Almost a third of all hate-motivated crimes in New Zealand since January 2022 were directed at Asian people, according to the first figures of their kind recorded by police and released to the Guardian under freedom of information law.
While there is no specific hate crime offence in New Zealand, after the Islamophobic terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 the police began collecting data on whether offending was hate-motivated, as perceived by officers, victims, or witnesses.
