JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said her department has offered its full support to New Zealand in the wake of the terror attacks. "We, too, have seen the face of such evil with attacks in places such as Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Charleston. And in the wake of the New Zealand tragedy, I want to make one thing very clear: We will not permit such hate in the homeland,” she said. Nielsen called the mosque shootings a "horrible assault" against Muslim worshipers<doc-sep>Survivor: I prayed the shooter would run out of bullets Expert: Catching videos on social media harder than you think New Zealand mom worries: Waiting to see if son is all right In the wake of the deadly attack against two mosques in New Zealand, police officers sit in their vehicle out side the Al Aqsa Islamic Society mosque in Philadelphia, ahead of prayers Friday, March 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A police officer secures the area in front of the Masjid al Noor mosque after a shooting incident in Christchurch on March 15, 2019. - Attacks on two Christchurch mosques left at least 49 dead on March 15, with one gunman -- identified as an Australian extremist -- apparently livestreaming the assault that triggered the lockdown of the New Zealand city. (Photo by Tessa BURROWS / AFP) (Photo credit should read TESSA BURROWS/AFP/Getty Images) Tributes laid at the police line close to the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch where 41 people died. Scenes from one of New Zealand's 'darkest days' Police stand outside a mosque in Linwood, Christchurch, New Zealand, Friday, March 15, 2019. Multiple people were killed during shootings at two mosques full of people attending Friday prayers. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) Newlywed who lost wife: I saw her lying in the road (CNN) — Abdul Nazer and his wife, Ansi Alibava, had their life planned out. They’d borrowed money to move to New Zealand from India last year, so she could do a master’s degree there in agribusiness management. He’d taken a job stacking shelves at the local supermarket to help pay the bills. When Alibava graduated, they hoped she’d get a high-paying job and they would live and work in New Zealand, before returning home to the southern Indian state of Kerala to settle down. Friday’s mass shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch changed everything. Nazer recounts his story in slow, halting words. He’s barely slept since Friday. His friend, Renju George, sits beside him, filling in the gaps when Nazer struggles to speak. Abdul Nazar Ansi Alibava had hoped to get a high-paying job in Christchurch after graduating. Nazer, 34, and Alibava, 25, were both inside Al Noor mosque – men sat on the left, women on the right – when the first shots were fired in one of New Zealand’s worst mass shootings. “Right before the main prayer, I heard a single shot firing and I thought that some kids outside might have popped a balloon,” says Nazer, in his native language Malayalam. Seconds later a series of staccato shots from a high-powered weapon sent 300 or so people in the mosque scrambling for the exit. Nazer says he was close to an emergency door and escaped after someone smashed the glass. Others were not so lucky. “People started falling over me, I saw people with blood on their shirts,” he says. He ran to a neighboring house and phoned the police for help before returning to the mosque to find his wife, who he hadn’t seen since they’d taken their seats. The scene that confronted him was horrifying. Bodies were scattered on the street beside pools of blood. Many people were injured. Then he saw the motionless figure of his wife, lying face down in the street. “I ran towards her and then a police guy stopped me and told me to move somewhere else,” he says. Abdul Nazar Friends say Nazer and Alibava, who were married in 2017, were very much in love. It wasn’t until Saturday night, more than 24 hours after he had fled the mosque, that police confirmed that Alibava was one of the 50 people killed in Friday’s attacks. Nazer’s friend, George, was with him when police handed them, and other families, a list of the people confirmed dead. Until then, he says, like many other relatives, they had clung on to the futile hope that perhaps there had been a mistake. That perhaps Alibava was in hospital. “We thought it might be one of those miracles that could happen,” George says. Nazer and Alibava had an arranged marriage two years ago, but friends say they have no doubt that the couple soon fell deeply in love. “She really loves her husband and her husband really loves her,” says Tali Ao, a friend from Lincoln University, who says he became good friends with “best friend” Alibava during their studies together. “I can see when they came to New Zealand … I could see them discovering each other. And really liking each other,” he adds. Abdul Nazar Alibava finished her master's degree earlier this year, after doing extra study last summer. Alibava finished her master’s degree three weeks ago, after doing extra study last summer to finish earlier than her classmates. Ao says Alibava was the brightest student on her course. “Her professors, everyone loved her,” Ao says. “She was so smart. Though she didn’t like doing assignments, she was very good at it.” On Monday, the university’s students and staff bowed their heads on the lawn for one minute’s silence in remembrance of the dead. “For some of our family’s victims to be attacked because of their religion is inconceivable,” said Acting Chancellor Bruce Mckenzie. The Kerala community in Christchurch has tightened around Nazer to help him through the coming days and months. Abdul Nazar Nazer wants to repatriate his wife's body back to Kerala to be home with her family. They’ve started a Givealittle page to help him pay back the $70,000 New Zealand dollar- ($48,000) loan they took out in India to pay for Alibava’s studies. Nazer wants to send his wife’s body back to Kerala to be home with her mother and brother. Her father died several years ago. Nazer is unsure what the future holds, but he says he knows he wants to stay in Christchurch, where he and his wife spent most of their married life together. “She had so many dreams,” he says. “No one would expect something like this would happen. There are a lot of good people here … This shouldn’t happen to any family.”<doc-sep>“New Zealand mourns with you. We are one.” Those are the powerful words New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the crowd of thousands of mourners who had gathered Friday for a Muslim prayer service in front of the Al Noor Mosque — one of two mosques where a gunman who espoused white nationalist views killed 50 worshippers last week. It’s the same sentiment Ardern expressed in her very first public statement during the chaotic moments immediately after the attacks, when she declared: “Many of those affected may be migrants, may be refugees. ... They are us. ... The perpetrator is not.” It’s also a sentiment that has been echoed by thousands of New Zealanders from all walks of life in the week since the atrocity. And it’s a sentiment that represents a stunningly powerful rebuke of the alleged shooter’s ideology of division and hate. New Zealanders have united to support and embrace their Muslim neighbors “According to the Prophet Muhammad … the believers in their mutual kindness, compassion, and sympathy are just like one body,” said the prime minister, who was dressed in a black headscarf, at the huge gathering in Christchurch’s Hagley Park on Friday. “When any part of the body suffers, the whole body feels pain,” she continued. “New Zealand mourns with you; we are one.” Thousands of other non-Muslim women, from police officers to TV news presenters to everyday citizens, followed Ardern’s lead by wearing headscarves Friday at the memorial. They also donned headscarves at similar events at mosques around the country, out of respect for and in solidarity with the Muslim community. The Muslim call to prayer, or adhan, was also broadcast on national radio and television across New Zealand at the beginning of the memorial service, followed by a two-minute moment of silence. And around the country, New Zealanders came out to perform the traditional Maori ceremonial dance known as the “haka” to honor the victims of the shooting. Maori are indigenous to New Zealand, and their culture and traditions are a big part of that country’s national culture and identity. Numerous hakas, many of them impromptu, have taken place around the country in the week since the attacks — performed by everyone from students to leather-clad bikers. All of these gestures of solidarity have been a balm to the hearts of the country’s tiny Muslim community, which makes up roughly 1 percent of New Zealand’s population. “We are brokenhearted, but we are not broken. We are alive, we are together, we are determined to not let anyone divide us,” New Zealand imam Gamal Fouda, who led the Friday service in Hagley Park, told the crowd in a moving 20-minute speech. He also praised Arden for her leadership and compassion in the aftermath of the attacks, calling it “a lesson for world leaders.” “Thank you for holding our families close and honoring us with a simple scarf,” Fouda said. These expressions of solidarity also do something even more powerful: They serve as a forceful, unequivocal rebuke of the alleged Christchurch shooter who killed 50 Muslims and injured dozens more. New Zealanders have sent a clear message: you will not divide us The 74-page manifesto that the alleged shooter is believed to have posted online shortly before carrying out the attacks is titled “The Great Replacement.” That’s a clear reference to the writings of a controversial French philosopher Renaud Camus. As Sarah Wildman, who interviewed Camus for Vox in 2017, explains, “Camus argues that European civilization and identity are at risk of being subsumed by mass migration, especially from Muslim countries — it’s a concept he refers to as the ‘Great Replacement.’” This idea is a cornerstone of white nationalist ideology around the world, and it’s a theme that runs through the alleged shooter’s entire manifesto, which provides the best insight we have so far into his alleged motives for the attack. “This crisis of mass immigration ... is an assault on the European people that, if not combated, will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people,” the manifesto states. “Mass immigration will disenfranchise us, subvert our nations, destroy our communities, destroy our ethnic binds, destroy our cultures, destroy our peoples.” The author explicitly states that his reason for carrying out the attack against New Zealand’s Muslim community, many of whom are immigrants, was to “most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people.” It’s a horrifying message of hate. But it’s also, just looking at the numbers, absurd. Remember, Muslims make up a minuscule 1 percent of New Zealand’s population (and in Australia, where the shooter is actually from, Muslims make up around just 2.6 percent of the population). Yet the myth of an impending “cultural replacement” persists — and was evidently strong enough to compel the author to commit mass murder. But New Zealanders, with their expressions of unity, just delivered a powerful blow to that myth. The students and bikers and indigenous Maori who performed hakas to honor the victims; the police officers and TV news presenters who donned headscarves in solidarity with their Muslim neighbors; and the thousands of other New Zealanders who showed up for Friday prayers at mosques across the country sent a clear message: The Muslims in our community are not invaders. And they’re not “replacing” anything. They’re New Zealanders. They’re us. “He was hoping to divide us,” 52-year-old Christchurch resident Bell Sibly, who wore a headscarf to the memorial to show her support, told NDTV on Friday. “And instead, he’s brought us all together in one big hug.”<doc-sep>Tens of thousands of people attended a vigil in Christchurch to mourn the 50 Muslims killed in an attack on two mosques by a suspected white supremacist. A huge group of mourners, estimated to number between 20,000 and 40,000 by local police, came to Hagley Park on Saturday evening to honor and remember the victims of what New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called a terrorist attack. According to Reuters, many non-Muslim women wore headscarves at the vigil to show their support for those of Islamic faith as they had at similar events last week. On March 15, a 28-year-old Australian man who had reportedly described himself in a manifesto as a white supremacist opened fire inside two mosques, killing 50 people and injuring 50 more. AS CRUCIAL BREXIT VOTES LOOM, THERESA MAY BACKED BY MINISTERS AMID COUP REPORTS Mourners listened while the names of 50 worshippers were read aloud, beginning with the youngest victim, 3-year-old Mucaad Ibrahim, reports Al Jazeera. "May your spirits go to the top of Aoraki ... and look down on us and give us peace and love," one speaker reportedly said, using the traditional Maori name for Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak. On Sunday, Ardern said a national remembrance service would be held on March 29 to honor the massacre victims. Mustafa Boztas, a 21-year-old survivor of the shooting at Al Noor, told Al Jazeera that remembrance events show that "New Zealand cares" about its Muslim minority, which accounts for over 1 percent of the country's nearly 5 million people. INDONESIA'S FIRST SUBWAY OPENS IN ITS GRIDLOCKED CAPITAL A student from one of the nearby schools, Okirano Tilaia, reportedly told the assembled crowd: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can. Hatred cannot drive out hatred, only love can.” Earlier on Saturday, according to the Qatar-based news channel, more than 1,000 people marched in a rally against racism in Auckland, carrying "migrant lives matter" and "refugees welcome here" placards. “The service will be a chance to once again show that New Zealanders are compassionate, inclusive and diverse and that we will protect those values,” Ardern said in a statement. The prime minister's response to the mosque attack has included a swift denunciation of the incident as terrorism and a push to toughen the country's gun laws. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<doc-sep>
The Muslim call to prayer sounded out over Christchurch and around New Zealand yesterday, as thousands gathered to remember the 50 people killed by a lone gunman at two mosques a week ago. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined about 20,000 people standing quietly at Hagley Park, in front of the Al Noor mosque where most of the victims were killed during Friday prayers last week. "New Zealand mourns with you. We are one," she said in a short speech, followed by two minutes of silence. Ardern, who swiftly denounced the shooting as terrorism, has announced a ban on military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles. The country is under heightened security alert since the attack, and police said yesterday they were investigating a threat made against Ardern on Twitter. New Zealand Herald reported that a Twitter post containing a photo of a gun and captioned "You are next" was sent to the prime minister. Reuters could not verify this independently. The report said the account was suspended. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with one murder following the Christchurch attack and was remanded without a plea. He is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges. Most victims of New Zealand's worst mass shooting were migrants or refugees from countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. "We are broken-hearted, but we are not broken. We are alive, we are together, we are determined to not let anyone divide us," Imam Gamal Fouda told the crowd at the Al Noor mosque, many wearing headscarves in support of the grieving Muslim community. "To the families of the victims, your loved ones did not die in vain. Their blood has watered the seeds of hope," he said in prayers broadcast nationally. Tens of thousands of people paid their respects around the country with some forming human chains in front of mosques. Others said silent prayers at schools, cafes and even offices. Relatives and other mourners thronged into a Christchurch cemetery where 26 victims of the attack, and one person who died in a car crash that was unrelated to the mosque shooting, were laid to rest in a mass burial. “This is a special janazah. We don't do these every day," one mourner said over a microphone, referring to an Islamic funeral prayer. "We don't bury 27 of our brothers and sisters every day.” The first to be laid to rest was Naeem Rashid, who was hailed as a hero, killed trying to tackle the gunman at the Al Noor mosque. ISLAMOPHOBIA Ardern, surrounded by ministers and security officials at Hagley Park, wore a black headscarf and a black suit. Female police at the park also wore headscarves, with a red rose on their uniforms. In a powerful speech that lasted about 20 minutes, the imam, Fouda, said through its love and compassion, New Zealand was unbreakable. "We are here in our hundreds and thousands unified for one purpose – that hate will be undone, and love will redeem us," he said. He thanked Ardern for her compassion, saying: "It has been a lesson for world leaders." Fouda also denounced Islamophobia, saying it had killed people. "Islamophobia is real. It is a targeted campaign to influence people to dehumanise and irrationally fear Muslims. To fear what we wear, to fear the choice of food we eat, to fear the way we pray and to fear the way we practice our faith," he said. Muslim nations yesterday called for "genuine" measures against Islamophobia after the attack on two New Zealand mosques. Violence driven by Islamophobia requires "genuine, comprehensive and systematic measures to address this affliction," ministers from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said in a statement after a meeting in Istanbul. The OIC said attacks against mosques and murders of Muslims showed the "brutal, inhumane and horrific outcomes" of hatred of Islam. It called for countries with Muslim communities, minorities or migrants to refrain from "statements and practices that associate Islam with terror, extremism and threats" to society, reported AFP. Muslims account for just over 1 percent of New Zealand's population. Many women wore headscarves in New Zealand as a sign of support to the community, and a #headscarfforharmony movement was trending on Twitter.