'Free media' week killings - but don't forget crimes against Papuans

"Save Papuan Journalists" - a theme poster from last year's May 3 World Press Freedom Day event in Jakarta, Indonesia.
West Papuan media freedom issues tend to be "lost" in the standard press freedom reports on Indonesia.
Image: David Robie/Pacific Media Centre

By David Robie

MONDAY – just three days before today’s World Press Freedom Day – was the deadliest day for news media in Afghanistan in 17 years. The killing of nine journalists and media workers among 26 people who died in dual suicide bomb attacks in Kabul was the worst day for the press since the fall of the Taliban.

Five other journalists were wounded and a 10th journalist was shot and killed in a separate attack outside the capital.

Among the dead was Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai who left behind an extraordinary legacy of images.

READ MORE: Hatred of journalism threatens democracies

It was the also the most horrendous day for global media since the Ampatuan massacre on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao on 23 November 2009. A shocking 32 journalists were murdered that day, most of the total death toll of 58 in an ambush on a pre-election cavalcade.

To date nobody has been successfully brought to justice. The scores of private militia “owned” by the Ampatuan family alleged to have carried out the killings have got away with their vile crime almost scot-free.

'Voice of the voiceless' - Al Jazeera's response over Saudi-led blog gag pressure

The Doha headquarters of the global news network. Photo: Al Jazeera

An important media freedom statement: An open letter from Al Jazeera
Republished on Café Pacific from the Doha-based global news network

OVER two decades ago, Al Jazeera Arabic was launched with a simple mission: to provide reliable information to viewers across the Arab world. Ten years later, in 2006, Al Jazeera English began broadcasting with the same mission - to provide people around the world with accurate, balanced and impartial information.

When Al Jazeera Arabic went on air in 1996, it was unique in the Arab world. Most media in the region at the time were state-controlled and often unchallenged mouthpieces for the different rulers and governments in the region. Al Jazeera was different, a truly independent voice, with a mission to hear and report the human stories that were otherwise ignored; to cover events with balance and integrity; and to hold power to account.

Al Jazeera Arabic quickly gained a huge and loyal audience across the region. The information we provided became a lifeline to millions of people who wanted to know what was really going on around them.

Rights groups condemn ‘cowardly censorship’ bid over Al Jazeera

Flashback to the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- how the rolling 24 hour news station Al Jazeera played a key role in the  battle for hearts and minds and has made many political enemies. "We are surrounded by despots," says fiesty presenter Faisal Al-Qaseem. Video: Journeyman Pictures

Pacific Media Watch/Asia Pacific Report

PRESS freedom and human rights advocates, journalists and social media users have condemned a demand by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to shut Al Jazeera television network and other media outlets in Qatar.

The Arab states reportedly issued a 13-point list on Friday, demanding the closure of all news outlets that it funds, directly and indirectly, including Arabi21, Rassd, Al Araby Al Jadeed, Mekameleen and Middle East Eye.

“We are really worried about the implication and consequences of such requirements if they will ever be implemented,” said Alexandra El Khazen, head of Middle East and North Africa desk at Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organisation promoting press freedom.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Paris, Khazen said: “We are against any kind of censorship and measures that could threaten the diversity in the Arab media landscape and pluralism, for instance.

“The Arabic media landscape should make room and accept the broadest range of viewpoints instead of adopting repressive measures against alternative viewpoints that are found to be critical of some governments.”

Activists, media freedom advocates plan ‘global action’ for West Papua

"Gagged" West Papua. Instagram montage by tuckwolf_

By Pacific Media Watch

MEDIA freedom advocates and human rights activists are planning a “global action” for West Papua with demonstrations marking UNESCO world press freedom day events in Jakarta next week.

The advocates want to focus global attention on the “media blackout” long imposed by Indonesian authorities, in spite of promises to open up access to the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua adjoining independent Papua New Guinea.

The global action will begin on May 1 and run for three days climaxing with World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Prominent UK-based West Papuan lawyer and civil rights campaigner Benny Wenda will then pay a visit to New Zealand the following week to raise awareness.

‘Je suis Charlie’? Not I. Here’s why…

A profile on the role of satire in France a la Charlie Hebdo via Vox.

By Richard Fidler at Canada's Life on the Left

MILLIONS of people took to the streets in France and elsewhere in Europe and North America to protest the brutal murderous attacks by Islamist extremists on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket in Paris.

At Charlie Hebdo, the death toll of 12 included the paper’s editor and some of its major cartoonists; a further 23 staff members were wounded. Several more were murdered at the Jewish grocery store.

The unifying slogan of these protests is “Je suis Charlie!” - I am Charlie, the implication being that the targeted publication — notorious in France for its ridicule of minority religious beliefs, especially Islam — had merely been exercising its right to “freedom of expression.”

That is the theme being propagated by the establishment media and politicians. Many on the left have chimed in. NDP [New Democrats] leader Thomas Mulcair in Canada says it was a “terrible attack against democracy and freedom of the press.” Québec Solidaire leader Amir Khadir, speaking for the party, said it was a “black day for free speech".

Free speech?

Creating the cartoons that led to the Charlie Hebdo assassinations

Charlie Hebdo, Before the Massacre from The New York Times on Vimeo.

NINE years ago two Paris-based filmmakers, Jerôme Lambert and Philippe Picard, who have directed many documentaries for French public television, made a controversial documentary, Cabu: Politiquement Incorrect (Cabu: Politically Incorrect), about one of Charlie Hebdo's most famous cartoonists.

The documentary hasn't yet been released in English, but an almost six-minute section of it about the decision-making process around publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad has been edited as a short package and published online on Op-Docs at The New York Times.

Ultimately, the publication of this cartoon - and others – by the satirical magazine led this week to the tragic assassination by two jihadist gunmen of the cartoon creator, the editor and eight other people and two police officers protecting them in a savage raid on the publication’s office.

By the end of three days of blood-letting in Paris, including a double hostage siege, 17 innocent people had been killed plus three extremist gunmen - shot dead by French elite security forces. More than 3.7 million people and global leaders on Sunday marched in rallies across France - including the French Pacific territories - to pay tribute to those who lost their lives.

According to the NYT's website for Op-Docs, it is a "forum for short, opinionated documentaries, produced with creative latitude by independent filmmakers and artists". And there is an open invitation for submissions. Here is the introduction to the video - Charlie Hebdo, Before the Massacre:

RSF calls on media outlets to publish Charlie Hebdo cartoons in defiance of ‘barbarity’

 
Charlie Hebdo getaway video from Trung Tâm VBig.

THE PARIS-based media freedom organisation Reporters Sans Frontières has called on global media editors to publish Charlie Hebdo’s political and religious cartoons as a response to the shocking “black Wednesday” attack on the weekly satirical magazine.

Renowned internationally for its scathing and hilarious cartoons, Charlie Hebdo has always put its fight for freedom of information first, says RSF.

And now its staff has been “decimated by an unspeakable act of violence that targets the entire press. Journalism as a whole is in mourning".

Many social media posters are asking is this a new “freedom of speech war”. Supporters are declaring "Je suis Charlie" - "I am Charlie" in vigils of solidarity.

“But,” warns RSF, “freedom of information cannot shrink in the face of barbarity and yield to blackmail by those who assail our democracy and what our republic stands for. In the name of all those who have fallen in the defence of fundamental values, let us continue Charlie Hebdo’s fight for free information.

Key accused of allowing secret 'spook' cable sensors to spy on NZ citizens

 Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald (left) and Kim Dotcom at the "moment of truth"
political surveillance meeting in Auckland last night. Image: PMW

By ANNA MAJAVU of Pacific Media Watch

NEW ZEALAND Prime Minister John Key has been accused of allowing the secret installation of equipment that would enable spooks to tap into New Zealand's undersea fibre optic cable as part of a covert mass surveillance system of citizens.

This was the word from globally acclaimed whistleblower Edward Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (both speaking via video link), Kim Dotcom and US Pulitzer prize-winner Glenn Greenwald last night at a packed meeting of more than 2000 people in Auckland.

The hall was so full that another 800 people could not get into the venue at the Auckland Town Hall.

In a major political coup for the Internet-Mana alliance which organised the seminar and which is contesting the New Zealand national elections this Saturday, the three speakers painted a grim picture of individual privacy and internet freedom under New Zealand's ruling National Party.

Dotcom told the meeting that there were only two ways to fight mass surveillance - through political mobilising, as the Internet Party was doing and through encryption.

Mounting global pressure against Timor-Leste’s ‘death sentence’ media law

East Timor’s José Belo … courageous fight against "unconstitutional" media law.
Image: © Ted McDonnell 2014

CAFÉ PACIFIC and the Pacific Media Centre Online posted challenges to the controversial ‘press law’ nine months ago when it emerged how dangerous this draft legislation was.

Opposition quickly took off among independent journalists, civil society advocates and eventually media freedom organisations such as the regional Pacific Media Watch and global International Federation of Journalists and Reporters Sans Frontières took up the cause.

Yet even though this law was clearly a much bigger threat to Pacific media freedoms as a regional precedent than the military backed Fiji Media Decree, it took some time for mainstream news media groups to take notice.

And this is mostly thanks to the courageous efforts of Tempo Semanal’s editor José Belo, who is also leader of the fledging Timor-Leste Press Union (TLPU), to bring it to the attention of the global community.

This draconian draft law (not-so-draft as it has already been adopted by the National Parliament and has just been stalled temporarily by the Appeal Court over some "unconstitutional" sections) smacks of the worst repression days of Indonesian occupation and of the Suharto era of media censorship.

Dangerous trend in copycat cybercrime laws in the Pacific [video]

             Video by Pacific Media Watch editor Anna Majavu.

COPYCAT cybercrime laws designed to curb freedom of expression on social media and independent blog news sites are becoming a major threat to the Asia-Pacific region.

Café Pacific today publishes a video from the book launch of David Robie's new book Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, which raises these issues.

Speakers at the event included the AUT Dean of Creative Technologies, Professor Desna Jury; Wiremu Tipuna, Takawaenga Māori at AUT (Ngati Kahungunu); Dr Steven Ratuva, president of the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association (PIPSA); publisher Tony Murrow of Little Island Press; and Pacific Islands Media Association (PIMA) chair Sandra Kailahi.

TV New Zealand's Pacific correspondent, Barbara Dreaver, sent a "launch" message which was read out by Kailahi.

MIDA’s chair finds Fiji TV guilty of ‘hate speech’ and blasts bloggers

Audio podcast of today's media conference with MIDA chairperson Ashwin Raj on YouTube from the Pacific Media Centre.

SO THERE we have it. Fiji’s Media Industry Development Authority chairperson Ashwin Raj is going to stamp out all hate and race speech in his country with the stroke of a decree-backed pen.

A momentous mind shift is going to happen just like that. The media “chilling” climate will ensure this unfolds. He thinks ...

Raj is “quite perturbed by the level of public discourse” in Fiji as the country moves toward the return-to-democracy general election on September 17.

“Masquerading itself as an exercise in freedom of expression, political discourse has, in fact, descended to unabashed racial vilification and in some instances its content is tantamount to injurious or hate speech,” he railed at a MIDA media conference in Suva today.

“What is even more disconcerting is the complicity of select Fijian journalists and media, either wittingly or those that remain oblivious to the laws of Fiji despite several awareness workshops on the Crimes Decree, the Media Industry Development Decree and the Constitution.”

Harassment of The Guardian causes UK drop in press freedom index rankings

The Guardian offices ... harassed over intelligence leaks.
Photo: Bethany Clarke/Greenslade Blog

From the Greenslade Blog and Reporters Without Borders

THE UNITED KINGDOM has slipped three places down the World Press Freedom Index rankings this year - to 33rd.

According to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its report this week, this was due to the country "distinguishing itself by its harassment of The Guardian" following its publication of the NSA and GCHQ leaks by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

That incident, and the White House administration's reaction to the Snowden affair and the jailing of Chelsea Manning over the Wikileaks revelations, also resulted in the United States falling by 13 places to 46th in the list.

RSF remarks: "The hunt for leaks and whistleblowers serves as a warning to those thinking of satisfying a public interest need for information about the imperial prerogatives assumed by the world's leading power."

Major declines in media freedom were recorded in Central African Republic and Guatemala but RSF also pointed to marked improvements in Ecuador, Bolivia and South Africa among the total of 180 countries.

Timor-Leste's media law ‘secrecy’ lifted, but draconian content revealed

East Timorese journalists at work ... no more freelancers
under the draft media law? Photo: David Robie

By DAVID ROBIE

THE PROPOSED Timor-Leste media law is a draconian mixed bag. And it is ironical that such a document with lofty claims of protecting the freedom of the press should be shrouded in secrecy for the past six months.

After being approved by the Council of Ministers last August 6, it has languished in the “don’t touch” basket since then, apart from a critical airing at a conference on the state of the media last October.

And then suddenly, with few copies of the document being in circulation previously, a hurried “consultation" was held with journalist representatives this week. A journalists' submission is expected by Parliamentary Committee A by Monday.

But other people with a stake in the future of media regulation – such as academics, bloggers, book publishers, non-government organisations, political commentators and media users themselves – haven’t yet had a chance to give any input.

While the document contains an interesting attempt to define “duties” of journalists in an evolving new democracy such as Timor-Leste and professes to support freedom of information and the right to be informed, in reality many clauses seek to effectively gag the press and debate.

Nuclear Savage filmmaker accuses media of cover-up of impact of US nuclear weapons testing on Pacific people

“The bomb will not start a chain reaction in the water, converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy.”
– Vice Admiral William P. Blandy, Bikini bomb test commander, 25 July 1946 

WHEN the military scientists of an advanced technological nation deliberately explode their largest nuclear bomb (and 66 others) over Pacific islands and use the opportunities to study the effects of radiation on nearby native people, which group is best described as “savage”?

And what should you call the people who prevent a documentary about these American post-war crimes from reaching a wide audience in the United States?

Nuclear Savage is a recent documentary film that explores American nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, 1946-1958 - and particularly the secret Project 4.1: an American experiment in exposing Pacific Islanders to overdoses of radiation – deliberate human radiation poisoning – just to get better data on this method of maiming and killing people.

The public broadcasting establishment has spent more that two years keeping this story off the air.

West Papua activists will 'rot in jails' if Freedom Flotilla not helped

Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott in silhouette with the West Papuans' Morning Star
- banned by Indonesian authorities - and Aboriginal flags on
the West Papua Freedom Flotilla.

CAMPAIGNERS on board the West Papua Freedom Flotilla will ‘rot in jail’ if the Australian government doesn't help them if they get into trouble, says Aboriginal elder Kevin Buzzacott.

The objective is “to free our brothers and sisters up there with all the bad stuff that’s happening”, Buzzacott says in an exclusive audio interview on YouTube with the Pacific Media Centre's Daniel Drageset, reporting for Pacific Media Watch and Pacific Scoop.

The flotilla has gathered a range of pro-independence campaigners on the journey going from Lake Eyre in northern South Australia, via New South Wales and the Queensland coast, across the Torres Strait to Daru in Papua New Guinea and finally Merauke in West Papua, where the flotilla is scheduled to arrive early next month.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australian authorities have informed the Freedom Flotilla that local laws and penalties will apply in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

“We’ve given them this warning. Therefore, should they end up in prison as a result of breaching the law of Indonesia or Papua New Guinea we’ve got no obligation to give them consular support,” Carr said, according to news.com.au.

Media academic warns over digital surveillance, calls for new robust ethical model

Audio report by AUT student journalist Michael Sergel for the Pacific Media Centre.

By Anna Majavu

A LEADING journalism academic has voiced concern at the high levels of digital surveillance facing journalists today and has urged journalists to adopt a new ethical model of reporting for social good.

Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University and the Australian correspondent for Reporters Without Borders, spoke at New Zealand's inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day 2013 lecture marking May 3, organised and hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and School of Communication Studies.

The lack of press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region was well documented with media in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Fiji needing government licences to operate, and journalists in Malaysia facing 53-year-old “internal security” laws under which they could be detained for long periods for “prejudicing national security”, Dr Pearson said.

But Professor Pearson said his concerns were not limited to these cases, and that his major worry was the “ever-increasing government regulation of media and social media everywhere”, including the anti-terror laws introduced all over the world since 9/11, modelled on the US Patriot Act.

These laws “typically give intelligence agencies unprecedented powers to monitor the communications of all citizens. There is also an inordinate level of surveillance, logging and tracking technologies in use in the private sector – often held in computer clouds or multinational corporate servers in jurisdictions subject to search and seizure powers of foreign governments”, said Dr Pearson.

West Papua's Benny Wenda takes a hit from NZ Speaker, but fights on

West Papuan campaigner Benny Wenda (centre) talks to Café Pacific publisher
David Robie (left) and PNG journalist Henry Yamo at the
Pacific Media Centre yesterday. Photo: Del Abcede/PMC

By Henry Yamo, a Papua New Guinean journalist in New Zealand

WEST PAPUAN independence advocate Benny Wenda is stunned to find New Zealand  “ignoring human rights issues on its doorstep” after Speaker David Carter denied him the opportunity to speak about his cause in Parliament.

“The Australian Parliament gave support last November and I was looking forward to the same [backing] in New Zealand, but my entry to Parliament has been blocked,” he says.

But he says the plight of his people is far too serious for him to give in.

Wenda has witnessed his people being beaten, tortured, imprisoned and killed and has been motivated to fight in this struggle to free his people.

Benny Wenda, a tribal chief of West Papua and founder of International Parliamentarians for West Papua, visited Auckland's Pacific Media Centre yesterday as part of his world tour visiting governments and parliamentarians.

The end of Timbuktu's gate-crashing jihadists

Since French commandos parachuted on to the sand just north of Timbuktu and liberated the city from the jihadists, there is a growing sense of freedom, particularly among women. Video: The Guardian

Dancing in Timbuktu

Oh what a feeling dancing in Timbuktu
under a clear desert sky
with thousands of sparkling stars
gazing at the warm fire
sipping French Cognac.

Sisters and brothers relaxing on white satin
never reaching the end
rejoicing in freedom
singing Vive la France
we love you
oh, how we love you.

'E-martial law' makes Facebook libel posting 'likes' crime in Philippines

Graphic: Philippine Daily Inquirer

By Tetch Torres in Manila

THE PHILIPPINES government has admitted before the Supreme Court that liking, sharing libelous Facebook and Twitter posts can make one person criminally liable, prompting a judge to say that it creates a "chilling" effect.

“It is not an excuse that thousands of defamatory statements are on the internet. Then, we have to scrap the law,” Solicitor-General Francis Jardeleza said during a hearing last week about the controversial Cybercrime Prevention Act.

A restraining order of implementation of the 2012 law - dubbed "e-martial law" because of its repressive restrictions on freedom of speech - had been due to be lifted today.

“Defamation is defamation whether we communicate through megaphones, letters, person to person, tweets, Facebook or e-mail,” Jardeleza added.

Associate Justice Roberto Abad said that with the criminal liability that the new law creates, “it will make me now reluctant to express my view.”

Turkish writer's 15-year struggle for justice over the Spice Market 'bombing'

The court ordered a life sentence for Pınar Selek. Photo: Selek's Facebook Page

RECENTLY, Café Pacific reported on the fate of many journalists in Turkey after an otherwise invigorating visit to this fascinating country. But the number of journalists, many of them ethnic Kurds, languishing in prison on trumped up charges reveals a sinister side. So does this Global Voices story.

By Baran Mavzer

PINAR SELEK, a French-based sociologist and a writer, previously accused of bombing the Istanbul Spice Bazaar in 1998, has been sentenced to life in prison in Turkey.

The final verdict was delivered on January 24, 2013. If she returns to Turkey, she will be arrested by the police.

During her nearly 15 year-long trial, she was acquitted three times. She now lives in Strasbourg.

First arrest
Selek's long journey with the Turkish Judicial System began on July 11, 1998, just two days after the explosions at the entrance of Istanbul's Spice Bazaar. The explosion killed seven and wounded approximately 100 people.

Despite suspicions regarding the cause of the explosion being caused by a PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) bombing, six investigative reports indicated that the explosion was not due to a bombing or terrorist attack.