New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders 2024 World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3.

This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its usual place in the top 10.

However, New Zealand is still the Asia-Pacific region’s leader in a part of the world that is ranked as the second “most difficult” with half of the world’s 10 “most dangerous” countries included — Myanmar (171st), North Korea (172nd), China (173rd), Vietnam (175th) and Afghanistan (178th).

• READ MORE: The full 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists while the West merely censors them – David Robie
• RSF calls on NZ Prime Minister to reaffirm his government’s commitment to press freedom
• Timor-Leste makes top ten in 2023 World Press Freedom Index

New Zealand is 20 places above Australia, which is ranked 39th.

However, NZ is closely followed in the Index by one of the world’s newer nations, Timor-Leste (20th) — among the top 10 last year — and Samoa (22nd).

Fiji was 44th, one place above Tonga, and Papua New Guinea had dropped 32 places to 91st. Other Pacific countries were not listed in the survey which is based on media freedom performance through 2023.

Scandinavian countries again fill four of the world’s top countries for press freedom.

No Asia-Pacific nation in top 15
No country in the Asia-Pacific region is among the Index’s top 15 this year. In 2023, two journalists were murdered in the Philippines (134th), which continues to be one of the region’s most dangerous countries for media professionals.

In the survey’s overview, the RSF researchers said press freedom around the world was being “threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors — political authorities”.

This finding was based on the fact that, of the five indicators used to compile the ranking, it is the ‘political indicator’ that has fallen the most , registering a global average fall of 7.6 points.

Covering the war from Gaza.    Video: RSF

“As more than half the world’s population goes to the polls in 2024, RSF is warning of a
worrying trend revealed by the Index — a decline in the political indicator, one of five indicators detailed,” said editorial director Anne Bocandé.

“States and other political forces are playing a decreasing role in protecting press freedom. This disempowerment sometimes goes hand in hand with more hostile actions that undermine the role of journalists, or even instrumentalise the media through campaigns of harassment or disinformation.

“Journalism worthy of that name is, on the contrary, a necessary condition for any democratic system and the exercise of political freedoms.”

Record violations in Gaza
At the international level, says the Index report, this year is notable for a “clear lack of political will on the part of the international community” to enforce the principles of protection of journalists, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2222 in 2015.

“The war in Gaza has been marked by a record number of violations against journalists and media since October 2023. More than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces, including at least 22 in the course of their work.”

UNESCO yesterday awarded its Guillermo Cano world press freedom prize to all Palestinian journalists covering the war in Gaza.

“In these times of darkness and hopelessness, we wish to share a strong message of solidarity and recognition to those Palestinian journalists who are covering this crisis in such dramatic circumstances,” said Mauricio Weibel, chair of the international jury of media professionals.

“As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”

Palestinian journalists covering Gaza awarded the 2024 @UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World #PressFreedom Prize.https://t.co/9Zt7qge6yo #WorldPressFreedomDay pic.twitter.com/4liqPSdXtJ

— UNESCO #Education #Sciences #Culture (@UNESCO) May 2, 2024

Occupied and under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestine is ranked 157th out of 180
countries and territories surveyed in the overall Index, but it is ranked among the last 10 with regard to security for journalists.

Israel is also ranked low at 101st.

Criticism of NZ
Although the Index overview gives no detailed explanation on this year’s decline in New Zealand’s Index ranking, it nevertheless gives an overview of the media freedom status and then concludes that the country had “retained its role as a press freedom model”.

While the NZ status had declined, many other comparable nations had deteriorated further.

Last December RSF condemned Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in the newly elected rightwing coalition government for his “repeated verbal attacks on the media” and called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to reaffirm his government’s support for press freedom.

“Just after taking office . . . Peters declared in an interview that he was ‘at war’ with the media. A statement that he accompanied on several occasions with accusations of corruption among media professionals,” said RSF in its public statement.

“He also portrayed a journalism support fund set up by the previous [Labour] administration as a ’55 million dollar bribe’. The politician also questioned the independence of the public broadcasters Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

“These verbal attacks would be a cause of concern for the sector if used to support a policy of restricting the right to information.”

Cédric Alviani, RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director, also noted at the time: “By making irresponsible comments about journalists in a context of growing mistrust of the New Zealand public towards the media, Deputy Prime Minister Peters is sending out a worrying signal about the newly-appointed government’s attitude towards the press.

“We call on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to reaffirm his government’s support for press freedom and to ensure that all members of his cabinet follow the same line.”

Pacific Media Watch compiled this summary from the RSF World Press Freedom Index.

In 2023, the world witnessed a sustained attack on the very foundations of the international legal order.

Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, continued its illegal invasion in Ukraine. Israel’s response to the deadly October attack by Hamas exceeded its legitimate right to self-defence. And Venezuela threatened force against Guyana over an oil-rich area of disputed territory.

But is it all bad news for the international legal order?

• READ MORE: South Africa has made its genocide case against Israel in court. Here’s what both sides said and what happens next
• Myanmar charged with genocide of Rohingya Muslims: 5 essential reads

There are six ongoing international court cases initiated by states or organisations seeking to clarify the law and hold other states to account on behalf of the international community.

These cases offer smaller countries, such as New Zealand, an opportunity to have a significant role in strengthening the international legal order and ensuring a pathway towards peace.

A departure from the legal norm?
Normally, cases are brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when a state’s direct interests are impacted by the actions of another state.

However, six recent court cases reflect a significant departure from this tradition and mark an important development for international justice.

These cases argue the international community has a collective interest in certain issues. The focus of the cases range from Israel’s actions in Gaza (brought by South Africa) through to the responsibility of states to ensure the protection of the climate system (brought by the United Nations General Assembly).

South Africa’s justice minister Ronald Lamola outlined the country’s genocide case against Israel, as a landmark hearing opened at the International Court of Justice pic.twitter.com/AvlM8BwhQI

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 11, 2024

Holding states accountable for genocide
Three of the six cases seek to hold states accountable for genocide using Article IX of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Put simply, Article IX says disputes between countries can be referred to the ICJ.

In late December, South Africa asked the court to introduce provisional measures — a form of international injunction — against Israel for genocidal acts in Gaza.

These proceedings build on the precedent set by a 2019 case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for its treatment of the Rohingya people.

In 2022, the ICJ concluded it had jurisdiction to hear The Gambia’s case on the basis that all parties to the Genocide Convention have an interest in ensuring the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide.

According to the ICJ, The Gambia did not need to demonstrate any special interest or injury to bring the proceedings and, in effect, was entitled to hold Myanmar to account for its treatment of the Rohingya people on behalf of the international community as a whole.

South Africa has made the same argument against Israel.

In the third case, Ukraine was successful in obtaining provisional measures calling on Russia to suspend military operations in Ukraine (a call which has been reiterated in several United Nations General Assembly resolutions).

While Ukraine is directly impacted by Russia’s actions, 32 states, including New Zealand, have also intervened. These countries have argued there is an international interest in the resolution of the conflict.

In November 2023, following the example of intervention in Ukraine v Russia, seven countries — Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (jointly) and the Maldives — filed declarations of intervention in The Gambia v Myanmar, in support of The Gambia and the international community.

States can apply for permission to intervene in proceedings where they have an interest of a legal nature that may be affected by the decision in the case (in the case of the ICJ, under Article 62 of the ICJ Statute). That said, intervening in judicial proceedings in support of the legal order or international community more generally was relatively rare until 2023.

South Africa is taking Israel to the ICJ, accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s @nabilabana explains what’s behind the case pic.twitter.com/Hv9R4orEa8

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 11, 2024

Climate change obligations under international law
But it is not just acts of genocide that have attracted wider international legal involvement.

In 2023, three proceedings seeking advisory opinions on the legal obligations of states in respect of climate change under international law have been introduced before the ICJ, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

These cases can be similarly characterised as having been brought on behalf of the international community for the international community. New Zealand has intervened in the Law of the Sea case.

Collectively, these six cases comprise actions taken on behalf of the international community with the overarching purpose of strengthening the international legal order.

They demonstrate faith in and support for that legal order in the face of internal and external challenges, and constitute an important counter-narrative to the prevailing view that the international legal order is no longer robust.

Instituting proceedings does not guarantee a positive outcome. But it is worth noting that less than three years after the ICJ issued an advisory opinion condemning the United Kingdom’s continued occupation of the Chagos Archipelago, the UK is quietly negotiating with Mauritius for the return of the islands.

New Zealand’s support for the global legal order in 2024
The international legal order underpins New Zealand’s security and prosperity. New Zealand has a strong and internationally recognised track record of positive intervention in judicial proceedings in support of that order.

In 2012 New Zealand intervened in the case brought by Australia against Japan for whaling in the Antarctic. Following our contributions to cases before the ICJ and ITLOS in 2023, we are well placed to continue that intervention in future judicial proceedings.

Calls have already been made for New Zealand to intervene in South Africa v Israel. Contributing to this case and to The Gambia v Myanmar proceeding provides an important opportunity for New Zealand to make a proactive and substantive contribution to strengthening the international legal order.

Dr Karen Scott is professor in Law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Sydney-born investigative journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger died on December 31, 2023.

He should be remembered and honoured not just for his impressive body of work, but for being a brave — and at times near-lone — voice for truth against power.

In early 2002, the “war on terror”, launched by then United States President George W Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attack, was in full swing.

• READ MORE: Daily Mirror legend John Pilger awoke world to great injustices as tributes pour in

After two decades, more than 4 million would be killed in Iraq, Libya, Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere under this bloody banner, and 10 times more displaced.

The propaganda campaign to justify this ferocious, US-led, global punitive expedition cowed many voices, not least in the settler colonial state of Australia.

But there was one prominent Australian voice that was not silenced — and it was John Pilger’s.

‘Breaking the silence’
On March 10 that year, Sydney Town Hall was packed out with people to hear John speak in a Green Left public meeting titled “Breaking the silence: war, propaganda and the new empire”.

Outside the Town Hall, about 100 more people, who could not squeeze in, stayed to show their solidarity.

Pilger described the war on terror as “a war on world-wide popular resistance to an economic system that determines who will live well and who will be expendable”.

He called for “opposition to a so-called war on terrorism, that is really a war of terrorism”.

The meeting played an important role in helping build resistance in this country to the many US-led imperial wars that followed the US’ bloody retribution exacted on millions of Afghans who had never even heard of the 9/11 attacks, let alone bore any responsibility for them.

That 2002 Sydney Town Hall meeting cemented a strong bond between GL and John.

GL is proud to have been the Australian newspaper and media platform that has published the most articles by John Pilger over the years.

Shared values
For much of the last two decades, the so-called mainstream media were always reluctant to run his pieces because he refused to obediently follow the unspoken war-on-terror line.

He refused to go along with the argument that every military expedition that the US launched (and which Australia and other loyal allies promptly followed) to protect privilege and empire were in defence of “shared democratic values”.

The collaboration between GL and John was based on real shared values, which he summed up succinctly in his introduction to his 1992 book Distant Voices:

“I have tried to rescue from media oblivion uncomfortable facts which may serve as antidotes to the official truth; and in doing so, I hope to have given support to those ‘distant voices’ who understand how vital, yet fragile, is the link between the right of people to know and to be heard, and the exercise of liberty and political democracy …”

GL editors have had many exchanges with John over the years. At times, there were political differences. But each such exchange only built up a mutual respect, based on a shared commitment to truth and justice.

The last two decades of John’s moral leadership against Empire were inadvertently confirmed a few weeks before his passing when US President Joe Biden warned Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat the US’ mistakes after 9/11.

“There’s no reason we did so many of the things we did,” Biden told Netanyahu.

Focus on Palestine struggle
John had long focused on Palestine’s struggle for self-determination from the Israeli colonial settler state. He condemned Israel’s most recent genocidal campaign of Gaza and, on X, praised those marching for “peaceful decency”.

He urged people to (re)watch his 2002 documentary film Palestine is Still The Issue, in which he returned to film in Gaza and the West Bank, after having first done so in 1977.

John was outspoken about Australia’s treatment of its First Peoples; he didn’t agree with Labor’s Voice to Parliament plan, saying it offered “no real democracy, no sovereignty, no treaty between equals”.

He criticised Labor’s embrace of AUKUS, saying it was about a new war with China, a campaign he took up in his documentary The Coming War on China. While recognising China’s abuse of human and democratic rights, he said the US views China’s embrace of capitalist growth as the key threat.

John campaigned hard for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s release; he visited him several times in Belmarsh Prison and condemned a gutless Labor Prime Minister for refusing to meet with Stella Assange when she was in Australia.

He spoke out for other whistleblowers, including David McBride who exposed Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

Did not mince words
John did not mince words which is why, especially during the war on terror, most mainstream media refused to publish him — unless a counterposed article was run side-by-side. He never agreed to this pretence of “balance”.

John wrote about his own, early, conscientisation.

“I was very young when I arrived in Saigon and I learned a great deal,” he said on the anniversary of the last day of the longest war of the 20th century — Vietnam.

“I learned to recognise the distinctive drone of the engines of giant B-52s, which dropped their carnage from above the clouds and spared nothing and no one; I learned not to turn away when faced with a charred tree festooned with human parts; I learned to value kindness as never before; I learned that Joseph Heller was right in his masterly Catch-22: that war was not suited to sane people; and I learned about ‘our’ propaganda.”

John Pilger will be remembered by all those who know that facts and history matter, and that only through struggle will people’s movements ever have a chance of winning justice.

Republished with permission from Green Left Magazine.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Phil Thornton

In the two years since Myanmar’s military seized power from the country’s elected lawmakers it has waged a war of terror against its citizens — members of the Civil Disobedience Movement, artists, poets, actors, politicians, health workers, student leaders, public servants, workers, and journalists.

The military-appointed State Administration Council amended laws to punish anyone critical of its illegal coup or the military. International standards of freedoms — speech, expression, assembly, and association were “criminalised”.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), reported as of 30 January 2023, the military killed 2901 people and arrested another 17,492 (of which 282 were children), with 13,719 people still in detention.

One hundred and forty three people have been sentenced to death and four have been executed since the military’s coup on 1 February 2021. Of those arrested, 176 were journalists and as many as 62 are still in jail or police detention.

The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Myanmar as the world’s second-highest jailers of journalists. Fear of attacks, harassment, intimidation, censorship, detainment, and threats of assassination for their reporting has driven journalists and media workers underground or to try to reach safety in neighbouring countries.

Journalist Ye Htun Oo has been arrested, tortured, received death threats, and is now forced to seek safety outside of Myanmar. Ye Htun spoke to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) of his torture, jailing and why he felt he had no choice, but to leave Myanmar for the insecurity of a journalist in exile.

They came for me in the morning
“I started as a journalist in 2007 but quit after two years because of the difficulty of working under the military. I continued to work, writing stories and poetry. In 2009 I restarted work as a freelance video and documentary maker.”

Ye Htu said making money from journalism in Myanmar had never been easy.

“I was lucky if I made 300,000 kyat a month (about NZ$460) — it was a lot of work, writing, editing, interviewing and filming.”

Ye Htun’s hands, fingers and thin frame twist and turn as he takes time to return to the darkness of the early morning when woken by police and military knocking on his front door.

“It was 2 am, the morning of 9 October 2021. We were all asleep. The knocking on the door was firm but gentle. I opened the door. Men from the police and the military’s special media investigation unit stood there — no uniforms. They’d come to arrest me.”

Ye Htun links the visit of the police and army to his friend’s arrest the day before.

“He had my number on his phone and when questioned told them I was a journalist. I hadn’t written anything for a while. The only reason they arrested me was because I was identified as a journalist — it was enough for them. The military unit has a list of journalists who they want to control, arrest, jail or contain.”

Ye Htun explains how easy it is for journalists to be arrested.

“When they arrest people…if they find a reference to a journalist or a phone number it’s enough to put you on their list.”

After the coup, Ye Htun continued to report.

“I was not being paid, moving around, staying in different places, following the protests. I was taking photos. I took a photo of citizens arresting police and it was published. This causes problems for the people in the photo. It also caused some people to regard me and journalists as informers — we were now in a hard place, not knowing what or who we could photograph. I decided to stop reporting and made the decision to move home. That’s when they came and arrested me.”

In the early morning before sunrise, the police and military removed Ye Htun from his home and family and took him to a detention cell inside a military barracks.

“They took all my equipment — computer, cameras, phone, and hard disks. The men who arrested and took me to the barracks left and others took over. Their tone changed. I was accused of being a PDF (People’s Defence Force militia).

“Ye Htun describes how the ‘politeness’ of his captors soon evaporated, and the danger soon became a brutal reality. They started to beat me with kicks, fists, sticks and rubber batons. They just kept beating me, no questions. I was put in foot chains — ankle braces.”

The beating of Ye Htun would continue for 25 days and the uncertainty and hurt still shows in his eyes, as he drags up the details he’s now determined to share.

“I was interrogated by an army captain who ordered me to show all my articles — there was little to show. They made me kneel on small stones and beat me on the body — never the head as they said, ‘they needed it intact for me to answer their questions’”.

Ye Htun explained it wasn’t just his assigned interrogators who beat or tortured him.

“Drunk soldiers came regularly to spit, insult or threaten me with their guns or knives.”

Scared, feared for his life
Ye Htun is quick to acknowledge he was scared and feared for his life.

“I was terrified. No one knew where I was. I knew my family would be worried. Everyone knows of people being arrested and then their dead, broken bodies, missing vital organs, being returned to grieving families.”

After 25 days of torture, Ye Htun was transferred to a police jail.

“They accused me of sending messages they had ‘faked’ and placed on my phone. I was sentenced to two years jail on 3rd November — I had no lawyer, no representative.”

Ye Htun spoke to political prisoners during his time in jail and concluded many were behind bars on false charges.

“Most political prisoners are there because of fake accusations. There’s no proper rule of law — the military has turned the whole country into a prison.”

Ye Htun served over a year and five months of his sentence and was one of six journalists released in an amnesty from Pyay Jail on 4 January 2023.

Not finished torturing
Any respite Ye Htun or his family received from his release was short-lived, as it became apparent the military was not yet finished torturing him. He was forced to sign a declaration that if he was rearrested he would be expected to serve his existing sentence plus any new ones, and he received death threats.

Soon after his release, the threats to his family were made.

“I was messaged on Facebook and on other social media apps. The messages said, ‘don’t go out alone…keep your family and wife away from us…’ their treats continued every two or three days.”

Ye Htun and his family have good cause to be concerned about the threats made against them. Several pro-military militias have openly declared on social media their intention against those opposed to the military’s control of the country.

A pro-military militia, Thwe Thauk Apwe (Blood Brothers), specialise in violent killings designed to terrorise.

Frontier Magazine reported in May 2022 that Thwe Thauk Apwe had murdered 14 members of the National League of Democracy political party in two weeks. The militia uses social media to boast of its gruesome killings and to threaten its targets — those opposed to military rule — PDF units, members of political parties, CDM members, independent media outlets and journalists.

Ye Htun said fears for his wife and children’s safety forced him to leave Myanmar.

“I couldn’t keep putting them at risk because I’m a journalist. I will continue to work, but I know I can’t do it in Myanmar until this military regime is removed.”

Air strikes target civilians – where’s the UN?
Award-winning documentary maker and artist, Sai Kyaw Khaing, dismayed at the lack of coverage by international and regional media on the impacts of Myanmar’s military aerial strikes on civilian targets, decided to make the arduous trip to the country’s northwest to find out.

In the two years since the military regime took illegal control of the country’s political infrastructure, Myanmar is now engaged in a brutal, countrywide civil war.

Civilian and political opposition to the military coup saw the formation of People Defence Force units under the banner of the National Unity Government established in April 2021 by members of Parliament elected at the 2020 elections and outlawed by the military after its coup.

Thousands of young people took up arms and joined PDF units, trained by Ethnic Armed Organisations, to defend villages and civilians and fight the military regime. The regime vastly outnumbered and outmuscled the PDFs and EAOs with its military hardware — tanks, heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.

Sai Kyaw contacted a number of international media outlets with his plans to travel deep inside the conflict zone to document how displaced people were coping with the airstrikes and burning of their villages and crops.

Sai Kyaw said it was telling that he has yet to receive a single response of interest from any of the media he approached.

“What’s happening in Myanmar is being ignored, unlike the conflict in Ukraine. Most of the international media, if they do report on Myanmar, want an ‘expert’ to front their stories, even better if it’s one of their own, a Westerner.”

Deadly strike impact
Sai Kyaw explains why what is happening on the ground needs to be explained — the impacts of the deadly airstrikes on the lives of unarmed villagers.

“My objective is to talk to local people. How can they plant or harvest their crops during the intense fighting? How can they educate their kids or get medical help?

“Thousands of houses, schools, hospitals, churches, temples, and mosques have been targeted and destroyed — how are the people managing to live?”

Sai Kyaw put up his own money to finance his trip to a neighbouring country where he then made contact with people prepared to help him get to northwestern Myanmar, which was under intense attacks from the military regime.

“It took four days by motorbike on unlit mountain dirt tracks that turned to deep mud when it rained. We also had to avoid numerous military checkpoints, military informers, and spies.”

Sai Kyaw said that after reaching his destination, meeting with villagers, and witnessing their response to the constant artillery and aerial bombardments, their resilience astounded him.

“These people rely on each other, when they’re bombed from their homes, people who still have a house rally around and offer shelter. They don’t have weapons to fight back, but they organise checkpoints managed by men and women.”

Sai Kyaw said being unable to predict when an airstrike would happen took its toll on villagers.

Clinics, schools bombed
“You don’t know when they’re going to attack — day or night — clinics, schools, places of worship — are bombed. These are not military targets — they don’t care who they kill.”

Sai Kyaw witnessed an aerial bombing and has the before and after film footage that shows the destruction. Rows of neat houses, complete with walls intact before the air strike are left after the attack with holes a car could drive through.

“The unpredictable and indiscriminate attacks mean villagers are unable to harvest their crops or plant next season’s rice paddies.”

Sai Kyaw is concerned that the lack of aid getting to the people in need of shelter, clothing, food, and medicine will cause a large-scale humanitarian crisis.

“There’s no sign of international aid getting to the people. If there’s a genuine desire to help the people, international aid groups can do it by making contact with local community groups. It seems some of these big international aid donors are reluctant to move from their city bases in case they upset the military’s SAC [State Administration Council].”

At the time of writing Sai Kyaw Khaing has yet to receive a reply from any of the international media he contacted.

It’s the economy stupid
A veteran Myanmar journalist, Kyaw Kyaw*, covered a wide range of stories for more than 15 years, including business, investment, and trade. He told IFJ he was concerned the ban on independent media, arrests of journalists, gags and access restrictions on sources meant many important stories went unreported.

“The military banning of independent media is a serious threat to our freedom of speech. The military-controlled state media can’t be relied on. It’s well documented, it’s mainly no news or fake news overseen by the military’s Department of Propaganda.”

Kyaw lists the stories that he explains are in critical need of being reported — the cost of consumer goods, the collapse of the local currency, impact on wages, lack of education and health care, brain drain as people flee the country, crops destroyed and unharvested and impact on next year’s yield.

Kyaw is quick to add details to his list.

“People can’t leave the country fast enough. There are more sellers than buyers of cars and houses. Crime is on the rise as workers’ real wages fall below the poverty line. Garment workers earned 4800 kyat, the minimum daily rate before the military’s coup. The kyat was around 1200 to the US dollar — about four dollars. Two years after the coup the kyat is around 2800 — workers’ daily wage has dropped to half, about US$2 a day.”

Kyaw Kyaw’s critique is compelling as he explains the cost of everyday consumer goods and the impact on households.

“Before the coup in 2021, rice cost a household, 32,000 kyat for around 45kg. It is now selling at 65,000 kyat and rising. Cooking oil sold at 3,000 kyat for 1.6kg now sells for over double, 8,000kyat.

“It’s the same with fish, chicken, fuel, and medicine – family planning implants have almost doubled in cost from 25,000 kyat to now selling at 45,000 kyat.”

Humanitarian crisis potential
Kyaw is dismayed that the media outside the country are not covering stories that have a huge impact on people’s daily struggle to feed and care for their families and have the real potential for a massive humanitarian crisis in the near future.

“The focus is on the revolution, tallies of dead soldiers, politics — all important, but journalists and local and international media need to report on the hidden costs of the military’s coup. Local media outlets need to find solutions to better cover these issues.”

Kyaw stresses international governments and institutions — ASEAN, UK, US, China, and India — need to stop talking and take real steps to remove and curb the military’s destruction of the country.

“In two years, they displaced over a million people, destroyed thousands of houses and religious buildings, attacked schools and hospitals — killing students and civilians — what is the UNSC waiting for?”

An independent think tank, the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, and the UN agency for refugees confirm Kyaws Kyaw’s claims.The Institute for Strategy and Policy reports “at least 28,419 homes and buildings were torched or destroyed…in the aftermath of the coup between 1 February 2021, and 15 July 2022.”

The UN agency responsible for refugees, the UNHCR, estimates the number of displaced people in Myanmar is a staggering 1,574,400. Since the military coup and up to January 23, the number was 1,244,000 people displaced.

While the world’s media and governments focus their attention and military aid on Ukraine, Myanmar’s people continue to ask why their plight continues to be ignored.

Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in Southeast Asia. This article was first published by the IFJ Asia-Pacific blog and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

*Name has been changed as requested for security concerns.

Nobel laureates José Ramos-Horta and Maria Ressa have urged Southeast Asians to keep working toward a better region where democratic freedoms are protected in lecture leading into World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Nobel laureates José Ramos-Horta and Maria Ressa have called on Southeast Asians to fight for democracy and continue demanding human rights amid growing threats to democratic freedoms in the region.

Ramos-Horta, a longtime politician and independence leader in Timor-Leste, along with Ressa, veteran journalist and co-founder of Rappler, made the statements in an online lecture titled “Freedom in Southeast Asia” last Tuesday.

The discussion centred on ethical issues and the future of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the areas of governing democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and social media.

• READ MORE: Other media freedom reports

“We have to keep fighting to improve democracy, perfect democracy as we have been fighting for decades, continue understanding that there will be setbacks, there will be triumphs for democracy again,” Ramos-Horta said.

Ramos-Horta recently won Timor-Leste’s presidential election, gaining 62 percent of votes after facing off with incumbent President Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres, who secured 37 percent.

Ramos-Horta, one of East Timor’s best known political figures, was also president from 2007 to 2012, and prime minister and foreign minister before that.

Ramos-Horta said part of the reason he decided to run for public office again was inadequate government response to crises like the covid-19 pandemic. The president-elect said he would work to respond to global economic pressures, including supply chain issues stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war and covid-19 lockdowns in China.

‘Demand good governance’
“Don’t lose sight of what is important. Fight, but fight not with radicalism but fight with brains, wisdom, and a great deal of humility,” Ramos-Horta said.

Ressa, who covered Ramos-Horta as a journalist, echoed this call, saying that people in Southeast Asia “must continue demanding our rights and demanding good governance.”

“Our public officials need to realize that in the end, their struggle for power should not impede on the ability to deliver what their citizens need,” she said.

The full media freedom lecture. Video: Rappler

‘Enlightened self-interest’
Ressa, who has reported on democracy movements in Southeast Asia, said ASEAN has not been able to live up to its promises since it was founded in 1967. While advances have been made, the fight to protect democracy, she said, faces steeper challenges, including the use of social media platforms to spread lies and hate.

Ressa challenged leaders and the public to practice “enlightened self-interest” in an effort to foster a code of ethics that could push back against corruption and abuse.

“I can distill almost everything wrong into two words: power and money – and how do you put guardrails around the people who have that? Ethics, rules-based [order], and they themselves limit themselves because there is a greater good. This is not just ASEAN, it is universal,” she said.

In fighting for democracy in the region, the Rappler co-founder also urged young people to first think of what they consider important and what freedoms they are willing to fight for.

She said: “Because of social media, democracy now is a person-to-person battle for integrity. And so the question for you is, where do you draw the line?

“How well will you give up some of your power to others in order to have a better world? What kind of leader not only do you want, but what kind of leader do you want to be?”

Ramos-Horta reminded the public to “live up to the responsibility” the region has in Myanmar, where a military coup plunged the country into turmoil, derailing a decade of democratic reforms and economic gain.

Expected to join ASEAN
Ramos-Horta earlier said he expected Timor-Leste to become the 11th member of the ASEAN “within this year or next year at the latest.” It currently holds observer status in the bloc – and also observer status with the Pacific Islands Forum.

“The message to the young people: You want a better Southeast Asia? You want a better region, better community that is generous, embracing of everyone because Southeast Asia is extraordinarily rich in diversity – and that makes Southeast Asia unique – then fight for it,” he said.

“Do not abandon the people of Myanmar who feel completely abandoned. That is the absolute priority for us in Southeast Asia,” he added.

Sofia Tomacruz is a Rappler reporter. Republished with permission.

I first met cartoonist Harn Lay, who has died peacefully at 59, 15 years ago in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai. He was then working for The Irrawaddy magazine.

I was impressed by his cartoons that never failed to skewer Burma’s military regime and wanted to write a feature about him and his work.

Today, the military regime still rules Burma with an iron fist. Poets, writers, lawyers, monks, artists, doctors, comedians, musicians, bloggers, politicians, activists and journalists have been hunted, arrested, tortured and jailed for for speaking out against the regime and its 1 February 2021 coup.

• READ MORE: Noted: Frontline humour takes on generals – Violet Cho, Pacific Journalism Review
  

During our series of interviews in 2006, Harn Lay didn’t hold back in his contempt for Burma’s military hardmen.

Harn Lay said he detested former General Than Shwe and his regime and it showed in the cartoons he drew for The Irrawaddy Magazine, Democratic Voice of Burma, Voice of America and the Shan Herald Agency for News.

Harn Lay dismissed the generals with a cutting barb: “Than Shwe’s a pumped up bully. I try to show how ridiculous he is, a little fat man in a uniform. His only power, his gun.”

Despite the humour, Harn Lay took his role as an artist seriously and said it was his duty to point out the emperor was naked, even when it was the so-called “good guys”.

Cartoons also upset pro-democracy, aid groups
“It’s like a responsibility. I stand by the victims of the powerful and the ruthless. I try to make people not only laugh, but to be aware of how they can be manipulated. Sometimes my cartoons have upset the pro-democracy and aid groups.”

Harn Lay was proud of his Shan State heritage and explained he first tried for freedom by joining an ethnic armed group.

“When I was younger, I joined the Mong Tai Army (MTA) to fight for Shan freedom and independence. But it was an illusion. Khun Sa [the MTA leader] was power mad, the same as Than Shwe and other dictators.

“He was like a kid, no control, he wanted everything he saw.”

Harn Lay soon realised it was time to put down the gun and pick up his pen.

“The gun kills, the pen doesn’t. I tried to use cartoons to express my politics, the injustices people suffer and to make them laugh at the powerful –– they can’t be too powerful if people are laughing at them.”

Harn Lay told me his intention was always to get under the skin of the ruthless and powerful dictators of Burma.

“Translated, my name means a leaf that causes irritation and itching. I want to make these powerful generals uncomfortable, I want to show people what they are really like without the protection of their uniforms and I want to show they are mortal.”

Harn Lay said the cruelty of the Burma regime was never a laughing matter and he was still drawing cartoons lampooning the generals until recently.

“Every Burmese person has been hurt or touched by their brutality. I’ve given up the gun, but I’ll keep drawing and try to expose this regime for the criminals they are.”

Until late 2021, Harn Lay was still lampooning the military junta and its generals in his cartoons.

Harn Lay enjoyed the support of his wife Yuwadee and his daughter Wan Wan, but told me at the time they could be his harshest critics.

“I met Yuwadee 16-years-ago in Shan State. I test my work out on her for clarity. If she laughs, I know I’m on track.”

Harn Lay’s art has featured in a number of international exhibitions and he is the recipient of numerous awards for his work.

Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia. This article was first published by Karen News and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

The Paris-based global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned three “dictatorial regimes” — Belarus, China and Myanmar — for their role in a global surge in the jailing of journalists doing their job.

According to the RSF annual round-up, a record number of journalists — 488, including 60 women — are currently detained worldwide, while another 65 are being held hostage.

Meanwhile, the number of journalists killed in 2021 — 46 — is at its lowest in 20 years.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Media Watch reports

RSF said in a statement that the number of journalists detained in connection with their work had never been this high since the watchdog began publishing its annual round-up in 1995.

RSF logged a total of 488 journalists and media workers in prison in mid-December 2021, or 20 percent more than at the same time last year.

This exceptional surge in arbitrary detention is due, above all, to three countries — Myanmar, where the military retook power in a coup on 1 February 2021; Belarus, which has seen a major crackdown since Alexander Lukashenko’s disputed reelection in August 2020; and Xi Jinping’s China, which is tightening its grip on Hong Kong, the special administrative region once seen as a regional model of respect for press freedom.

RSF has also never previously registered so many female journalists in prison, with a total of 60 currently detained in connection with their work – a third (33 percent) more than at this time last year.

China world’s biggest jailer of journalists
China, the world’s biggest jailer of journalists for the fifth year running, is also the biggest jailer of female journalists, with 19 currently detained. They include Zhang Zhan, a 2021 RSF Press Freedom laureate, who is now critically ill.

Belarus is currently holding more female journalists (17) than male (15). They include two reporters for the Poland-based independent Belarusian TV channel Belsat — Daria Chultsova and Katsiaryna Andreyeva — who were sentenced to two years in a prison camp for providing live coverage of an unauthorised demonstration.

In Myanmar, of the 53 journalists and media workers detained, nine are women.

“The extremely high number of journalists in arbitrary detention is the work of three dictatorial regimes,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“It is a reflection of the reinforcement of dictatorial power worldwide, an accumulation of crises, and the lack of any scruples on the part of these regimes. It may also be the result of new geopolitical power relationships in which authoritarian regimes are not being subjected to enough pressure to curb their crackdowns.”

Another striking feature of this year’s round-up is the fall in the number of journalists killed in connection with their work — 46 from 1 January to 1 December 2021. The year 2003 was the last time that fewer than 50 journalists were killed.

This year’s fall is mostly due to a decline in the intensity of conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and to campaigning by press freedom organisations, including RSF, for the implementation of international and national mechanisms aimed at protecting journalists.

Journalists deliberately targeted
Nonetheless, despite this remarkable fall, an average of nearly one journalist a week is still being killed in connection with their work. And RSF has established that 65 percent of the journalists killed in 2021 were deliberately targeted and eliminated.

Mexico and Afghanistan are again the two deadliest countries, with seven journalists killed in Mexico and six in Afghanistan. Yemen and India share third place, with four journalists killed in each country.

In addition to these figures, the 2021 round-up also mentions some of the year’s most striking cases. This year’s longest prison sentence, 15 years, was handed down to both Ali Aboluhom in Saudi Arabia and Pham Chi Dung in Vietnam.

The longest and most Kafkaesque trials are being inflicted on Amadou Vamoulké in Cameroon and Ali Anouzla in Morocco.

The oldest detained journalists are Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong and Kayvan Samimi Behbahani in Iran, who are 74 and 73 years old.

The French journalist Olivier Dubois was the only foreign journalist to be abducted this year. He has been held hostage in Mali since April 8.

Since 1995, RSF has been compiling annual round-ups of violence and abuses against journalists based on precise data gathered from 1 January to 1 December of the year in question.

“The 2021 round-up figures include professional journalists, non-professional journalists and media workers,” RSF explains.

“We gather detailed information that allows us to affirm with certainty or a great deal of confidence that the detention, abduction, disappearance or death of each journalist was a direct result of their journalistic work. Our methodology may explain differences between our figures and those of other organisations.”

Reporters Without Borders and Pacific Media Watch collaborate.

In a seven-minute social media broadcast, President Duwa Lashi La has declared it is time to stop the military regime’s ongoing torture, detention, jailing and murder of civilians opposed to the military coup seven months ago.

And he added that it is vital to halt the regime’s dismantling of the country’s parliamentary system, reports the dissident Karen News website.

President Duwa Lashi La said the NUG had moved to declare war to protect the people against “military terrorists” and the regime leader, General Min Aung Hlaing.

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar coup reports

The NUG had taken responsibility to protect the life and the property of the people and had “launched a people’s defensive war against the military junta”, President Duwa Lashi La said in the broadcast.

He described this as a “public revolution”.

NUG President Duwa Lashi La called on all “citizens of Myanmar [to] revolt against the rule of the military terrorists led by Min Aung Hlaing”.

He urged the “People’s Defence Force to target military assets…protect lives and property of the people”.

Help the PDF plea
He also urged ethnic armed organisations to “assist and protect PDF [People’s Defence Force] and their allies [and] immediately attack Min Aung Hlaing and the military council”.

The President also spoke for the need for ethnic groups to protect and control their lands.

He urged citizens to minimise travel and to build supplies and medicines in preparation for the coming conflict.

In an interview with Karen News, Padoh Saw Ta Doh Moo, general secretary of the Karen National Union said his organisation was opposed to the military regime and would support those who were against it.

“In our policy, those who oppose the dictatorship are our friends. This means that we will work together with any organisations that oppose the military dictatorship.”

Padoh Saw Ta Doh Moo called for national unity, saying: “Our goal is to break free from the military dictatorship so that we need all the people to participate under a political leadership, taking accountability and responsibility on each role that each individual play that are in line with our political aspirations.”

Promoting federalism
In a recent short statement issued on September 3, the KNU said it would continue “its strong commitment and adherence to promoting federalism and democracy, working with any organisation against the coup and fighting any forms of dictatorship.”

The KNU statement offered its support to anti-coup protesters and those targeted by the military regime that staged a coup against the elected civilian government on February 1.

Since then, fighter jets had flown into Karen National Union-controlled areas 27 times and dropped at least 47 bombs, killing 14 civilians and wounding 28.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) confirmed as at September 6, the military had killed 1049 people, including 75 children, arrested 7904 and issued warrants for 1984 protesters.

The military’s brutality is a daily reality for all the people of Myanmar. As Myanmar’s army prepares to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops, the country’s media workers remain exposed to Covid-19 and under extreme threat, writes Phil Thornton.

Myanmar’s military leaders used its armed forces to launch its coup and take control of the country from its elected government on 1 February 2021. In protest, millions of people took to the streets.

The military responded to these protests by sending armed soldiers and police into residential areas to arrest defiant civilians, workers, students, doctors and nurses.

In March, martial law was enforced in Yangon, snipers were used, and protesters were shot on sight.

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar coup articles

To restrict news coverage of their crimes and to impede the organisatiojn of protests, the military ordered telecommunication companies to restrict internet and mobile phone coverage. Independent media outlets had their licences withdrawn, offices were raided and trashed.

Journalists were targeted and hunted by soldiers and police. Obscure laws were added to the penal code and used to restrict freedom of speech and expression. State-controlled media published pages of arrest warrants and photographs of the wanted, including journalists.

To avoid arrest, independent journalists went underground or sought refuge with border based ethnic armed organisations.

Myanmar journalists are well aware that being “arrested” and held in detention by the military doesn’t come with respect for their legal or human rights. The military uses a wide range of obscure laws, some dating back to colonial times, to detain, intimidate and silence its critics — academics, medics, journalists, students and workers.

95 journalists arrested
Independent website, Reporting ASEAN, recorded that, as of August 18, 95 journalists had been arrested and 42 were being held in detention.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) estimated by August 29 that the military has now killed at least 1026 people, arrested 7627, issued warrants for 1984 and are still holding 6025 in detention.

They want names
Those arrested are taken to interrogation centres and held indefinitely without contact with family or legal representation. Torture is used to extort names and contacts from the detained to be added to the military’s long list of those to be hunted down and suppressed into silence.

One of those names on the military’s wanted list is that of journalist Nyan Linn Htet, now in hiding, after a warrant under Section 505 (a) was issued for his arrest.

Nyan Linn Htet, managing editor of Mekong News, in an interview with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) explains the impact of being hunted has had on both him and his family.

“If I’m arrested it means I lose everything. When we had to run and go into hiding, we lost our home and our possessions. You lose your income. Your equipment. You never feel safe when hiding. Living like this affects all of us. If the military does not find me, they will pressure and threaten my family with arrest.”

Nyan Linn Htet said he is still working despite the risk of arrest.

“Losing a journalist is a big loss for our struggle for democracy. We’re only doing our job as reporters, but our news coverage exposes the military and its abuses – this is why we’re the enemy.”

Despite the danger to him and his family, Nyan Linn Htet worries about the safety of those who helped him avoid arrest.

‘Caught in hiding’
“If I’m caught in hiding, the SAC (military-appointed State Administration Council) will persecute the people who gave me a place to live. I’m afraid they [the military] will arrest those who helped me.”

His fears are well founded.

Journalist and political analyst Sithu Aung Myint was high on the military’s wanted list for his political commentary and published opposition to the coup.

On Sunday, August 15, the military raided the home of his colleague, BBC freelance producer, Htet Htet Khine, and arrested both of them.

A week later, in its Sunday, August 21, edition, the military-run newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar, said Sithu Aung Myint had been charged with sedition, spreading “fake news” and being critical of the military coup leaders and its State Administration Council under Sections 505 (a) and 124 (a) of the Penal Code.

He could be sentenced to life in jail under Section 124 (a) of the penal code.

Htet Htet Khine was arrested for giving shelter to Sithu Aung Myint, and charged under section 17(1) of the Unlawful Association Act for working with the recently formed National Union Government’s radio station, Federal FM.

Held in interrogation centre
Friends and colleagues of Sithu Aung Myint and Htet Htet Khine told IFJ they are concerned both journalists were held at an interrogation centre for more than a week before having access to either legal help or contact with colleagues or family.

Nyan Linn Htet told IFJ he is aware his legal and human rights will not be respected if he is arrested.

“They will not let us get legal help until they’ve got what they want from us. The military amended 505 (a) of the Penal Code to prevent giving us bail. We know they will jail us even if we have legal representation.

“We know SAC is torturing journalists because of the work we do.”

Reports by local and international humanitarian groups have detailed the severe beatings — hours of maintaining stressed positions, use of sexual violence — and killing of people while held in detention.

Nyan Linn Htet said if arrested, he knows it will come with beatings. He admits that the thought of being tortured keeps him awake at night.

“They will jail me, but only after they torture me. I will not be released until I sign a statement that I will never criticise them. I’m not afraid of being arrested, but torture scares me. There are nights when I’m too afraid to sleep.”

International media drop Myanmar
He and other local journalists told the IFJ it was disappointing that international media has dropped Myanmar from its news agenda and moved on to cover other stories.

Nyan Linn Htets said despite access difficulties, the international media can use local reporters who are willing to help.

“We know the difficulties media has getting ground access to Myanmar. Covid-19 restrictions also make it impossible to legally cross borders from neighboring countries, but we are already here in the country and are capable of doing the job.”

Despite the fear of arrest and torture, he is still reporting and urged local journalists to keep doing the same.

“It’s important we use what we can to still work and report news events of interest to people. People are accessing news and information in many different ways now.”

The military, while trashing local and international laws and ignoring its constitution, is quick to use and amend laws to jail its opponents for being critical of the coup and for reporting military violence, abuse and corruption.

We have no rights
Nan Paw Gay, editor-in-chief at the Karen Information Center, says the military council has no respect for journalists or their right to publish information in the public interest.

“There is no freedom of the press. If journalists try to report news or seek information from the military’s opponents — CRPH, NUG, CDM, G-Z and PDF — the State Administration Council prosecutes them under Section 17/1 of the Illegal Association Act.

“Since the military launched its coup, sources we use have had their freedom of speech and expression made illegal and they now risk arrest for talking to us and… we can be arrested for speaking with them.

“Independent media groups have been outlawed and totally lost their right to speak freely or write about news events.”

Nan Paw Gay points out if journalists are “critical of the military, its appointed State Administration Council or its lack of a public health plan to tackle the covid-19 pandemic now ravaging the country, section 505 (a) is used to arrest journalists for spreading false news.”

Essentially torture is used to terrorise journalists, he says.

“When the military council arrests and detains journalists, the torture is both physical and psychological. Even before being detained threats are issued and then during the arrest the violence becomes real – shootings, people being kicked and dragged from homes by their hair and beaten.”

Women journalists tortured
Nan Paw Gay says women journalists are more likely to be “tortured using psychological abuse – kept in a dark room and constantly told that they will be killed tomorrow – to mess and generate fear with their thoughts. You can see the effects of the tortured on some journalists when they appear in court – shaking hands and body spasms.”

Military brutality is a daily reality for Myanmar’s people. At the time of writing, the army is preparing to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops into areas of the Karen National Union-controlled territory and where anti-coup protesters, striking doctors and politicians have been offered refuge and safety.

A senior ethnic Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier told the IFJ that army drones and helicopters have been surveying the area in recent months.

“We know they’ve sent munitions and large troop numbers to our area… last time we had drones flying over our area, they later attacked villages and our positions with airstrikes. They’re already fighting in our Brigade 5 and 1 and have started in 6 and 2.”

Since the military launched its coup on February 1, there has been at least 500 armed battles between the KNU and the military regime and 70,000 Karen civilians have been displaced and are hiding in makeshift camps as a direct result of these attacks.

Fighter jets have flown into Karen National Union-controlled areas 27 times and dropped at least 47 bombs, killing 14 civilians and wounding 28.

Naw K’nyaw Paw, general secretary of the Karen Women Organisation, in an interview with Karen News, said villagers displaced by the Myanmar Army attacks are now in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

‘Shoot at villagers’
“They shoot at villagers if they see them on their farms, burning down their rice barns and killing the livestock left behind. The Burma Army also arrests people when they see them and use them as human shields to protect them when attacked by Karen soldiers.”

Naw K’nyaw Paw said accessing the displaced villagers is difficult, especially during the wet season.

“The only accessible way in is on foot, supplies have to be carried through jungle. Given the restrictions due to covid-19 as well as the increasing Burma Army military operations, villagers are unable to return to their homes and they will need food, clothing and medicine, especially the young and old.”

Nan Paw Gay says the military’s strategy to muzzle the media is a familiar tactic that has been used before.

“Stop international media getting access to conflict areas, shut down independent media, hunt local journalists and when there’s no one to left to report, launch attacks in ethnic regions, displacing thousands of villagers.”

Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia. This article was first published by the IFJ Asia-Pacific blog and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Phil Thornton of the International Federation of Journalists

It is six months since Myanmar’s military began dismantling the institutional framework supporting the country’s fledgling democracy by propelling a deadly coup to wrest parliamentary control away from the newly-elected National League of Democracy (NLD) government.

Soon after the coup in February 2021, the military swiftly targeted voices of dissent and launched a deadly campaign of violence to silence critics. Rooftop snipers were ordered to shoot to kill, police and army raided homes of journalists, doctors, politicians and protesting citizens.

Independent media were outlawed and journalists were forced into hiding.

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar crisis reports

Critics of the “coup”, or even naming it as such in reporting or on social media, resulted in arrest warrants for breaches of section 505(a) of the Penal Code.

Non-profit human rights organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) confirmed as of August 4, 2021, the military had killed 946 people, including 75 children and arrested 7051 protesters.

Among them, seven health workers have been killed, another 600 doctors and nurses have arrest warrants issued against them, a further 221 medical students have been arrested and 67 medical staff are in detention.

AAPP reported the military has arrested at least 98 journalists, six of whom have been tried and convicted. Journalists may have gone into hiding for their safety, but this hasn’t stopped the military targeting and threatening their families.

A country in chaos
Myanmar is now in crisis. The economy has crashed. The already threadbare healthcare system has collapsed from the strain of the covid-19 pandemic.

Military restrictions prevent people receiving medical treatment, while doctors and nurses continue to be arrested for protesting against the coup. Meanwhile, people infected by the covid-19 virus face certain death via the military’s heartless restrictions on hospitals, oxygen and medicine.

Doctors who manage to work from clandestine pop-up clinics are exhausted by the huge surge in cases needing treatment.

International health experts estimate as many as half the country’s population could become infected with the various covid-19 strains and the risk of death is high.

United Nation’s human rights expert Tom Andrews has urged Myanmar’s military at the end of July to join a “covid ceasefire” to combat the pandemic sweeping the country. But international pleas are unlikely to sway the military coup leaders or its puppet, the State Administration Council, now reformed as a caretaker government under the leadership of General Min Aung Hlaing as its so-called prime minister.

The military has a certain form when handling natural disasters — its strategy is to treat them as security threats. When Cyclone Nargis battered Burma on 2 May 2008, killing as many as 138,000 people and affecting at least another 2.4 million, the military’s response was to block international aid and jail those who reported on or tried to help storm victims.

The same strategy has been used with the ceasefires it negotiates with ethnic armed groups. A senior Karen National Liberation Army officer told the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that ceasefires with the military produce little for the people.

“Our experience is they tie us up in endless meetings that yield little of value. They are a delaying tactic and we know they map our army positions and those of displaced people camps and later attack us as happened in March this year,” he said.

In March 2021, the Myanmar armed forces launched a series of airstrikes and ground attacks in ethnic regions that left as many as 200,000 villagers displaced. These people are now in desperate need of basic shelter, medicine, food and security.

The military’s go-to strategy is to block critical aid and medicine getting to displaced people and to jail and kill those it classifies as its enemies. Since the February coup, these “enemies” have included doctors, lawyers, politicians, community leaders, activists and journalists.

AAPP said people are now having to face the covid-19 pandemic with under-resourced hospitals and clinics with most unable to buy basic medicine from pharmacies that have run out of stock. Basic medicine is hard to find and expensive to buy.

The military is forcing public hospitals to close and is actively stopping people buying or refilling oxygen cylinders. Cemeteries and crematoriums are unable to cope with the huge numbers of fatalities, leaving corpses to pile up.

Through all this, the State Administration Council is accused by international, regional and opposition health professionals of withholding statistics and issuing false information.

‘I’m only doing my job’
Senior journalist Win Kyaw, who is now in hiding on the Myanmar border, spoke with IFJ about the ongoing difficulties of trying to keep reporting six months on from the coup.

“I fled my home months ago. I left everything behind. Now it’s much worse for journalists worried about catching covid. We can’t move around because of soldiers at checkpoints checking phones and who we are. It is very hard to keep going,” said Kyaw.

He said there is no way to counterbalance the false information and quackery remedies circulating among people desperate for ways to combat the virus.

“Before the coup, I reported the first and second wave freely. We only worried about catching the infection. Authorities willingly gave us data, information. Since the coup it’s the opposite.

“The military is trying to arrest us, we have to work secretly, we can’t get any information from authorities or our old sources. How can people make informed decisions about treatments and what medicines to take with all the misinformation being spread?”

Win Kyaw has an arrest warrant issued against him for what the military claims are breaches of section 505(a) of the Penal Code.

“I was only doing my job as a journalist, but they saw our news coverage as a threat. If we are not allowed to do our job uncensored at such a critical time it causes all sorts of problems. People need to know what to do and what not to do during the pandemic.

“We also know important stories putting the military under scrutiny need to be reported. For example, what’s happened to the US$350 million donated to the country by the International Monetary Fund (to help prevent covid)? It’s important accredited journalists cover these stories and we are allowed to do our job.”

Win Kyaw acknowledges the difficulty of confirming actual death rates from covid-19 as the State Administration Council reports are sanctioned and approved by military leaders.

“We know the military is restricting oxygen and medical supplies and jailing doctors. We know people are dying in their thousands.”

A recent incident involving a senior Myanmar Army officer highlighted the need to keep the spotlight on corruption, he said. The story the journalist is referring to involved Myo Min Naung, an army colonel who ordered the seizure of 100 oxygen cylinders crossing from Thai border town Mae Sot to Myawaddy on the Myanmar side.

Myo Min Naung first denied he had taken the cylinders but was later quoted in state-owned media saying he had only “borrowed” the oxygen for emergency use in Karen State hospitals.

“This is a clear case of abuse of authority,” says Win Kyaw. “It was clear the oxygen had the official paperwork and been ordered by a Yangon charity to treat covid patients. As far as we know the oxygen has not been returned.”

The journalist is convinced the military is deliberately using covid-19 against citizens.

“Government hospitals are full – they cannot take anymore covid-19 patients. People are forced to rely on home treatment. Knowing this, the military blocked people refilling oxygen cylinders for private use, restricted medicine and closed hospitals – the military is using covid-19 as a weapon to kill people.”

Win Kyaw has just recovered from fighting the virus while in hiding.

“It was hard. Out of our seven people in the household, four were sick. We had the symptoms, we couldn’t get tested, we didn’t know if it was the flu or covid. We were lucky … we could get oxygen, medical advice and medicine.”

Every journalist the IFJ has spoken to during the past six months since he coup has either been infected and or had a family member die.

Despite knowing the risks and the fact that the military is actively hunting him, Win Kyaw is determined to keep reporting.

“Most of us don’t get salaries now, as most independent media houses have been outlawed by the military, but we feel we have a duty to cover the news as best we can.

“We have to try to travel to confirm stories and this puts us at risk. We need money for masks and PPE, medicine and oxygen concentrators.”

When their media organisations’ operating licences were cancelled by the military, many independent journalists had to go underground or risk arrest. Without paid work many journalists resorted to selling their equipment – laptops, drones, voice recorders and cameras – keeping only the essentials needed to keep reporting.

People dying alone
Than Win Htut, a senior executive with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), is still managing to send out regular daily reports despite having to hide on the border of a neighboring country.

Like other journalists interviewed, Than Win Thut is dismayed at the carnage caused by the military’s refusal to stop harassing and jailing doctors and let them tackle the pandemic as a public health issue.

“It’s sad. People are dying alone, collapsing in the street. Yet high ranking officers are taking oxygen and medicine for themselves and leaving lower rank soldiers to fend for themselves.

“The people have to manage the best they can, they can no longer expect anything from the government.”

Than Win Htut explains that reporting the health crisis is proving problematic.

“We cannot risk sending our reporters to confirm what’s happening at crematoriums or graveyards. Official sources won’t confirm or talk – they’re too scared.

“We keep in contact with our sources, but we can only manage to give estimates. State media can’t be relied on… nobody believes what it reports.”

The need for accurate reporting was never more important, he said.

“People are sceptical of vaccines, schools are closed, everywhere is overcrowded, there have been jail riots by anti-coup prisoners… unconfirmed killings of 20 jail protesters, doctors are being jailed, the cost of living is sky high, no work … no wages, medical supplies are being blocked… charity workers jailed.”

He says the pandemic has completely changed social media interactions.

“Facebook and social media sites have become our obituary pages. We see posts everyday of friends or their family members who have died. It’s tragic. We can’t do our job because the military has weaponised covid.”

Lost hope waiting on UN intervention
Wei Min Oo is still managing to work for a news agency and told IFJ he is lucky he still has a job.

“When the junta closed eight independent media outlets, hundreds of employed journalists were suddenly forced out of work. Journalists, like everyone, have to eat.

“Some journalists have opened online shops, young ones have become delivery riders and some can’t do anything, but try to live on their meagre savings.”

Trying to report when you can be arrested for just doing your job is one of the big difficulties.

“We can’t carry our journalist’s IDs. We have to make sure our phones are cleaned off as anything like Facebook that could get us in trouble at checkpoints. No bylines on stories. Journalists have to rely on social media as sources.”

Wei Min Oo said the massive number of covid-19 infections in the community means that reporters dare not go to areas under martial law or known crisis areas for fear of being arrested.

The actions of the military during the pandemic has exposed its disregard for civilians and community institutions critical to a democratic society, according to Wei Min Oo.

“The military is taking its revenge on doctors, health workers, teachers, students, politicians and charity volunteers for taking a stand by striking and speaking out.”

Meanwhile,people in Myanmar are scathing of international interventions happening and have resigned to opposing the military alone, he said.

“People now say ‘we have lost hope any international intervention will come — if we want a revolution we have to do it alone through our Civil Disobedience Movement’.”

There is no plan
Saw Win, a senior journalist who has worked in ethnic media for more than 20 years spoke to the IFJ about the greater effects the coup has had.

“The country is in chaos. The coup is a citizen’s nightmare. People have given up on international help. Working the borderline we see – displacement, refugees, corruption, armed conflict – any help will come with restrictions imposed on it by the military.

“Aid will eventually be allowed in and available, but it will not reach the people in need.”

Saw Win stresses the importance of accredited journalists being allowed to cover the pandemic.

“People don’t believe what they hear or see on state media. It’s total rubbish. Data, death rates, number of cases and health information are not believed. People joke the military run pictures and names of those they intend to arrest under 505(a) on state television and newspapers to get people to tune in – it’s the only item we can believe, the rest is useless.”

Covid’s impacts in the cities are worse than those experienced in rural areas, he says.

“We have pharmacies unable to buy or sell medicines, we hear of groups and individuals with links to the military profiting from selling oxygen cylinders, people can’t bury or cremate their loved ones, wet season floods, farmers not farming, food shortages, cooking oil prices have increased by as much as 33 per cent, essential shops are closing, refugee camps are struggling, there’s more than 200,000 displaced people in our region in desperate need of everything – these are all important stories our journalists need to keep covering.”

Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in Southeast Asia.

• Names have been changed for the protection of journalists. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre reports 322,838 infection cases and 11,262, but as the author points out the real statistics are far worse than what is reported officially.

An exiled West Papuan leader has condemned Indonesian for “hypocrisy” in speaking out about Myanmar and Palestine while voting at the United Nations to ignore genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The leading English-language daily newspaper, The Jakarta Post, has also criticised Jakarta’s UN vote.

“We are thankful that Indonesian leaders show solidarity with the suffering of the Palestinians and Myanmarese, but Indonesia is desperately trying to cover up its own crimes against humanity in West Papua,” said interim president Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

At the UN General Assembly last week, Indonesia defied the overwhelming majority of the international community and joined North Korea, Russia and China in rejecting a resolution on “the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.

Voting in favour of the RP2 resolution were 115 states while 28 abstained and 15 voted against.

The Jakarta Post said in an editorial that to find Indonesia on the “no” list was “perplexing”.

“The country that had at one time championed for the inclusion of human rights and democratic principles in the ASEAN Charter is now seen as voting against attempts to uphold those very principles internationally,” the newspaper said.

“Recent events in Myanmar and in the occupied Palestinian territory raise questions about the failure of the international community to intervene and stop bloodshed in these two countries.”

‘Real reason’ for vote
The Jakarta Post said there was speculation about the “real reason” behind the no vote.

“One is the spectre of R2P being invoked against Indonesia over the Papuan question. In spite of the recent escalation of violence in Papua, the situation on the ground is still too far to merit international intervention,” the newspaper claimed.

However, while the Indonesian Foreign Minister claimed to “fight for humanity”, the truth was the opposite, said Wenda in a statement.

“They are committing crimes against humanity in West Papua and trying to ensure their perpetual impunity at the UN,” he said.

Indonesian leaders often talked about the right to self-determination and human rights, and the Indonesian constitution’s preamble called for “any form of alien occupation” to be “erased from the earth”, noted Wenda.

“But in West Papua, the Indonesian government is carrying out the very abuses it claims to oppose. Their refusal to accept the UN resolution is clearly the consequence of ‘the Papuan question’,” he said.

“The evidence is now overwhelming that Indonesia has committed crimes against humanity, colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide in West Papua.

Women, children killed
“The same week as the UN vote, the Indonesian military – including ‘Satan’s troops’ implicated in genocide in East Timor – were attacking Papuan villages, killing unarmed women and children and adding to the over 50,000 people displaced since December 2018.

“The stated aim of the operations is to ‘wipe out’ all resistance to Indonesian colonialism,” Wenda said.

“When you displace villagers, they lose their hunting ground, their home, their entire way of life.

“This is systematic ethnic cleansing, part of a long-running strategy of Jakarta’s occupation to take over our lands and populate it with Indonesian settlers and multi-national corporations. This is the intent, and we need action before it is too late.”

Wenda said that after Papuans declaring resistance to the illegal occupation “terrorism”, Indonesia had launched a massive crack down.

“Victor Yeimo, one of our most popular peaceful resistance leaders, has already been arrested. Frans Wasini, a member of the ULMWP’s Department of Political Affairs, was also arrested,” he said.

“In the city [Jayapura], students at the University of Cenderawasih are being dragged out of their dorms by the police and military and made homeless. Anyone who speaks out about West Papua, human rights abuses and genocide, is now at risk of being arrested, tortured or killed.

Arrested ‘must be released’
“Victor Yeimo, Frans Wasini, and all those arrested by the Indonesian colonial regime must be released immediately.”

Wenda described the deployment of more than  21,000 troops, killing religious leaders, occupying schools, shooting children dead as “state terrorism, crimes against the people of West Papua”.

Such developments had shown more clearly than ever the need for Indonesia to stop blocking the visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Eight-four countries have already called for the visit.

“There can be no more delays. The troops must be withdrawn, and the UN allowed in before more catastrophe strikes.”

As chaos flows in Burma, journalists are being forced to hide in plain sight by the Burmese military, writes senior journalist and Myanmar expert Phil Thornton.

Journalists in Myanmar are being hunted and arrested by the country’s military for trying to do their job. Independent media outlets have been raided, licences revoked and offices closed.

To avoid arrest, independent journalists have gone into deep hiding, taken refuge in ethnic controlled regions or fled to neighboring countries. The military and its paid informers trawl through neighborhoods, coffee shops and scan social media for evidence to justify arresting journalists.

The military appointed State Administration Council revised and inserted a clause in the penal code, specifically tailored to gag its critics, politicians, activists and journalists.

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar reports
• Fake photos in Myanmar ‘True News’ book

Clause 505a of the penal code carries a sentence of three years in prison for actions, criticism or comment that question the coup, cause fear, spread false news or “upsets” government workers.

To stop journalists, photographers and activists sending reports and images of security forces abusing and killing civilians, the military coup leaders ordered telecommunication companies and internet services to shut down their social media platforms.

Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun fronts the military’s press conferences – a list of his titles is impressive: Deputy Minister of Information, head of the armed forces True News Information Team and boss of the military appointed State Administration Council’s media team.

A look at his name card reveals a much darker role – Zaw Min Tun has working directly for coup leader and Commander-in-Chief, General Min Aung Hlaing. Not only does the card boast that General Zaw Min Tun is Directorate of Public Relations, but he is also head of the army’s Psychological Warfare department.

Deceitful work
A Reuters report in 2018 gave an indication of the deceitful work his department of public relations and psychological warfare gets up to when it revealed a book it published on the Rohingya, had used “fake” photographs to claim Muslims were killing Buddhists.

The Reuters investigation into the origin of the photograph “showed it was actually taken during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war, when hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis were killed by Pakistani troops”.

The tactic might have been clumsily executed, but it worked, and helped ignite deadly racist attacks against Rohingya people and supported ultra nationalist views at a critical time.

In a more recent move, the Ministry of Information warned on May 4, viewers who watch or receive outside satellite broadcasts were now doing so illegally and were a threat to national security.

The military cautioned viewers on the state-owned television station, MRTV, that “satellite television is no longer legal. Whoever violates the television and video law, especially people using satellite dishes, shall be punishable with one-year imprisonment and a fine of 500,000kyat (US$320).”

Without the support of the shuttered, independent media outlets, getting paid work has been difficult to find, but many journalists took the tough decision to keep reporting, despite fear of arrest and of having internet and phone restrictions imposed on them.

Journalists who spoke to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ for this article vowed to find a way to keep working and to continue to find ways to deliver news to people both inside the country and to the international community.

Witness to a revolution
Since the coup began on February 1, independent press freedom has been destroyed. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) estimates 84 journalists have been detained and as of May 3, 50 are currently detained, 25 of these have been persecuted and arrests warrants have been issued for 29.

A later AAPP report, on May 6, said that 772 people have been killed, 4809 arrested and 1478 are now on the run, since the beginning of the coup.

Despite journalists being jailed, tortured and spied on, Naw Betty Han, a journalist with the magazine, Frontier Myanmar, is determined to keep reporting and explained to IFJ why that is, “In the current political situation, it is very difficult for a journalist to live and work in the country. But I will not stop doing my job.

“We’re witness to a revolution. I want to remain at the front of these developments, report on human rights violations and hopefully see the end of the military dictatorship.”

Naw Betty stressed the freedom to report, despite the dangers, is why she keeps working. “Journalism is much more than my job, it’s my mission. I’m willing to take the risk to keep reporting.”

Reporters, citizen journalists, activists and householders have all recorded police and army patrols shooting at and beating unarmed young men and women, ransacking shops and firing live ammunition into homes regardless of who might be hit.

Naw Betty said the military wants to stop any proof of its violence being recorded, “Police and soldiers are everywhere, at temporary checkpoints, on patrols…they check phones, if they find proof of protesting, being a journalist, a photo or a news item that supports the CDM movement… a social media post… they immediately beat and arrest them.”

No journalist identification
Naw Betty said she and her colleagues still working can no longer identify as journalists, “We have to delete our phone data when we go out in the field gathering news. Police and soldiers break open houses at night to surprise check the guest list. If you do not open the door, they will break in and arrest you anyhow.

“A former DVB reporter was beaten last week at his home after a search of his home and no evidence was found.”

Naw Betty is well aware of the risks of being arrested. In 2020 while investigating a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment on the Thai Burma border she and a photographer colleague were detained by a Burma Army sponsored militia – masked, handcuffed, driven to a rubber plantation and beaten, before finally being released.

“I am scared of being arrested and faced with the violence in interrogation. But I am positive, I am more afraid that I would not be able to continue as a journalist. I know that I am in danger of being arrested, but I want to keep working as a reporter.”

Naw Betty told IFJ the military, aided by its paid informers, are systematically increasing its crackdown on its opponents, squeezing their ability to move and forcing them into taking more dangerous risks, not knowing who to trust.

Naw Betty said “I’m worried about them [informers], I moved to a different place as soon as the coup happened, hopefully I can stay safe. Journalists in Myanmar are now trying to be as low profile as possible, but when there is a compelling situation, we have to go out to report and take risks.

“We are targets…74 journalists have been arrested and charged under 505 (A). Arrested journalists face physical and mental violence during interrogation before being sent to prison.”

We’re willing and ready
The military’s revoking of licenses and outlawing independent outlets has made it hard for many journalists to find paid work. Naw Betty said journalists have turned to freelance to try to earn a living from their reporting, “Many journalists I know are now faced with financial problems as they have no regular income anymore.

“Some photojournalists have tried to string for international news agencies, but the opportunities are limited – most are struggling with no income.”

A scan of social media postings by advocates offers links to what could become stories of interest to international media, but military refusal to give unfettered access to verify or follow-up accusations of corruption, rumours of security forces looting and bomb attacks has made it to difficult to follow-up.

Naw Betty encourages international media organisations to hire local journalists: “Give locals the chance to work on part-time assignments. We all are willing and ready to support on the ground reporting with international and foreign journalists – we can work together.”

Our priority is to keep broadcasting
Than Win Htut, a senior executive with Democratic Voice of Burma, now working from the edges of a neighboring country, said his priority, after his Yangon DVB operation was shutdown and outlawed, was to get back to operating at full capacity.

“Many journalists are on the run or in hiding. We have to review our network. When they closed us down we lost a lot of our capacity to broadcast – our newsroom, studio, talk show, on-line, research and data analysis.

“We now have to reorganise, rebuild and reintegrate. We need a new studio, live reporting, get journalists on the street, it won’t be easy.”

Than Win Htut’s operation has a whole range of challenges posed by the geography and weather. The monsoon wet season is about to hit his new mountainous location, flooding small rivers into deep, fast flowing hard-to-cross torrents.

The wet season brings dengue fever, malaria and dysentery, difficult at the best of time, but highly dangerous when the nearest medical help is a day away.

Than Win Htut said while searching for new premises maintaining security is of critical importance during forced exile. “They’ve cracked down on mobile phone services, internet is limited, the independent flow of information is blocked, arresting journalists, they won’t stop. We have to take our security serious. Many young journalists don’t have the experience of having to work in secret, going underground. Constantly changing your name, location, passwords, sim-cards, even your phone.”

Than Win Htut is worried sophisticated cyber surveillance equipment and technology the military acquired from Russia, China, Israel, US and Europe is now being used by the military to track and hunt its opponents.

Risks taken
“We have to take the position, the more you know the more the risk you are to yourself and to others. If a journalist gets arrested, you don’t know what they’ve been forced to give up during interrogation.

“We also have to now reconsider how we use photographs and footage of people protesting and of journalists.”

Than Win Htut stressed, international correspondents can endanger local journalists by not knowing the context, especially when following up leads on those arrested.

“You might be trying to help, but the arrested will be trying hard to not identify as a journalist or activist, but by running stories and photos you might be confirming the military’s suspicion someone is a journalist – that makes it dangerous.”

Than Win Htut is concerned the unity between journalists who went to neighbouring countries and those who stayed behind doesn’t divide. “We mustn’t let divisions stop us being united. We need to support each other, whether we are working from inside or outside the country, we’re all in this together.”

You’re either underground or with them
Toe Zaw Latt, an Australia citizen and production director of DVB, spent more than 80 days covering the military coup. With the help of the Australian Embassy in Myanmar, Toe Zaw Latt managed to leave his Yangon place of hiding and return to Australia last week.

Now in the middle of his 14-day quarantine in Adelaide, Toe Zaw Latt talked with IFJ about the ongoing anti-coup protests and the hounding of journalists by security forces.

Since the beginning of the coup, Toe Zaw Latt has been in daily contact with IFJ. He explained: “Most of the independent media have been closed down. Only independent papers left on the street before I left were Eleven Media and Standard Times. Journalists have to face a new threat from plainclothes Special Branch using stolen civilian cars to patrol neighborhoods.

“They turned up at a freelance journalist’s house to arrest her. She wasn’t there, so they took her husband instead. If they can’t arrest the journo it looks like they’ll just take a family member in their place.”

Toe Zaw Latt explained how journalists cannot do anything that identifies them to the police or army.

“No cameras, no notebooks, disguise yourself each time and what you are doing, make sure you carry nothing that can be used to identify you as a journalist and learn how to hide your phone.

“Smart phones are still good in the field, but we need to train young journalists to become more adept with using them to report and they need to know how to get footage out to be broadcast.”

International media interest
“Toe Zaw Latt is concerned that international media continues to maintain an interest in what’s happening with the daily civilian protests and they buy content from local providers.

“It’s important international media agencies keep employing or buying footage from local sources. Freelancers are risking their lives to get footage, they should be paid for it.

“Media news agencies should make a paid contribution and not just lift content off the internet. Journalists are helping each other. Those who are getting paid are sharing with those who aren’t.”

Toe Zaw Latt is impressed by the enthusiasm and resilience shown by activists and students to publish and broadcast news despite military threats of long prison sentences.

“Lots of underground media has emerged since the coup. Student activists fighting the military’s internet blackout have published newsletters – Molotov, Toward and Revolution. The National Unity Government are planning Public Voice TV, underground ethnic youth are running Federal FM and ethnic Mon media produce Lagon Eain.

“I respect their courage in fighting the military’s version of the truth and rejecting their misinformation.”

A senior ethnic journalist spoke to IFJ about the restriction she faces on a daily basis.

“No one can work in the military government-controlled areas. Special Branch have our photographs and our personal details. We’ve put up with it for years. Our houses have been visited, family interrogated.

Risks too stressful
“Some of our colleagues resigned, because the risks were too stressful. They felt they’d be no use to their families if they were in jail.”

The senior journalist explained news coverage now has to be underground.

“It’s either that or you report according to their instructions and that’s total rubbish, just propaganda. All they want is for journalists to legitimise the coup. If you stand up to that your only choice is to go underground.

“Some might play the margins, start by not covering anything sensitive.”

The senior journalists said media could be split into two groups.

“Those willing to be mouthpieces for the military. They don’t run stories upsetting the military and use terms dictated by the State Administration Council. Then there’s what the military classify as radicals.

Our websites are usually blocked, our reporters cannot operate on the surface, we have to go underground and anyone against the military is a target.”

Ethnic journalist difficulties
To give an indication of the difficulties ethnic journalists are working under, from March 27 to May 5, the Karen National Union report its soldiers were involved in 407 armed battles with the Burma Army.

Ethnic journalists told IFJ fighter jets have flown into Karen controlled territory 27 times and dropped 47 bombs , killing 14 civilians wounding 28 and forcing as many as 30,000 people into makeshift jungle camps.

“This is an emergency, it needs reporting and international aid. Villagers’ rice stores have been destroyed as well as homes, schools and clinics.

“To report we have to avoid landmines, army patrols that shoot on sight and the military’s paid informers and special branch who we have to think have our photographs.”

Phil Thornton is a journalist, author and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia.

Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Fatia Maulidiyanti has condemned the invitation to Myanmar coup leader General Min Aung Hlaing to attend the ASEAN ministerial conference in Jakarta at the weekend as revealing Indonesia’s true colours — that it is accepting of human rights violators.

“Min Aung Hlaing’s arrival actually shows that Indonesia is indeed very apologetic towards human rights violators not just domestically but internationally,” said Maulidiyanti.

Maulidiyanti said that Indonesia had acted the same way when it received Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) extraordinary leadership conference in 2016.

• READ MORE: Police scuffle with protesters against Myanmar junta leader at ASEAN

Yet, according to Maulidiyanti, Al-Bashir was a dictator and a fugitive of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“Indonesia once did the same thing during the OIC Conference in 2016 when Indonesia also invited Omar Al-Bashir,” she said.

Based on the reception of these two human rights violators, Maulidiyanti questioned Indonesia’s position — which is actually reflected through President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo — with regard to protecting human rights.

The arrival of the Myanmar military junta leader is regrettable because it was as if Indonesia was paying no heed to the violence taking place in Myanmar.

Jakarta not heeding violence
“So here there is actually a question, what face is Indonesia presenting through President Joko Widodo and government officials by not heeding the violence occurring in Myanmar. The aim, rather than inviting the leader of the military junta, is to open dialogue,” she said.

Maulidiyanti questioned what the real aim was in inviting the lead of the Myanmar military junta to Jakarta.

Maulidiyanti emphasised that Indonesia should have invited the Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) to the ASEAN meeting on Saturday afternoon.

“The government should have instead invited the NUG who are the elected representatives of the Myanmar people,” she said.

On the other hand, Maulidiyanti said that ASEAN had a very important role to play in resolving the problems in Myanmar. ASEAN should immediately take firm measures over the violence being committed by the Myanmar government.

The invitation of Min Aung Hlaing to the ASEAN conference proves that ASEAN was not a safe place for the protection of human rights.

“It can be seen from the cooperation where they don’t want to heed the situation or the importance of acting immediately against the Myanmar government today, meaning ASIAN is not a safe place for protecting human rights”, she said.

Widodo’s response
President Widodo said that the violence in Myanmar must stop. This was one of the points he stressed during the meeting with the eight leaders of ASEAN countries at the ASEAN Leaders Meeting in Jakarta.

“At the meeting earlier I conveyed several things. First, the situation developing in Myanmar is something which is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue,” said Widodo during a virtual press conference on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel.

“The violence must stop. Democracy and stability as well as peace in Myanmar must be restored immediately. The interests of the Myanmar people must always be the priority,” he said.

Second, Widodo emphasised the importance of General Min Aung Hlaing making two commitments.

An end to the use of violence by the Myanmar military and that all parties must restrain themselves so that tensions can be eased so that a process of dialogue can be begun.

“Political prisoners must be released immediately and an ASEAN special envoy needs to be established, namely the ASEAN secretary general and chairperson to promote dialogue between all parties in Myanmar,” said Widodo.

Third, he asked that access be given for humanitarian aid from ASEAN which would be coordinated by the ASEAN secretary general and the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Center).

Widodo also asserted that Indonesia wass committed to overseeing the above three commitments so that the crisis in Myanmar could be resolved.

“We thank God that what has been conveyed by Indonesia will turn out to be in accord with what has been conveyed by ASEAN leaders so it can be said that ASEAN leaders have reached a consensus,” said Widodo.

“The ASEAN secretary general has conveyed five points of concusses which will be conveyed by the ASEAN secretary general or chairperson. The contents are more or less the same as those that I conveyed earlier in the national statement which I conveyed earlier,” added the president.

The ASEAN leaders meeting which was held today in Jakarta was attended by the leaders of the nine countries in Southeast Asia: President Joko Widodo, Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chính, Brunei Darussalam Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Myanmar military chief General Min Aung Hlaing, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Hassin, Laos Foreign Affairs Minister Laos Saleumxay Kommasith, Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Soroti Kehadiran Min Aung Hlaing, Kontras: Indonesia Apologetik kepada Pelanggar HAM”.

Police have forced protesters demonstrating at the weekend against the attendance of Myanmar military commander General Min Aung Hlaing at the ASEAN Ministerial Level Conference (KTT) in Jakarta away from the meeting into the nearby Agung Al-Azhar Mosque area, reports CNN Indonesia.

The peaceful action was organised by the Leaders and Organisers of Community Organisation in Asia (LOCOA) in front of the ASEAN secretariat building in South Jakarta on Saturday.

The police then asked the protesters to move back from the ASEAN secretariat building.

• READ MORE: Criticism over Myanmar ASEAN deal with military coup leader

A scuffle broke out when police began forcing demonstrators away from the meeting venue. Police eventually maneouvered the protesters into the Agung Al-Azhar Mosque area.

Metro Jaya regional police traffic director Sambodo Purnomo Yogo said that the police had intentionally forced the protesters away in order to “sterilise” Jalan Sisingamaraja or the area in front of the ASEAN secretariat building.

“State guests will be passing through the Sisingamaraja route, so we pushed them further inside so that it would not disrupt the passing guests,” he said.

Yogo emphasised that they did not prohibit the demonstrators from conveying their views. “Please go ahead (and demonstrate) but inside,” he said.

Legitimate government not invited
In a media release, LOCOA said it regretted that the ASEAN Ministerial Level Conference to discuss the Myanmar crisis did not invite the legitimate government of Myanmar.

“LOCOA strongly condemns ASEAN and its member states because they invited the military junta to the KTT ASEAN”, read Saturday’s official release.

LOCOA also slammed the military junta for its violent actions against peaceful protesters and for committing illegal killings, arrests, torture and imprisonment with total impunity.

They demanded that the military end the violence against peaceful demonstrators and civilians and urged the United Nations to immediately send a monitoring and humanitarian support mission to Myanmar.

Myanmar’s military commander General Min Aung Hlaing who launched the coup d’etat against the civilian government attended the meeting.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Polisi Sekat Pedemo Junta Myanmar di Kawasan Masjid Al-Azhar”.

Since the coup in Myanmar on February 1, the international community has struggled to agree on coherent action against the military (also known as the Tatmadaw).

Tough action by the UN Security Council has been stymied by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, who see the Myanmar crisis as an internal affair.

Outside the UN, a strong, coordinated response by Myanmar’s neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has also been lacking due to their reluctance to interfere in each other’s affairs. Thai political expert Thitinan Pongsudhirak called it an “existential crisis” for the bloc

• READ MORE: As killings, beatings and disappearances escalate, what’s the end game in Myanmar?
  
• Ethical minefields: the dirty business of doing deals with Myanmar’s military
  
• Resistance to military regime in Myanmar mounts as nurses, bankers join protests – despite bloody crackdown

This reluctance, which has now cost the lives of over 500 civilians, rules out the use of military force to stop the violence, peacekeeping operations or even a humanitarian intervention.

It has left the international community with one remaining option for a coordinated response that could change the military’s behaviour: the imposition of economic sanctions. But even this action has been subject to much debate.

Follow the money
General sanctions that try to change the behaviour of authoritarian regimes by damaging their economies have proven problematic in the past.

Many leaders have invariably found ways around the sanctions, meaning civilians have disproportionately borne the costs of isolation.

In contrast, targeted sanctions against the specific financial interests that sustain authoritarian regimes have been more effective. These can impose pressure on regimes without affecting the broader population.

This is where the international community has the greatest potential to punish the Tatmadaw.

Since the US and other countries pursued more general sanctions on Myanmar in the 1990s and 2000s — with mixed results — the international community has gained a greater understanding of the Tatmadaw’s transnational revenue streams.

In particular, in 2019, the UN Fact-Finding Mission (UNFFM) on Myanmar released a report detailing the diverse Tatmadaw-linked enterprises that funnel revenue from foreign business transactions to the military’s leaders and units.

More recently, this list of potential targets has been expanded by non-government organisations and investigative journalists.

Researchers have also outlined the Tatmadaw’s dealings in illegal trade in drugs, gemstones, timber, wildlife and human trafficking.

The extent of information on the Tatmadaw’s financial flows shows just how vulnerable the military’s leaders are to international pressure.

Tracking the military’s legal and illegal business dealings makes it possible to identify its business partners in other countries. Governments in those countries can then take legal action against these business partners and shut off the flow of money keeping the junta afloat.

To some degree, this is starting to happen with Myanmar. The US and UK recently decided, for instance, to freeze assets and halt corporate trading with two Tatmadaw conglomerates — Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanma Economic Holdings Limited. Both of these oversee a range of holdings in businesses that divert revenues directly to the Tatmadaw.

Myanmar’s trading partners can do more
This is only a starting point, though. To tighten the pressure on the junta, targeted sanctions need to be imposed against the full suite of entities identified by the UNFFM. These include groups like Justice for Myanmar and journalists.

The sanctions need to be accompanied by broader investigations into the Tatmadaw’s revenues from illicit trade. To counter this, Human Rights Watch has urged governments to enforce anti-money laundering and anti-corruption measures, including the freezing of assets.

Singapore’s central bank has reportedly told financial institutions to be on the look-out for suspicious transactions or money flows between the city-state and Myanmar. Singapore is the largest foreign investor in the country.

Moreover, for maximum impact, targeted sanctions need to be imposed not just by the West, but by Myanmar’s largest trading partners in the region. This includes Singapore, along with China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.

Business leaders in these countries have historically had the closest ties with Myanmar’s military and business elites. But their participation in a multi-national targeted sanctions strategy is not out of the question. For one, this would not require direct intervention within Myanmar, something they are loath to do. Imposing targeted sanctions would merely entail enforcing their domestic laws regarding appropriate business practices.

International action is becoming more urgent. Beyond the concerns about the killings of unarmed civilians, there is a larger issue of the violence extending beyond Myanmar’s borders. There are growing fears the crisis could turn Myanmar into a failed state, driving refugee flows capable of destabilising the entire region.

In short, this is no longer an “internal” matter for Myanmar — it is becoming a transnational problem that will affect regional peace and security. The tools are there to stop the financial flows to the Tatmadaw and curtail their operations. It is critical to act before the Myanmar crisis grows into an international disaster.

Dr Jonathan Liljeblad is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

As the military junta in Myanmar continues its brutal attempt to subdue nationwide protests following February’s coup, New Zealand-based Myanmar students are keeping in contact with family and colleagues back home.

It is a scary period, with internet services cut for many hours every day, and people disappearing from their homes without explanation.

In Myanmar’s major cities of Yangon and Mandalay, students have been in the front line of pitched street battles with the Tatmadaw (Burmese military) units who have been responsible for around 500 deaths since they deposed the elected government on the morning it was due to begin its second term.

• READ MORE: US embassy staff leaving Myanmar as death toll piles up

The Tatmadaw have always regarded universities as hotbeds of organised resistance , and university authorities in Myanmar estimate roughly a third of those arrested over the past two months have been students, teachers, or academic staff.

Myanmar’s students have fought the army on the streets many times before, including protests against a military government in 1962, and the vicious conflict in 1988.

In the 1980s, the Tatmadaw employed the same tactics we are seeing again play out – hundreds of civilians killed, and protest leaders imprisoned.

Back then the army moved directly against the universities, stripping them of autonomy and moving campuses to the outskirts of major towns .

Higher education unavailable
Many were simply closed altogether and for many years higher education was unavailable in Myanmar.

The country’s immediate future is opaque, but students in New Zealand and Myanmar are determined they will not be heading back to the dark days of the early 1990s.

Zet is a student currently in Mandalay, having completed studies at Victoria University last year, and he is terrified at the way the army is operating.

“There’s been fatalities across the city,” he says, the last few days the military have been on holiday so its been quiet, but the army is like a gang now .. it’s a real struggle between the people and the Tatmadaw.”

“Both sides are standing firm, but the Tatmadaw won’t give up, that’s their history , they don’t give up”…

“The public mood though is very strong, stronger than in the past .. and getting stronger.”

Back in Wellington, Zet’s student colleagues from the Myanmar Students Association are keen to keep up with what is happening on the streets with the protest movement.

Concerned about families
But they are also extremely concerned about their families.

Jacqueline Swe says her family is away from any major protest area, but like everybody they are living with the constant fear the army can simply enter their homes and take anything they want.

“It’s a bit terrifying, and its crazy too, we now have the army attacking the people instead of protecting them.”

“We have no line of defence anymore, and we can’t depend on the police and that’s scary.”

“It’s just a big mess now.”

Wayne is from Yangon , and says he has been hearing about the dire conditions in some parts of the city.

“I’m hearing from my mother that the soldiers are chasing kids into strangers homes, they are looking at people’s cellphones on the street to see what social media accounts you control and what’s on there.

New posts deleted
“So my mother, whenever she goes out she has to delete any new posts she doesn’t want the army seeing.”

Students in New Zealand are doing what they can to support those on the barricades, and while the junta continues its old-school attempts to root out protest organisers they face a uphill battle against a generation of young people who lived and breathed democracy in Myanmar between 2011 and 2020.

Digital access to a globalised world has exposed Myanmar’s students to updated forms of protest organisation and activism using social media.

While the Tatmadaw may use the 1980s playbook to shut the universities, they may find it harder to erase the foundations of democratic politics which have taken root in Myanmar.

With most major figures in the country’s NLD government now under house arrest, a new grouping, the CPRH, has emerged.

Myanmar’s parallel civilian government, the CPRH or Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw was formed by legislators who were removed following the coup. Its spokesperson is Mahn Win Khaing Than, former speaker of the house.

In Wellington, Myanmar-born student Peter is among those suggesting the CPRH must be viewed as the country’s legitimate government.

‘Do not recgnise the junta’
“The most important thing New Zealand could do would be to recognise the CPRH as the legitimate government of Myanmar – and not the junta,” says Peter. 

”I know New Zealand has said they won’t work with the junta and I know there are sanctions in place but personally I don’t believe [the sanctions] work in Myanmar.

“I think the primary focus for the [New Zealand] government should be recognising the CPRH.

“ASEAN also plays a role,” says Peter, but South East Asian nations has power in its trade with Myanmar … “those countries need to put more pressure on Myanmar through trade.”

For student Zet in Mandalay, pressure from the outside world still seems to be having a minimal impact on the generals.

“I think it’s quite obvious the Tatamadaw has been relying on China and Russia, partly India as well ..”but international pressure won’t really impact [on] the Tatmadaw I think , unless China would somehow change the game.”

“China is the key to the Tatmadaw, only China can change their behavior.”

What actual change?
But what might be the actual change China could force on the junta, apart from convincing the generals to stop killing their own people? … and can Myanmar move back to some sort of democratic model after all the violence?

Peter is among those who see a future role for the NLD, even if it has been accused of not listening to its voters.

“I know the National League for Democracy can have a role in future if they are more inclusive, if they allow more ethnic groups to have a voice,” he says.

Others, like Zet, feel a change might involve a future move to a federal system, where Myanmar’s states run themselves to a large extent, watched over by a central government in Naypyidaw.

Inside Myanmar, student leaders suggest a major nationwide revolt is a possibility, led first by ethnic armies from Myanmar’s restive provinces, and joined by the protesters and other anti-military groups.

NZ-based members of the Myanmar Students Association, exhibit a quiet determination to prevent their country sliding back into a military-induced coma.

“In NZ mostly it’s the older generation that know about this,” says one. “The younger Kiwis need to know more about this.“

Graeme Acton joined the Asia Media Centre as manager in February 2020, moving from the position of foreign news editor with RNZ in Wellington. His experience in media stretches back to the 1980s, and he has held a series of senior editorial positions with RNZ, as chief reporter, Morning Report deputy editor, and regional editor. The article is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for the restoration of media pluralism and unrestricted internet access in Myanmar, where the military, in the weeks since staging a coup d’état on February 1, has reasserted full control over news and information.

The military has “engineering the disappearance of the last independent newspapers” and imposed tight curbs on online access, RSF says in a statement.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has responded to comments by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, who recently condemned violence by the military junta against pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar.

The executive director of the ULMWP in Papua, Markus Haluk, said that the Papuan people also strongly condemned the actions of the Myanmar military junta which had seized power by violating the principles of democracy and human rights of the Myanmar people.

“We condemn the anti-democratic military action of Myanmar, that is the principle of the people of West Papua,” he said.

• READ MORE: West Papua and Myanmar

“The West Papuans reject the Indonesian and American governments which had been anti-decolonisation by the Dutch government towards the West Papuans since 1963. The West Papuans oppose violence against anyone.”

Haluk said that while watching President Jokowi’s calls over the situation in Myanmar he had felt upset and angry because the Indonesian government had made the public question its democratic principles.

The Indonesian government condemned Myanmar’s military but at the same time the government’s actions against Papua were anti-humanitarian and anti-democratic.

“Honestly, I was angry, emotional, upset, but also I laughed out loud.

‘The problem in your backyard’
“You always talk about democracy, human rights, being a hero for those over there, but what about those in front of your eyes – the problem in your backyard is the problem of Papua,” Haluk said.

“What did President Jokowi do [to solve Papuan conflict]? Has he finished [the Papuan conflict] with 11 visits? Has he finished [the Papuan conflict) with building the Port Numbay Red Bridge?

“Is it by holding PON XX [National Sports Week in October 2021 in Papua] and building facilities with a value of trillions of rupiah? Is it by sending TNI/POLRI [Indonesian military and police] troops from outside Papua?” he said.

Haluk said that all that Jakarta had done would never resolve the political conflict between West Papua and the Indonesian government for the past 58 years – 1963-2021.

The Indonesian government must think about concrete steps to resolve the crisis.

“I convey to President Jokowi that now is the time for him to talk about Myanmar and it is indeed time to resolve political conflicts and human rights violations, crimes against humanity that continue to increase in West Papua,” he said.

Haluk said there were several concrete steps that President Jokowi could take.

President must honour promises
The President must fulfil his promise to the chair of the UN Human Rights Council to come to West Papua.

“That is in accordance with President Jokowi’s promise to the chair of the UN Human Rights Council in February 2018 in Jakarta.”

He said the president must also fulfil his promise in 2015 that foreign journalists would be  allowed to freely enter Papua. Not only journalists, but also for all international communities to visit Papua.

“Allow access for international journalists, foreign diplomats, academics, members of the senate and congress as well as the international community to visit West Papua,” he said.

Meanwhile, Selpius Bobi, an activist for the victims of March 16, 2006, said last week that the Indonesian government had never stopped suppressing the freedom of indigenous Papuans.

The events that put him in prison 15 years ago were still ongoing. He said it was better for the state to admit its mistakes in West Papua.

“The Indonesian state must courageously, honestly and openly acknowledge to the public the deadly scenario behind the March 16, 2006 tragedy which it was responsible for and apologise to the victims,” he said.

Freeport clash and tragedy
Three policemen and an airman were killed and 24 other people wounded during a clash with Papuan students who had been demanding the closure of PT Freeport’s Grasberg mine.

Indonesia committed violence against the Papuan people to take away its natural wealth.

“We declare that PT Freeport Indonesia must be closed and let us negotiate between the United States, Indonesia and West Papua as responsibility and compensation for the West Papuan people who were sacrificed because of the unilateral cooperation agreement related to mining exploitation,” he said.

He also urged President Jokowi to immediately stop the crimes that were rampant in West Papua.

“Stop violence, stop military operations, stop sending TNI-POLRI, stop kidnappings and killings, stop stigmatisation and discrimination, stop arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for West Papuan human rights activists, and immediately withdraw non-organic troops from the Land of Papua, revoke the Papua Special Autonomy Law and stop the division of the province in the Land of Papua.”

This article has been translated by a Pacific Media Watch project contributor.

It is an unlikely combination: the white stars of the West Papuan and Myanmar flags, side by side.

“West Papua Stands with Myanmar,” the sign said, posted by Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman. In another poignant picture, a small group of West Papuans stand at Simora Bay at the port town of Kaimana holding a sign that reads: “We Stand With Myanmar.”

Popular activist Twitter account @AllianceMilkTea responds: “And solidarity with you West Papua!”

• READ MORE: Asia Pacific Report articles on West Papua

The latest member of the Milk Tea Alliance is a little-known region in ASEAN, south of the Pacific Ocean and bordered by the Halmahera, Ceram and Banda seas.

West Papua is better known for its Raja Ampat or “Four Kings” Islands, the majestic archipelago which contains the richest marine biodiversity on earth. But, like other members of the Milk Tea Alliance, it is a region scarred by subjugation and tyranny.

While the brutality of Min Aung Hlaing’s army is horrifyingly public, West Papuans protest killings and an independence movement that has largely been erased from history.

In December 2020, Benny Wenda, a political exile in Britain, declared himself head of West Papua’s first government-in-exile under the Papua Merdeka “Free West Papua” movement. That same month, the United Nations Human Rights Office called on all sides – West Papuan separatists and the Indonesian security forces – to de-escalate violence in the territory that has seen the deaths of activists, church workers and Indonesian officials.

As the Papua Merdeka campaign picks back up, this article surveys the history and recent state violence in the region. Flickers of a “Papuan Spring” seem faint in a March that has emboldened Southeast Asian dictators. But that the voices of a region long suppressed are being heard is an achievement in and of itself.

fascinating (and inspiring) article on the Milk Tree Alliance https://t.co/tLSVWCYz9m

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) October 15, 2020

History of West Papuan independence claims
History is always a fraught tool in the battle between states and their challengers. Indonesian claims to control over West Papua date back to the “restoration” of the region to the Republic of Indonesia in a pivotal 1969 referendum, the ironically named “Act of Free Choice” (AFC).

Central to the AFC’s controversy was the musyawarah (consultation) system, agreed upon by the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Netherlands, which decreed that the vote for West Papuan “restoration” would be conducted by a select group of representatives rather than the entire West Papuan population.

The AFC was overseen by representatives from the UN Secretary-General’s team, giving the Indonesian government its desired stamp of international legitimacy.

Yet, as studies produced by the University of Sydney show, since 1963 President Suharto’s military government worked to deliberately quash expressions of a unique Papuan identity. Shows of Papuan culture were declared “subversion”, West Papuan nationalists were placed under detention, and representatives were carefully selected for what the musyawarah.

The script is familiar to any observer of Thailand’s equally controversial 2016 “constitutional referendum”. As an AFP correspondent noted in 1969, “Indonesian troops and officials are waging a widespread campaign of intimidation to force the Act of Free Choice in favor of the Republic.”

President Suharto declared that voting against the AFC was an act of treason. Eventually, 1026 voters were chosen of a population of 815,906, all of whom voted unanimously for integration.

In the aftermath of the AFC vote, West Papua was immediately declared a Military Operation Zone. West Papuan historians like John Rumbiak highlighted the military and police repression that soon followed, especially against activists protesting the appropriation of traditional land and forests by mining firms and timber estates.

Thousands of troops were deployed in response to growing protest movements in the 1990s, with planned “black operations” against independence leaders.

Ever since, West Papua has been caught in a cycle of violence. Indonesian armed forces accuse guerillas of inciting separatist violence, justifying their crackdowns on various villages.

Under Indonesian law, raising the West Papuan flag carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. Separatists like the armed West Papua National Liberation Army continue to wage a low-key insurgency in their quest for self-rule.

According to rights group Human Rights and Peace in Papua, 60,000 West Papuans have been displaced in the conflict.

“Our independent nation was stolen in 1963 by the Indonesian government,” Wenda said in an interview with the New York Times, “We are taking another step toward reclaiming our legal and moral rights.”

Wenda, like the authors of the University of Sydney study, argues that there is a “silent genocide” taking place in West Papua, as thousands of Indonesians are killed by Indonesian state actors in their battle against West Papuan separatists.

A 2004 Yale Law School report similarly concluded that “the Indonesian government has committed proscribed acts with the intent to destroy the West Papuans,” including subjecting Papuan men and women to “acts of torture, disappearance, rape, and sexual violence.”

This is compounded systematic resource exploitation, compulsory (and often unpaid) labor, as well as the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and malnutrition.

West Papuan claims to independence date back to 1961, according to then Papua People’s Congress leader Theys Hiyo Eluay.

Eluay, later murdered by Indonesian Kopassus soldiers, insisted that Papua had never been culturally and politically integrated with Indonesia – a claim seemingly reinforced by the ethnic difference of the majority Papua population that inhabit the region.

In the narrative both Eluay and Wenda have shared, West Papua declared sovereignty on 1 December 1961 as the Dutch gave up claims to Indonesia.

“This same vision of West Papua’s history and sovereignty can be found among ordinary Papuan people,” writes academic Nino Viartasiwi.

Papuan Spring? The 2019 Uprising
West Papuans’ newfound alliance with the Milk Tea Alliance is part of its renewed attempt to bring international attention to the violence they have faced at the hands of Indonesian security forces for half a century.

Last year, a #PapuanLives Matter campaign spotlighted the death of a 19-year old student at the hand of security forces as part of the global focus on police brutality. Activists highlighted the racialized elements of the West Papuan struggle.

In the words of UK-born Indonesian actor and activist Hannah Al Rashid, quoted in The Guardian: “I stand in solidarity with Papuan Lives Matter, because…I have observed the way in which people of darker skin [in Indonesia] have been treated unfairly.”

These 2020-2021 movements are smaller resurrections of the larger 2019 West Papua Uprising, or simply, ‘The Uprising.’ From August to September 2019, protests swept 22 towns in West Papua and 3 cities in Indonesia in response to an incident in which Indonesian soldiers shouted ‘monkey’ repeatedly at West Papuan students in Malang.

In response, over 6000 members of the Indonesian security forces were deployed to quell the Uprising. 61 civilians – including 35 indigenous West Papuans – died in the crackdown.

According to TAPOL, a campaigning platform for human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia, 22,800 civilians were displaced during the Uprising.

The cycle of resistance and crackdown is not new to Southeast Asia. West Papuans face the additional struggle of opposing a security force that they do not claim as their own, but it is an experience the Karen, Kachin, Chin or Wa peoples in Myanmar currently share.

Their solidarity with the Milk Tea Alliance is fitting, drawing on a movement that has built regional solidarity and momentum for other struggles against authoritarianism.

With any luck, the unlikely solidarity across the two starred flags may bring the West Papuan struggle back into the international spotlight. If not, the conflict will continue in the shadows, as it has done since the dawn of the 21st century.

Jasmine Chia is a writer and contributor to the Thai Enquirer.

Human rights lawyer Veronica Koman has challenged the contrasting positions taken by the Indonesian government in response to calls to resolve the Papua problem and in its response to the military coup in Myanmar.

Koman said Indonesia’s position on the Myanmar coup had been very good, but not its attitude on the Papua issue.

“It’s funny, Indonesia pays no attention to international pressure to resolve the conflict in Papua, but has the courage to stand up to Myanmar, which is actually a very good move”, said Koman during a webinar held by the Milk Tea Alliance Indonesia last Sunday.

• READ MORE: Myanmar’s Bloody Sunday – security forces ‘live tracking’ media, protesters

Koman said the Indonesian public could not take a position of indifference in addressing the coup in Myanmar.

This is because, according to Koman, what has happened in Myanmar could well happen in Indonesia as well.

“I think that the problem of the coup d’etat in Myanmar is a mutual problem, it doesn’t mean that with the coup in Myanmar we as Indonesians can just be ambivalent, let alone our ASEAN neighbours, so it’s very important that Indonesia stands in solidarity [with the Burmese people],” she said.

“Because, what is happening in the region is actually very influential. Don’t consider it something inconsequential, because if we look at the Arab Spring it took place [across an entire] region.

Militarism ‘can spread too’
“Revolutions can spread, so why can’t militarism [too],” said Koman.

Koman noted that the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) had stated that the military in Indonesia were becoming more of a problem because they were now taking part in guarding demonstrations by civil society.

According to Koman, the thing that actually differentiates Indonesia from Myanmar is only the coup itself.

“Actually it’s the same, just in Indonesia there hasn’t been an obvious coup d’etat, yet the military in Indonesia is already involved in civil [affairs] through regulations which allow the TNI [Indonesian military] at civil demonstrations,” said Koman.

Leaving this aside, Koman is calling on the Indonesian public to speak out in order to pressure the government to take a firmer stand on the Myanmar coup d’etat.

Koman said that this represents a moment for the people of Southeast Asia to rise up against undemocratic tendencies in the region.

“Because there is something which is known in international circles as the ASEAN way, and this has been criticised by many people, it means just staying quiet as if they support each other’s non-democracies,” she said.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Veronica Koman Singgung Sikap RI di Isu Papua dan Myanmar”.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is dismayed by the sudden intensification of the ruling junta’s crackdown on journalists during the past three days, one month after the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, and warns the junta of its responsibility in the eyes of history.

In all, at least 28 journalists have been arrested in the course of the past month of pro-democracy street protests, against which – after hesitating for weeks – the junta suddenly began making much wider use of deadly force last weekend.

But, whereas reporters covering past protests were quickly released after being arrested, things have changed radically in the past few days, and at least 11 journalists were in detention, said the RSF statement.

• READ MORE: Myanmar’s Bloody Sunday – security forces ‘live tracking’ media, protesters
• More killed as Myanmar forces open fire against anti-coup protesters

The latest to be arrested was Kaung Myat Naing (aka Aung Kyaw) of the Democratic Voice of Burma news agency, who livestreamed police coming to arrest him at his home in the far south city of Myeik at around 10:30 pm on Tuesday.

You can hear him ask the police if they have a warrant, to which they respond with shouts and gunfire.

“We call on Myanmar’s government to order the immediate and unconditional release of all the journalists currently detained, and to drop the charges against them,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“It is absolutely crucial that reporters should be able to cover this dramatic moment in Myanmar’s history. The generals who took power must realise that the world is looking at them and that history will judge them.”

Badly beaten
The 11 journalists currently detained include Chinland Post reporter Salai David, who was arrested on Tuesday morning in Hakha, the capital of the western state of Chin.

Monywa Gazette reporter Lay Min Soe was arrested yesterday in Monywa, in the central region of Sagaing, but was released later in the day after sustaining injuries in the beating he received from the police.

A Chinese reporter for the Xinhua news agency was meanwhile hit by rubber bullets while covering a protest in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, in the south of the country.

Six journalists were arrested in various parts of the country on February 28.

YamaNya Taing reporter Lin Tun was released the next day after being arrested in the southern city of Mawlamyine. 74 Media website reporter Paung Lan Taung was released later the same day after being arrested in the northern city of Myitkyina.

Ye Yint Tun, a journalist with the Than Taw Sint newspaper, was jailed after being arrested in the southwestern city of Pathein.

Chun Journal editor Kyaw Nay Min was taken to Inn Sein prison after being arrested in Yangon. Freelance reporter Soe Yarzar Tun suffered the same fate.

The sixth journalist to be arrested on February 28 was Shin Moe Myint, a Yangon-based psychology student who was covering the protests as a freelancer. Two witnesses told RSF she was badly beaten before being bundled into a police van and taken in the direction of Inn Sein prison.

She was finally released on Tuesday.

Multiple arrests
Six reporters were arrested on February 27 while covering protests in their respective cities. Associated Press photographer Thein Zaw and Myanmar Pressphoto Agency photographer Ye Myo Khant were briefly arrested in Yangon’s Hle Dan district.

Myanmar Now reporter Kay Zon Nwe was livestreaming the crackdown on a protest at Yangon’s Myaynigone Junction when the police arrested her and took her away. Freelance editor Banyar Oo was also arrested and sent to Inn Sein prison.

In the central region of Sagaing, the staff of the Monywa Gazette reported on Facebook that their CEO Kyaw Kyaw Win was badly beaten by plainclothes police on February 27 before being taken away in a police van.

He was released the next day. Hakha Times CEO Par Pwie was also released the next day after being arrested while livestreaming a protest in the western state of Chin.

Myay Latt newspaper’s Zar Zar was arrested in the central city of Magway. She was released the same day.

Two years in jail
According to the information obtained by RSF, which has not been confirmed by the authorities, the 11 journalists currently being detained are to be charged under article 505 (a) of the penal code with spreading false information, which carries a possible two-year jail sentence.

Those close to Ye Myo Khant, one of the photographers arrested on February 27, said they shared this fear.

On February 26, before this wave of arrests, RSF posted a video of Yuki Kitazumi, a Japanese reporter and documentary filmmaker, being arrested in Yangon. He was released the same day.

Wai Yan, a Chinese photojournalist working for the Xinhua news agency, was also briefly arrested on February 26.

Two Monywa-based reporters, Tin Mar Swe of MCN TV News and Khin May San of The Voice magazine, were quickly released after being arrested on February 25 but have been charged under article 505 (a) of the penal code.

The February 1 coup cut short a transition to democracy in Myanmar and has set press freedom back 10 years, back to when prior censorship was the rule and independent media were constantly persecuted.

Myanmar is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned a proposed cyber-security law in Myanmar that would organise online censorship and force social media platforms to share private information about their users when requested by the authorities.

This would violate the confidentiality of journalists’ data and sources, and the public’s right to reliable information, says the Paris-based media freedom watchdog RSF.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has praised the release of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo from a prison in the Yangon suburb of Insein as a victory for press freedom and investigative reporting in Myanmar and throughout the world.

The two reporters had spent a total of 511 days far from their families because they dared to investigate a subject that is banned in Myanmar, the genocide of the country’s Rohingya minority.

Held on trumped-up evidence after being arrested in a trap set by the police in December 2017, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were convicted last September of violating the Official Secrets Act and were given seven-year jail sentences that were confirmed twice on appeal, reports RSF.

READ MORE: Massacre in Myanmar – a Reuters special report

They were finally pardoned by President Win Myint and released on Tuesday.

Head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk Daniel Bastard hailed the release as a victory for press freedom and investigative journalism.

“As well as the release of two individuals who should never have been in prison – Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo – this is a fundamental victory for press freedom and for RSF, which had campaigned constantly ever since their arrest,” he said.

“Their case is emblematic of investigative journalism’s importance for the functioning of democracies. We hail the role played by all those civil society actors who, both in Myanmar and internationally, never forgot the fate of these two journalists and kept fighting for them until this successful outcome.”

The campaign
A month after their arrest, RSF launched a petition for their release to draw the public’s attention to their case.

After their conviction in September 2018, RSF addressed an open letter to government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, deploring her handling of the case and reminding her how press freedom had previously helped her fight for democracy.

The following month, RSF issued a “incident report” about the threat to Myanmar’s position in the World Press Freedom Index.

When their lawyer filed an appeal in November 2018, RSF and more than 50 other international and local NGOs issued a joint letter highlighting the many flaws and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.

In January 2019, RSF supported the candidacies of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo for UNESCO’s Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize, which they were awarded last month.

The downside
“Today’s release must not eclipse the fact that investigative reporters in Myanmar now have a permanent threat hanging over them,” reports RSF.

RSF had predicted last December that a presidential pardon could be granted after all appeal possibilities had been exhausted but, at the same time, it had warned of the problems in this scenario.

“The civilian authorities have finally made a show of clemency but the journalists’ conviction has been upheld, maintaining a dangerous judicial precedent that allows the military and nationalists to save face,” reports RSF.

“Although Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are finally reunited with their families, a message has been sent to all other journalists that they too could face 18 months in prison if they dare to investigate subjects that are off limits.”

Myanmar is ranked 138th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index, one place lower than in 2018.

Five days after Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in prison on a trumped-up charge, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has written to the head of Myanmar’s government asking her to end her deafening silence and to intercede on behalf of the two journalists.

READ MORE: Massacre in Myanmar – the Reuters investigation

This is the open letter:

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
State Counsellor
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Minister of the President’s Office
of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar
State Counsellor Office No 8
Naypyitaw, Myanmar

Paris, 6 September 2018

Dear State Counsellor,

An iniquitous sentence of seven years in prison on a trumped-up charge of violating the Official Secrets Acts was passed at the start of this week on Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two reporters with the Reuters news agency who have already spent nearly nine months in detention.

Their only crime was to investigate the September 2017 massacre of 10 Rohingya civilians by members of Myanmar’s army. In the course of shedding light on the terrible reality of the ethnic cleansing carried out by the army and its auxiliaries in the north of Rakhine State, the news agency’s reporters discovered summary executions, mass graves, the torching of villages and systematic efforts to eliminate of all trace of the atrocities.

As you know, the two reporters were crudely framed by the police, as a police captain, Moe Yan Naing, acknowledged in court on 20 April. The thoroughness of their investigative reporting nonetheless forced the Tatmadaw, Myanmar armed forces, to recognise the reality of the Inn Dinn massacre and to sentence seven soldiers to 10 years in prison for their role.

We are deeply saddened by your only statement about the two journalists. In an interview for NHK in June, you simply said that “they were nor arrested for covering the Rakhine issue” but “because they broke the Official Secrets Act” and that it “will be up to judiciary, it is for the judiciary to decide.” Their innocence was nonetheless glaringly obvious.

RSF wrote to you on 7 September 2017 asking you to use your moral authority to ensure that journalists were free to work in Myanmar. Your response was silence. Your response to the appeals of Myanmar’s journalists and foreign journalists was silence. Your response to the international community’s appeals was silence.

How are we to understand the sentence passed on these two journalists at the start of the week? What credibility can the rule of law and judicial independence have in Myanmar after this farce? To those who have tried to raise the issue in your presence, you have responded with “fury,” as in January with former US diplomat Bill Richardson, one of your oldest supporters, who felt obliged to resign from your international panel of advisers after you described Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo as “traitors.”

Were journalists traitors when they covered the military junta’s suppression of the 1988 democracy movement, in which you rose to political prominence? Were journalists traitors when they relayed your calls for democracy during the 15 years you spent under house arrest? Were journalists traitors when they hailed the advent of democracy with your party’s victory in 2015 and your appointment as head of government in 2016?

Awarded the Sakharov Prize in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, you have long been hailed as resolute advocate of democracy and you have defended what is one of its foundations with a great deal of vision. Speaking when you were released in 2010, you said, “the basis of democratic freedom is freedom of speech.” The following year, you assured RSF of your commitment to press freedom.

Since the end of your time under house arrest, you have on several occasions said that you reject the status of icon and that you see yourself as a politician seeking concrete results for her people. We are aware of the political circumstances in Myanmar that force you to seek compromises with the Tatmadaw’s representatives.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, forces you, as the Union of Myanmar’s head of government, to observe this deafening silence. Nothing forces you to refer to journalists’ coverage of Rakhine State as “a huge iceberg of misinformation.” Nothing forces you to go down in history as someone who betrayed the ideals on which she built her reputation.

This is why we urge you to intercede immediately to obtain the release of these two Reuters journalists. One of your closest allies, President Win Myint, has the power to grant them a pardon.

You have the ability to take action today in support of the values that you defended with courage for so long.

Sincerely,

Christophe Deloire
Secretary-General
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders / RSF
Paris, France

• RSF condemns jail terms for two Myanmar journalists in ‘sham trial’
• Rohingya crisis: Myanmar leader Suu Kyi ‘should have resigned’
• UN documents ‘shocking crimes’ by Myanmar army
• Myanmar army must face ‘genocide charges’

Nobel Peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi under fire for not condemning the Rohingya’s prosecution in Myanmar. In April 2017, she said: “I don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on.” She also refused to allow UN investigators access to the region. Video: Al Jazeera

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the seven-year prison sentences imposed on two Reuters reporters in the Myanmar city of Yangon yesterday at the end of a “sham trial”.

The Paris-based global media watchdog reaffirmed its call for their immediate release.

On what was a dark day for press freedom in Myanmar, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were convicted of violating the country’s colonial era Official Secrets Act for investigating a massacre of 10 Rohingya civilians by soldiers exactly a year and a day ago in Inn Dinn, a village in the north of Rakhine state.

READ MORE: Trial will test Myanmar’s ‘democracy’

“The conviction of Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone is a terrible blow to press freedom in Myanmar,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“As the justice system clearly followed orders in this case, we call on the country’s most senior officials, starting with government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to free these journalists, whose only crime was to do their job.

“After a farcical prosecution, this outrageous verdict clearly calls into question Myanmar’s transition to democracy.”

The massacre investigated by Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone was acknowledged by the army and seven soldiers were sentenced to 10 years in prison, an RSF statement said.

During the preliminary hearings in the case of the two journalists, a police officer admitted that his superiors framed them by giving them supposedly classified documents and then immediately arresting them.

The entire prosecution case was based solely on this “trumped-up evidence”, RSF said.

Myanmar is ranked 137th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

• Massacre in Myanmar – a Reuters special report

By David Robie in Paris

When Reporters Without Borders chief Christophe Deloire introduced the Paris-based global media watchdog’s Asia-Pacific press freedom defenders to his overview last week, it was grim listening.

First up in RSF’s catalogue of crimes and threats against the global media was Czech President Miloš Zeman’s macabre press conference stunt late last year.

However, Zeman’s sick joke angered the media when he brandished a dummy Kalashnikov AK47 with the words “for journalists” carved into the wood stock at the October press   conference in Prague and with a bottle of alcohol attached instead of an ammunition clip.

Zeman has never been cosy with journalists but this gun stunt and a recent threat about “liquidating” journalists (another joke?) rank him alongside US President Donald Trump and the Philippines leader, Rodrigo Duterte, for their alleged hate speech against the media.

Deloire cited the Zeman incident to highlight global and Asia-Pacific political threats against the media. He pointed out that the threat came just a week after leading Maltese investigative journalist – widely dubbed as the “one-woman Wikileaks” – was killed in a car bomb blast.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated outside her home in Bidnija on 16 October 2017 after exposing Maltese links in the Panama Papers and her relentless corruption inquiries implicated her country’s prime minister and other key politicians.

Although arrests have been made and three men face trial for her killing, RSF recently published a statement calling for “full justice’” – including prosecution of those behind the murder.

Harshly critical
While noting the positive response by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the journalists’ safety initiative by RSF and other media freedom bodies, Deloire was harshly critical of many political leaders, including Philippines President Duterte, over their attitude towards crimes with impunity against journalists.

In the Philippines, for example, there is still no justice for the 32 journalists brutally slain – along with 26 other victims – on 23 November 2009 by a local warlord’s militia in to so-called Ampatuan massacre, an unsuccessful bid to retain political power for their boss in national elections due the following year.

Rappler published a report last year updating the painfully slow progress in the investigations and concluded that “eight years and three presidential administrations later, no convictions have been made”.

Ironically, Rappler itself – hated by President Dutertre – has also been the subject of an RSF campaign in an effort to block the administration’s cynical and ruthless attempt to close down the most dynamic and successful online publication in the Philippines (133rd in the RSF World Media Freedom Index – a drop of six places).

Founded by ex-CNN investigative journalist Maria Ressa, Rappler has continued to challenge the government, described by RSF last year as the “most dangerous” country for journalists in Asia.

Duterte’s continuous attacks against the media were primarily responsible for the downward trend for the Philippines in the latest RSF Index, with RSF saying: “The dynamism of the media has also been checked by athe emergence of a leader who wants to show he is all powerful.”

The media watchdog also stressed that the Duterte administration had “developed several methods for pressuring and silencing journalists who criticise his notorious war on drugs”.

Test case
The revocation of Rappler’s licence by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is regarded as a test case for media freedom in the Philippines.

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines advocate Jhoanna Ballaran says the situation is very worrying.

The RSF consultation with some of its Asia-Pacific researchers and advocates in the field has followed a similar successful one in South America. It is believed that this is the first time the watchdog has hosted such an Asia Pacific-wide event.

Twenty three correspondents from 17 countries or territories — Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Hongkong, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Tibet — took part in the consultation plus a team of Paris-based RSF advocates.

Asia Pacific head Daniel Bastard says the consultation is part of a new strategy making better use of the correspondents’ network to make the impact of advocacy work faster and even more effectively than in the past.

The Pacific delegation – Associate Professor Joseph Fernandez, a journalist and media law academic who is head of journalism at Curtin University of Australia (19th on the RSF Index), AUT Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie of New Zealand (8th) and former PNG Post-Courier chief executive and media consultant Bob Howarth of Papua New Guinea (53rd) – made lively interventions even though most media freedom issues “pale into insignificance” compared with many countries in the region where journalists are regularly killed or persecuted.

Nauru’s controversial ban on the ABC from covering the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) this September was soundly condemned and the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Decree in Fiji (57th) and efforts by Pacific governments to introduce the repressive “China model” to curb the independence of Facebook and other social media were also strongly criticised. (Nauru is unranked and China is 176th, four places above the worst country – North Korea at 180th).

Media highlights
Highlights of the three-day consultation included a visit to the multimedia Agence France-Presse, one of the world’s “big two” news agencies, and workshops on online security and sources protection and gender issues.

No sooner had the consultation ended when RSF was on the ball with another protest over two detained local journalists in Myanmar working for Reuters news agency.

An RSF statement condemned Monday’s decision by a Yangon judge to go ahead with the trial of the journalists on a trumped up charge of possessing secrets and again demanded their immediate release.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, have already been detained for more than 200 days with months of preliminary hearings.

They now face a possible 14-year prison sentence for investigating an army massacre of Rohingya civilians in Inn Din, a village near the Bangladeshi border in Rakhine state, in September 2017.

RSF secretary-general Deloire says: “The refusal to dismiss the case against the journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo is indicative of a judicial system that follows orders and a failed transition to democracy in Myanmar.”

The chances of seeing an independent press emerge in Myanmar have now “declined significantly”.

The Pacific Media Centre’s David Robie was in Paris for the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific consultation. Dr Robie is also convenor of PMC’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

• RSF’s World Press Freedom Index 2018
• Who murdered Malta’s most famous journalist?
• ABC ban: News Corp rejects media boycott of Nauru forum

Czech President Miloš Zeman’s “joke” threat against journalists. Video: The Young Turks

The Australian journalist and academic who spent more than a year in an Egyptian prison has welcomed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s recent boost for his media freedom cause but warned that Canberra should use its new United Nations human rights status to “gain leverage”.

Former Al Jazeera foreign correspondent Peter Greste, who was earlier this year appointed professor as the UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, last week launched a new independent body dedicated to campaigning for reporters whose “voices have been stifled” by authorities around the world.

His crusade for global press freedom received a boost from Foreign Minister Bishop when she made her first public statement on Myanmar’s jailing of two Reuters journalists, The Australian reports.

Bishop spoke for the first time about the journalists’ plight after being contacted by the newspaper following Greste’s call for the Australian government to muster all of its diplomatic might to influence its regional neighbours on the issue.

The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom was established last week with a mission to advocate for press freedom in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Greste, who launched the new initiative while being awarded the Australian Press Council’s 2018 Press Freedom Medal on Thursday, told The Australian that while Ms Bishop would be advocating behind the scenes for the Reuters journalists, it was “important that she makes it publicly clear where she stands on this issue”.

“If we want to be taken seriously as a country that defends human rights and the principles of a liberal democracy, then we need to make sure that we publicly restate those positions and make sure that those people, those governments who we’re close to, follow the same principles,” he said, urging the minister to leverage Australia’s new-found position as a member of the UN Human Rights Commission.

‘Taken seriously’
“If the Australian government wants to be taken seriously — I know it will do — it needs to make sure that it applies those principles with all of those governments that it has leverage with, and that includes the Myanmar government.”

Bishop said in a statement to The Australian that the Australian embassy in Yangon had “registered Australia’s concerns” about the jailed Reuters journalists with the Myanmar government and that her officials were “pursuing other avenues to draw attention to their plight”.

“We continue to emphasise to the Myanmar government that a free and functioning media is an essential part of a modern democracy,” Bishop said, adding that embassy officials had “attended all court hearings as observers, to underline our interest in the case”.

Greste welcomed the comments as a positive step forward in the fight for the reporters, who were arrested last year after investigating an alleged act of genocide against a group of Rohingya people, a persecuted minority in Myanmar’s north.

He said global press freedom was at its lowest point in 13 years and was “trending downwards”, warning that Myanmar’s transition to democracy was at stake.

“Freedom of speech must surely underpin any functioning democracy, any functioning state; having the press as an independent watchdog is absolutely vital,” he said.

Philippines focus
Greste has also singled out the Philippines as a focus for lobbying by the AJF, citing “deeply troubling attacks on the press” by President Rodrigo Duterte, who banned two reporters from the presidential palace in February and has previously been accused of ordering journalists to be killed.

He also threw his support behind an Amnesty International campaign for the release of more than 120 journalists jailed in Turkey as part of a ruthless government crackdown.

Locally, Greste renewed calls for journalists and their sources to be protected from government intrusion.

“I’ve said many times before I’m really concerned that what we’re doing is allowing our obsession with national security to undermine press freedom,” Greste said, warning that media freedom was being “chipped away” by legislation aimed at fighting terrorism.

He welcomed the federal government’s decision to revisit its proposed espionage legislation, urging legislators to “go back to first principles” of openness and transparency.

• Last line of defence – equipment to protect journalists

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, southwestern district of Bangladesh, as part of his official visit to Bangladesh at the weekend.

During his visit on Sunday, Widodo said his country would continue to support Rohingya Muslims fleeing state persecution in Myanmar.

Earlier in the day, Widodo met Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the capital Dhaka to discuss bilateral relations and the Rohingya issue.

During his meeting with Hasina, the leader of the largest Muslim populated country said Jakarta would continue its support to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

Indonesia’s attitude towards the solution of the Rohingya crisis in the United Nations and the UN Commission on Human Rights will continue in the international arena in the same manner, Widodo said.

He stressed a peaceful and swift solution of the issue on the basis of bilateral ties between Bangladeshi and Myanmar government.

Five agreements
During his visit, both countries signed five agreements in different sectors, including fishing, trade, diplomacy and energy.

Another agreement was signed between Bangladeshi oil company PetroBanla and Indonesian oil and gas company Pertamina, envisaging import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Indonesia.

More than 700,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar since August 25, 2017, when Myanmar forces launched a bloody crackdown.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

At least 9000 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine state from August 25 to September 24, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

In a report published on December 12, 2017, the global humanitarian organisation said the deaths of 71.7 percent or 6700 Rohingya were caused by violence. They include 730 children below the age of 5.

The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings — including of infants and young children — brutal beatings and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

• More Indonesian artices

The plight of the Rohingya people has hit the international headlines again. Following the August clashes in Rakhine State between Myanmar police and army and an armed opposition group, Myanmar has seen an accelerated exodus of Rohingya people into Bangladesh.

There are estimated to be about one million Rohingya in Bangladesh with between 500,000 to 700,000 left in Myanmar. Moreover, since the late 1970s, 350,000 Rohingya have fled to Pakistan, 200,000 to Saudi Arabia and 150,000 to Malaysia to escape persecution.

Others are in Thailand and countries of resettlement such as New Zealand and Australia.

The most recent situation is so tragic that a recent Times Higher Education article called for some of the world’s top universities to cease educational partnerships in Myanmar until human rights abuses, especially towards the Rohingya people have ceased.

Rohingya are Muslims living in Northern Rakhine State (formerly Arakan) in Myanmar (formerly Burma) who constitute an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority. They were stripped of citizenship in 1982 and, subsequently, have been the victims of severe discrimination and persecution.

For the last few years, there has been evidence of Rohingya risking their lives and fleeing Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh and other countries. In August this year, with the insurgence of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the Myanmar army began a “clearance operation”, characterised as “ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations, that lasted for several weeks.

Amnesty International published a report on October 18 claiming the Myanmar Army operation which involved “widespread and unlawful killing” including rape and other sexual violence and the burning of Rohingya villages, constituted “serious human rights violations” and “crimes against humanity”.

Tragic situation
The situation is tragic and needs urgent international attention.

The underlying problem for the Rohingya people is that Myanmar refuses to accept they are a recognisable ethnic minority and therefore citizens of Myanmar.

While scholars are divided over the Rohingya’s earliest settlement in Rakhine, the 2017 Advisory Commission on Rakhine State led by former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan, maintained the Rohingya people are an integrated population of Muslims who have lived in Rakhine since at least the Kingdom of Mrauk U, the final Rakhine kingdom (1429-1775), and possibly 600 years earlier.

Others are 19th and 20th-century migrants from Bangladesh and West Bengal of India.

In any case, all Rohingya have been living in Rakhine state for at least several generations and many of them much, much longer. To put this into perspective, Rohingya have been living in Northern Rakhine in some cases perhaps before the Māori settlement of Aotearoa and at least as long as European settlement here.

Moreover, in light of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights conventions relating to statelessness (Article 3) and reduction of statelessness (Article 1), the Rohingya people are entitled to citizenship, their human rights should be upheld, and they are entitled to non-discrimination.

Above all, in no way ought they or anyone else be the victims of ethnic cleansing.

From the UNHCR’s perspective, there are three durable solutions for refugees: repatriation, local integration, and resettlement.

Since Bangladesh is already hosting close to a million Rohingya and is a low-middle income country, it may not be feasible to integrate all the new Rohingya who have fled Rakhine state since August.

Repatriation very slow
As for repatriation, Bangladesh and Myanmar recently agreed to form a joint working group by the end of November. However, with current documentation issues outstanding for the Rohingya, repatriation could take a very long time.

In the meantime, global leaders, including from the United States, European Union, and UN Security Council, have expressed extreme concern over the Rohingya situation. International pressure on Myanmar needs to be reinforced to expedite the repatriation.

Regarding resettlement, although Bangladesh did not ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, it started a third-country resettlement programme in 2006 and this continued until the Bangladeshi government suspended it in November 2010.

However UNHCR, being the global refugee-resettling facilitator, may approach Bangladesh and mediate with refugee-resettling countries to open a special quota for the Rohingya and extend the opportunity to resettle them in third countries.

Because New Zealand is a refugee resettling country and some Rohingya have been successfully resettled here, New Zealand needs to urgently create provision for a special intake of Rohingya refugees, as it has done recently for the Syrian refugees.

The new government has the opportunity to demonstrate its credibility to the world by extending compassion to a community in deep crisis and thereby upholding Labour’s election slogan “Let’s do this”.

Associate Professor Sharon Harvey is head of the school of language and culture at Auckland University of Technology. Sorowar Chowdhury, a PhD student from Bangladesh, is researching the resettlement of Rohingya in New Zealand. This article has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with the permission of the authors and was originally published by The New Zealand Herald.

Today, we are watching history repeat itself in Southeast Asia in the worst possible way.

Once again, the Myanmar military has launched a brutal military campaign against the Rohingya minority, killing civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

And once again, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has failed to take a stand against horrors unfolding in one of its member states.

There is no question that what is taking place in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State is ethnic cleansing. Since August 25, when a Rohingya armed group attacked security posts and killed at least 12 security officers, the Myanmar military has responded with vicious, unlawful and disproportionate violence targeting the Rohingya population as a whole.

Soldiers have torched entire villages and opened fire on people fleeing in panic in what amounts to a clear and deliberate campaign to drive the Rohingya people out of their country once and for all.

The Asean Charter, the treaty that binds Asean states together, declares a clear commitment to human rights, and Asean leaders have been paying lip service to this for years.

So the crisis in Rakhine State would have been – perhaps still is – an opportunity to prove that this was more than just talk. Instead, the regional bloc has so far, once again, proved that it is both unwilling and unable to address ongoing violations.

Bland statement
It took Asean almost a full month to even issue a statement on the situation, but the organisation might have been better off staying silent.

When it finally did materialise, on September 24, the statement by Asean foreign ministers, expressed “concern” over developments in Rakhine State, but completely failed to even mention the word “Rohingya” and atrocities so obviously inflicted on them by the security forces.

Instead, the foreign ministers labelled the crisis a “complex inter-communal issue” and only condemned the August 25 attacks on Myanmar security forces and “all acts of violence”.

The statement was so bland that at least one individual Asean member state felt a need to distance itself. The Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman called the statement a “misrepresentation of the reality of the situation”.

It is to Kuala Lumpur’s credit that it has taken a strong stance on the crimes of the Myanmar army, even though its treatment of Rohingya refugees inside its own borders leaves a lot to be desired.

Strong and urgent Asean action is all the more important as there is no sign of the violence in Rakhine State ending any time soon. Despite the claims by Aung San Suu Kyi – Myanmar’s de facto leader – that the fighting has stopped, Amnesty International was able to confirm fresh burnings in Myanmar as late as last week.

Fleeing in desperation
And people continue to flee in desperation into Bangladesh – more than half a million according to latest UN figures.

There is also a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding within Rakhine State, as the Myanmar government has cut off aid agencies’ access to affected areas and severely restricted their life-sustaining activities in other parts of the state.

Recently, we have received credible reports that Rohingya are not just fleeing violence but also face the very real risk of starvation, as food is running desperately short in many places.

The Rakhine State crisis could also have spill-over affects across Southeast Asia as a whole. Many of us will still remember the “boat crisis” in 2015, when thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshis were stranded in the Bay of Bengal as governments in the region refused to let their boats in.

Asean countries must ensure that refugees are able to take safe routes to enter their countries, and that no one is forced to return to a country where they could face persecution or serious human rights violations, as the Rohingya most definitely will.

Asean should immediately hold an emergency summit to deal with the crisis in Rakhine State. Its members must also acknowledge and condemn the human rights violations being committed by the Myanmar military in strong and unequivocal terms.

Crimes against humanity
And make no mistake, what we are witnessing in Rakhine State are, under international law, crimes against humanity – surely a concern to Asean as well.

Asean states must also work to ensure that the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya does not succeed, and that Myanmar ends all persecution, and discrimination against and segregation of the Rohingya.

All this would be well within the provisions of the Asean Charter, which allows its leaders to take action “in the case of a serious breach of the Charter” and to “address emergency situations affecting Asean by taking appropriate actions”.

It is time for Asean to bring to the fore these core values – of responding to emergencies and of respecting human rights – which are just as germane to Asean and part of its constitution as the over-flaunted principle of “non-intervention”.

This is a moment of truth for Asean, when the association has to decide which side of history it wants to be on. With ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity taking place on its doorstep, will it do everything it can to end and redress it or simply sit idly by?

Josef Benedict is the Amnesty International’s deputy campaigns director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Indonesian police in East Java are investigating a veteran journalist for comparing former President Megawati Sukarnoputri to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in a Facebook post.

On September 3, 2017, journalist and documentary filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono wrote on Facebook that Megawati and Suu Kyi were alike in many ways, noting that both were former opposition leaders who now head the ruling parties in their respective countries.

Dandhy added that if Myanmar’s government was being criticised for its treatment of ethnic Rohingya, the Indonesian government should similarly be held liable for suppressing the independence movement on the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region of West Papua.

He further compared Suu Kyi’s silence on the persecution of the Rohingya to Megawati’s role as party leader of the government, which has recently intensified the crackdown on West Papuan independence and self-determination activists.

Rohingya people born and living in Myanmar are not recognised as citizens by the Myanmar government.

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya civilians have been displaced from their homes due to clearing operations of the Myanmar military in response to attacks by a pro-Rohingya insurgent group in northwest Myanmar.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, who are mostly Muslim, are crossing into Bangladesh to escape the fighting.

Human rights abuses
West Papua is a region of Indonesia, comprising the provinces of Papua and West Papua, with a vocal independence movement that has called for the creation of a separate Pacific state since the 1960s. Human rights groups have documented many cases of abuse committed by Indonesian state forces against activists, journalists, and other individuals suspected of supporting the independence movement.

Dandhy posted his comments on Facebook following a big rally was organised by Muslim groups in Indonesia, condemning the Myanmar government for its treatment of Rohingya refugees.

The youth arm of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) filed a defamation complaint against Dandhy on September 6:

On the whole, (Dandhy’s) opinion was clearly intended to take advantage of the Rohingya incidents in Myanmar in order to insult and spread hatred of Megawati Soekarnoputri as the chairwoman of PDI-P and Joko Widodo as the president who is backed by PDI-P.

He is now under investigation by the police cyber crime unit. If he is prosecuted for and convicted of defamation, Dandhy could face up to four years in prison.

Reacting to the complaint, Dandhy wrote that it is a minor issue compared to the injustices suffered by Papuan activists and Rohingya refugees.

The complaint is the latest case of how the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law is being used to silence dissent in the country.

35 activists charged
According to Indonesian digital rights group SAFEnet, at least 35 activists have been charged with online defamation since its enactment in 2008. Aside from Dandhy’s case, the group has documented six defamation charges involving activists and journalists in 2017.

Activists were quick to launch a campaign expressing support to Dandhy. They asserted that Dandhy was simply expressing an opinion which should be considered legitimate criticism and not a criminal act.

SAFEnet is encouraging Indonesian netizens to submit reports and testimonies about how the ITE Law is being abused to silence activists like Dandhy and suppress online free speech in general.

Instead of preventing the public from commenting on Megawati, a local investigative portal suggested that Dandhy’s case could in fact trigger greater interest in the former president’s legacy as a leader, including some of the issues that led to her defeat in the polls.

Republished with permission from Global Voices on a Creative Commons licence.

• More West Papua stories

By Jewel Topsfield of The Sydney Morning Herald in Jakarta

It’s hard to comprehend it happened in this century: human slaves trapped on fishing boats being whipped with poisonous stingray tails, having ice blocks thrown at them and being shot.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us,” says Hlaing Min, 30, a runaway slave from Benjina, a remote fisheries weight station in eastern Indonesia’s Aru Islands.

“There must be a mountain of bones under the sea…. The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”

In 2015 more than 1300 foreign fisherman from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos were rescued from Benjina and Ambon, after an Associated Press investigation revealed the brutal conditions aboard many foreign vessels reflagged to operate in Indonesian waters.

Extraordinary images of men being kept in a cage exposed the chilling reality of 21st century slavery.

“They were trafficked from their home country, mostly by means of deception, forced to work over 20 hours per day on a boat in the middle of the sea, with little to no chance of escape,” says a report on human trafficking in the Indonesian fishing industry released this week.

Some were kept at sea for years at a time.

After the rescue, the International Organisation for Migration interviewed the fishers.

They were told of excessive work hours — 78 percent of 285 victims interviewed in depth claimed they worked between 16 and 24 hours a day, cramped conditions, meals of watery fish gruel, physical and psychological abuse and even murder.

‘Several crews died’
“While on board, I often heard the news from the boat radio that several boat crews had died, either falling to the ocean, fighting or killed by the other crews,” a Cambodian fisher says in the report.

“While I was working on the boat, I saw with my own eyes more than seven dead bodies floating in the sea.”

Witnesses testified that requesting to leave the boat could be a death sentence for some victims. Those who did might find themselves chained on the deck in the middle of the day or locked in the freezer.

“The heartrending stories of these fishers could not be left untold,” says IOM Indonesia’s chief of mission Mark Getchell.

The report says the Benjina and Ambon cases highlight the lack of adequate policing of the fishing industry and a lack of scrutiny of working conditions on ships and in fish processing plants.

Seafood caught by modern day slaves entered the global supply chain, with legitimate suppliers of fish “unaware of its provenance and the human toll behind the catch.”

“The situation in Benjina and Ambon is symptomatic of a much broader and insidious trade in people, not only in the Indonesian and Thai fishing industries, but indeed globally,” the report says.

Repatriation of enslaved fisherfmen
In 2015 the Australian government provided $2.17 million to IOM to support the daily care, repatriation and reintegration of formerly trafficked and enslaved fishermen from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, who had been stranded on islands in Indonesia’s Maluku province.

“This funding support has since been extended to enable IOM to provide assistance to foreign fishermen stranded in any area of Indonesia,” an Immigration Department spokesman said.

“This assistance plays a crucial role to support and protect victims of trafficking and slavery in the fishing industry by reuniting victims with their families and providing them with limited financial assistance which can help them establish an alternative livelihood.”

IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said Australia provided the lion share of the funding for its emergency response to the human trafficking crisis, which included returning more than 1000 victims to their home countries.

“This would not have been possible without the Australian government,” he said.

At the launch of the report in Jakarta this week, Indonesian Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti unveiled a new government decree requiring all fisheries companies to submit a detailed human rights audit.

This was one of the report’s key recommendations to protect fishermen and port workers from abuse.

“That being said, Indonesia still has homework towards the approximately 250,000 Indonesian crews on foreign vessels operating across continents that remain unprotected,” Pudjiastuti says in a foreword to the report.

The report also called for greater diligence in recording the movement of vessels in Indonesian waters, more training on human trafficking, independent inspections of ports and vessels at sea and centres in ports where fishers could seek protection.

Jewel Topsfield is the Jakarta-based Indonesia correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.This article was first published by the SMH and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

There is rising concern in majority Muslim Indonesia that the treatment being meted out to ethnic Muslim Rohingya by military forces in Myanmar could lead to regional tensions.

Islamic organisations have joined calls to end the conflict while Jakarta is making efforts to deal with the crisis which has forced tens of thousands to flee, amid a bloody military crackdown in Myanmar’s ethnically divided Rakhine State after border police were attacked and killed in October.

The United Nations estimated at least 65,000 refugees were in camps in Bangladesh, while Dhaka has said some 50,000 Rohingya have crossed its border in the last two months.

Nahdatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation has said the conflict was totally unjustified and had injured human values.

“Muslims in general feel the pain because of the Rohingya’s suffering,” the organisation’s leaders said in a statement.

They called on world leaders, Southeast Asian countries and the UN to take concrete measures to end the violence and show humanitarian solidarity

Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second largest Islamic organisation said the Rohingya crisis was “violating and trampling human rights”.

Act firmly call
Anwar Abbas, its chairman, called on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation,­ an international organisation with 57 member countries, ­ to act firmly against the Myanmar government.

“If this continues then it is not impossible to invite new tensions that threaten the peace of the world,” he warned.

He also expressed deep disappointment over inaction by Myanmar’s leader, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and urged the revocation of her Nobel Peace Prize.

In Malaysia, thousands of people, led by Prime Minister Najib Razak took to the streets on December 4, branding the Rohingya situation as “genocide”.

Similar but smaller protests have also occurred in Indonesia.

In November, hundreds of Indonesians protested outside the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta, calling for an end to the “genocide.”

Indonesia’s government has made diplomatic overtures with Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi meeting Aung San Suu Kyi twice last month: on December 6 and December 19.

Diplomatic efforts
Marsudi said that such diplomatic efforts have been taken to try and bridge communications between Myanmar and Bangladesh, whose relations have continued to deteriorate because of conflicts in their border areas.

“I’m carrying out diplomacy carefully and without creating a tumult, because the Rohingya conflict is a very sensitive issue related to a fully sovereign state; the sovereignty of a state must be respected,” she told Antara news agency.

Daniel Awigra, Asean program manager at the Jakarta-based Human Rights Working Group said Indonesia can be an example of the process of democratisation for Myanmar.

Indonesia was built on diversity and so is Myanmar, he said. So Myanmar could see Indonesia as a state with credible democracy.

However, “what needs to be paid attention to is the agenda of sending humanitarian aid for Rohingya, investigation into crimes and security sector reform as well as the elimination of the 1982 citizenship law which rejects Rohingya identity,” he said.

Father Agustinus Ulahayanan, secretary of the Bishops’ Commission for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, said the Rohingya issue “is about ethnicity and politics”.

He thanked Muslim leaders for not linking the issue to religious sentiments.

Never close its eyes
For the Catholic Church, he said, the Catholic community will never close its eyes to any humanitarian crisis.

“I heard that a few dioceses had launched a solidarity movement. Even a diocese, of which I cannot mention for a certain reason, had collected money during a Sunday mass to help our Rohingya brothers and sisters,” he said.

Similarly, Sahat Martin Philip Sinurat, chairman of the Indonesian Christian Student Movement, called on the Indonesian government not to link the Rohingya issue to religious sentiments.

The Rohingya issue is an issue of citizenship, not a religion-based one, he said.

Ryan Dagur and Katharina R. Lestari are correspondents for the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News).

The chief-executive and the chief-editor of Myanmar’s largest daily newspaper have been detained after a politician accused them of defamation in an article which, was then posted on social media.

Reuters reported, Than Htut Aung, chief-executive of Eleven Media Group, and the newspaper’s chief-editor, Wai Phyo, were arrested on Friday last week.

The article in question made reference to allegations of government corruption.

The two journalists are expected to be in jail for two-weeks while police investigate.

Media have reported the pair have been charged under Myanmar’s controversial telecommunication law.

There next court hearing is due on November 25, 2016.

Amnesty International released a statement which called for the immediate release of the two editors.

‘Serious concerns’

“Arresting and detaining these two men raises serious concerns about the National League for Democracy-led government’s commitment to freedom of expression,” said Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“While the new government has made some attempts to amend long-standing repressive laws that target activists and media workers, this case shows that those attempts do not go far enough.”

Djamin said journalists play an important role of holding governments to account and repressive laws could led to the self-censorship of journalists.

Increased concerns have been raised over media freedom in Myanmar after Fiona MacGregor, an investigative editor was fired last month at the Myanmar Times. She was accused of being biased against the government after she reported on allegations that claimed security forces raped around 30 ethnic women.

•  Media face blockade over human rights reporting in Myanmar

Media organisations which, are attempting to report on soldiers committing human rights abuses against villagers in Myanmar are being obstructed and harassed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The restriction comes after allegations of abuse including sexual violence by the Myanmar military, amid the conflict in the country’s northern Rakhine state.

The Irrawaddy, reported border guards and military officers in mid-October blocked journalists and photographers from several news organisations, including: The Irrawaddy, Myanmar Times, Democratic Voice of Burma, and 7 Day Daily. Media were blocked from traveling north of the state’s Kyikanpyin police station to areas in the Maungdaw Township, where joint military-police security operations are underway.

‘Unsafe’

The same report stated, security officials told reporters they could not travel to the area because it was unsafe for journalists.

Military officials also ordered journalists to delete photographs they had taken of the aftermath of an October 9, 2016, attack on a border guard post that killed several police officers. The reporters refused and also declined to tell officers their names or the media outlets they worked for.

‘Nothing to hide’

CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative, Shawn Crispin, said that if the government truly has nothing to hide, media should be allowed to report freely in the state.

“The best way to prove or disprove allegations of human rights abuses is to allow independent media to probe the accusations,” Crispin said in the CPJ report.

Reuters have also reported of dozens of women being raped or sexually assaulted by Myanmar soldiers.

Zaw Htay, the spokesman for President Htin Kyaw, has denied the reports.

‘No logical way’

According to a Reuters news article, Htay said: “There’s no logical way of committing rape in the middle of a big village of 800 homes, where insurgents are hiding.”

Htay accused, Fiona MacGregor, an investigative editor at the independent Myanmar Times, for being biased against the government after she reported on allegations that claimed security forces raped around 30 ethnic women.

Acccoring to CPJ, MacGregor said she believed Htay aimed to stifle reporting on the allegations.

Myanmar Times managers soon fired MacGregor for breaching company policy against damaging national reconciliation and damaging the paper’s reputation by publishing the article.

• CPJ report: Myanmar obstructs reporters from covering crisis in Rakhine State
• Myanmar freedom of speech under threat amid Rakhine violence: monitors
• Myanmar: Rakhine state still under military lockdown

By Saifulbahri Ismail in Jakarta

On June 11,  a boat of 44 Sri Lankans was discovered in the waters of Aceh, a northern province of Indonesia. They were en route to Australia when the boat encountered engine problems.

It is a situation that Indonesian officials are all too familiar with. It is a reminder of the 2015 migrant crisis when thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh left their homes in rickety smuggler’s boats and travelled to Southeast Asia.

“The Indonesian authorities are quite well prepared to deal with these boat arrivals,” said Paul Dillon, media officer at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). “When matters unfolded last May there were roughly 1800 individuals who arrived from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

“The Indonesian government has a lot of experience, sadly, from many years of emerging as a transit country for migrants who are trying to establish themselves for a better life in other countries.”

The crisis prompted countries to reinvigorate coordinated efforts to better tackle the regional challenge of irregular migration.

“Indonesia’s position is still the same in tackling irregular migrants,” said the spokesperson of its foreign ministry, Arrmanatha Nasir. “It should be resolved not only by the country of transit, but also the countries of destination and origin – just like a year ago when we managed to work together with the country of origin, IOM and UNHCR until (the migrants) are able to go back to their place of origin.”

300 still in camps
Out of the more than 1000 Rohingya migrants who reached Indonesia’s shores last year, about 300 of them still reside in various camps in Aceh.

Many have left the camps on their own to go to Malaysia with the help of people smugglers.

Most of them still in the camps have already been verified by UNHCR as refugees.

Altogether there are nearly 14,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia. A number of them have been resettled to other countries, but many are still stuck in transit for many years.

Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and refugees cannot legally work here while waiting for resettlement in a third country.

‘Spirit of humanitarianism’
“Even though Indonesia is not a signatory – they’ve not signed the refugee convention – they live up to their humanitarian responsibilities and the spirit of humanitarianism that I think most Indonesians have,” said Thomas Vargas, a representative at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“It’s very important that that spirit continues and by signing the refugee convention, I think the government could move even further in showing solidarity with the international community, with other countries around the world,” he added.

For the refugees who are in transit, it could be a long wait for them before they can be resettled or even reunited with other family members in another country.

Until that happens, government, agencies and local communities have a shared responsibility to make their stay a little more bearable in the name of humanity.

Channel News Asia

On March 2, 1962, General Ne Win led a coup in Myanmar (then known as Burma) and established a military dictatorship which lasted until 2010.

Slightly more than a decade later, on September 21, 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law which allowed him to remain in power until 1986.

And just a few years before that, on September 30, 1965, a mutiny led to the killing of some generals which provoked the Indonesian military to retaliate by arresting and killing communists and suspected sympathisers of communist groups across the country.

In Myanmar, the Philippines, and Indonesia, these were historic events which made a lasting political impact. For local scholars and activists, these were the days when democracy died in their countries.

The 1962 coup in Burma gave the military absolute power to rule over the whole country. While it didn’t end the ethnic civil wars which are still raging up to this day, it made the junta the most powerful political force in the country.

A student uprising in 1988 challenged the junta but it was violently suppressed. Elections were held in 1990 but the junta ignored the results and arrested leaders of the winning party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

It was only in 2010 when significant political reforms were instituted which led to the release of political prisoners, the lifting of media censorship, and the holding of an and open and free election.

Major defeat
The military is still influential in the bureaucracy but its party experienced a major defeat in last year’s election, which saw the NLD win a supermajority. Some observers noted that after 54 years, democracy was restored in Myanmar when the NLD assumed control of the government.

While there are various reasons why Myanmar remained an underdeveloped nation in the past half century, many are blaming the “death of democracy” in 1962 as the crucial turning point in the country’s history.

Historian Thant Myint-U, who is also executive director of Yangon Heritage Trust, wrote a Facebook post which quickly became popular about the significance of the 1962 coup. The historian wrote:

“Burma was then one of the better off countries in the region, with a per capita income three times greater than Indonesia, twice that of Thailand and nearly equal to South Korea. Over the coming decades, the Burmese people would receive little in return for having to surrender their basic freedoms.”

This argument is also invoked by pro-democracy forces when they accuse the junta of subverting not only Myanmar’s democracy but also the country’s development.

Interestingly, Filipinos also attribute the country’s lack of development to the brutal reign of a military-backed government. Marcos placed the country under military administration in 1972, purportedly to thwart a communist takeover.

But his political rivals believed it was only a ruse to extend his term which was supposed to end in 1973. During martial law, opposition leaders were detained, media censorship was enforced, and the people’s civil liberties were taken away.

‘Sick man of Asia’
When Marcos was ousted by a peaceful uprising in 1986, the Philippines was already known as the “sick man of Asia” because of widespread poverty in the country. Marcos and his cronies were accused of plundering the nation’s coffers while the majority of Filipinos lived a life of penury.

Marcos declared September 21 as National Thanksgiving Day. But for most Filipinos, it was the day when democracy died in the Philippines. A presidential and legislative election is due this year on May 9.

The events that led to the communist purge in Indonesia are not widely known and discussed because the government is unwilling to determine what really happened during those critical months when almost a million people died across the country. What is clear is that it led to the rise of General Suharto, who went on to rule Indonesia until 1998 when he was ousted.

Suharto is often compared to Marcos because both relied on the military for political support, both were accused of taking part in unprecedented corruption and committing human rights abuses during their term; both were unseated by a mass uprising.

It was only after Suharto’s fall from power when survivors and other witnesses were able to testify about the 1965 mass killings. Indonesia’s democracy suffered during the reign of Suharto and the collapse began during the failed coup attempt on September 30, 1965.

Remembering the day when democracy died proved useful in mobilizing the people to take action in order to expel or challenge the anti-democratic elements in society. It is also an effective information campaign to keep the democratic struggle relevant.

In the case of Myanmar, it sustains the narrative to push the country’s transition to modern democracy. In the Philippines, it is once more a potent political issue because the son of Marcos is running for vice president in the May 2016 elections. In Indonesia, survivors and relatives of the 1965 anti-communist hysteria continue to seek justice and apology from the state.

Ruling parties accused
Elsewhere in the region, civil society groups are accusing the incumbent ruling parties of killing democracy as part of a campaign to build a strong political movement. Thai activists are calling for the restoration of civilian rule after the army grabbed power in May 2014.

In Malaysia, various groups formed a coalition to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak who is battling corruption charges. Najib is also accused of stifling the people’s right to free speech.

Democracy has died several times in Southeast Asia and its death has often inspired many people to join forces in order to bring it back to life. At times, it has taken many years and decades before democracy has been restored. But what is important is that the democratic ideal has become the true, unifying goal in the region.

Mong Palatino is a regular blogger and Global Voices regional editor for Southeast Asia and Oceania. This article was first published in The Diplomat and is republished here with permission.

• The Philippines faces presidential and legislative elections on May 9.

The scene happens every day in capitals across south-east Asia: a strategy session in an ambassador’s ornate sitting room over coffee with like-minded senior diplomats from the US, Canada, and EU member states trying to figure out how to persuade a national government to reverse course on human rights.

On this particular day in Bangkok the ask was a tough one, demanding the government stop arresting and roughing up critics, chastising and censoring the media, and cracking down on public protests.

Human Rights Watch got a rare invite, and during the inevitable brainstorming, I asked “Where is Australia, why aren’t they here?”

Eyes lowered and heads shook ever so slightly around the room. Talking like a friend has fallen off the wagon, one diplomat said “We’re not sure of them anymore. They’re going a different way.”

Left unsaid in this polite circle is that the human rights principles once a core part of Australia’s foreign policy have been undermined by its single-minded determination to stop boats of asylum seekers and migrants “by hook or by crook.”

Last year was a hard one for human rights in many parts of Asia, with governments arresting and jailing critics in opposition parties and civil society, trying to put the internet genie back in the bottle through censorship and cyber-crime laws, and cracking down on NGOs and community groups with new draconian regulations.

Repression in Thailand is in full swing under the military government. Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia has arrested dozens of people for publicly criticising his government. Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam routinely arrest and jail dissidents using ruling-party controlled courts.

Myanmar has a new government but no solution to end the repression of ethnic Rohingyas. Religious minorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia face blasphemy charges, death threats, and massacres.

Rights-respecting solutions rare
Australia is rarely pushing for rights-respecting solutions these days – and more than that, is too often part of the problem. Politicians trapped in the refugee policy dialogue in Canberra frequently fail to recognise that Australia’s boat push-back policies, and offshoring asylum seekers into abusive conditions of detention in Nauru and on Manus Island, are seen as a green-light by Asian governments to do the same: send asylum seekers and refugees back into harm’s way or lock them up in indefinite detention.

For example, during the south-east Asia boat people crisis in May 2015, the Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian navies played a cruel game of “human ping-pong” by pushing away boats of starving and sick Rohingya.

At a time when the governments were prepared to let these people float around waiting to die, then prime minister Tony Abbott did the unconscionable by justifying those tactics, saying “if other countries choose to do that, frankly that is almost certainly absolutely necessary if the scourge of people smuggling is to be beaten.”

It suddenly became much harder for non-governmental organisations, governments, and UN agencies to persuade those three countries to bring the Rohingya to shore.

By soliciting governments to help stop boats, Australia also ends up looking the other way on other rights abuses. By cooperating with Australia to take back boats of their nationals, both Sri Lanka and Vietnam know they could count on Australia not to publicly raise concerns about the rights abuses that drove those people into the boats in the first place.

Push backs by other countries are also met with silent acquiescence from Canberra. Australia said nothing when Thailand sent back 109 ethnic Uighurs in July to China to face torture in custody and long prison terms, and has kept silent as Beijing pursues its dissidents in Bangkok.

China arrests and sends fleeing North Koreans back to the brutal regime of dictator Kim Jong-Un, and is met by deafening silence from down under.

Praised Cambodia
Australia has praised Cambodia for signing the September 2014 Cambodia-Australia deal to resettle refugees from Nauru to Phnom Penh. Prime minister Hun Sen told Australia that Cambodia was safe for refugees to resettle – but don’t tell that to ethnic Montagnards fleeing political and religious persecution in Vietnam who Cambodia hunted down in the border forests of Ratanakiri province and forced back into Hanoi’s hands, all after the Australia deal was signed.

Meanwhile, Cambodia is laughing all the way to the bank with at least $55 million of Australia’s taxpayer dollars for taking just five refugees so far from Nauru. All this for a deal that the UN high commissioner for refugees termed “a worrying departure from international norms” of refugee protection.

With the recent high court ruling, Australia now faces the return of 267 asylum seekers to Nauru and Manus Island, where they face possible renewed physical and sexual assault, and life in limbo.

Australia’s international reputation has suffered enough – it’s time to do the right thing by accepting its responsibilities, not only as a party to the UN Refugee Convention but also as a responsible neighbour and member of the international community, and provide this group with fair and timely refugee status determination in Australia.

And for those found to be refugees, let them stay.

Phil Robertson is the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. This article was first published in The Guardian.

Aceh fishermen are nominated to receive the 2016 Nansen Refugee Award from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) for rescuing hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh in Indonesian waters.

Geutanyoe Foundation international director Lilianne Fan said the organisation had submitted the fishermen as candidates to receive the award in recognition of their services to save many lives of those who were stranded at sea.

“If they hadn’t been rescued by the Aceh fishermen, the lives of the children and the Rohingnya people and Bangladeshis may not have been saved,” Fan said, according to the news agency Antara.

According to a statement on its website, the UNCHR once a year awards the Nansen Refugee Award to an individual, group of people or an organisation to honor extraordinary service to refugees and outstanding work on behalf of the forcibly displaced.

The UN body focuses on giving assistance to refugees as well as providing education for the children of the displaced in various countries.

Fan said the Aceh fishermen exemplified concrete humanitarian action in saving the lives of the refugees without exhibiting racial or ethnic bias.

The number of Rohingya refugees currently residing in the Aceh province has reportedly fallen to be 350 from the initial 1,010 people.

The refugees currently live in shelters located in Kuala Langsa harbor, in the town of Langsa, and also camps in Bayeun village in East Aceh and Blang Ado village in North Aceh.

The Geutanyoe Foundation is an Aceh-based NGO that focuses on humanitarian issues.

The foundation has been working with the fishermen and focuses on helping the refugees improve their living conditions and create social and livelihood programs in their camps in Aceh.

By Dyna Rochmyaningsih in Jakarta

Scientists in South-East Asia and the United Kingdom’s Met Office have teamed up to develop a model that predicts how the climate in the region will be like in the next 100 years.

According to the model, the region will be generally 2-4 degrees Celsius warmer by 2060 and continue to heat up around 3-5 degrees Celsius until 2100.

The strongest warming will occur in mainland South-East Asia. Extreme rainfall events will occur in the northern part of the region, which covers northern Vietnam, Laos, parts of Thailand and northern Philippines.

From June to August, the region will face significant reduction in rainfall. From September to November, rainfall rates will increase. In the archipelago, the difference between wet and dry seasons will be more pronounced.

The project, called Southeast Asia Climate Analysis and Modelling (SEACAM), was initiated by the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) in collaboration with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre. Scientists from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam were involved.

SEACAM and the Met Office have put up a climate change tool website for South-East Asia based on a climate modelling system dubbed PRECIS, which stands for Providing Regional Climate for Impacts Studies.

“One of the main aims of the SEACAM project is to enhance collaboration and capacity-building among South-East Asian countries in climate research,” says Raizan Rahmat, CCRS project coordinator and senior research scientist.

Climate scenarios
He adds that prior to SEACAM, there had been limited collaborative research in South-East Asia to create climate scenarios in the region.

“Given the geography of South-East Asia, with its complex terrain and maritime characteristics, it was necessary to generate more detailed climate simulation at a higher resolution than that provided by global climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports,” he says.

Unlike global climate models, PRECIS has a higher resolution that can more accurately predict the future climate of the region. Several climate parameters such as temperature and rainfall have been analysed.

Developed by the Met Office, PRECIS is beneficial for smaller islands in South-East Asia because the climate model shows these islands as land masses rather than ocean points. Lands respond to climate change differently from the ocean.

David Hein, a software engineer from the Met Office, says the model is user-friendly. Scientists can simulate regional climate parameters with a mouse click.

“PRECIS allows anyone with a desktop or a PC to be able to run a climate model. It is simply a matter of clicking ‘Run PRECIS’ and PRECIS will produce data which can be used to study possible climate change in the region,” he says.

This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s South-East Asia and Pacific desk.

By Gayathry Venkiteswaran

Journalists have been killed in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan in separate incidents that took place in January 2016, heightening concerns over the continued targeting of media personnel.

On January 20, seven staff members of the Afghan Tolo TV were killed following a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul on a minibus that was transporting the station’s journalists. Thirty others were also injured in the attack.

International organisations issued a message of solidarity with the Afghan media. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) tweeted this:

#Afghanistan: IFJ condemns killing of seven #media workers in suicide bombing https://t.co/fPsezkYFxE @abellanger49 pic.twitter.com/IZxOxjYDBP

— IFJ (@IFJGlobal) January 20, 2016

IFEX members including the Afghanistan Journalists Center, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Press Institute (IPI) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which ranked Afghanistan 122 out of 180 in their 2015 press freedom index, also reported on the attacks.

Earlier, two journalists were killed in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, a spot where militants have a stronghold. According to the IFJ, journalist Mehboob Shah Afridi of Aaj TV was killed in a suicide bomb attack on the outskirts of Peshawar on 19 January, while on 16 January, unidentified gunmen shot dead journalist Muhammad Umar, who was a correspondent with a local newspaper.

These incidents were not isolated, as journalists have been targeted across the country; a week before the office of the ARY News was attacked by unidentified attackers who hurled a hand grenade at the Islamabad office and a similar attack took place in November 2015 at the Faisalbad office of Dunya News TV.

It was noted with irony that Pakistan authorities had on 13 January searched the home of New York Times reporter Salman Mahmood, reportedly for terrorists. Media freedom activist Asad Baig tweeted:

Another television media outlet attacked. Meanwhile rangers look for terrorists in the houses of journalists .. @salmanmasood #JournoSafe

— asad beyg (@asadbeyg) January 13, 2016

Dawn, one of Pakistan’s national newspapers, commented that little action has been taken by the state and media houses to protect journalists, leading to the routine killings.

Missing booksellers
Continuing in the spotlight in January was the disappearance of five people associated with a publishing company in Hong Kong, believed to be held in China. The first to go missing, in Thailand, was Gui Minhai, a writer and co-owner of publishing house Mighty Current, which runs the Causeway Bay Bookshop and produces books said to be critical of the Chinese Communist Party, on 17 October 2015.

Three others – Lui Bo, Cheung Ji-ping and Lam Wing-kei – went missing in Shenzhen, China, between 20 and 26 October. Then, in December, a major stockholder in the company, Lee Bo, was reported missing by his wife.

Reports say Lee Bo has since met with his wife, secretly, and Chinese authorities have, after more than two weeks, confirmed that they have detained Lee in mainland China.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association had earlier written seeking clarification on their whereabouts, and the International Publishers Association issued a statement to express their concern that the Chinese government was attempting to quash free speech in the former British colony.

A leaked letter identified 14 publishing houses and 21 publications in Hong Kong as targets to be ‘exterminated’:

UK report: Leaked Chinese Communist Party doco reveals Hong Kong plan to ‘exterminate’ banned books https://t.co/0wC6gCHhDW via @SCMP_News

— Niall Fraser (@MeOldChina64) January 25, 2016

The South China Morning Post is monitoring the issue and has created a special page to compile updates and maintain a timeline of the incidents.

Digital rights
Several individuals were convicted for online expression, specifically for postings on the social networking platform, Facebook, that were deemed in breach of national security or defamatory by the respective governments and courts.

In Thailand, a 46-year old ex-stockbroker was sentenced to six years in jail for two Facebook posts about the king that were cited as having breached the country’s controversial lèse majesté law, according to the Bangkok Post.

As of December 2015, prosecutions under the insult law topped 60 since a coup was launched in mid-2014, and the military regime has attempted to get the compliance of online companies Facebook and Youtube to ban any content said to be defamatory to the monarchy.

In Burma, activist Patrick Khum Jaa Lee was sentenced to six months in prison for posting on his Facebook page comments about the country’s army chief. Critics and his family say there is no digital evidence to prove the crime, and that the charge under the Telecommunications Law threatens freedom of expression.

On a more positive note for digital rights, Bytes for All in Pakistan has created a series of cartoons on the importance of encryption to protect one’s privacy online as well as to ensure individuals are able to express themselves freely. As they say, “We believe the best way to respond to the attempts to put curbs on encryption is for everyone to learn about it and actively use it.”

Members calling for action
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance has come together with the Community and Public Sector Union to launch a campaign to restore adequate funds for Australia‘s national broadcaster – the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) – and to end government interference in the station’s editorial and programming. More details on the Hands Off Our ABC campaign are on MEAA’s website.

Key Regional Reports
Several groups painted a bleak picture for 2015 in terms of impunity in Asia, reflected in reports by the Pakistan Press Foundation and the Freedom Forum in Nepal. Other forms of attack against the media in Indonesia were recorded by Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, while the Thai Journalists Association reported that, in 2015, the atmosphere in Thailand was one of paranoia, and marked by control by the military regime. Amendments to the constitution in progress have worried activists and critics of the regime. Journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk, who was detained twice by the junta, tweeted on the targeting of students who challenge the regime.

South Pacific
In the South Pacific, Pacific Media Watch reports the IFJ released its report Strengthening Media in the Pacific – an insight into the media landscape and working conditions for media workers in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The report was a culmination of research and media consultation in the Pacific’s media in 2014 and 2015 and highlights the challenges and success stories from the region as the media continued to rapidly develop and grow.

Gayathry Venkiteswaran based this compilation on IFEX member reports from Afghanistan Journalists Center , Aliansi Jurnalis Independen/Alliance of Independent Journalists , Bytes for All , Committee to Protect Journalists , Freedom Forum , Hong Kong Journalists Association , Human Rights Watch , International Federation of Journalists , International Press Institute , International Publishers Association , Pakistan Press Foundation , Reporters Without Borders , Southeast Asian Press Alliance , Thai Journalists Association 

Three Auckland-based refugee advocates have given a hopeful view of improved human rights in Burma following Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) landslide elections victory last month.

It was the country’s first national vote since a nominally civilian government was introduced in 2011, ending nearly 50 years of military rule.

The NLD will control the next 440-seat Hluttaw (parliament) and can choose the next president.

But the military still control 25 percent of the seats and the generals can veto constitutional change in a so-called “disciplined democracy”.

Speaking on UN Human Rights Day, Stanley Saw, a project manager at the University of Auckland, who migrated from Burma to New Zealand in 1977, said Aung San Suu Kyi had “done her homework” in the elections.

He hoped she would be able to keep the military in check.

Saw gave an overview of colonial history and the military government era in Burma, and explained the ethnic breakdown in the country.

He is a frequent commentator on Burmese politics.

Harsh realities
Cicilia Dwe, a Karen refugee, was born on the Burma-Thai border and arrived in NZ in 2001, aged 10, as part of the UNHCR programme.

Recently a student, she is also a community activist and leads a cultural dance troupe.

She spoke on the harsh realities facing her Karen people.

Finally, Rahmat Ullah, a Rohingya refugee who arrived in NZ in 2008 as part of the UNHCR programme and is now a painter, talked of the plight of his people.

Originally from Arakan state in Burma (Myanmar), he spoke of the oppression of the Rohingya people.

He condemned the “ethnic cleansing” and said as a stateless Rohingyan he could no longer return to Burma, unlike the other two speakers.

“The Rohingyas are defined as the most persecuted minority group in the world,” he said, citing unnamed scholars.

About 40 people were present at the APHRC event hosted by the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9516

Burmese elections analysis

As 190 nations grapple with the world’s future at the global climate summit in Paris, forest fires in Indonesia have been continuing to rage since July 2015.

Emissions from this year’s fires have reached 1.62 billion metric tons of CO2, bumping Indonesia up from sixth largest to fourth largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in the world, surpassing Russia in a matter of six weeks and the entire US economy in just 38 days. [1]

Global Forest Watch Fires detected at least 127,000 fires across Indonesia this year, the worst since 1997. These fires were mostly caused by the clearing of forested peat lands to plant palms for oil.

The fires have produced toxic smog smothering Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and as far away as Thailand and the Philippines. The haze closed schools, disabled airports and caused more than 500,000 cases of respiratory illnesses in South-East Asia. More than 40 million Indonesians have been affected.

In preparation for the Paris climate summit, 190 countries that are party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change were asked to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to control carbon emissions. [2]

The UN has received 120 INDCs, which will be used to draft a new international climate agreement towards a “low-carbon and climate-resilient future”.

Eight of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have submitted their INDCs before the 1 October deadline. Only Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia have yet to make submissions.

Conditional target
Cambodia committed to reduce GHG emissions by 27 per cent by 2030, which will be taken from the energy, manufacturing and transport sectors, aside from other industries. But this target is “conditional” on international support. Cambodia also plans to increase its forest cover to 60 per cent of its land area by 2030.

Laos plans to increase its forest cover to 70 per cent of its total land area by the year 2020, with trees and forests serving as GHG sinks. The government also commits to increase the share of renewable energy to 30 per cent of its energy consumption by 2025.

Myanmar has the largest tropical forest area in mainland South-East Asia, so it is already a net GHG sink, its INDC said. But it will need international assistance in its socio-economic development.

The Philippines promised to reduce its carbon emissions by 70 per cent by the year 2030, which will be taken from the energy, transport, waste, forestry and industry sectors. But like Cambodia, the target is “conditional” on assistance from the international community.

Singapore, the first ASEAN country to submit its INDC, said it will unconditionally reduce emissions intensity by 36 per cent by 2030 in energy, industry, agriculture, land use, land-use change, forestry and waste.

Thailand, which is one of 16 countries considered most vulnerable to future climate change impacts in the next 30 years, placed adaptation as top priority and pledged to reduce its GHG emissions by 20 per cent by 2030.

Vietnam promises to unconditionally reduce its GHG emissions by 8 per cent by the year 2030, but the rate could reach 25 per cent with international support. Vietnam has intensified its efforts in forest protection, afforestation and reforestation.

For Indonesia, its INDC pledged to reduce deforestation and cut annual emissions by 29 percent by 2030 is unlikely to be met, however, if it does not put out the forest fires permanently.

Core issues
Observers note that the UN-sponsored climate talks start with countries submitting their INDCs to the planned climate change agreement. That these INDCs, focusing mainly on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, are “nationally determined” suggests that the agreement will have a strong bottom-up approach.

The summit will try to merge the INDCs with “top-down” elements to forge a compromise that assures broad participation and stronger direction. The task, however, will not be easy. Four core issues remain intractable. [3]

Differentiation – Developed countries do not want to have binding emissions targets for developed nations only, which they contend should be for all. Developing nations want the onus to be on the big emitters.

Finance – Developing countries want developed countries to make good on their commitment to mobilise US$100 billion a year in public and private finance by 2020 to establish a Green Climate Fund to finance mitigation and adaptation projects. Developed nations want to have more donor countries so the burden is not entirely on them.

Legal character ­– While the agreement will have “legal force”, there is no consensus on precisely what form it will take. While the United States, for example, is ready for binding procedural commitments, it opposes binding emission targets.

Transparency – Existing requirements for the reporting of country efforts are two-tiered, with a more rigorous system for developed countries than for developing ones. Developed countries are pushing for a common framework for all parties.

But there is hope that intractable positions in the past might change this time around, in view of undeniable evidence that global warming and climate change are here.

The United States and China have announced that both want a deal. The European Union also has set its target, which accounts for more than half of the world’s emissions. India has begun devoting more attention to climate change.

If only Indonesia can put out its fires and two big Asian economies, Japan and Korea, join the bandwagon, and political will strengthens among the big economies, Paris 2015 could be a landmark for the struggle to mitigate global warming and climate change.

Crispin Maslog is a former journalist and now science journalism professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and director of the Silliman School of Journalism, Philippines. He is a consultant of the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication and board chairperson of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, both based in Manila. This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s South-East Asia & Pacific desk.

References
[1] Nancy Harris et al. With latest fires crisis, Indonesia surpasses Russia as world’s fourth-largest emitter (World Resources Institute, 29 October 2015)
[2] Center for Climate and Energy Solutions Submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) (Accessed 14 November 2015)
[3] Elliot Diringer The core issues in the Paris climate talks (Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2 November 2015)

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9508