In Islam, Friday is known as the holiest day out of the week. This is a day where all Muslims go to their local mosque to perform Friday prayer, also known as “Jummah” in Arabic, around noontime.
On Friday, March 15, 2019, New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced that over 40 people were killed in mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques. According to media reports, the shooter reportedly live streamed the entire incident on Facebook. Witnesses told media that a man, Brenton Tarrant, 28, from Australia, dressed in a military-style, camouflage outfit, and carrying an automatic rifle had started randomly shooting people in the mosque.
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“Officers responded to reports of shots fired around 1:40 p.m. Friday (8:40 p.m. ET Thursday) in Christchurch, a city of around 375,000 people. The two mosques are about three miles apart, and the second mosque was attacked about 45 minutes after the first.
Bush said that four people — three men and a woman — had initially been detained, but it remained unclear whether all of them were involved.” – NBC News
Bush said the attack was a “very well-planned event”.
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In the 74-page manifesto, believed to have been written by Tarrant, he said the victims were a “large group of invaders” who he said “seek to occupy my peoples lands and ethnically replace my own (white) people (sic)”.
https://twitter.com/elle_bei/status/1106487389525024768
“Do not be afraid, and do not abandon your mosques — not today, not ever,” he said. “They want you to be afraid. You should not be afraid.” – Nihad Awad, national executive director Council on American-Islamic Relations.
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Australian Senator Fraser Anning said in a statement that “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslims fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” Basically saying that Muslims are the one to blame, when they are not, at all.
Mohan Ibrahim said he was among around 200 people inside that mosque.
“When I heard the first sound I thought maybe there’s an electric short-circuit, but later on it was continuously a big sound, a loud sound was happening,” he told NBC’s “Today” show. “The windows and glass were dropping and breaking. At that time lots of people we were inside.”
Ibrahim said he managed to escape through a door normally used by female worshippers at the back of the building.
“I had to run out of the area and I had to jump a wall,” he said.
“I cannot forget the sound of shooting and the scenario that I have seen with my eyes,” Ibrahim told Britain’s Sky News. “I’m just shaking.” – NBC News
