Scotland's first Muslim MP marks sixth anniversary of Christchurch terror attacks

Dr Zubir Ahmed said the compassion shown in New Zealand after the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks moved him to tears. Photo: Laurie Noble

The sixth anniversary of Christchurch terror attacks has been marked in the UK Parliament by Scotland's first Muslim MP.

Fifty-one worshippers were killed while attending prayers at two mosques in 2019.

Dr Zubir Ahmed, who was the MP for Glasgow South West, has told the House of Commons he was moved to tears in the days after the attack by the compassion New Zealand's leaders showed, particularly the Prime Minister at the time, Dame Jacinda Ardern.

"She validated my existence as a Muslim in the west in a way that no one in this country could have managed at the time," he said.

"In compassion there is often strength... and a bravery to confront difficult issues and have the difficult conversations across communities, but most importantly within."

Aotearoa already held a special place for Ahmed.

A practising public surgeon in the National Health Service, he said it was his time on placement in Wellington that galvanised his ambition to pursue a career public health.

Speaking to RNZ, Ahmed said in the days, months and years after the 2019 attacks, he felt "a true sense" that New Zealand politics wanted to involve everyone.

With the increasingly polarised and sometimes inward-looking nationalism emerging from some countries in the past two to three years, it was easy to lose sight of that sense of belonging, Ahmed said.

National identity can exist in harmony with cultural and religious identities, he said, and that was evident in the way New Zealand came together following the attack.

However, on the eve of the anniversary, Rosemary Omar, whose son Tariq was killed at Al Noor Mosque told RNZ she feared the Muslim community was still at risk today.

Many, including those in positions of power, still saw the community as a threat, rather than at risk, she said.

When asked if he shared the same concerns in the UK, Ahmed said there were still some pockets of British society that struggled.

It was up to everyone to work hard to counter these ideas and help create more positive connections, he said.

"It can't be a top-down approach, something that's done to communities. A lot of the solutions have to be found within communities," Ahmed said.

"It has to be a two-way relationship."

The Federation of the Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) had raised concerns about the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation targeting minority and particularly Muslim communities.

FIANZ's Abdur Razzaq referenced last year's Southport stabbing in the UK as an example.

Anti-migrant and Islamophobic riots broke out across Britain when disinformation online incorrectly identified the perpetrator as a Muslim migrant.

In fact, Axel Rudakubana was born in the UK to Christian parents.

He was now serving one of Britain's longest prison sentences.

It happened just weeks after first-term MP Ahmed was sworn into office.

He said the situation very quickly blew up and rapidly grew to encompass race, faith and immigration.

One day they were celebrating a historic win for his Labour Party, the next trying to deal with a horrible attack that kept snowballing.

In his speech to the House of Commons, Ahmed said "when hatred takes root in our society it diminishes us all."

"We should call out hatred when we see it online, at dinner tables, in changing rooms, in public spaces."

The digital world was now blurring into the real world for many people, he said, and many countries were experiencing online attacks on their democracy.

One of the tactics used by "bad faith actors" was to undermine the validity of certain minority communities to exist within a country's societal fabric.

"We have to take these threats extremely seriously," Ahmed said.

Thanks to the online world, hate speech and mis and disinformation could quickly go from being out in the world wide web to being acted on locally, in the real world, he said.

Ahmed was "very supportive" of further regulation in digital spaces.

"Clearly, there's always going to be a tension between freedom of speech and regulation, but it's not insurmountable," he said.

"As politicians, we have to take the responsibility of finding those solutions and proposing them in a way that's palatable to democracy."