Govt urged to help Asian victims of crime in NZ
Editor's note: It's no mystery as to who is perpetrating the crimes. The news in NZ has been hot and heavy with CCTV footage of gangs of Maori and Pacific Island youths robbing Indian owned convenience stores and gas stations. This is the future that multiculturalism promises. No one is safe.
One of the people behind the country's first Chinese-made anti-crime advertisement says safety for Asians should be an election issue.
Tyler Luo said the video, which has had nearly 15,000 hits on the social media platform Wechat since its release two days ago, is a plea to the government to help Asian victims.
Mr Luo, who's the director of the Chinese production company Iconic New Zealand, said he was doing his bit towards stopping crime by providing a platform for victims to be heard.
He now wanted to talk to political leaders about how they were going to stop Asians being targetted by attackers.
"I have lived in New Zealand for nearly four years and my family and I really like this country," he said. "But now I'm very afraid about crime so I need to do something."
Mr Luo said he wanted to talk to different party leaders about what they were going to do to stop crime against Asians.
He said Asian victims often did not know what to do during an attack or did not know how to get help.
President of the New Zealand Chinese Association and Gisborne Mayor, Meng Foon, agreed.
"A lot of people actually don't know what to do when they are confronted, a lot of people are putting their lives at risk," he said. "If they [police] could give some advice to the shopkeepers then that would be tremendously helpful."
Mr Foon said dairy owners and small business owners, many of whom are Asian, had been targeted by thieves recently.
It was intolerable that they got singled out, he said.
"There's not a lot of respect for shopkeepers generally, but there is a target towards Asian shopkeepers, Chinese, Indian, different Asian ethnicities and they're [thieves] just taking advantage of that," said Mr Foon.
