Before Christchurch attack, New Zealand failed to record hate crimes for years

New Zealand has had no previous extremist mass attacks, unlike neighbouring Australia, but civil society members say an underbelly of racism has always existed and may have been escalating.

Weeks before a gunman killed 50 Muslims in Christchurch, a man had threatened to burn copies of the Koran outside New Zealand mosques, in what community leaders said was the latest in a long list of threatening behaviour against religious minorities. Police said they warned a 38-year-old man over the incident, which was unrelated to the Christchurch attack, but could not say if it was part of a pattern.