By 3 News online staff
Flyers calling on Hawke's Bay residents to "save the White race" have been labelled "offensive" by the Race Relations Commissioner.
Last Wednesday letterboxes in Havelock North were stuffed with the flyers, believed to be distributed by the Right Wing Resistance, a white supremacist group.
The majority of the flyer was taken up by the words "It's ALRIGHT to be WHITE!", similar to one distributed in the same region in May.
In smaller print the flyer expressed an anti-immigration sentiment, and finished with: "White People Awake – Save the White Race".
"All I can say is they are offensive, it's not inherently illegal," Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres told the Hawke's Bay Today, "but the police are very interested in keeping tabs on the group."
Residents the paper spoke to were disgusted by the flyer. One called it "bullshit", and another said it was "absolute rubbish".
The Right Wing Resistance is no stranger to controversy. In November last year, balaclava-clad members, led by founder Kyle Chapman, interrupted a meet-the-candidates meeting in Christchurch.
“We were there to deliver a message, and to deliver that message we needed to do something that would cause a bit of outcry," Mr Chapman said.
"The stunt was saying when people rise up you're going to be seeing people in balaclavas and camouflage uniforms."
In 2009 they claimed to be patrolling streets in east Christchurch, saying police weren't doing enough to stop "homie vandalism and muggings" by "Polynesian youths".
In May last year, the group distributed pamphlets in Auckland and Christchurch urging people to "Stop the Asian Invasion".
In early 2009 Mr Chapman claimed he was no longer a racist after marrying a Mormon woman, but they split later that year because he refused to end his involvement with white supremacist groups, reported the Waikato Times.
3 News
source: newshub archive
