'Just rubbish': Tamaki to appear in court for allegedly inciting racial disharmony

Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki has been summoned to appear in court for allegedly breaching the Human Rights Act, which he says is “absolutely stupid and really rubbish”.

The right-wing evangelical pastor live-streamed police serving the summons at his home this morning.

Detective Senior Sergeant Natalie Nelson said because the charges were laid under the Human Rights Act, consent was required from the Attorney-General for police to prosecute.

Tamaki is facing three charges for allegedly inciting racial disharmony in June.

He was ordered to appear in court on October 19.

Speaking to the Herald this morning, Tamaki denied the allegations.

“I have not at all violated or crossed the line of that side of racial disharmony; that’s absolutely stupid and really rubbish, it’s just rubbish.

“All of my statements have been religious ... and I’ve been very consistent about that.”

Tamaki said that while police haven’t confirmed to him what event the charges are in relation to, he believed it was over comments made about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He alleged police came to his door this morning without any warning.

“It’s an interesting charge. I don’t know if I’ve seen any racial charge.”

He said the charges “won’t stick” and that he planned to fight the allegations in court on Monday.

“It was about that statement basically there. So you’re talking about something that was already clear that I made statements from somebody that was a human rights abuser. I exposed that big time what he was doing in India with the persecution of Christians.”

In June this year, Tamaki made remarks on his podcast accusing Modi of persecuting Christians in India and said if churches were being burned down in India, “why don’t we burn mosques and their temples down? Tit for tat”.

He later told Ryan Bridge TODAY he didn’t mean what he said when he called for mosques and temples to be burned down.

Tamaki acknowledged he had not been threatened by any Hindu people and no churches had been burned down in New Zealand.

An anti-immigration protest has been planned by Destiny Church for later this month in downtown Auckland.

The Attorney-General has been approached for comment.