Christchurch shooter: Brenton Tarrant complains about jail

The Australian white supremacist accused of killing 50 worshippers in two Christchurch mosques has lodged a complaint over prison conditions.

The Australian white supremacist accused of killing 50 worshippers in two Christchurch mosques has lodged a complaint over prison conditions, New Zealand authorities say.

According to New Zealand media reports, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant has lodged a formal complaint about his rights in prison.

A Corrections source told the news website Stuff that Tarrant complained he was being denied access to visitors and phone calls from his cell in an Auckland prison.

MORE: Facebook to restrict live videos

The accused shooter Brenton Tarrant. Picture: Supplied

“He is being managed in accordance with the provisions set out in the Corrections Act 2004 and our international obligations for the treatment of prisoners,” a Corrections spokesman said in response to a query from DPA today.

“At this time he has no access to television, radio or newspapers and no approved visitors,” the spokesman added.

“For operational security reasons no further information will be provided.”

Tarrant was arrested on March 15 and charged with murder and was remanded in custody until April 5 when his case will go to the High Court in Christchurch.

Fifty people died in the massacre. Picture: Gary Ramage

It comes as police reveal that weeks before the massacre, a man had threatened to burn copies of the Koran outside New Zealand mosques.

Community leaders said the incident was the latest in a long list of threatening behaviour against religious minorities.

Police said they warned a 38-year-old man over the incident, which was unrelated to the Christchurch attack, but could not say if it was part of a pattern.

That’s because, unlike many Western countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, New Zealand’s government keeps no comprehensive record of hate crimes, failing to act on requests to do so from local and international agencies spanning more than a decade.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered a Royal Commission into the attack.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern giving a speech at a national remembrance service for the victims of the Christchurch massacre. Picture: Getty Images

“For many years our view has consistently been that this needs to be prioritised and implemented urgently,” said Janet Anderson-Bidois, chief legal adviser at the Human Rights Commission, the independent government agency tasked with protecting human rights.

“It is imperative that we have good data.”

Joris De Bres, New Zealand’s Race Relations Commissioner between 2002 and 2013, said he was alarmed at signs of an upticking threats against Muslims when he took up the role soon after the 9/11 attacks in the US.

De Bres said he repeatedly asked the government and police to create a central system for recording details about crimes motivated by hatred and racism.

Mourners lay flowers on a wall at the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand. Picture: AP

He raised the issue with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which in its 2007 review of New Zealand said the lack of records was a concern, and asked the government to collect data on complaints of racially motivated crimes.

“I listed it every year … I wrote at various points to government about it and it was simply said that it wasn’t necessary and it wasn’t a priority,” De Bres said.

Anjum Rahman from the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand said the group had repeatedly alerted the government over the past five years about the rise of the extreme right and the growing threat Muslim women felt in New Zealand.

“Without the data, without the measurement it’s really hard to push for change … I feel like it wasn’t taken seriously because it wasn’t hard data because we didn’t have it,” she said, adding she felt “a resistance to creating that data.”

Originally published as Christchurch shooter: Brenton Tarrant complains about jail