Police Minister wants greater powers following boy racer incident, recession driving business sales boom and man loses life savings in today's NZ Herald headlines.
A government department employee is being investigated by the Ministry for Primary Industries after online anti-Semitic messages to Jewish women, including comments that “Hitler was right” and “you guys should never exist”, were sent from his Instagram account.
His employer has described the comments from his account as“abhorrent” and an employment investigation is under way. A ministry spokesman confirmed he had been suspended from work while the investigation was ongoing.
But the employee, who the Herald is not naming at this time, said his Instagram account was hacked and he didn’t send the messages.
The incident happened after an Israel-based social media user shared a post stating: “It is 2024 and the number of Jewish people living in the world today is still lower than it was before the Holocaust. Let that sink in.”
In reply, a comment from the Wellington man’s account said: “We don’t care you guys should never exist Hitler was right... He probably take you out first.”
California attorney Allison Strull has complained to MPI about the employee and shared screenshots of the comment and further messages sent to her own account with the Herald.
In those messages, the employee – or someone pretending to be him – tells Strull: “We hate Jews that support killing babies.”
“Go shove a kebab up ur greedy ass Jewish p***... THE WORLD HATES YOU AND ISRAEL B****.”
Further expletive-laden messages followed, including a threat to send photos of “dead babies”.
Strull said the man was a “hateful monster” and that he had messaged her about Jews loving genocide.
She said there had been a “dangerous rise in anti-Semitism” following the deadly conflict in Gaza.
Officials from a government department are investigating after anti-Semitic messages were sent from a staff member's social media account. The staff member claims the messages were sent by a hacker.
The Herald contacted the man to ask for comment on the social media messages. He said someone had hacked his account and “have been commenting hate crime”.
“I did not do that and I have changed all my accounts,” he said.
“I cannot take accountability for something I didn’t do.”
At the time of publication, the man had not responded to a request for proof his account had been hacked.
Deputy director general Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service, Sam Keenan, told the Herald the comments were “abhorrent”.
“This matter has been referred to our professional standards unit. The staff member has been spoken to and an employment investigation is under way.”
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
