Auckland Transport has vowed to remove any material put up by a white supremacist group, after a racist poster appeared in a city bus stop.
AT’s response comes after Auckland University sparked an outcry in September when it refused to remove or condemn posters from the same group.
Stuff has chosen not to name the New Zealand-based group, which espouses a racist, white supremacist ideology in line with the alt-right movement.
The poster was seen in an Auckland bus stop on Saturday.
The poster was spotted on a bus stop in Dominion Rd on Saturday.
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The anti-China poster resembles 20th century political propaganda, particularly American anti-Japanese material from World War II.
stuff.co.nz
Protesters occupy the Auckland University ClockTower to protest management inaction over white supremacy posters.
AT spokesman Wally Thomas condemned the poster when contacted on Saturday evening.
“Who do these people think they are? The message is completely unacceptable and offensive.”
The organisation would remove the poster immediately and make every effort to track down and charge those responsible for vandalism, Thomas said.
JOSEPHINE FRANKS/STUFF
Protesters occupy the the Auckland University Clock Tower earlier this year to protest management inaction over a white supremacy poster.
“This is vandalism of public infrastructure. If we can track them down, we will.”
The group has been approached for comment.
Following the outcry about the appearance of the white supremacist posters in September, Auckland University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon initially cited free speech as the reason the university had not intervened.
DAVID WHITE/STUFF
A protester holds a sign opposing the alt-right movement during a demonstration earlier this year in Auckland.
The next week, McCutcheon said he recognised the most important matter was not “a debate about free speech”.
Instead, the most important thing was the “very real hurt and sense of threat” felt by some people in the university community, he said in a staff-all email.
The email came after more than 1300 academics and students signed an open letter denouncing racism and a student launched a poster campaign criticising the university’s response.
There were also daily protests from a group of students in the quad and a sit-in of the university clock tower.
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