Harun Nasrullah

New Zealand has banned a video game that appeared to glorify the terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch.

A gunman targeted Muslim worshippers on March 15, killing 51 people including several elderly people and children. White supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with the deadliest mass shooting in modern New Zealand history.

A video game that celebrated the live-stream of the mass shooting is now classified as objectionable, announced Chief Censor David Shanks.

“The creators of this game set out to produce and sell a game designed to place the player in the role of a white supremacist terrorist killer,” Shanks said in a statement released on October 31.

“In this game, anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual male is a target for simply existing.”
Shanks previously outlawed the live-streamed video of Christchurch attack, and a manifesto linked to the alleged shooter.

Earlier this month, the censor board also outlawed a 35-minute long video of another attack by an anti-Semitic gunman who killed two people in Halle, Germany.

A document allegedly shared by the gunman in Germany has now also been banned, Shanks said.

Some game producers seem intent on producing a ‘family’ of white extremist games, and have established a revenue stream from it, with customers in New Zealand and around the world able to buy the games from the producer’s website, Shanks said.
“The game’s producers will try to dress their work up as satire but this game is no joke. It crosses the line.”