The Islamic Women's Council says the government needs to stop "fear-mongering" after it inaccurately implied women were leaving New Zealand to become "jihadi brides".
Anjum Rahman says the government should stop "fear mongering" Photo: Supplied
Last December the SIS Director Rebecca Kitteridge told Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee there was a developing trend of New Zealand women travelling to ISIS-controlled areas, which was prefaced by comments about "the threat to domestic security posed by foreign fighters and other extremists".
Prime Minister John Key, who chairs the committee, then asked if some of the women could be "jihadi brides".
But documents obtained by RNZ News show none of the women actually left from New Zealand and all were living in Australia.
Now Key has denied any attempt to create a misleading impression, that the 12 or so women referred to by Ms Kitteridge, left from New Zealand, rather than from Australia.
"We didn't say that, it was the Director [General] that made the statement, and what she said was there were jihadi brides.
"The fact that where they leave from is irrelevant, if they're New Zealanders, they're New Zealanders, they may return to New Zealand and so we have to deal with those issues.
"There are also people who may potentially leave, so who's ultimately left is just one measure."
Key was asked whether he chose to omit the fact they had left from New Zealand.
"Well I wasn't the one who was asked the question, I was just aware of the briefings I get about that issue. There are people who have been looked at or observed, yep the ones that go, it doesn't matter where they leave from, lots of people use a different pathway."
Any attention that was turned upon Muslim women in New Zealand as a result of the comments made by him and Kitteridge was irrelevant, he said.
John Key and Rebecca Kitteridge Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski
Islamic Women's Council spokesperson Anjum Rahman told RNZ the initial information was a real shock, and they had queried whether it was true.
Finding out the women were not leaving from New Zealand had left them feeling very disappointed, she said.
"Those kinds of statements put a spotlight on our community. They have impact on our daily lives and the way that we're treated in the community.
"To put out that information without including this vital fact is hugely unfair."
The Muslim community was constantly asking to engage with security services and the government and it was just not happening, Rahman said.
"We'd like positive engagement with the government and less fear-mongering, please."
"Every implication was that it was New Zealand women leaving New Zealand for Syria," she said.
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said Key and Kitteridge deliberately whipped up fear about Muslim women in New Zealand. They both needed to apologise, she said.
"If they knew that actually they were talking about women leaving from Australia, they should have said so at the time - and they never clarified that."
"We now need to rebuild, if that's possible, trust in the information we get from Rebecca Kitteridge, from John Key and the SIS, about their spying activities.
"Because time and time again they've just shown that they can't be trusted to give decent information to New Zealanders about what they're doing."
READ: 'I'm not a jihadi bride'
Hela Rahman while visiting her family in Iraq last month Photo: Supplied
Labour also said the statements had created an impression of a greater security risk than actually existed.
The Minister in Charge of the SIS, Chris Finlayson, yesterday denied the Government deliberately created the wrong impression.
"We didn't give that impression at all ... If you go back to the statements that were made, there were no implications or 'winks and nods' that they were not resident in New Zealand."
A version of this story first appeared on RNZ.co.nz