Philip Neville Arps, 44, was sentenced in Christchurch District Court on Tuesday to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to two charges of distributing objectionable material, his lawyer Anselm Williams confirmed to CNN.
“Your offending glorifies and encourages the mass murder carried out under the pretext of religious and racial hatred,” Judge O’Driscoll said, according to the RNZ report. “It is clear from all the material before me that you have strong and unrepentant views towards the Muslim community.”
Williams said that his client Arps filed an appeal Tuesday against his sentence, arguing that it is “too stern.” A date to hear the appeal has not yet been set.
An 18-year-old and a 16-year-old have also been charged over distributing the live steam of the Christchurch videos, according to Williams, who is also representing the teens.
Limiting hate speech
Currently hate speech is covered by two New Zealand laws — the Human Rights Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act. However, Little said there were questions about whether the processes under the second act were as accessible as they needed to be, and noted that discrimination on the basis of religion isn’t covered by the first act.
