Malinowski Statement on Massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand

Statement

Yesterday in Christchurch, New Zealand a white supremacist slaughtered at least 49 Muslims as they prayed. Americans know this story all too well. We understand the pain and horror that every New Zealander is feeling right now. Our hearts go out to everyone who lost a loved one.

An attack on a place of worship is an attack on the basic principles of freedom and tolerance that countries like ours are built on. All of us are threatened today by the return of an ideology that encourages the dehumanization and murder of people based on their identity. This is evil in its purest form. It is abetted by leaders who for cynical political reasons echo language that disturbed minds interpret as legitimizing their hatred and as a license to kill. It is intensified by social media platforms whose very design drives people to political extremes.

The poison that led to the Squirrel Hill massacre of Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last year is the same poison that led to this terror in New Zealand. The perpetrators and their sympathizers aim to divide us, but we must instead be united in grief and determination. I will be working with my colleagues in the Congress to ensure that the federal government devotes as much attention to the domestic and transnational threat of white nationalist violence as it rightly has to all forms of terrorism.

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