Stop Christchurch Call from Silencing Kiwis

The Christchurch Call has become a threat to free speech. The censorial mission creep must stop.

We abhor the violent terrorist attack on the Christchurch mosques that took place on 15 March 2019. Steps taken in response to this tragedy by the Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorist and extremist content do not necessarily threaten civil liberties.

However, as retired judge Dr. David Harvey has noted, there is a significant “mission creep” in the work of the Christchurch Call.

Recent documents released under the OIA show that the Christchurch Call is now working to prevent “gender-based extremism” (including anti-LGBTQIA+) by targeting 'gender-based hatred'. This could mean that the Christchurch Call seeks to oppose and suppress the ideological views of some people, such as those who are gender-critical and reject that individuals can change their sex.

But that’s not all. The documents also show that the Call’s core mission of preventing violent extremism has been conflated with preventing dissent from ideologies that promote ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ and promote restrictions on so-called 'hate speech'.

The Call's work to prevent terrorist/violent content, and their new aims to suppress dissent from the prevailing orthodoxies are inconsistent with New Zealanders rights to freedom of speech online.

The Free Speech Union seeks to promote a culture of free speech, intellectual inquiry and tolerance for differing opinions.

The more we learn about the Christchurch Call, the more it seems like it is doing the opposite.

The Prime Minister needs to get the Call back to its core business, or get rid of the call. 




I call on the Prime Minister to stop funding and favouring the people who’ve been abusing our sympathy and anxiety about terrorism for power to suppress free speech.

I call on him not to be their dupe.

I call on him to put people in charge who’ll focus on violent extremism, not unfashionable views.

7,375 signature
Goal: 7500 signature

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Showing 4680 reactions

  • Neville Muntz
    signed 2024-05-10 18:00:21 +1200
  • Peter Freed
    signed 2024-05-10 17:28:22 +1200
  • Malcolm Edgar
    signed 2024-05-10 17:24:38 +1200
  • john dunton
    signed 2024-05-10 16:56:33 +1200
  • Wim Vos
    signed 2024-05-10 16:54:20 +1200
  • Adam Baines
    signed 2024-05-10 16:26:02 +1200
  • Ralph Simpson
    signed 2024-05-07 18:10:16 +1200
  • Rosemary McQueen
    signed 2024-05-06 19:42:04 +1200
  • Audrey Rotheray
    signed 2024-05-04 17:57:41 +1200
    Censorship is always about deceivers fearing public scrutiny and exposure. They are often hate-filled, jealous bullies and are nasty towards any ‘free’ or critical thinkers, who always speak the truth in a straight talking manner. The self-appointed censors then rote learn (and scream out) mantras on how to pose as an oppressed victim-struggling with hateful bullies.
  • Michelle Black
    signed 2024-05-04 16:18:17 +1200
  • Vanessa Hardinge
    signed 2024-05-03 11:38:02 +1200
  • Delanie Lockhart
    signed 2024-05-02 21:30:52 +1200
  • Rhonda Fitzpatrick
    signed 2024-05-02 14:32:33 +1200
  • Christine Storey
    signed 2024-05-02 14:24:51 +1200
  • Anna McKenzie
    signed 2024-05-02 08:19:27 +1200
  • Wayne Branfield
    signed 2024-05-02 07:38:05 +1200
  • Edward Eagles
    signed 2024-05-01 22:13:46 +1200
  • Angie Vessey
    signed 2024-05-01 12:50:14 +1200
  • Andrew Holland
    signed 2024-05-01 07:06:04 +1200
  • Timothy Norton
    signed 2024-05-01 04:05:54 +1200
    Not interested in censorship, how it’s been carried out on the last 4 years has been a disaster.
  • Dave Renison
    signed 2024-05-01 03:10:37 +1200
  • Anne Lear
    signed 2024-04-30 23:53:57 +1200
  • Dianne Landy
    signed 2024-04-30 23:39:02 +1200
  • Steven Housley
    signed 2024-04-30 22:18:12 +1200
  • Steve Porter
    signed 2024-04-30 21:55:00 +1200
  • Irina Itskovich
    signed 2024-04-30 20:22:32 +1200
  • Nigel Rawlings
    signed 2024-04-30 20:13:42 +1200
  • Aaron Raisey
    signed 2024-04-30 17:58:29 +1200
  • Rochelle Ansell
    signed 2024-04-30 17:38:58 +1200
    Courtesy of Thomas Cranmer


    Yesterday Prime Minister Luxon ended his post Cabinet press conference by addressing the question about whether the government will continue to support Jacinda Ardern as the special envoy for the Christchurch Call.


    “We will have more to say about that very very shortly, obviously there’s been a good series of conversations about how that model continues to evolve; it’s important work but watch this space, we’ll talk about that very shortly,” Luxon said.


    However, serious concerns were raised by Georgia Tech’s Internet Governance Project (IGP), which led to it withdrawing from the Christchurch Call Advisory Network (CCAN) Christchurch in November 2023.


    IGP is described as the leading source of independent analysis of global internet governance comprising a group of professors, postdoctoral researchers and students hosted at the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a top U.S. university. The group provides analysis and proposals relating to internet governance processes at the United Nations, agencies of the U.S. government and the European Commission, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Regional Internet Address Registries (RIRs) and other institutions.


    In a press release issued in November 2023, IGP stated, "CCAN is supposed to provide independent advice on the fulfilment of Christchurch Call commitments and help governments and industry balance content moderation policies with political diversity concerns and individual free expression rights.


    “After three years of active participation in CCAN, it is clear that it will not live up to this promise. As the signatory states do not really enforce the Call commitments, states have no real incentive to improve their behaviour. Some of the governments involved do not respect the autonomy of the CCAN and are not interested in independent advice if it is critical of their actions. Worse, we have found that too many CCAN civil society organisations will not stand up for its independence but prefer to withhold criticism to maintain privileged access to governmental policy makers.


    “Our withdrawal was triggered by a specific incident, which involved an attempt by CCAN to produce evaluation reports assessing member states’ compliance with the Call commitments. CCAN sent surveys to signatories and conducted desk research to assess their compliance. When the finished reports were sent to the governments, there was significant pushback. It came from more senior staff in governments and companies than had engaged with the evaluation process. Due to the objections received by the CC Call secretariat, CCAN was strongly discouraged from publishing the evaluation reports. CCAN was told that if the reports were published, some countries would refuse to engage with CCAN in the future, while interactions with others would become ‘more senior, more formal and more strained’. Presented with these options, a majority of the CCAN membership voted to bury its reports.


    “We respect the good-faith efforts of France and New Zealand to seek guidance and advice from civil society. We also respect the efforts of most of the civil society groups to stay involved. However, the independence of CCAN has been fatally compromised, in our opinion. IGP cannot justify investing additional time and labour on processes that provide only the appearance of accountability and input, not the reality. IGP is withdrawing from CCAN as of November 9, 2023, and asks to be removed from the list of CCAN members and from associated email lists.”


    The Christchurch Call Unit was established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) immediately prior to the second anniversary of the mosque massacre on March 15, 2019, and operates as a joint venture with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.


    In a response to an OIA from ZB Plus on the issue, DPMC confirmed that, “In May 2022, CCAN initiated a pilot evaluation of how ten Call Supporters (governments and companies) are meeting their Call Commitments. This is an independent pilot project, which CCAN designed and carried out at its own initiative and using its own resources. The ten Supporters are: Australia, Canada, Google/YouTube, France, India, Meta, Microsoft, New Zealand, Twitter, and the UK.”


    “Following the sharing of draft reports with selected Call Supporters in November 2023, the Call Secretariat either received or was copied into correspondence relating to objections in connection with the draft reports. This correspondence was conveyed on a basis of confidence in relation to draft material and its release could prejudice the international relations of the Government of New Zealand.”


    On that basis DPMC declined to provide copies of the objections to ZB Plus.


    DPMC confirmed that the Secretariat had expressed concerns that publishing the reports could undermine trust within the Call Community.


    “Following consultation between CCAN, the Call Secretariat, and some of the supporting countries evaluated by the pilot project, CCAN took a membership-majority decision to publish a fuller summary of key findings and recommendations on the CCAN website.”


    In its key findings that were eventually published, CCAN states that there is the acknowledgment that, “it was much harder to find evidence that supporters had implemented their commitments under the Call beyond declarations of intent to do so. If work was undertaken in response to the Call, it was rarely identified as such, making measurement of the Call’s impact difficult. This raises questions about the consistency of the Call’s impact across its many government and company supporters.”


    In an interview to be aired this afternoon on Drive with Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB, Milton Mueller, the founder of IGP, said: “… from a standpoint of civil society participation, it is pointless.  It is pointless for me to spend a lot of time working in this network if we can’t try to uphold the principles that it’s supposed to be founded upon.”


    Du Plessis-Allan asked: “Well what’s the point? If we’re supposed to be holding people to account and requiring that they behave in a certain way, but we can’t audit them and we can’t talk about it, what is the point?”


    Mueller responded: “I think that is a very good question. That does raise questions about, is the Christchurch Call accomplishing anything?”


    The Newstalk ZB host then asked: “Isn’t this a waste of everyone’s money and time then?”


    Mueller replied: “I don’t know how much money comes into that from New Zealand taxpayers, but we decided that it was a waste of our time.  That’s why we resigned.”


    A Christchurch Call spokesperson told Newstalk ZB this afternoon, "In May 2022, CCAN initiated a pilot evaluation methodology with a small subset of Call supporters. Following consultation between CCAN, the Call Secretariat, and some of the supporting countries in the pilot project, CCAN decided to publish a summary of key findings and recommendations of that work.


    “The joint statement following the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit endorsed work on a multistakeholder process to evaluate the Community’s work against the Call commitments, and to foster transparency and communication around the Call’s impact. This tasking reflects the Community’s ongoing commitment to monitoring and evaluation, including drawing on insights from the CCAN pilot.”


    Luxon needs to end the CCANCAN it.
  • Norman Matthews
    signed 2024-04-30 16:57:33 +1200

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