The Islamic community says racism and hatred are still rampant two years on from the Christchurch terror attack, and it's especially hard to deal with when it's online.
Islamic Women's Council spokesperson Anjum Rahman says the Muslim community is still subject to "dehumanising" comments - both in person and online.
"The hatred and the vitriol is still present and active within our communities and that is hard to deal with sometimes," Anjum Rahman told The AM Show on Monday.
"You see the online impacts - in social media - and you also see that in offline impacts in the way people are treated.
"It's quite dehumanising, so clearly the people that are making this kind of commentary - they just don't see us as human, they don't see us as deserving of anything, they don't even see the pain."
Rahman spoke on The AM Show last week about a new programme being rolled out in New Zealand high schools to help kids better understand the lives of Muslim women.
She says the programme, created by the Islamic Women's Council, hopes to combat misinformation and Islamophobia.
A video of the interview was posted on The AM Show's Facebook page but the comments were so hateful, it has since been removed.
"It does hurt, I mean, even the words online hurt but definitely in real life, it does. You know, the adrenaline rush, your heartbeat's going faster, the stress...
"It has an impact and of course these people want it to have an impact so you learn to hide from all of that, and you learn to not give them what they want which is, you know, that emotional reaction, or you speak back."
Rahman says online hate is a growing issue, and it's worrying.
"The problem is that sometimes it's hundreds of people... now that post on your Facebook page got hundreds of comments and who has time to sit back and respond and debate with each one - that's what makes it really difficult."
"And the thing is, we don't know if that's a few people with a lot of burner accounts, or whether there's a lot of them, and which one is actually having violent thoughts in their head that they might act out at some point."
The AM Show host Duncan Garner says two years on from New Zealand's worst terror attack, everyday Kiwis are still saying "racist, disgusting things".
"It was coming from all walks of life, all saying things they'd be embarrassed to be publicly associated with," he said.
"Yet here they are on Facebook putting their name to it - take a look at yourselves."
