A Kiwi man is shocked after two men hurled racist abuse at him while he was doing his supermarket shopping on the weekend.
Hussain Hanif, who is the ethnic diversity and inclusion manager at Canterbury Cricket and Mainland Football, was going about his regular shopping on Sunday when the men began harassing him.
"I was just going about my normal shopping routine and I had two guys approach me in the car park and essentially had hate speech sort of thrown towards me," Hanif told AM on Tuesday.
"Some of the messages thrown were quite hurtful in terms of racism but also hate related to the mosque shootings as well. I guess it shows even in the role I play it can't be stopped."
Hanif said the men, who had clearly been drinking, approached him in the carpark and asked him where he was from.
"I was born in New Zealand so I sort of expressed that… and then they started going from there.
"I didn't quite know what to do, I was in more shock to be honest."
He said his instinct was to do something but he was worried the men might attack him.
"My first thought was to do something but the reality was that it could lead to something else so I just got in the car and got away and then had a quick pause and thought about what just occurred."
Hanif said the experience shows thorough hate speech laws are desperately needed.
It's a view shared by The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand spokesperson Abdur Razzaq who is calling for hate speech laws to be introduced immediately.
Razzaq said Hanif's experience is one shared by hundreds of other people in New Zealand from a variety of communities.
The Government planned to introduce hate speech laws in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack but are yet to introduce anything.
It comes after a Royal Commission into the attack made 44 recommendations including improving NZ's counter-terrorism efforts and firearms licensing system, as well as supporting the ongoing needs of affected whānau and improving NZ's response to an increasingly diverse population
Razzaq told AM legislation alone won't fix the problem and education and social cohesion programmes are needed as well.
It comes amid a flurry of hateful attacks across New Zealand in recent days inlcuiding homophobic attacks towards students at Bethlehem College, a pink church on the West Coast being daubed with anti-semitic and homophobic graffiti and drag queens' in Taranaki being abused online.
