Post the shooting in two churches at Christchurch, New Zeland, the country still grapples with questions. The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered an independent judicial inquiry into whether police and intelligence services could have prevented the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15. A royal commission — the most powerful judicial probe available under New Zealand law — was needed to find out how a single gunman was able to kill 50 people in an attack that shocked the world.
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"It is important that no stone is left unturned to get to how this act of terrorism occurred and how we could have stopped it," she said.
Also in order to limit spread of hateful ideas, New Zealand authorities have banned the shooter's manifesto. It is now a crime to possess the document or distribute it. Apart from refusing to utter the shooter's name, preventing distribution of his manifesto is the PM's attempt to prevent him from attaining global notoriety.
The shooter not coming any security radar could point to how authorities fail too assess threat associated with white supremacists.
New Zealand's spy agencies have faced criticism for overlooking the same.
"One question we need to answer is whether or not we could or should have known more," Ardern said.
"New Zealand is not a surveillance state ... but questions need to be answered." Ardern ruled out New Zealand re-introducing the death penalty for accused gunman Brenton Tarrant, 28, who was arrested minutes after the attack on the mosques and has been charged with murder.
The gunman livestreamed the attack online, although New Zealand has outlawed the footage as "objectionable content".
Ardern reiterated her believe it should not be aired.
"That video should not be shared. That is harmful content," she said when questioned about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showing excerpts of the footage at campaign rallies for local elections this month.
Erdogan had angered both Wellington and Canberra with campaign rhetoric about anti-Muslim Australians and New Zealanders being sent back in "coffins" like their grandfathers at Gallipoli, a World War I battle.
