New Zealand’s government added two U.S.-based political groups to its list of “designated terrorist entities” last month.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern approved the designations for the Proud Boys and the Base. The move effectively criminalizes engaging in any financial transaction or activity with the two organizations as of June 20.
The government announced the designations a week later on its website:
“Any person who deals with the property of, or makes property or financial or related services available to, the entities listed below may be liable to prosecution. … Furthermore, any institution or person who suspects that property is owned by either entity is required to report the existence of that property to the Commissioner of Police.”
The Base is an alleged neo-Nazi “accelerationist” paramilitary group, already considered a terrorist organization in Australia, Canada, and the UK.
Two Americans and a Canadian with suspected links to the group were arrested in January 2020 on firearm charges after supposedly planning to engage in violence at a pro-gun rally in Virginia, according to the FBI, per The New York Times.
The Proud Boys is a self-described fraternal group of “anti-social-justice warriors,” according to The Epoch Times.
Members of the organization were charged with “seditious conspiracy” by federal prosecutors last month following their participation in the mass protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The organization has been designated a terrorist organization by Canada and now New Zealand.
The New Zealand government did not cite any actions committed by alleged members of the Base or the Proud Boys within New Zealand in its reasoning for designating them terrorist entities.
FBI Director Christopher Wray stated in 2021, “I don’t think we have treated the Proud Boys itself as a domestic terrorism group.”
The United States federal government does not maintain an official list of domestic terrorist organizations as it does for foreign groups.