HOMICIDE SCENE: Police cars block off a Hamilton street during investigations. PHOTO: NZ Herald

HAMILTON’s Somalis are upset a homicide court suppression order has tarnished their community’s reputation.

“This is what one individual did, and it’s like they are punishing the whole community,” says Waikato Somali Friendship Society co-ordinator Khadar Ibrahim.

 Commenting on court coverage in the New Zealand Herald following the death of Abdi-shukri Ahmed Awad in Hamilton last week, he says mentioning ethnicity is “just plain wrong”.

The publication of ethnicity, particularly in crime stories, is a practice all too common in news articles in New Zealand newspapers, he says.

A man charged with Mr Awad’s death has interim suppression of identity until his next appearance at the end of November, but the Herald story revealed his ethnic origin as Somali.

Rival paper the Waikato Times chose not to mention ethnicity.

Hamilton has about 1000 residents of Somali descent, the largest such community in New Zealand.

Ursula Cheer, associate professor of law at University of Canterbury, says suppression law prohibits publication of any particulars likely to lead to identification. 

“Media do this sort of thing quite often,” she says. “They really push things to the limit and take the risk that there is a potential breach of the law, but no prosecution will result.

Referring to a NZ Herald story about the defendant’s court appearance on November 2, she says many facts about the man are given – addresses, age, race: “Quite enough, I would think.”

The funeral for Mr Awad, who had had been in New Zealand for the last seven years, was held at the Hamilton mosque and attended by more than 100 people from the local Muslim community.

“We prayed and we buried him,” says Waikato Muslim Association president Ismaill Gamadiid, who also led the Salat Al-Janazah, an obligatory final prayer Muslims perform for the dead.

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