Apparently, the motivation was the death of an 11yo girl, Ebba Akerlund, killed in a Stockholm terror attack in 2017, and a Dunedin Mosque video.
Foreign media contains a lot more information than our own:
‘The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China’
The New Zealand mosque shooting suspect apparently wrote that the country with values closest to his own is communist China.
“The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China,” read the manifesto purportedly written by suspect Brenton Tarrant, who is accused of shooting 49 people in Christchurch. An Epoch Times reporter has viewed the documents.
The author also described himself as an “eco-fascist” and “mostly agree with” Oswald Mosley, a British politician who became the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Some purportedly far-right individuals have expressed their support for Mosley in places like 8chan and 4chan’s /pol/.
NBC News reported that the 74-page manifesto, called “The Great Replacement,” was uploaded online before the attacks unfolded.
The author also wrote that “China [is] set to be the worlds most dominant nation in this century (sic),” adding that it’s because the country is “lacking diversity.”
“Were/are you a supporter of Donald Trump?” the author of the manifesto also wrote. “As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure. As a policymaker and leader? Dear god no.”
“Sir Oswald Mosley is the person from history closest to my own beliefs,” the author also said, adding that they don’t have much antipathy toward Jews.
“Were/are you an anti-semite?” asks the author to themselves. “No. A jew living in israel is no enemy of mine, so long as they do not seek to subvert or harm my people.”
According to The Associated Press, the manifesto that was purportedly penned by Tarrant is similar to the one written by Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.
Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defense College told AP the New Zealand shooter is against mass immigration and “has to some extent the same themes as Breivik,” who posted a 1,500-page manifesto online before carrying out the 2011 attacks.
Breivik’s lawyer, Oeystein Storrvik, was quoted by AP as saying that his client has “very limited contacts with the surrounding world so it seems very unlikely that he has had contact” with Tarrant or anyone else.
Ranstorp said that the New Zealand shooter said he wanted to leave prison after 27 years, likening himself to former South African President Nelson Mandela and said he would get the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Yet another narcissistic right-wing extremist terrorist who has a distorted fantasy world,” Ranstorp wrote, AP reported.
More Details
A person involved with the attacks also appeared to post regularly to the “/pol/ – Politically Incorrect” forum on 8chan, Reuters reported.
About 1:30 p.m. (0030 GMT) on Friday, the anonymous user told the group “I will carry out and attack against the invaders, and will even livestream the attack via Facebook”; approving responses to the post included Nazi images and memes.
The post featured a link to the same 74-page manifesto that said he was motivated by “white genocide,” a term white supremacists use to describe immigration and the growth of minority populations. It also linked to a Facebook page for a user called brenton.tarrant.9, where the attack was livestreamed.
Nolwenn Bervas, lead terrorism analyst at the Risk Advisory Group, explained to Reuters: “The amount of information and propaganda linked to the far-right, far-left or jihadism is extensive and accessible.”
“One of the Christchurch perpetrators posted his manifesto online before the attack where he wrote that he received/researched/developed his beliefs on the Internet, adding ‘You will not find the truth anywhere else,’” he said.
“He cited people like Dylan Roof or Anders Breivik as inspirations, who also researched and developed their beliefs online,” Bervas said.
