Originally published 2022-06-30.
On 30 June 2022, New Zealand made public that it had designated two American far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the neo-Nazi network The Base, as terrorist entities. The designation, signed off by then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, makes it a crime in New Zealand to fund, recruit for or take part in either group. Anyone dealing with property or money linked to them can face up to seven years in prison.
Neither group was known to be active in New Zealand at the time. The move was meant to stop them from gaining a foothold, and it was shaped by the country's experience of far-right terrorism in Christchurch three years earlier.
What the designation means
New Zealand designates terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. Police and other agencies prepare a "statement of case" setting out the evidence, the Police Commissioner supports it, and the Prime Minister makes the final decision. The process usually takes several weeks.
For the Proud Boys and The Base, the designation was formally made on 20 June 2022 and published in the official Gazette. It received little attention until media picked it up on 30 June, when the government released its supporting documents.
Once designated, a group falls under strict rules:
- Funding it, or dealing with property it owns or controls, is a criminal offence carrying up to seven years in prison.
- Recruiting members or participating in the group is also illegal.
- Authorities are required to act against it if it tries to operate in New Zealand.
Designations do not last forever. This one was set to expire automatically on 20 June 2025 unless the government renewed it. The two groups joined 18 others already on New Zealand's list, including the so-called Islamic State, bringing the total to 20.
Who the Proud Boys are
The Proud Boys were founded in the United States in September 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Media. The group admits only men and describes itself as a fraternity defending "Western" values. Researchers and civil-rights organisations describe it as far-right and neo-fascist, with a record of street violence. Its stated views include anti-immigration, anti-feminist and anti-LGBT positions, Islamophobia and strong support for Donald Trump. Its leadership denies being white supremacist, but members have taken part in white-supremacist events.
New Zealand's case focused on the group's role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, which it said amounted to an act of terrorism. According to the government's documents, Proud Boys members helped incite the crowd and coordinate attacks on police that day.
In the United States, several of the group's leaders were later tried over 6 January. In May 2023, former chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy, and Tarrio received a 22-year sentence. In January 2025, on his first day back in office, President Trump issued sweeping pardons and commutations for people convicted over the Capitol attack, which covered the Proud Boys members as well.
Who The Base is
The Base is a smaller, more openly neo-Nazi network, founded in 2018 and organised largely online. Its name is often noted as an English rendering of "al-Qaeda". New Zealand's documents described its aim as training a cadre of extremists capable of "accelerationist violence", meaning violence intended to hasten the collapse of society. They said its founder, Rinaldo Nazzaro, encouraged members online to prepare for violence and acquire weapons.
Several of its members in the United States have been arrested over alleged plots, weapons charges and plans to attack infrastructure. The group is strongly antisemitic and openly calls for a white ethnostate.
Why New Zealand acted
The background is the attack of 15 March 2019, when an Australian white supremacist shot dead 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch. It was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's modern history. The attacker had been radicalised largely online, through international far-right forums and propaganda, and his manifesto went on to inspire other killers, including the gunman who murdered ten Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022.
Since then, New Zealand has tightened its gun laws, set up a royal commission into the attack and paid closer attention to far-right threats. Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said the designation was intended as "a preventative, deterrent mechanism for those groups not to operate here." He also pointed out that Australia, one of New Zealand's closest security partners, had already designated The Base.
Byron Clark, a researcher who tracks the far right in New Zealand, told Radio New Zealand that intelligence agencies saw far-right terrorism as the most likely source of an attack at that time, and that "there are some small groups here who share a lot of the ideology of the Christchurch shooter." Stephen Judd of the group FACT Aotearoa, which tracks conspiracy theories, said similar ideas were circulating among people in New Zealand, both online and offline.
Other countries that took similar steps
New Zealand was not the first. Canada listed the Proud Boys as a terrorist entity in February 2021, weeks after the Capitol attack, and the group's Canadian branch later said it had dissolved. The Base had already been designated in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
The United States itself has no equivalent mechanism for domestic groups. The State Department's terrorist list covers only foreign organisations, so American groups can be prosecuted for crimes they commit but cannot be designated as terrorist organisations at home. That is one reason designations by allies attract attention: they represent outside governments formally judging American groups to be terrorist.
Does a ban like this work?
Designation is mainly preventative. It does not stop people from holding extreme views, and online networks can rename themselves or splinter. But it does give police clear legal grounds to act if a local chapter forms, cuts off fundraising and recruitment, and signals to anyone considering joining that doing so carries serious legal risk.
Supporters of the decision argued it was better to act before the groups arrived than after. Critics in other countries have raised concerns about free speech and the risk of giving fringe groups extra publicity. In New Zealand, where the memory of Christchurch remains raw, the government judged that the deterrent value outweighed those concerns.
Sources: RNZ, 30 June 2022; Al Jazeera, 30 June 2022; Wikipedia: Proud Boys.
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