Three headstones were vandalized last month in the Jewish section of a cemetery in Dunedin, New Zealand. A swastika was painted on one headstone and two others were broken.

Dunedin is the second largest city on the South Island of New Zealand with a population of over 124,000. “We find this type of vandalism not only to be ignorant and stupid, but also state that the underlying menace behind it is disturbing and worrying,” said Andrew Spiegel, a member of the Dunedin  Jewish Congregation.

This incident comes on the back of a previously reported desecration of headstones in 2012 at the Grafton Cemetery in Aukland. Three men aged 1923 were arrested and charged. More than 20 graves, all more than 125 years old and some dating back to the 1880s, were vandalised. Fourteen were spray-painted with large black swastikas, many had the numbers “88” – code for “Heil Hitler” sprayed on them and two had further anti-semitic obscenities.

_{(Issue march 2015)}