderby says in a blog post that Facebook removed the video “within minutes'” of being contacted by police, and it was watched about 4,000 times in total before being taken down. He says Facebook removed 1.5 million videos of the attacks in the 24 hours after the event.
Social media companies rely on the public to report objectionable comment. Facebook has come under fire after video of the shootings spread rapidly on the internet.
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10:10 p.m.
Police in New Zealand say they have completed autopsies on all 50 victims of last week’s mosque shootings, and have formally identified 12 of them. Six of the identified victims have been returned to their families.
Four days after the attack, relatives were anxiously waiting Tuesday for word on when they can bury their loved ones.
Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said authorities hope to release all the bodies by Wednesday, and police have said authorities are working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they can.
Police said in a statement that their “absolute priority is to get this right and ensure that no mistakes are made.”
The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.
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