New Zealand bans 'abhorrent' mosque shooting game
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments

Flowers and candles in front of the Kebab snack shop in Halle an der Saale, Germany, on Oct 22, 2019.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
WELLINGTON (DPA) - New Zealand has banned documents said to have been shared by a man who killed two people in the German town of Halle earlier this month as well as an "abhorrent" video game that glorifies the livestream of the March 15 terrorist attacks in Christchurch that left 51 people dead.
"These publications promote killing and terrorism and serve no positive purpose," New Zealand's chief censor David Shanks said in a statement on Thursday (Oct 31).
A 35-minute-long livestream of the Halle attack in which two people were killed - one outside a synagogue and the other in a kebab shop, has already been outlawed in New Zealand. On Monday, Mr Shanks also classified a computer game as objectionable.
"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," he said. "Anyone who isn't a white heterosexual male is a target for simply existing."
Mr Shanks said most New Zealanders would find the game abhorrent and would not want to come across it, even accidentally.

