Police in New Zealand have tracked down and harassed a woman over a social media post they claimed was “unwelcoming to the Indian community”.
Renee-Rose Schwenke shared a photo of herself in Auckland with two men of Indian appearance in the background captioned “Welcome to New India thanks to Luxsingh”, referring to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who recently signed a controversial Free Trade Agreement with India.
Ms Schwenke was then bombarded with hateful and abusive comments from Indian Facebook users, and her post was reported to police who then hunted her down and accused her of racism.
She shared a recording of a female police officer calling her mother and saying they were planning to come to her house “regarding some posts that she’s been putting online that people have taken not that great, basically, so they’ve made some complaints to police”.
“I had the police call me regarding my ‘racist’ post. It wasn’t threatening or inciting violence. I was called into the police station for a senior sergeant to tell me my post was unkind and ‘racist’, unwelcoming to the Indian community,” she wrote.
“He had to walk away from us twice because he was being led by his own personal views and couldn’t handle a bit of push back and truth, instead of behaving as a professional. This is what happens when you live under a soft tyranny of the offended peoples. I won’t silence my views to accommodate your feelings.”
In the comments she wrote: “I get deaths threats on the regular for my views and beliefs, I get called every name under the sun – racist, transphobic, Islamophobic, but somehow I’m in the wrong. This world is upside down. Good is now evil and evil is now good.”
Recording of the police calling her mother: pic.twitter.com/e64mvbaofX
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) May 4, 2026
Ms Schwenke’s posts come amid public anger over Mr Luxon’s FTA and the effects of mass immigration on housing prices and social cohesion in New Zealand, with remigration and anti-migration protests erupting regularly in recent months, and a minister describing Indian immigration as a “butter chicken tsunami”.
Criticism of the FTA sparked a meltdown from National Party MP Joseph Mooney on the weekend, who lashed out at X users and baselessly claimed he had become the target of a “foreign influence campaign” in response to a post where he claimed White New Zealanders were not being demographically replaced.
According to the 2023 Census, the European population of New Zealand has fallen to just 55.9%, with Asians now outnumbering Maoris, and Singh last year becoming the most common baby surname, followed by Kaur, Smith and Patel.
Header image: Left, the post that sparked the police investigation. Right, Ms Schwenke (Facebook).
