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What The New Zealand Incident Tells Us About Anti-Sikh Hate In 2025

If there is one through line that defines 2025 for Sikhs globally, it is that Anti-Sikh hate has become normalized, coordinated, and algorithmically amplified.

Across the West, far-right nationalist and white supremacist movements have gained renewed confidence and visibility, aided in part by social media platforms that increasingly reward outrage, racial grievance, and conspiratorial thinking. Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, changes to content moderation and engagement algorithms have helped create an environment where hate no longer merely survives online. It thrives.

Sikhs, as a visibly distinct, economically successful, and politically engaged minority, have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of these movements. Turbans, beards, Gurdwaras, and public religious processions mark Sikhs as outsiders in societies where xenophobia is gaining steam. But what makes the current moment uniquely dangerous is not simply the rise of Western far-right hate. It is the way that Hindu Nationalist networks, mainly operating out of India, have actively fused themselves to these movements to target Sikhs in the diaspora.

Anti-immigrant confrontation in New Zealand

A parade by hundreds of members of New Zealand’s Indian Sikh community was confronted in South Auckland on December 20 by an anti-immigrant group calling itself “True Patriots of NZ.” The far-right outfit is an offshoot of the fundamentalist Destiny Church, led by self-appointed “apostle” Brian Tamaki.

The group of 50 blocked the Great South Road, disrupting the parade and preventing it from moving. The “patriots” performed a Māori haka before linking arms and chanting, “One true God,” “Jesus, Jesus wants you gone!” and “God of nation.” A line of police kept the two sides apart with no arrests.

Tamaki describes the True Patriots as “Guardians of the Kiwi Way of Life. Defenders of Faith, Flag & Family.” They profess to stand against “globalism, mass immigration, and woke ideology.” In an online video, members are seen wearing t-shirts with slogans declaring, “Kiwis first” and “Keep NZ, NZ” along with a banner proclaiming, “This is New Zealand, not India.”

New Year's Eve 2025 live: Celebrations begin as 2026 kicks off in part of Kiribati

New Zealand welcomes 2026 with fireworks in Auckland, while Tongans tell the BBC they wish for "peace, hope, and blessing" in the new year

An atoll in the remote Pacific nation of Kiribati became the first place in the world to enter 2026 – one tourist tells us he's celebrating "on a beach with no satellites, no signs of human life, complete darkness and countless crabs"

How are you celebrating? WhatsApp us +44 7756 165803 , externalor email yourvoice@bbc.co.uk

Next up, fireworks will light up the sky over Australia's Sydney Opera House at 13:00 GMT

It's just gone midnight in Tonga, and I've spoken to Paul Johansson, who owns Kongakava Hotel in the capital Nuku'alofa.

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