Search icon

News

18th Jun 2019

New Zealand man jailed for sharing Christchurch shooting video

Alan Loughnane

Man jailed New Zealand

It’s illegal to share the footage in New Zealand.

A New Zealand man who shared a livestream video of the Christchurch mosque attacks has been jailed for 21 months.

Philip Arps had earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing the video, which was livestreamed on Facebook by a gunman on March 15 as he began killing 51 people at two mosques.

According to Radio New Zealand, Arps sent the video to 30 people and a friend following the shooting. He also requested for somebody to insert crosshairs and include a kill count on the video.

Shortly after the attack, New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature classified the video as objectionable, making it an offence to possess, share or host it.

Under New Zealand law, distributing objectionable material to another person carries a possible prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Arps is a self-described white supremacist, and previously delivered a bloodied pig’s head to Al Noor mosque in 2016.

This mosque was among those targeted in the March shootings.