#The darkest timeline began June 2015

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The complex allure of cursed images

Everyone has a guilty internet pleasure.

Some spice up their time online by watching porn in an incognito browser, others find solace in binge-scrolling through pages and pages of their co-workers Twitter likes to determine if they have decent morals. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who get their internet kicks by willingly exposing themselves to a daily dose of repulsive, cringeworthy images. 

While recreationally staring at photographs of shit-filled toilet bowls and insultingly tone-deaf stock images might not necessarily have been considered a socially acceptable practice pre-internet, over the past few years accounts like @darkstockphotos, @scarytoilet, and @cursedimages have made celebrating cursed images a common and even somewhat conventional pastime.

SEE ALSO: Alpaca accounts are underrated social media treasures

As dedicated meme-lovers may know, cursed images began gaining attention on Tumblr back in 2015. But after the original @cursedimages Twitter account was created in 2016, the concept of allowing oneself to be openly amused by cursed content started to become more widely embraced.

Over several months, @cursedimages exposed thousands of Twitter timelines to a fair share of visual nightmares, and though the creator stopped posting photographs on Oct. 31, 2016  — with the exception of a single image tweeted in 2017 — they inspired the creation of other accounts that are dedicated to sharing cursed content, such as the photo of Ryan McFarland's DIY guacamole doll serving dish shown below.

cursed image 9192 pic.twitter.com/fuT6bSjZKO

— cursed images (@cursedimages) October 18, 2016

The masters of cursed imagery on what inspired their craft

Shortly after the exhausting 2016 presidential election, fans of @cursedimages began to notice that the beloved account had gone dark. A little over a month later, in hopes of regaining that small and strange, but bizarrely uplifting space online, one brave soul decided to take action. 

"After the 2016 election, my Twitter timeline was a depressing mess," Sarah the 39-year-old who created @cursedimages_2, explained over email. "It made me realize how much I looked forward to their [@cursedimage’s] posts… and after a while I decided to attempt to pick up where they left off."

"I was an instant fan of the original account. The images were weird and creepy and I loved the idea of the ‘cursed image’ being numbered, as if it'd been pulled from some deep, classified archive," Sarah said. So she set out to share her own cursed images, starting with cursed image 7285 — a girl and her doll. 

cursed image 7285 pic.twitter.com/X54JvWMrtA

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) December 27, 2016

While Sarah was busy posting photos of culinary abominations, nail art fails, creepy costumes, and NSFW optical illusions, a man named Andy Kelly was inspired to throw his hat in the cursed imagery ring. In June 2017, after years of finding amusement in the absurd collection of stock images on sites like Getty and Shutterstock, Kelly decided to create @darkstockphotos — a place where he could share the especially confounding stock images he stumbled upon with the rest of the world.

"In the depths of these sites, 30 pages into a search, I started noticing images that weren't like the others; images that were darker and more disturbing, illustrating some really heavy subject matter, but still fundamentally absurd," Kelly explained. "And so I decided to start collecting some of the weirdest, darkest, and most bewildering I found and posting them on Twitter."

pic.twitter.com/6LRutwVfzS

— Dark Stock Photos (@darkstockphotos) October 2, 2018

Now, more than 360,000 followers subscribe to see Kelly's curated timeline of stock photos that attempted to visually represent violence, addiction, depression, and a slew of other serious topics, but gravely missed the mark. He's even published a book.

Much like Kelly, personal experience is also what inspired Phil, the 24-year-old behind @scarytoilets to create his cursed accounts. During his time at university in May 2018, after using the restroom at "a particularly bad nightclub," Phil was compelled to start the Toilets with Threatening Auras Facebook page. Shortly after it gained an impressive amount of traction, he started a Twitter account.

pic.twitter.com/54ct63PFQw

— Toilets With Threatening Auras (@scarytoilet) August 11, 2018

"When I set it up it seemed quite funny to explore something so incongruous," Phil said. "And when I delved into the wealth of images that are relevant to the topic is [it] just became even more entertaining." 

Turns out Phil’s obsession with whimsical, creepy, and downright repulsive porcelain thrones was contagious. And there are apparently so many cursed facilities in the world that he now gets the majority of the images he posts from direct messages.

The unusual charm of the cursed image

By nature, many "cursed images" are not meant to be enjoyed. Oftentimes the content they contain is intrinsically repulsive, and therefore, shouldn’t necessarily trigger delight within us. Yet, somehow, so many of them do.

In a 2016 article, New York Magazine’s Brian Feldman noted that the subjects in the images aren’t always what provokes a lingering double take, rather sometimes it’s the poor quality of an image that leaves onlookers with a cursed vibe.

Feldman argued that “Cursed images draw their power not from the actual objects pictured, but from the fact that photos like these are bygone products of antiquated technology.” And while that’s definitely true in certain cases, if you were to show me a photo of a hairless cat staring into a pot of raw chicken, a cloven hoof inexplicably sticking out of a toilet bowl, or a sobbing child holding a gun, I would consider each of those images "cursed," even if Annie Leibovitz shot them using the world’s most expensive camera.

cursed image 594 pic.twitter.com/N3ciIqa3zw

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) January 4, 2019

pic.twitter.com/JI7R1SyZaO

— Toilets With Threatening Auras (@scarytoilet) January 11, 2019

While there are definitely exceptions, the majority of cursed images shared by these accounts do seem to be at least lightly fucked up. So what is it that makes people feel it's totally and completely OK to smash the like button on them? 

For all three of the account creators I interviewed, the main draw to cursed images is humor, albeit very dark humor.

“Social media can quickly get depressing and it really does help to break it up a bit with other types of content,” Sarah of @cursedimages_2 explained. “For me, the cursed images posts provided an unexpected moment of comic relief. And I think cringe-y stuff kind of makes us feel a little better about ourselves… in a harmless schadenfreude kind of way."

Kelly agrees, adding that the dark stock photos he shares stray so far from reality that he can’t help but find them comical.

"What I find so fascinating, and hilarious, about stock photos is how blunt and artless they are. These photographers will take something serious like, say, seasonal depression. Then they'll illustrate it by having a guy sit in front of a Christmas tree with a bottle of whiskey and a pistol,” he said. “The most serious subject matter is rendered absurd by the lens of the stock photographer, and that is an endless source of amusement for me. They don't reflect reality in any way: they're like some alien's twisted, third-hand approximation of the human experience.”

pic.twitter.com/kj5VtLFJWn

— Dark Stock Photos (@darkstockphotos) September 10, 2018

And though it's occasionally vile, Phil's toilet account also helps people flush away negativity. “I’ve been messaged a few times through both Twitter and Facebook… people telling me they like following because it breaks their timeline or newsfeed," Phil said. “I think it’s nice to see humour in something most people wouldn’t normally. The images usually aren’t really ‘threatening’ but just silly entertainment."

Cursed content gets personal

While humor is definitely a distinct part of the charm surrounding cursed images, the allure is different for everyone, and not strictly confined to a single factor.

John Fio, a 28-year-old explained via Twitter DM that what he likes most about accounts like @cursedimages and @scarytoilet is that "they evoke two eras" of the internet: pre-internet and early-internet.

“Because of the washed-out flash photography, old furniture, and wallpaper you often see, and grainy film quality which obscures the image in fun ways,” many of the images take Fio back to a time before the internet even existed. But sometimes he recognizes images shared on the cursed account from posts in the early 2000s, so they serve as fun throwback posts.

Meanwhile, Lala, a 33-year-old cursed content connoisseur, appreciates the fact that the images make her think.

"I think it's appealing because it speaks to the part of our brains that usually can only begin to imagine the kind of 'horrors' you see there, but they’re real!" Lala said over Twitter DM. "Some are funny, and some are truly disgusting, but most are something we'd never conceptualize in our own imaginations. Like if you asked me to make up a cursed image I think it’d be hard, you just know it when you see it. Almost like a Schrödinger’s cat type thing."

For Zoë, a 28-year-old fan of @cursedimages_2 and @scarytoilet, they feel cursed content "appeals to an organic aesthetic" they've had all their life.

"I grew up in a small town in the Rust Belt and spent most of my free time as a kid playing in old ruined buildings and finding weird shit at thrift stores,"  Zoë explained. "I think these things are very much art projects in a way and i think they began to appeal to a wider audience because of the cultural moment we're at in America and around the world, where it kind of seems like everything is falling apart... and 'cursed content' is kind of a sick, gallows take on consumerism in many ways."

How cursed is too cursed?

While they're far from the darkest spaces on the internet, cursed images and the accounts that share them can be seen as inappropriate to some. The creators are fully committed to posting all things weird and mind-boggling, but on occasion even they encounter lines they don't feel should be crossed. With great horror comes great responsibility.

"There are a lot of 'dark' stock photos that are just matter-of-fact portrayals of really horrible stuff. For example, there's an inordinate amount of images depicting violence against women on these sites. And there's nothing funny about it, so I avoid it," Kelly explained. "To make it on the Twitter feed, an image needs to have something surreal or absurd about it. A touch of the preposterous. And I do like that whenever I post an image that is more dark for the sake of dark, it gets a lot fewer RTs than the others. The readers of Dark Stock Photos are surprisingly discerning."

cursed image 1118 pic.twitter.com/9rOAzrk7r9

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) November 22, 2018

Sarah of @cursedimages_2 agrees, noting she tries not to post any images that depict "someone getting seriously hurt" or "intentionally hurting an animal."

"There are always gray areas, but the bad ones are usually pretty obvious. In other cases, every once in a while the cringe factor may just be too strong. If I’m on the fence, I’ll text my sister with an image and ask 'too cursed?'" Beyond that, Sarah explained she's also against posting anything that's been Photoshopped because if it's not a real life situation it's not really that cursed. 

The question of crediting images

Aside from a few careful considerations, owners of cursed accounts can pretty much post whatever they like, whenever they like. It sounds like a pretty sweet gig, but there was one concern that came up when talking to fans.

While @darkstockphotos often screenshots watermarked photography from websites, occasionally including some way to track down the original image, many cursed accounts seem to curate photos from the web without giving the original creators proper credit.

"I think that since a lot of the images are stolen... there is an interesting contextual question there about whether these accounts are ethical," Zoë said.

When the original @cursedimages was active it appears an @uncursedimages account attempted to provide attributions to as many of the cursed posts as possible. But nowadays, as most messages are sent from fans, or sourced from message board, the process of properly crediting has fallen by the wayside, which, if you ask me, sounds a bit cursed in its own way.

It's possible that in certain cases the sources of these images are intentionally hidden to protect the people in them or those who posted them, but in Phil's case, the choice not to credit images was a personal one he made when the Toilets With Threatening Auras Facebook page started to gain popularity.

"I used to give credit when some wanted, but I started getting others claiming that they took the photo and it became a bit of mess actually trying to authenticate who the pictures are really taken by," Phil said.

While he has taken several photos down after people called him out for not crediting them, he noted that "most of the time there is little complaint."

As for Kelly, he does his best to include some nod to each image's origin in his tweets. "I'm personally very sensitive to stuff being stolen and re-shared without credit online, so if I felt like Dark Stock Photos was crossing the line in that regard, I wouldn't do it," he said.

Kelly also noted the fact that he makes no money from the Twitter account, and that before making his Dark Stock Photos book, his publisher was sure to purchase licenses for around 100 images they included.

"Of course, if one of the photographers complained I'd take it down straight away," Kelly assured us. "But that hasn't happened yet."

Finding light in the darkness

Ultimately, cursed images are meant to challenge people to look beyond the often hideous exterior and find the humor within. Sure, sometimes the images are fucked up, but they’re fucked up in the best way.

We assume the majority of these cursed images aren’t being shared maliciously, which helps us justify laughing at them. And though the issues most dark stock photos attempt to visually portray are real and serious, we know the photographs are staged and the models aren't in any real peril. 

For those reasons, we allow ourselves to enjoy these incredibly fucked up images with the same grotesque delight we feel when watching Dr. Pimple Popper make pus volcanically erupt or a rat drag a slice of pizza across the floor of a dirty New York subway station.

The accounts are definitely not for everyone, but if think you might be able to find even an ounce of joy from looking at a cursed image through the comfort of your computer or phone screen, give it a shot.

WATCH: Ariana Grande's tattoo flub continues to get roasted in hilarious internet meme — All the Memes

Stock image credits:

[Weird rock twins: DonNichols/Getty Images][Spaghetti twins: harpazo_hope/Getty Images]

[gyrlversion]

Christchurch terror suspect was member of New Zealand gun club

Accused Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant is a member of a New Zealand gun club where he would fire AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, it has emerged.

Tarrant, 28, originally from Grafton, New South Wales, went to Bruce Rifle Club in Milton on New Zealand’s South Island – near where he had been living in Dunedin.

The club felt ‘betrayed’ after it heard Tarrant was the suspect behind the killing of at least 49 people yesterday.   

Police allege that after opening fire inside the Al Noor Mosque, Tarrant drove to the Linwood Masjid Mosque across town and continued his rampage.

Brenton Tarrant, charged in relation to the Christchurch massacre, appears in the dock on murder charge in Christchurch District Court today

Accused Christchurch massacre gunman makes a white power gesture from behind a glass window, during a brief hearing in court

  Tarrant described himself as an ‘ordinary, white man’, who was born into a working class, low income family of Scottish, Irish and English descent

Tarrant is a member of Bruce Rifle Club in Milton, near Dunedin, where Tarrant lived. Members of the range shoot during a practice

Bruce Rifle Club was where Tarrant would use a AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. It caters for shooters who own military-style guns

Counter-terrorism expert Greg Barton identified one of the weapons used in the killings as a AR-15, the same assault rifle used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting

TIMELINE OF TERROR 

A 28-year-old Australian man entered a mosque in central Christchurch on Friday afternoon and opened fire on people gathered inside the building – killing at least 49 people and leaving more than 20 seriously injured.

This is how the incident unfolded in local New Zealand Time.

1.40pm: First reports of a shooting at a mosque in central Christchurch. 

A man entered the mosque with an automatic weapon and opened fire on people inside. 

2.11pm: Police confirmed they were attending an ‘evolving situation’ in Christchruch.

Gunshots are heard in the area outside Masid Al Noor Mosque on Deans Avenue.

Witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots, with one saying she attempted to give CPR to an injured person but they died.

2.17pm: Multiple schools went into lockdown in Christchurch. 

People who were in the mosque began to leave covered in blood and with gunshot wounds.

2.47pm: First reports of six people dead, three in a critical condition and three with serious injuries.

2.54pm:  Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the situation is ‘serious and evolving’ and told people to remain indoors and stay off the streets.

The Canterbury District Health Board activated its mass casualty plan.

3.12pm: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cancelled her afternoon arrangements.

3.21pm: Christchurch City Council locked down many of their central city buildings. 

3.33pm: First reports of a bomb in a beige Subaru that crashed on Strickland Street, three kilometres from the shootings.

3.40pm: Police confirmed there were multiple simultaneous attacks on mosques in Christchurch.

3.45pm: Reports of multiple shots fired at the shootings, which are ongoing.

3.59pm: 300 people were reported to be inside the moque.

4.00pm: One person is confirmed to be in custody but there are warnings there may be others out there.

Police commissioner Mike Bush urges Muslims across New Zealand to stay away from their local mosque.

4.10pm: Jacinda Ardern calls Friday ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’. 

5.27pm: First reports of a second shooting.

A witness said a Muslim local chased the shooters at the mosque in Linwood, firing in ‘self defence’. 

5.31pm: Four people are confirmed to be in custody. including one woman.

Multiple fatalities were reported.

7.07pm: It was confirmed an AR15 rifle was used in the attack.

7.20pm: Dunedin Street was cordoned off.

Reports the attackers planned to also target the Al Huda Mosque.

7.26pm: At least 40 people were confirmed dead, Jacinda Ardern confirmed.

7.34pm: Confirmed that 48 people were being treated in hospital. 

7.46pm: Britomart train station in central Auckland was evacuated after bags were found unattended.

The bags were deemed not suspicious. 

8.35pm: New Zealand’s Government confirmed this is the first time ever the terror level has been lifted from low to high.

9.03pm: Police Commissioner Mike Bush confirms that the death toll has risen to 49.

He also confirmed that a man in his late twenties was charged with murder.

Scott Williams, Bruce Rifle Club vice-president, told the Otago Daily Times Tarrant is a club member and practised shooting at the range.

Mr Williams said he could remember Tarrant shooting an AR-15 – used in a number of US massacres – as well as a hunting rifle.

A person with a standard firearms licence can buy an AR-15 in New Zealand but have limits on how they can be adapted.

Masjid Al Noor Mosque on Deans Avenue was one of the scenes of the mass shooting. At least one gunman opened fire at around 1:40 pm local time after walking into the Masjid Al Noor Mosque, killing at least 49 people

A man reacts as he speaks on a mobile phone near a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand. He is pictured after multiple people were killed in mass shootings at Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Masjid when they were full of people attending Friday prayers

Worried people wait outside one of the mosques Christchurch. At least 49 people were killed in the mass shootings on Friday

Police escort witnesses away from a mosque in central Christchurch, yesterday. Police warned people who live nearby to stay indoors 

HOW THE AR-15 IS THE WEAPON OF CHOICE FOR MASS SHOOTERS

Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Waffle House.

All have witnessed gun violence carried out by a killer brandishing an AR-15 or AR-15-style assault weapon, America’s weapon of choice for mass shootings. 

Dubbed ‘America’s Most Popular Rifle’ by the NRA, it is estimated that there are eight million of the powerful – and affordable – weapons across the nation.  It is accurate, relatively lightweight and has low recoil.

Gun experts claim the reason mass shooters gravitate towards AR-15s is mainly due to a ‘copy cat’ mentality as opposed to more precise gun knowledge.

June 20, 2012: James Holmes, 24, uses an AR-15-style .223-caliber Smith and Wesson rifle with 100-round magazine, among other firearms to kill 12 and injure 58 while dressed as The Joker from Batman at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

December 14, 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, shoots dead 20 children between the age of six and seven, as well as six members of staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Prior to driving to the school he shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. Amongst his arsenal was a Bushmaster AR-15, where he fired off more than 150 rounds in less than five minutes.

December 2, 2015: Syed Rizwyan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, use two AR-15-style .223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 as his workplace in San Bernardino, California, before being killed by police.

June 12, 2016: Omar Mateen, 29, bursts into the Orlando Pulse nightclub, using an AR-15-style rifle – a Sig Sauer MCX – as well as a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol to kill 49 and injure 50. 

October 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock, 64, uses a wide arsenal of guns, including an AR-15 to kill 58 and injure hundreds more at a music festival in Las Vegas. He doesn’t even have to leave his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel which overlooks the festival to carry out the worst mass shooting in US history. He commits suicide in the room.

November 5, 2017: Devin Kelley, 26 uses an AR-15 style Ruger rifle to kill 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, before being killed. 

February 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz, 19, uses an AR-15-style rifle to kill at least 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Cruz is captured and is currently awaiting trial.

April 22, 2018: Travis Reinking, 29, armed with an AR-15-style rifle  opens fire on a Waffle House in Tennessee, killing four people and injuring two more. He is prevented from killing more by James Shaw Jr, who hid near the restaurant’s bathrooms and rushed the shooter, wrestling the rifle away. The gunman is captured 24 hours later. 

Mr Williams said Tarrant had never mentioned anything about his feelings towards Muslims and seemed ‘as normal as anyone else’.  

‘I think we’re feeling bit stunned and shocked and a bit betrayed, perhaps, that we’ve had this person in our club who has ended up doing these horrible things,’ Mr Williams said.  

Tarrant joined the rifle club at the start of 2018 and was said to help out around the range.

‘He was always there helping out with any work that was needed around the club, or when it came to set up or pack down the range.’

The club, which has just over 100 members, is in a state of shock, Mr Williams added.

Shocked family members stand outside the mosque following a shooting resulting in multiple fatalies and injuries at the Masjid Al Noor on Deans Avenue in Christchurch

Armed Offenders Squad push back members of the public following the shooting which saw multiple fatalies and injuries at the Masjid Al Noor on Deans Avenue in Christchurch, New Zealand

Bloodied bandages on the road following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch yesterday

A spokesman for the club told Stuff: ‘We are assisting [police] with their investigation.’

‘He seemed a reasonably normal sort of dude.’  

It was also revealed that a man by the name of Brenton Tarrant had bought a hunting rifle from a sports store in Dunedin in 2017.  

But Darren Jacobs, chief executive officer of Hunting & Fishing NZ stores, said store workers did not recognise Tarrant from court pictures.

Yet he had a firearms licence and a record of a sale to a man of that name was found.       

Mr Jacobs told Otago Daily Times: ‘We have recorded a single sale to an individual going by that name in 2017, and that sale was for a bolt-action hunting rifle.’ 

Police console a man on a grass verge outside a mosque in central Christchurch after the shootings 

But he added there was no evidence Tarrant bought a semi-automatic rifle from the store – which do not sell them as a rule.    

New Zealand has around one firearm for every four people and does not ban semi-automatic weapons.

The country’s gun laws have remained largely unchanged since 1992, when the 1983 law was toughened in response to another massacre which saw 13 people die. 

A counter-terrorism expert said a military-style assault rifle allegedly used in Friday’s Christchurch massacre has never been seen before in Australia and New Zealand. 

Deakin University counter-terrorism expert Greg Barton identified one of the weapons as a AR-15, the same assault rifle used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 58 people.

‘We haven’t seen these assault weapons used in Australia and New Zealand,’ Mr Barton told ABC News.

‘I think now we’ve got to face the fact that they’re at large.’

New Zealand’s worst mass shooting has put the country’s current regulations of owning a semi-automatic military-style weapon under scrutiny.

Mr Barton questioned how Tarrant allegedly obtained the powerful weapons.

‘You would have thought getting an assault rifle was very hard, not like it is in America where it’s very easy,’ he said.   

A former armed offenders squad member said some of the semi-automatic weapons Tarrant allegedly used were very similar to what police and the military use. 

‘Those weapons he had you can purchase with a normal firearms licence,’ he told Stuff.

‘It’s not the first time he’s ever fired those types of weapons. He’s fired them before.’   

In the wake of yesterday’s attack, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there would be immediate changes to firearms laws.

She said: ‘I can tell you one thing right now, our gun laws will change.’ 

Ms Ardern said in a press conference the white supremacist attacker had used five firearms in the attack, including two semi-automatic weapons, two shotguns and a lever action firearm. 

She said she had been advised the gunman obtained a Category A licence in November 2017, and ‘under that, he was able to acquire the guns that he held’. 

‘While work has been done as to the chain of events that led to both the holding of this gun licence and the possession of these weapons, I can tell you one thing right now, our gun laws will change,’ Ms Ardern told media.    

She went on to say she had instructed government bodies to ‘report to Cabinet on Monday on these events with a view to strengthening our systems on a range of fronts including, but not limited to, firearms, border controls, enhanced information-sharing with Australia, and any practice reinforcement of our watch list processes’.

‘Now is the time for change,’ she added.

Ms Ardern said she would like to see semi-automatic weapons banned and was one of the issues she was looking ‘at with immediate effect.’ 

JACINDA ARDEN’S SPEECH

We believe that 40 people have lost their lives in this act of extreme violence.  Ten have died at Linwood Avenue mosque. Three of which were outside the mosque itself. A further 30 have been killed at Deans Avenue mosque. There are also more than 20 seriously injured who are currently in Christchurch A&E.  

It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack. From what we know, it does appear to have been well planned. Two explosive devices attached to suspect vehicles have now been found and they have been disarmed. There are currently four individuals that have been apprehended, three are connected to this attack who are currently in custody. One of which has publicly stated that they were Australian-born. 

These are people who I would describe as having extremist views, that have absolutely no place in New Zealand, and in fact have no place in the world. While we do not have any reason to believe at this stage that there are any other suspect, we are not assuming that at this stage. 

The joint intelligence group has been deployed and police are putting all of their resources into the situation. The Defence Force are currently transporting additional police staff to the region. The national security threat level has been lifted from low to high. 

I want to ensure people that all of our agencies are responding in the most appropriate way. That includes at our borders. Air New Zealand has cancelled all turboprop flights out of Christchurch tonight and will review the situation in the morning.

Jet services domestically andinternationally are continuing to operate. I say again, there is heightened security. That is of course, we can assure people of their safety, and police are working hard to ensure that people are able to move around the city safely. I have spoken this evening to the mayor of Christchurch, and I intend to speak this evening to the imam, … but I would like to speak directly to the people impacted. 

Christchurch was the home of these victims. For many, this may not have been the place they were born. In fact, for many, New Zealand was their choice. The place they actively came to and committed themselves to. The place they were raising their families, with communities who loved them and who they loved. The place where they came for safety. Where they were free to practise their culture and their religion. 

For those of you who are watching at home tonight, in questioning how this could have happened here, we, New Zealand, we were not a target because we are safe harbour for those who hate. We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are in enclave for extremism, we were chosen for the fact that we are none of these things. 

It was we represent diversity, kindness, compassion, a home for those who share our values and a refuge for those who need it. And those values I can assure you will not and cannot be shaken by this attack. We are proud nation of more than 160 languages and amongst that diversity we share common values, and the one that we place the currency on right now and tonight is our compassion, and the support of the community of those directly affected by this tragedy. And secondly, the strongest possible condemnation of the ideology of the people who did this.  

You may have chosen us, but we are utterly reject and condemn you.

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