Christchurch appears to be the latest in a global series of rightwing terror

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Mosques. Synagogues. Black churches. Leftwing politicians.

In the past eight years, across continents, white supremacists have repeatedly chosen the same targets for shootings, stabbings, bombings and car attacks.

The mass shootings on Friday targeting two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 49 people, appear to be the latest in a drumbeat of attacks motivated by the belief that the white race is endangered. The perceived threats include Jews, Muslims, immigrants, refugees, feminists and leftist politicians.

The attackers have not been part of a single white supremacist group. But they are steeped in the same global racist propaganda, fluent in the same memes and conspiracies, and the perpetrator of one attack often references the names of the killers who came before.

In less than a decade, these attacks have included:

July 2011

77 people killed in attacks on Utøya island and in Oslo, Norway

A bomb attack, followed by a shooting that targeted the island summer youth camp of Norway’s Labor party. The shooter, Anders Breivik, wanted to prevent an “invasion of Muslims” and deliberately targeted politically active young people who he saw as “cultural Marxists” and proponents of multiculturalism. More than half of the dead were teenagers.

August 2012

Six worshippers killed in a shooting targeting a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, US

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A memorial to the six victims. Photograph: John Gress/Reuters

The dead included the temple president, Satwant Singh Kaleka. The shooter, a “frustrated neo-Nazi” who had played in white power bands, was a regular on racist websites. He had previously talked to one colleague in the US military about a “racial holy war that was coming” and told another he was a “race traitor” for dating a Latina woman.



September 2013

Rapper and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas stabbed to death in Piraeus, Greece

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pavlos Fyssas. Photograph: Alexandros Theodoridis/AFP/Getty Images

A senior member of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was imprisoned after confessing to the killing.

April 2014

Three killed at Jewish centre and retirement home in Overland Park, Kansas, US

A former Ku Klux Klan leader shot and killed three people, one of them just 14 years old. He said he believed Jews were destroying the white race, and that diversity was a kind of genocide. None of his victims were Jewish, but he said he considered two of them to be accomplices to Jewish people.

June 2015

Nine people killed during Bible study at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, US

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The casket of shooting victim Susie Jackson is brought into the Mother Emanuel AME church. Photograph: Jason Miczek/Reuters

The nine victims included elderly longtime church members at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. The shooter, a self-avowed white supremacist, said he wanted to start a race war, and that he was concerned about “black-on-white crime”.

October 2015

Three killed in attack on school in Trollhättan, Sweden

The attacker targeted a local high school with a high percentage of immigrant students. He stabbed students and teachers, targeting those with darker skin, police said. Three died, including 15-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who was born in Somalia and had recently moved to Sweden.

June 2016

Labour MP Jo Cox shot and stabbed to death, UK

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jo Cox. Photograph: BBC/Amos Pictures

Cox was a supporter of Britain staying in the EU. She was attacked a week before the EU referendum vote in 2016. The man convicted of killing her, Thomas Mair, a white supremacist obsessed with the Nazis and apartheid-era South Africa, shouted: “This is for Britain,” “Keep Britain independent” and “Britain first” as he killed her.



January 2017

Six people killed during evening prayers at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada

One of the victims, Azzeddine Soufiane, was killed as he attempted to tackle the gunman. Nineteen people were also injured in the shooting, which the gunman said was prompted by Justin Trudeau’s tweet that refugees were welcome in Canada, and that “diversity is strength”, a response to Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries. The shooter, who said he feared refugees would kill his family, had previously been known as an aggressive online troll with anti-Muslim, anti-refugee and anti-feminist views.

March 2017

Timothy Caughman stalked and killed by a white supremacist with a sword, New York, US

Caughman, a 66-year-old “can and bottle recycler”, had lively social media accounts full of photographs with celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey. His killer, an American military veteran, said he targeted a random black man on the street in New York City as a “practice run” for a bigger attack, and as part of a campaign to persuade white women not to enter into interracial relationships. He urged one female journalist who interviewed him to have children: “Good white women should have as many children as possible.”

May 2017

Two men stabbed to death after intervening in an anti-Muslim rant, Portland, Oregon, US

Two men were killed and one injured after they tried to intervene to protect young women on a public train who were being targeted with an anti-Muslim tirade. Their alleged killer shouted “Free speech or die” in the courtroom, and “Death to Antifa! You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism!”

June 2017

Makram Ali killed and 12 people injured after a van ploughed into worshippers outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, United Kingdom

The killer, Darren Osborne, shouted “I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit” after the van attack, according to witnesses. He had been radicalised online and over Twitter, a judge concluded, and avidly consumed anti-Muslim propaganda from prominent rightwing figures.



August 2017

Heather Heyer killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, US

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People write messages in chalk in memory of Heather Heyer. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/The Guardian

After authorities shut down a violent white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the men who had been photographed with a white supremacist group drove his car into a crowded street full of counter-protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed. Dozens more were injured, many seriously. The killer had been obsessed with Hitler as a teenager, according to a former teacher. In phone calls from jail, he was recorded criticising Heyer’s mother as a “communist” and “one of those anti-white supremacists”.

October 2018

Man attempted to enter black church before allegedly killing two black people in a supermarket in Kentucky, US

A witness said that during the attack, the alleged shooter said: “Whites don’t kill whites.” His two victims, Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, were both black. Shortly before the shooting he had attempted to enter a nearby, predominantly black church, which was locked.

November 2018

11 killed in a mass shooting targeting the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Two women hug before placing flowers at the Star of David memorial in front of the synagogue. Photograph: Jared Wickerham/EPA

The alleged shooter had an active profile on an extremist social media site, where he accused Jewish people of trying to bring “evil” Muslims into the US, and wrote that a refugee aid organisation “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people”. In his online posts, Robert Bowers allegedly referenced internal debates within white supremacist groups, and egged on the harassment of an anti-fascist activist from Charlottesville. He has pleaded not guilty.

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