We, the undersigned reject bias, prejudice, discrimination and vilification by the NZ Herald and Massey University CARE Institute against Hindus and Indian immigrants.
We hold Massey University, the NZ Herald and Professor Dutta directly accountable for inciting racial and religious hatred in the New Zealand community against Indian immigrants and Hindus of NZ/Australia.
Statements of NZ Herald, Professor Dutta at Massey University and his supporters, trolls, media and a foreign NGO in support of Dutta have systematically demonised and villified Hindus as violent extremists for the past month relentlessly.
Facebook posts of NZ Herald articles citing Dutta vilifying Hindus and Indian immigrants have attracted anti-immigrant and anti-Indian sentiment from readers putting Hindu and Indian lives at risk.
Examples include:
"deport these mfs"
"its a legal battle, same as the nutter who did the countdown stabbing they tried to get him out but was a legal nightmare. They need to pass a law to cancel any residency if any form of terror is displayed"
"And it not like they say hey I'm a nutter who wants to cause terror let me in and the PM says sure here you go get the f outta here. They lie throw their teeth."
"Moving to a foreign theatre, and "Engaging in terrorism and taking up arms against your country of citizenship" really ought to have you shot for treason, rather than housed at the tax payers' expense."
"You can't tell me intelligence doesn't know their here but yet they are only surveyed until finally someone's loved ones are injured or killed...we have enough to try keep us safe with more headaches on top."
"Ship these clowns back to their own country"
These comments are under a misleading report where the police in fact state that there are no 'trolls' in NZ attacking Dutta and no Hindu terrorists in NZ.
The prejudiced headline: 'Police aware of concerns about right-wing Indian Nationalist groups in New Zealand' repeats the inaccurate claims of Dutta that New Zealand Indians and Hindus are security threats.
The headline deliberately stokes fear solely based upon the false allegations of Dutta which he made to police a month earlier. This raises the question of newsworthiness and why the NZ Herald would deem the headline fit for publication.
This is especially considering that NZ Herald published an attack on an Indian immigrant taxi driver in July 2021 where a man punched the taxi driver in the eye saying 'f**cking Indians'.
Reports that Dutta was targeted by 'right-wing extremists' are unsubstantiated and there are no official charges, offical statements of the police or records.
There is no evidence either at the CARE Facebook page or CARE twitter handle. Professor Dutta himself engaged in bullying and harrassment on his twitter account including blaming Hindus for the recent ISIS attack in NZ and the Christchurch terror attack.
A NZ Herald report of 10 September 2021 'Massey University professor hit by right wing Hindu trolls' gives only one side, that of Professor Dutta's claim he was 'bashed online' by 'right-wing Hindu nationalist groups'.
By 3 September 2021 however, Professor Dutta locked his twitter account. The period of alleged harrassment was only one week. He had shadow banned and deleted comments from CARE on Facebook only replying to glowing reports.
Evidence of alleged terrorism in NZ Herald is Dutta being called 'grade A twat’, ‘stinking a**hole’ and ‘bootlicker’.
The NZ Herald reports Dutta insulting dissenters to his publications as 'trolls', 'Hindutva activists' 'extremist right-wing, fascists' who are 'attacking academic freedom', 'silencing criticism' across the globe' and he likens them to 'white supremacists'.
These comments are far more offensive than 'twat, a**hole, and 'bootlicker' because they put Hindu and Indian immigrant lives at risk due to the vilification of Hindus as violent extremists, a threat to NZ security and by making false claims he was attacked by Indian Hindus in NZ.
Comments under this article were removed by NZ Herald. Some of them made fun of the Professor for calling POC Indians white supremacists and mocking trolling as akin to the Taliban.
Responses to the later article demonstrate how quickly hatetoward Indians and Hindus escalated after adding the authority of the police in a misleading headline and by making confusing and contradictory claims in the report about alleged NZ Indian extremists.
There are numerous errors of fact in both reports, a failure to include the New Zealand Indian or Hindu Community, to report their legitimate concerns of Hinduphobia denial, victim blaming, genocide denial and the smearing of Hindus as terrorists by Professor Dutta. Further is their addition of insult to injury that Massey University refuse to remove the offensive materials from their own branded publications and to issue a public apology.
Dutta makes those claims in 'Cultural Hindutva and Islamophobia' and the talk 'Interrogating narratives of Hinduphobia', a transcript of which is here since the facebook page was made private.
Massey University has refused to engage with the targets of these attacks from Dutta and instead sent generic emails supporting 'academic freedom' to at least ten Hindu alumni, staff and organisations who wrote formal letters of complaint. Academic freedom does not include the right to vilify, harasss and target groups on the basis of nationality, race or religion.
These statements coming from a distinguished professor in the media and the failure of Massey University to take official complaints seriously has led to a breakdown of social cohesion in New Zealand and fears across the entire region that Hindus and Indian immigrants will now be singled out as terrorists.
Our voices have not been heard. Our concerns have been shut down. Hindus of New Zealand, Australia and the world deserve better than to be smeared as violent exremists from our academic institutions and media.
We demand a public apology from Professor Dutta, New Zealand Herald and Massey University along with the removal of hate materials at CARE Institute and the reports citing Prof Dutta in the NZ Herald.