Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak.

The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (APJ) for a media freedom law.

ABC’s managing director David Anderson said in a statement “The Afghan Files is factual and important reporting which exposed allegations about Australian soldiers committing war crimes in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom and what it campaigns for

“Its accuracy has never been challenged.”

Peter Greste, AJF’s spokesperson, said Australia urgently needed a Media Freedom Act.

“Australia is the only Five Eyes nation that has similar levels of national security protections, but no press freedom protections written into our legal code,” he said.

“To find balance between these two fundamental pillars of democracy, we urgently need a Media Freedom Act.

“The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom has been calling for a Media Freedom Act since May 2019, three weeks before the AFP’s raids on Annika Smethurst’s home and ABC’s Ultimo offices.

“The news that an Australian journalist who reported in the public interest is now at risk of being prosecuted by the Commonwealth DPP is a plain example that we need to strike this balance urgently, or risk further damaging our democracy.”

The AJF promotes press freedom and the right of journalists to report the news in freedom and safety. This includes working with Australian governments to ensure legislation supports press freedom.

The alliance also campaigns in the Asia-Pacific region, wherever journalists are censored, threatened, imprisoned or killed.

• Possible prosecution of journalist must be dropped – MEAA

The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom has welcomed the decision by the Australian Federal Police to drop charges against Newscorp journalist Annika Smethurst and has renewed its call for a media freedom law.

The announcement, coming more than a year after the raids, underscores the need for unambiguous protections for press freedom in Australian law, the AJF said in a statement.

The AFP were searching for evidence of the source of a story she published revealing secret plans by the government to expand the powers of the nation’s international electronic eavesdropping agency, the Australian Signals Directorate.

READ MORE: Australia’s global media freedom status – ‘investigative journalism in danger’

The raid, and a similar one the following day on the offices of the ABC, highlighted the precarious position of Australian journalists who are fulfilling their democratic duty to keep watch over our government.

It also appeared to send a message to both journalists and their sources exposing abuses of government authority – the police are prepared to come after you.

The AJF believes the damage the case has done to journalism, to the AFP’s reputation, and to Australia’s international standing as a champion of democratic values, could have been avoided if press freedom was clearly enshrined in our legal code.

AJF spokesperson Professor Peter Greste, the UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, said: “This decision is the right one, but the controversy would never have happened if we had a law in place that protects journalism in the public interest, while giving the security agencies the tools they need to go after genuine threats to the country.

“We can do that with a Media Freedom Act. Such an act would clearly establish the relationship between journalists holding government to account, and the security agencies trying to keep us safe.

“A Media Freedom Act would enshrine the public’s right to know, but also help the security forces from damaging the very thing they aim to protect, namely the health of one of the world’s most successful democracies.”

The AAJF first called for a Media Freedom Act in May 2019, three weeks before the raids.

Australia is ranked 21st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

• AFP rules out charges against NewsCorp journalist Annika Smethurst after raid

The 4300-km Trans-Papua Highway costing some US$1.4 billion was supposed to bring “wealth, development and prosperity” to the isolated regions of West Papua.

At least, that’s how the planners and politicians envisaged the highway far away in their Jakarta offices.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is so enthusiastic about the project as a cornerstone for his infrastructure strategies that he had publicity photographs taken of him on his Kawasaki trail motorbike on the highway.

But that isn’t how West Papuans see “The Road”.

READ MORE: Indonesia’s development dilemmas – green info gap and budget pressure

In reality, writes Australian journalist John Martinkus in his new book The Road: Uprising in West Papua published today, the highway brings military occupation by Indonesian troops, exploitation by foreign companies, environmental destruction and colonisation by Indonesian transmigrants.

“The road would bring the death of their centuries-old way of life, previously undisturbed aside from the occasional Indonesian military incursion and the mostly welcome arrival of Christian missionaries.

“It was inevitable, really, that the plan by the Indonesian state to develop the isolated interior of the West Papua and Papua provinces would meet resistance.”

Nduga pro-independence stronghold
The Nduga area in the rugged and isolated mountains north of Timika, near the giant Freeport copper and gold mine, has traditionally been a stronghold of pro-independence supporters.

For centuries the Dani and Nduga tribespeople had fought ritualistic battles against each other – and outsiders.

That is, until the Indonesians brought troops and military aircraft to the highlands that “did not play by these rules”.

On 1 December 2018, a ceremony marking the declaration of independence from the Dutch in 1961 by raising the Morning Star flag of a free Papua – as Papuans do every year – ended in bloodshed.

Usually the flag waving – illegal as far the Indonesian authorities are concerned – goes unnoticed. But the highway has now come to this remote village.

Indonesians took photos on their cellphones of the flag raising and this sparked the kidnapping of 19 road construction workers and a soldier (although pro-independence sources argue that many of the workers are in fact soldiers) and they were shot dead.

The Indonesian military have carried out reprisal raids In the 18 months since then forcing some 45,000 people to flee their villages and become internal refugees. Two thousand soldiers, helicopters and 650 commandos are involved in security operations and protecting the highway.

‘Helicopters are the worst’
“It is the helicopters that are the worst. They are used as platforms to shoot or drop white phosphorous grenades or bomblets that inflict horrible injuries on the populace,” writes Martinkus.

The Trans-Papua Highway would realise the boast of the founding Indonesian President Sukarno for a unified nation – “From Sabang to Merauke”, is what he would chant to cheering rallies.

Sabang is in Aceh in the west of the republic and Merauke is in the south-east corner of Papua, just 60 km from the Papua New Guinean border.

The Indonesian generals, not wanting anything to interfere with their highway exploitation plans, have vowed to “crush” the resistance. However, the contemporary Papuan rebels are better armed, better organised and more determined than the earlier rebellion that followed the United Nations mandated, but flawed, “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 when 1026 handpicked men and women voted under duress to become part of Indonesia.

Martinkus, a four-time Walkley Award-nominated investigative journalist specialising in Asia and the Middle East, has travelled to both ends of this highway. He reported in the early 2000s from West Papua until the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan became his major beats.

His earlier book A Dirty Little War exposed the hidden side to the Timor-Leste struggle for independence.

The Road traverses the winding down of Dutch rule, early history of Indonesian colonialism in West Papua, the environmental and social devastation caused by the Grasberg mine, the petition to the United Nations, the Nduga crisis, the historic tabling of a 40 kg petition – 1.8 million signatures – by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua calling for a referendum on independence, the so-called 2019 “monkey” uprising that began as a student clash in the Java city of Surabaya and led to rioting across Papua, and now the coronavirus outbreak.

Tribute to journalists reporting
Martinkus pays tribute to the handful of earlier journalists who have risked much to tell the story that Australian and New Zealand diplomats do not want to hear and has been denied by Indonesian authorities. An ABC Foreign Correspondent programme, including West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor, last week was one of the rare exceptions.

Amnesty International has estimated that more than 100,000 Papuans have died since the Indonesian takeover. Four Australian-based researchers have embarked on a new project to map the violence in West Papua.

“Eventually in the 1980s and the 90s, writers such George Monbiot ventured into the areas cleared out by the Indonesians [for palm oil plantations and timber]. Robin Osborne also produced a landmark account of that time,” he writes.

“Filmmaker Mark Worth, photojournalist Ben Bohane and ABC-then-SBS reporter Mark Davis continued to try to cover events in West Papua. Lindsay Murdoch of Fairfax provided excellent coverage of the massacre on the island of Biak, off the north coast of Papua.”

As in Timor-Leste, Martinkus recalls, the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998 provided a “period of confusion among the military commanders on the ground”.

“They didn’t know if they could expel, arrest or kill journalists as they had in the past, and it created an environment where it was finally possible for reporters to get to previously inaccessible places and speak to people.

“The turmoil in Jakarta had created a kind of stasis among the military commanders in the far-flung provinces.”

Nevertheless, the Indonesian military watched and waited – and noted and recorded who the Papuan dissenters were. Who to arrest and kill when political conditions became more helpful.

The Papuan story and gatekeepers
Why has it been so difficult to tell the Papuan story – to get past the media gatekeepers? There are several reasons, according to Martinkus.

First, the daily oppression that West Papuan people face – and have faced for half a century – was of little interest to news editors.

“But it [is] that daily fear, and the casual violence and intimidation, that [is] the story,” says Martinkus.

“For Papuans it [has] become a way of life: constant intimidation and violence and extortion by the Indonesian military, punctuated by short, sharp moments of protest and resistance, followed by the inevitable crackdown.”

Martinkus recalls his experience of when reporting in East Timor, “in order to get a story run you had to have more than 10 dead; the daily grind of one shot there, one beating there, one arrest there, never made it into the press.

“I’ll never forget the cynical words delivered down the phone by one Australian editor after I had watched a man – a boy, really – shot dead in front of my eyes as I cowered in a ditch to avoid Indonesian gunfire in East Timor.

“’So what are your plucky brown fellows up to today?’ he said. He didn’t run the story.”

‘Cosy relationship’ between Australia, Indonesia
Another factor is the “cosy relationship” between Indonesia and Australia (and New Zealand) and Martinkus describes how this was tested in January 2006 when 43 Papuan asylum seekers beached in Cape York, Queensland. They had sailed for five days from the southern coast of Papua to escape Indonesian “genocide”.

While they were detained on the remote Christmas Island centre for refugees, they were all – except one – eventually granted with a temporary visa.

Another reason for the media silence, according to Martinkus, is the “lingering memory of the Balibo Five” – the Australian-based journalists, including a New Zealander, who met their fate in East Timor in 1975.

“They were killed in cold blood in the border town of Balibo as the Indonesians prepared to invade, and [a sixth executed] at the wharf in Dili on the first day of the invasion.

“The ruthlessness of those killings, the utter disregard of any international norms and the spineless and reprehensible cover up of the circumstances of their deaths by both the Indonesian and Australian governments had spooked the journalists and media organisations.

“If the Indonesians said you couldn’t go to an area, you didn’t go; the assumption was that they would kill you and no one would intervene.”

Martinkus says that “same attitude prevailed” when he began reporting in Indonesia in the mid-1990s.

‘Random killings, endless arrests’
The author is critical of the “centrist” President Widodo who was elected in a landslide in 2014 – and for a second term last year – on a promise of a more relaxed policy on access to West Papua.

“Six years later, the random killings, endless arrests and egregious torture continue.

“One recent video shows a Papuan man being bound the sliced with a large military knife as Indonesian troops stand around laughing.

“Another shows a Papuan man restrained in a cell as Indonesian soldiers throw in a snake and take pictures of his terror.”

Martinkus questions the cruel rationale for the need of Indonesian soldiers and police to “drip-feed appalling abuses” on social media.

“Is it some kind of warning to Papuans not to support independence, or just a symptom of the moral vacuum they enter once they are deployed to Papua?”

Martinkus believes that, in spite of the bravado and harsh treatments, Indonesians are “fundamentally scared of the Papuans”.

Although Indonesians have been in West Papua for more than 50 years, “West Papua and its people are still very foreign to them.” They have tried to create a society that is a “mirror image of their own in a land they occupied against the wishes of the local population”.

The attempt has failed, and the Papuans will never stop resisting until they are free.

• John Martinkus (2020). The Road: Uprising in West Papua. 114 pages. Carlton, Vic: Black Books
• John Martinkus in conversation with Mark Davis
• Inside Indonesia’s Secret War for West Papua

The jailing of the Jakarta Six – five Papuans and the first Indonesian to be convicted for a Papuan protest – in Indonesia last month has focused global attention on the plight of political prisoners in the face of a failing struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.

Already several analysts are warning that both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are at risk of becoming coronavirus “failed states” and this will be of concern to Australia and New Zealand.

While Papua New Guinea has had only eight confirmed covid-19 cases so far – a spike is expected this month in spite of the state of emergency, Indonesia already has 10,843 cases with 831 deaths and the real toll is feared to be higher and climbing.

READ MORE: Tough coronavirus controls threaten Pacific, global media freedom

In Indonesia’s two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, the figures are reportedly 189 and 37 respectively with seven deaths overall and a new surge reported in the Mimika mining hub. Remote tribespeople have taken to setting up their own blockades to protect their villages.

“Countries with pre-existing conditions — poverty, limited healthcare, ineffective or corrupt governments — are fragile, and it is these countries that covid-19 is threatening to push to the brink of survival,” writes ABC’s foreign affairs correspondent Melissa Clarke.

She acknowledges those critics who suggest the United States has made a “solid start” for gaining such a dubious status, “but for the Australian government, the real concerns lie just to the north – Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.”

Human rights advocates and civil society groups are voicing their condemnation of Papuans  being held in crowded and risky Indonesian jails for taking part in peaceful demonstrations and a “Free West Papuan political prisoners” campaign has gone viral on social media.

Political prisoners still held
ETAN – East Timor and Indonesian Action Network, founded in 1991 and one of the most active US non-profit groups campaigning for human rights across Southeast Asia and Oceania, says that while Indonesia “struggles to contain the spread of covid-19”, the government still holds anti-racism and pro-independence prisoners in jails across West Papua, Jakarta and Balikpapan.

“In many cases, trials have continued against these political prisoners endangering the health of the prisoners, lawyers, judges and court staff,” ETAN says.

An urgent appeal to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and UN Special Rapporteurs was filed last month by advocate Jennifer Robinson and Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman, backed by the human rights organisation Tapol, on behalf of 63 political prisoners.

The legal papers demonstrate that all of the detainees are being “arbitrarily and unlawfully detained in violation of Indonesia’s international human rights obligations”.

The prisoners are 56 indigenous West Papuans, five Moluccans, One Indonesia, and one Polish citizen.

“While most of them are on remand and still awaiting trial, seven have been sentenced and others are currently on trials,” says Tapol.

“The great majority of the political prisoners – 56 – were arrested in the crackdown by Indonesian authorities during the mass political protest movement in support of West Papua last year – dubbed the “West Papua Uprising”.

Carrying, displaying flags
“The activities for which they have been detained range from simply carrying or displaying the West Papuan or Moluccan national flags, to participation in peaceful protests and being members of political organisations which support self-determination – all internationally protected activities.”

In its May Day message, ETAN condemned the conviction of the Jakarta Six for their “peaceful expression of their opposition to Indonesia’s heavy-handed rule in West Papua”.

“We call for the immediate release of these prisoners and other Papuans arrested for freedom of expression and for the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the terrible violence perpetrated on them.”

A panel of judges at the Central Jakarta District Court found the six activists guilty of treason on April 24 for holding a protest in support of Papuan independence in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta in last August.

Jakarta court finds 6 activists guilty of treason for holding Papuan protest

The bench handed prison sentences to the activists – Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-West Papua) spokesperson Surya Anta and students Charles Kossay, Deno Tabuni, Isay Wenda, Ambrosius Mulait and Arina Elopere – during a virtual verdict hearing. All activists were handed a nine-month prison sentence (including jail time already served), except for Wenda who was punished with eight months’ imprisonment

The defendants’ lawyer, Oky Wiratama, said she was disappointed with the verdicts and questioned the judicial process.

Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid said the treason charges might have been misused by the government against people who should never have been arrested or detained in the first place.

Students targeted
On August 16, the day before Indonesians celebrate independence, Papuan students in dormitories in East Java were targeted by students after rumours spread that the Papuans had “disrespected” the Indonesian flag.

Students and later vigilantes such as the Islam Defenders Front, a notoriously violent Islamist group, attacked West Papuan students, calling them “pigs,” “monkeys” and “dogs”.

Accounts of these attacks show Indonesian security forces directing attacks, and in later attacks participating in the violence against Papuans and Asia Pacific Report widely covered the crisis.

The challenge now is over the risks to these political prisoners languishing in their Indonesian jails. Reports suggest that covid-19 deaths in Indonesia may be substantially higher than officially reported. With the mass overcrowding, the prisons are likely to be vectors for the spread of the coronavirus.

In the Philippines, where jails are also congested, nearly 10,000 prisoners have been released in a bid to halt the spread of covid-19 after outbreaks at several facilities. While announcing the release of 9731prisoners, Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Victor Leonen told media the justice system was “very much aware of the congested situation” in prisons.

‘Shameful’ media freedom threat
Meanwhile, World Press Freedom Day today is being marked by many statements honouring journalists and frontline workers at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.

Among the first statements were from Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union for journalists which called for serious reforms to reverse a raft of “national security” laws that can be used to criminalise journalism and punish whistleblowers for telling the truth.

The union said  that Australia’s reputation as a healthy democracy was now at risk, adding that it was “shameful” that on World Press Freedom Day, three journalists who were the subject of police raids last year “still have the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads”.

In MEAA’s just-released annual The War on Journalism report, 89 percent of 2472 respondents in a survey stated the health of press freedom was poor, or very poor – a sharp deterioration from 71.5 percent in 2019.

“While covid-19 casts a shadow over journalism, we celebrate the bravery of those on the reporting frontline,” declared Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia  (JERAA) president Dr Alex Wake in a statement.

She wrote there was little to celebrate this World Press Freedom Day with Australia slipping five places to 26th in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index  – New Zealand dropped two places to ninth, and other Pacific countries such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga have also slumped.

“Covid-19 is casting our struggling news industry into deeper turmoil, populist world leaders are cheering on attacks on journalists, and funding cuts at Australian universities pose a looming threat to journalism education and research,” she said in the statement.

However, Dr Wake added that colleagues could “honour the extraordinary work of our frontline reporters, many of them just out of our classrooms, putting their own safety at risk covering the covid-19 pandemic”.

It is easy to assume Australia has a free press. Our squawky newspapers are filled with stories about the failings of government, acid-tongued columnists routinely lash our politicians, and until May last year the police hardly ever raided newsrooms or journalists.

On Wednesday, the High Court appeared to uphold the principle of press freedom when it ruled that the warrant the Australian Federal Police used to search News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst’s home in 2019 was invalid.

You might recall that the police raided her home (and searched through her underwear drawer) looking for the source of a story Smethurst had published in The Daily Telegraph more than a year earlier.

READ MORE: Why the raids on Australian media present a clear threat to democracy

• RSF criticises Australian court for being ‘unconcerned by press freedom, protection of sources’

Her story revealed the government was considering expanding the powers of our international electronic eavesdropping agency, the Australian Signals Directorate, so it could turn its sophisticated bugs on Australian citizens.

(The very next day, the AFP searched the ABC’s Sydney headquarters looking for the sources of another story – the Afghan Files – about Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.)

Smethurst’s story was important because it revealed details of a shift in policy that affected all Australians. Regardless of what you think about the rights or wrongs of such a change, it is hard to argue it should not have been part of an open public debate.

At the same time, nobody has ever suggested national security suffered as a result of the story. It was a fine example of a free press doing its job by uncovering government actions that we all ought to know about.

Slap-down for police
News Corp went to the High Court to argue that the police had written the warrant so badly that it failed to explain why they were conducting the search and what they were looking for. In a unanimous slap-down for the police, all seven judges on the bench agreed the warrant “lacked clarity” and ruled it invalid.

A victory for journalism? Not quite.

News Corp also asked the court to order the police to either return or destroy any evidence collected during the raid. In a decision split 4:3, the judges rejected the request. This effectively allowed the police to still use the evidence for any investigation and prosecution.

The reasoning is complex and highly technical, but its overall effect is to undermine the already paper-thin protections for press freedom in Australia.

This is not the fault of the court. It was doing its job adjudicating on narrow points of law and police procedure, but it does underscore the urgent need for robust reform of our legal code.

Australian journalists operate freely in spite of the law, rather than because of it. While the United States Constitution has its First Amendment and the UK has Article 10 of its Human Rights Act (to name just a few), the most we have is a hopelessly weak “implied freedom of political communication” that’s merely inferred in our constitution.

Without more explicit protections, we have seen a slew of national security laws undermining the ability of journalists to investigate government and keep their sources safe.

This matters because the ability of the press to act as a noisy (and nosy) watchdog is vital to the way our democracy works.

Nobody is arguing for complete and unfettered protection for journalists. Much of the work of our security agencies, individuals’ private details and commercially sensitive information must be off-limits, but there are ways of striking a balance between those imperatives.

A host of organisations have already proposed a set of reforms. The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (which I represent) published a White Paper on Press Freedom in Australia three weeks before the raids. The AJF proposes:

• protections for journalists’ sources
• the chance for news organisations to contest warrants even before the police carry out their searches
• an “exemption from prosecution”, so that when journalists are engaged in legitimate work, press freedom is assumed.

It would then be up to the police to show a judge why there is enough of a risk to national security to justify setting aside that principle and issuing a warrant.

It is impossible to reform every corner of our statute books, though, so we also need a Media Freedom Act that enshrines the principle of press freedom in our legal code. That way, every court up to and including the High Court has to take it into account in every case that threatens to undermine media freedom.

Together, those kinds of protections would give comfort to journalists and their sources: as long as they are not violating clear and strictly set-out rules on national security and privacy, and are otherwise acting in accordance with the law, they should not be subject to prosecution. It would also help the police avoid being accused of launching politically motivated inquiries.

Our press might look free and fearless, but without significant reforms that remains a dangerously fragile illusion.

Dr Peter Greste is the UNESCO professor of journalism and communications The University of Queensland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

• To protect press freedom, we need more public outrage – and an overhaul of our laws
  
  

The ABC’s decision today to end the appeal process against the warrant used to raid its offices demonstrates that the system is broken, says the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).

The union says the only way to fix this is to change the law to protect public interest journalism and whistleblowers.

MEAA media federal president Marcus Strom said: “That warrant targeted journalists who had published the truth.

READ MORE: The Afghan Files – Defence leak exposes deadly secrets

“The warrant was issued with the intent to bypass the journalists’ ethical obligation to never reveal the identity of a confidential source – a principle of journalism recognised around the world.

“Journalists and whistleblowers cannot feel safe until there are legislative reforms to protect public interest journalism.

“Remember, there are three journalists still in legal limbo following the raids on the ABC and the home of a News Corporation journalist.

“This is not about making journalists above the law, but to bring the law into line with community expectations. There must be a positive legal protection for journalism that is in the public interest in order to uphold the public’s right to know.”

‘Scope of warrant disturbing’
Strom added: “The scope of the warrant is extremely disturbing. It allowed the AFP to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ material in the ABC’s computers. That represents a genuine threat to the ability of media outlets to carry out their duties if government agencies can cause immense disruption to entire computer networks as well as undermine the privacy of other Australians unrelated to the warrant’s intent.

“The warrant was approved by a local court registrar in Queanbeyan. But it is clear that there needs to be greater oversight of these warrants.”

“As ABC managing director David Anderson has said today, the journalism in the Afghan Files was published almost two years before the raid. Its veracity has never been questioned.

“And yet for publishing the truth and upholding the public’s right to know, three journalists now face lengthy jail terms. Warrants should be contestable before they unleash their damage on the truth and the public’s right to know.”

The Department of Home Affairs and the AFP have made a supplementary submission to a Parliamentary inquiry into the freedom of the press that rejects the notion of contestable warrants, claiming contestability had the “potential [to] undermine the efficacy of such a warrant”.

Strom said: “That argument is a nonsense. The potential for overreach has already been acknowledged by the Department.

“On August 9 last year, Minister Dutton directed the AFP ‘to take into account the importance of a free and open press in Australia’s democratic society and to consider broader public interest implications before undertaking investigative action involving a professional journalist or news media organisation’.

‘Reforming bad law’
“Contestability is clearly necessary to stem overreach by government departments and the AFP.

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy added: “The ability to contest warrants is not about placing journalists above the law. It is about reforming bad law.

“Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Australian Parliament has passed at least 75 national security laws. Under the guise of protecting the nation, many of those laws have introduced new penalties that criminalise journalists and their journalism, and persecute and punish whistleblowers for exposing wrongdoing.

“The public’s right to know what our government’s do in our name must not be allowed to be usurped by bad laws that punish the truth,” Murphy said.

A Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) media release.

• Other ABC raid stories

An Australian federal court decision upholding the legality of the police raid on the Sydney headquarters of the national public broadcaster ABC last June has dealt a major blow to the protection of journalists’ sources and poses a grave danger for the future of public interest journalism, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

In its ruling issued on February 17, the court rejected the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s challenge to the legality of the search warrant that allowed federal police to search computers, emails and USB sticks at its headquarters on 5 June 2019.

The police were trying to identify the source for The Afghan Files reporting by ABC journalists Sam Clark and Dan Oakes in 2017 about the role of Australian special forces in the illegal killing of civilians in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: The Afghan Files: Defence leak exposes deadly secrets of Australia’s special forces

The reporters used material provided by a whistleblower within the Defence Ministry.

“If confirmed on appeal, this federal court ruling will set a disturbing legal precedent by turning investigative reporters and whistleblowers into criminals,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“The ABC story never compromised national security and clearly served the interests of the Australian public, who have a right to reliable and independent information freely reported by journalists.

“We call on the federal judges to guarantee this right on appeal by recognising the search warrant’s illegality.”

Ruling fraught with consequences
Under the warrant, the police were authorised to search for evidence that the two journalists had “unlawfully obtained military information” and “dishonestly received stolen property”.

The supposedly stolen property was the leaked documents that exposed the illegal killings reported in The Afghan Files.

The federal police raid on ABC was all the more shocking for coming just one day after a raid on News Corp political editor Annika Smethurst’s home in Canberra. The timing of the two raids was widely seen as a deliberate attempt to intimidate investigative journalists.

The judicial precedents set by these two cases are particularly fraught with consequences inasmuch as Australia’s constitutional law contains no guarantees for press freedom.

• Australia is ranked 21st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) addressed Australia’s Parliament yesterday.

Indonesia is often referred to as the democratic success story of Southeast Asia and a model of Muslim democracy, yet it has been responsible for significant backsliding on human rights in recent years.

This backsliding is serious enough that Australian leaders should ask Jokowi some hard questions during his Canberra visit.

READ MORE: Joko Widodo uses historic speech to call for greater action to tackle climate change

Here are five current human rights concerns:

1. Indonesia’s draconian new Criminal Code
Indonesia has been working on updating its colonial-era Criminal Code for decades. Now Indonesia’s Parliament is discussing a new draft code with a raft of problematic provisions that would be disastrous for women and minorities, and for many Indonesians in general.

The new code proposes to punish extramarital sex with up to one year in jail and unmarried couples who live together with six months. Consensual sex between adults should never be a crime, and this law would disproportionately affect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

While it does not mention same-sex conduct, same-sex relationships are not legally recognised in Indonesia, so it would effectively criminalise all same-sex conduct.

The code also would criminalise disseminating information about contraception as well as criminalising some abortions. It would expand the toxic blasphemy law, which has been used to target religious minorities.

While Jokowi delayed the vote following mass protests against the proposed code last year, he should show leadership in ensuring that abusive provisions are removed. These provisions not only violate Indonesia’s human rights obligations but will help foment hatred and discrimination against certain groups.

2. Rising discrimination and attacks against LGBT people
While some gay and lesbian Australians might not think twice about visiting Bali for a holiday, they should be concerned about the rise in hateful rhetoric, discrimination and violence against LGBT people in Indonesia.

Since early 2016, Indonesian politicians, government officials, and state offices have issued anti-LGBT statements – calling for everything from criminalisation to “cures” for homosexuality, to censorship of information about LGBT people and of positive reporting on their activities.

The government’s failure to halt arbitrary and unlawful raids by police and militant Islamists on private LGBT gatherings has effectively derailed public health outreach efforts to vulnerable populations. Last November, Indonesia’s ombudsman revealed that a number of ministries openly discriminate against LGBT people in job postings, saying that applicants “must not be mentally disabled and not show sexual orientation or behavioral deviations.”

3. No UN access for West Papua
The 2019 Pacific Island Forum Leaders’ statement, signed by all Pacific nations including Australia, expressed concern about “reported escalation in violence and continued allegations of human rights abuses in West Papua (Papua)” and urged the Indonesian government to honour Jokowi’s 2018 promise to allow the UN Human Rights Office to visit the two provinces and report on the situation before the next Pacific Island Forum’s leaders meeting this year.

But the UN Human Rights Office has still had no access to West Papua. And last year’s protests and violence, in which at least 53 people – both Papuans and migrants from other parts of Indonesia – were killed and hundreds more wounded, make the visit even more urgent. Precise estimates on deaths are difficult because access to Papua is limited.

Indonesian authorities have detained and charged at least 22 people for peaceful acts of free expression – mainly for raising the pro-Papuan independence Morning Star flag or speaking about “West Papua independence” in public. They are charged with  treason (makar) and face up to 20 years in prison.

4. Rising religious intolerance
Indonesia’s blasphemy law punishes deviations from the central tenets of Indonesia’s six officially recognised religions – Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism – with up to five years in prison. The blasphemy law is alarmingly used for political purposes and to target religious minorities.

The highest-profile victim of the law was the former Jakarta governor, Basuki Purnama (Ahok), sentenced in 2017 to two years in prison for allegedly defaming Islam in a speech to fishermen on Seribu Islands, near Jakarta. More recently, a woman was sentenced to 18 months in prison for complaining about the level of a mosque’s loudspeaker.

These are among a number of worrying signs of growing efforts by the government to impose religious conservatism.

Local and provincial-level governments in at least five provinces have introduced decrees mandating that women and girls must wear the hijab in civic buildings, universities and schools. Schools have enforced these regulations in more than a dozen provinces, even on non-Muslim students.

5. Defence Minister implicated in abuses
Imagine what would happen if an Australian soldier discharged from the military for human rights abuses and disobeying orders became our Defence Minister. That is exactly what has happened in Indonesia, when last year Jokowi appointed his presidential opponent, Prabowo Subianto, to the post.

The Indonesian army dismissed Prabowo in 1998 over allegations of kidnapping of more than two dozen activists in 1997-98 during the fall of Suharto. He has also been accused of abuses in East Timor during his time there as a Kopassus commander.

Indonesia’s military has a long  record of impunity for killings and enforced disappearances. That is sadly unlikely to improve under Prabowo’s leadership of one of Indonesia’s most powerful institutions.

President Jokowi has another four years to take concrete steps to protect the human rights and freedoms for  all Indonesians. But unless he takes steps to stop the backsliding, Indonesia may face much bigger social and political crises.

Elaine Pearson is Australia director of Human Rights Watch. This article has been republished from HRW.

Australians picked up their morning papers yesterday to find heavily blacked-out text instead of front-page headlines. This bold statement was instigated by the “Your Right to Know” campaign, an unlikely coalition of Australian media organisations fighting for press freedom and source protection.

A key reform advocated by a range of organisations and experts – including our research team at the University of Queensland – is the introduction of a Media Freedom Act. Unlike human rights or anti-discrimination legislation, there is no clear precedent for such an act.

So what exactly might a Media Freedom Act look like and is it a good idea?

READ MORE: Australian Attorney-General grants limited protection to embattled journalists

It was the June raids on the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters that revealed the fragile state of press freedom in Australia. Two parliamentary inquiries into press freedom are on foot, with public hearings before the Senate committee  starting last Friday.

Parliament will soon face the question: can we protect national security without sacrificing that cornerstone of liberal democracy, press freedom? If so, how?

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s immediate response to the raids was to state that journalists would be prosecuted if they received top-secret documents. A month later, Dutton issued a ministerial directive to the AFP that emphasised the importance of press freedom and the need for restrained action against journalists.

Attorney-General Christian Porter’s subsequent directive was more moderate, ensuring that he would have the final say on whether journalists would be prosecuted on the basis of their work “in a professional capacity as a journalist”.

These directives may reflect a burgeoning appreciation within government of the importance of the press in ensuring democratic free speech and accountability.

However, the laws that undermine press freedom by targeting journalists and their sources remain on the books. These laws include many of the now 82 (and counting) national security laws enacted since September 11 2001. This is more than anywhere else in the world and some of these laws grant the government uniquely severe powers of detention and interrogation.

A Media Freedom Act could serve three key roles, making it an appropriate and advantageous option in the protection of national security, press freedom and democracy.

Recognise the fourth estate
First, a Media Freedom Act would recognise and affirm the importance of press freedom in Australia. This recognition would support the fourth estate role of the media and demonstrate Australia’s commitment to democratic accountability and the rule of law. It would carry the weight of legislation rather than the relative flimsiness of ad hoc directives.

In this way, a Media Freedom Act would represent a clear commitment to the public’s right and capacity to know about how they are governed and power is exercised.

The act would also recognise that press freedom is not an absolute, but may be subject to necessary and proportionate limitations.

A culture of disclosure
Second, it would support a transition from a culture of secrecy to a culture of disclosure and open government across the public sector. This role could be served by requiring the public sector (including law enforcement and intelligence officers) to consider the impact of their decisions on press freedom and government accountability and to adopt the least intrusive option that is reasonably available.

This requirement echoes Dutton’s directive. It is already part of the law of Victoria, the ACT and Queensland, where free expression is protected within those jurisdictions’ charters of rights. Like the charters, a federal Media Freedom Act would aim to bring about a cultural shift and contribute to the gradual rebuilding of trust between government and the media.

At federal level, the parliament must already consider the impact of a new law on freedom of expression under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act. A Media Freedom Act could reinforce the importance of parliament and the public sector considering the impact on press freedom when it debates and enacts new laws.

Journalism is not a crime
Third, and most importantly, a Media Freedom Act would protect press freedom by ensuring legitimate journalism was excluded from the scope of criminal offences.

It is important that this be in the form of an exemption rather than a defence. This has no substantial legal impact. But, crucially, an exemption conveys that the journalist had not engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

It also places the onus on the prosecution to prove the exemption doesn’t apply. This therefore alleviates the chilling effect on press freedom caused by the threat of court action.

The framing of the protection will attract debate (what, after all, is a journalist? And what is journalism?).

A good starting point is the existing journalism defence to the general secrecy offence in section 122.5 of the Criminal Code. For that defence to apply, the person must have:

• dealt with the information in their capacity as a “person engaged in the business of reporting news, presenting current affairs or expressing editorial or other content in news media”
• have reasonably believed that engaging in the conduct was in the public interest.

A single act or many amendments?
A Media Freedom Act is not a panacea; it would not avoid the need for a detailed review of Australia’s legal frameworks for their impact on press freedom.

In particular, protections for private sector, public sector and intelligence whistleblowers need attention. Suppression orders and defamation laws also have a serious chilling effect on Australian journalism. However, the present approach of considering dozens of individual schemes for their discrete impact on press freedom, and seeking technical amendments to each to alleviate that impact, is cumbersome, illogical and destined to create loopholes.

Australia’s national security laws are uniquely broad and complex. At present, an inconsistent array of (notably few) journalism-based defences and exemptions from prosecution are scattered across these laws. Inconsistency leads to confusion, and overlapping offences make it even more difficult for journalists to know when they are crossing the line into criminal conduct.

The imperative to protect press freedom is fundamental and deserving of general recognition and protection. In light of these concerns, our international obligations and the rule-of-law concerns for legal clarity, consistency and proportionality, it is time for a Media Freedom Act.

• Rebecca Ananian-Welsh is a senior lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Newly released documents show that another government agency along with the Australian Federal Police was involved in the investigation that led to raids on Australian journalists and media offices in June, reports ABC news.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) have shown that the AFP refused to release certain documents relating to the June 6 raid on the ABC because it said they related to a Federal Government agency which is exempt from the FOI.

The government agencies exempt from the operations of the FOI are the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

READ MORE: Media groups calls for reform to protect press freedom in Australia

South Australian Senator Rex Patrick, to whom the documents were released under an FOI application said he believed the other agency was either ASIO or the Australian Signals Directorate.

The raid on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters related to the Afghan Files, a series of stories which detailed incidents where Australian soldiers in Afghanistan killed unarmed men and children.

According to the ABC, the involvement of the ASD would raise the significance of the raids to a new level as its role is to monitor the communications of people of interest outside Australia.

Government eavesdropping
The story which prompted another of the raids — on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst — was about the push by some within the Federal Government to give ASD power to monitor the communications of Australians in Australia, which is currently prohibited by law.

The documents also showed that the then acting head of the AFP, Neil Gaughan was given a list of “media talking-points” – prepared answers for the press-conference immediately after the ABC raids should journalists ask specific questions about the investigations and the warrant process.

Senator Patrick told the ABC: “The documents released under FOI show that the AFP raids were targeting journalists as much as the sources of alleged leaks”.

Message to the press
“Despite the AFP’s protestations that they support journalistic freedom, there can be no doubt that they intended to send a message to the press.

According to the Guardian, the ABC has protested the validity of the AFP’s search warrants and told the Federal Court that the decision to grant the search warrant was “legally unreasonable” and should be set aside.

Matt Collins, QC for the ABC said the warrant was issued without consideration of the rights of journalists to protect their sources and the implied freedom of political communication under the constitution.

Collins said the warrant was “excessively broad” and materially misstated the terms of the offences.

Warrants ‘rubber-stamped’
Senator Rex Patrick told the ABC that the AFP “chose not to obtain journalist warrants to search journalists’ metadata and instead proceeded direct to obtain search warrants from court authorities more likely to rubber-stamp their applications.”

“In doing so the AFP deliberately avoided having to pay a highly qualified public interest advocate to examine the merits or otherwise of their investigation and argue against the grant of a warrant.”

Patrick said he had a long list of questions which he will seek answers to.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The Queensland Police Service (QPS) has dropped trespass charges against a prominent French journalist and his film crew who were arrested while filming anti-Adani protesters earlier this week, reports ABC News.

France 2 reporter Hugo Clément – a high-profile environmental and climate change journalist –  his crew and several protesters were arrested on the railway line at the entrance to Adani’s Abbot Point coal-loading facility on Monday.

In a statement, QPS said it had “reviewed the circumstances surrounding the arrests of five people at a port facility near Bowen on Monday”.

READ MORE: RSF demands Australian police drop charges against French TV crew

“The decision to withdraw charges follows careful consideration of the circumstances, including QPS policies and procedures,” the statement said.

“As a result, the QPS will withdraw all charges against a 28-year-old Victorian man and four male French nationals — aged 29, 30, 32 and 39 — when the matters are brought before Bowen Magistrates Court again on July 30.”

Charges will still proceed against two Victorian women, aged 20 and 22, who took part in the protest.

Shortly after being released from Bowen police station on Monday, Clément expressed his surprise at being arrested.

‘Difficult to understand’
“It’s just difficult to understand why police decided to do that because we are not a danger, we did not block the railway, we are just filming, reporting what is going on here,” he said.

QPS said representatives of all five people had been notified of the decision and that it would make no further comment on the matter as it remained before the courts.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) CEO Paul Murphy said it was “wonderful news”.

Murphy said the union had written to the Premier, Attorney-General and Police Commissioner asking for the charges to be dropped.

“It was such a bad look for Australia and it is great news that common sense has prevailed,” Murphy said.

“It seems extraordinary they were not given the opportunity to be informed that they were on private land and given the opportunity to move on.

“They were simply arrested and then had these extraordinary bail conditions imposed on them, it was completely wrong.”

He said he could not recall a previous occasion when journalists had been charged while covering a protest.

“But coming from the back of the recent AFP raids on the ABC and a News Corporation journalist, it certainly is a worrying time in Australia for press freedom,” he said.

• More Pacific Media Watch stories
• Hugo Clément’s media Facebook page

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Australian authorities to drop all charges against four French TV journalists who – in what RSF called an “unacceptable attack on investigative journalism” – were arrested yesterday while filming environmentalists protesting at a coal terminal near the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Australia.

The four journalists, who work for the French public TV channel France 2, were held for seven hours after being arrested about 7am while filming two women protesters who had chained themselves to the rail line leading to the Abbot Point deep-water coal port in north Queensland.

The journalists – reporter Hugo Clément, producer Guillaume Durand and cameramen Clément Brelet and Victor Peressentchensky – some of whom were handcuffed at the time of their arrest, were charged with “trespassing” on the rail line although, unlike the protesters themselves, they were not on the line.

READ MORE: Earlier Pacific Media Watch report

“The France 2 journalists were doing their job in a completely legal manner in a public space, so their arrest on this spurious charge was the kind of arbitrary procedure more typical of an authoritarian regime,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“We call on the Queensland authorities to immediately drop these absurd charges against the four journalists. Recent repeated press freedom violations in Australia raise questions about respect for the rule of law.

“If nothing changes, Australia has every chance of falling several places in RSF’s next Press Freedom Index.”

Reporting ban
The France 2 journalists were released on bail at around 2pm pending a hearing scheduled for September 3.

The release order specifies that they are banned from being within 100m of any property owned by the Adani Group, the Indian transnational that owns the rail line and coal terminal, and within 20 km of the Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine, 500km south of Abbot Point.

“The link between our arrest and this ban is the Adani Group, which runs the mine,” Clément told RSF.

“The police went straight for us this morning. They clearly didn’t want us filming the protest. And now we are banned from covering this story, which says a lot about the influence that big private-sector corporations wield.”

Adani launched the Carmichael mine in 2014 with the support of the federal and Queensland governments with the aim of turning it into the world’s biggest coal mine.

It would take a heavy environmental toll because it includes the construction of a channel leading to Abbot Point that would destroy part of the Great Barrier Reef.

The French crew was covering the story for “Sur le Front”, a France 2 series on environmental issues.

Major violations
Press freedom in Australian has been badly undermined in recent years by the concentration of private media ownership in ever fewer hands, impacting pluralism.

It was dealt two major blows last month in the form of federal police raids on the home of a political journalist in Canberra and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters in Sydney, in unrelated cases.

And it was reported earlier this month that the federal police had demanded that the Australian airline Qantas surrender its records of an ABC journalist’s travel arrangements as part of its investigation into a leak.

Australia is ranked 21st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index, two places lower than in 2018.

Journalism is not a crime, which is why we must support Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in his battle against extradition to the United States, where he would be tried for offences under the Espionage Act.

On Wednesday last week, it was Assange’s birthday. His last seven birthdays were spent in Ecuador’s London embassy where he had sought refuge to prevent extradition. After UK police violently removed him from the embassy in April, he spent this year’s birthday in Belmarsh high-security prison.

In February, there will be a hearing to decide if Assange will be extradited to the United States. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Assange is literally in mortal danger.

READ MORE: Demasking the torture of Julian Assange

Recently the professor of international law at Glasgow University and UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who visited Assange, found he was showing “symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture …”.

He referred to a “relentless and unrestrained” campaign since Wikileaks started publishing evidence of war crimes and torture in 2010, to criminalise its investigative journalism in violation of both the US Constitution and international human rights law.”

Melzer said this campaign includes intimidation, defamation and an “endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures, and even by judicial magistrates.”

Support for media freedom – not based on who you like or don’t like
Media freedom is very much in the news. Earlier this month, Australia’s most senior media bosses from the ABC, Newscorp and Nine fronted the National Press Club to argue for media law reforms that would strengthen the capacity of journalists to expose the truth.

This followed Federal Police raids on the ABC and the home of The Australian’s reporter Annika Smethurst.

Reform is badly needed. Giant messages of collective solidarity – Journalism is Not a Crime – were beamed across social media. Those messages of solidarity are not based on our opinion of the individual journalists nor the record of Smethurst’s employer Newcorp, which has bullied its critics and promoted climate denialism.

Those matters are irrelevant to our support when it comes to an issue of the freedom of journalists to publish in the public interest. Let’s remember this when we approach the terrible predicament of Assange.

Assange has been a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance since 2007. In 2011, Assange won a Walkley Award for his “outstanding contribution”. The Walkley judges said that Wikileaks applied new technology to “penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”.

One of those many inconvenient truths was the exposure by video of US helicopter attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 civilians including two Reuters journalists. These are the very same acts of journalism that are now the basis of the US Espionage charges.

Much will turn in any US trial on whether First Amendment protection of free speech is offered to Assange as a journalist and publisher. The issue of his relationship to journalism could turn out to be critical.

Let’s consider the significance of his act of publication – an important test of journalism is whether the publication was in the public interest.

Nine years have passed since acts of journalism for which the US government wants to put him on trial. Younger Australians may not remember the massive furore caused by the publication in 2010 of the Collateral Murder videos. Thousands of other documents revealed secret manoeuvres by US, Australian and other politicians, and their mendacious public stances.

The impact of these publications needs to be remembered in the context of revelations that the US justification for the war on Iraq was based on fabricated US intelligence fed to uncritical politicians and journalists, including in Australia. The 2010 leak was a blow to the US security state not because anyone was harmed, but because it threatened public support and compliance for US foreign policy goals.

Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning was subsequently imprisoned and tortured for her role in releasing the files. She has currently been reimprisoned and is facing bankruptcy for refusing to testify in Grand Jury proceedings investigating Assange.

Back in 2010, US and Australian leaders threatened Assange with criminal action, the international community of journalists stood in solidarity with him. This is not to say that there were no detractors but to acknowledge an international groundswell of respect and support for Assange.

“It is unacceptable to try to deny people the right to know,” said Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that covers 600,000 journalists in scores in more than 140 countries. “These revelations may be embarrassing in their detail, but they also expose corruption and double-dealing in public life that’s worthy of public scrutiny.

“It’s untenable to allege, as some people have, that lives are being put at risk here. The only casualty here is the culture of secrecy that has for too long drawn a curtain around the unsavoury side of public life.”

In accepting a Walkley Award, leading journalist Laurie Oakes said he was ashamed of the Australian government’s hostile response and called on journalists to reject then PM Julia Gillard’s view that the Wikileaks publication was illegal. This was greeted with applause.

In 2012, the UK National Union of Journalists also acknowledged the “important contribution made by Julian Assange himself” and stated that “the type of journalism to which Wikileaks has made a significant contribution represents a real challenge to those governments, wherever they are, which rely on propaganda, torture, warfare and subversion to accomplish their political and economic aims.”.

In 2011, Assange was also awarded the Martha Gellhorn prize for brave reporting. This award is given for reporting that “a human story that penetrates the established version of events and illuminates an urgent issue buried by prevailing fashions of what makes news.”

The winner must tell an ” unpalatable truth, validated by powerful facts, that exposes establishment conduct and its propaganda …”.

Seven years on, we live in more conservative times. There is no denying that support from journalists this year has been muted, but it is worth noting that there are many journalists, filmmakers and other media workers among 200 people who wrote recently to Assange’s union – the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) – calling on it to build its campaign in support of Assange.

The MEAA has written two strong letters seeking to meet with the government and opposing extradition. The union wrote, “the extradition of Assange and prosecution by the United States for what are widely considered to be acts of journalism would set a disturbing global precedent for the suppression of press freedom”.

A petition opposing extradition now has more than 160,000 signatures.

US indictment criminalises journalistic inquiry
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), representing more than 600,000 media professionals in more than 140 countries, recently passed an urgent motion at the request of the MEAA. It wrote in a statement, “… this indictment would criminalise journalistic inquiry by setting a dangerous precedent that can be abused to prosecute journalists for their role in revealing information in the public interest. By following this logic, anyone who publishes information that the US government deems to be classified could be prosecuted for espionage.”

The range of those supporting Assange is impressive. But there are also a few dissenting voices including Peter Greste, himself imprisoned in Egypt on journalistic freedom issues.

Shortly after Assange’s arrest, Greste published a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, arguing that Wikileaks was not a news organisation. He argued that Assange simply “dumped” hundreds of thousands of documents onto his website, free for anybody to go through, regardless of their contents or the impact they might have had.”

Contacted by the author, Greste who is now a spokesperson for the newly formed Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom said that his board was “constantly reviewing the case, at this stage the AJF has not changed its position. We appreciate Julian’s awards and his membership of the MEAA, but for the time being, the AJF is standing by its current thinking.”

Experienced investigative journalist Andrew Fowler, who previously worked at Four Corners and has closely studied Wikileaks, strongly rejected Greste’s views. Respected retired SBS broadcaster Mary Kostakidos is also a strong supporter of Assange.

It is not correct to say that Wikileaks just dumped documents. Here, for example, is the introduction providing context for the publication of the Collateral Murder videos. (As far as I am aware the material providing at wikileaks.org is the same material as was there in 2011.)

Back in 2011, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) published a piece I wrote for World Press Freedom day on its website. It was also published by the Pacific Media Centre and on this blog. After pointing out that Wikileaks described itself as a media organisation, I wrote: “According to its website, the criteria WikiLeaks applies in deciding whether to publish leaks are these: that the information has not previously been revealed; that it was previously restricted, censored or otherwise withheld from the public; and the information is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.

“WikiLeaks also has a practice of querying issues about the veracity of information …The real issue is the openness of governments and whether they are actively misleading the citizens of their own and other countries. What is at stake are the boundaries of secrecy and whether citizens have a right to know what governments and large corporations are doing.”

Journalists will disagree about where those boundaries. There will be differences between journalists about how far deletions of names in leaked documents should go and whether documents on which stories rely should be published in full. Wikileaks’ focus on publishing documents to enable transparency influenced other news organisation. What is routine today was still unusual in 2010.

It has been acknowledged by the US State Department that no sources were found to have been harmed by the 2010 document publications. In any case, the 2010 documents had already been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. What we can say is that Wikileaks has a very strong record in publishing genuine documents and protecting hits own sources. That is the job of a journalist.

There is no space here to review all the accusations against Wikileaks. The opponents who constantly trivialised the threat from a US grand jury were wrong.

Given the campaign to denigrate his character, the least we can say is that personal allegations against him need to be validated by evidence, and there is much debate about their veracity.

Accusations of sexual misconduct
I will just say this on the matter of sexual assault allegations against Assange. As a feminist, I absolutely support the right of all women to make complaints and not to be abused or denigrated for doing so. There is now only one woman whose matter is an ongoing issue. There is no doubt that her statement raises suspicion that Assange had unprotected sex with her without consent.

But it equally true that Assange has provided evidence in the form of a statement that provides a different account consistent with his innocence. He waited years before being given the opportunity to do that. He has not been charged and deserves to be afforded natural justice – certainly, his guilt should not be asserted. It is no criticism of the woman to argue that the Swedish prosecutors have behaved inconsistently.

There is evidence that they have been pushed by UK authorities. (For those who want to read more about this topic, Professor Melzer published this considered response to some critics of his statements two days ago. He has found that in the Swedish case, “the responsible authorities have deliberately abused Swedish law, procedures and institutions for the purposes of persecuting Assange…”.)

This case cannot currently be resolved.

My support for Assange is not based on an issue of whether he is a good person or whether everything he has ever published was based on sound decision-making. I do not know him. This is about whether journalists who publish information in the public interest are criminals.

It is time to focus on the substance of the US Espionage charges. which place him in grave danger. We must hope that Assange does not spend his next birthday in a US prison. If we fail, other journalists who are not compliant with the goals of governments will be exposed to ever increasing risks.

Here is a link to a video of a speech I gave at a NSW Greens forum on Wikileaks in 2010.

• Wendy Bacon is a Sydney investigative journalist and retired journalism professor. She is on the advisory board of the Pacific Media Centre and is Frontline editor of Pacific Journalism Review. This is an edited version of an article by her published by Altmedia last week. It was also the basis for a speech I gave at a vigil in support of Julian Assange.
• Free Assange now petition

The police raids on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and Newscorp’s Sunday Telegraph journalist Annika Smethurst earlier this month have had a chilling effect on media in the Pacific.

“In the past two days we’ve had police raids on Newscorp, a prominent journalist, political editor and award-winning journalist originally from Monash University, her home was raided and the following day at the ABC headquarters in Ultimo,” the director of the Pacific Media Centre, Professor David Robie, told Pacific Media Watch.

“Australia has been regarded in the Pacific as a paragon of media freedom, but it has been steadily declining in media freedom in terms of the world indexes and so on.

“When these sort of things happen right here with a large neighbour in the region it’s no wonder that many of the Pacific leaders want to take the cue and want to impose as many controls on the media, basically try and shut journalists up,” he said.

Kalafi Moala, former editor and owner of the Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper had similar sentiments.

“It is within the nature of those who are in power that they want control and media is the greatest threat to power if it is not held accountable,” said the iconic Pacific journalist.

He summarised as a “culture of fear that still exists in the relationship between media and government”.

The repercussions of the Australian Federal Police raids are not being just felt in Australia but reverting around the Pacific.

Dr Robie and Kalafi Moala made the comments during recent interviews for a mini-documentary about the work of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom, project.

The video also includes footage with permission from the Daily Rant.

• Pacific Media Watch

I joined the Australian Journalists Association (now the MEAA – Media Alliance) in, I think, 1971, when I still lived and worked in Papua New Guinea.

When I formally retired from paid work a few years back, I was given honorary membership but, to bolster the journalism profession and its union, I recently asked to return as a paying member – which was accepted.

Given that I still scribble the PNG Attitude blog, book reviews for The Australian, a column in Noosa Style and other bits and pieces, that seemed appropriate.

READ MORE: Journalists call for legislation to protect press freedom and the public’s right to know

It may seem implausible, but freedom of the press is under attack in our country. The actions of federal authorities have been nibbling at that freedom for some time, and most recently the federal police took a large bite at it.

I’m concerned. That’s why I’m sharing this letter:

A GRAVE THREAT TO MEDIA FREEDOM

Dear Llew O’Brien, MP,
cc Prime Minister Scott Morrison,
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese

I support in full the following letter from the MEAA calling upon the Australian Parliament to act to guarantee the freedom of the press in Australia.

Recent events have shown that this implied right of Australians is under threat. Legislative and constitutional changes are required:

The Australian Federal Police raids on the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst and on the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) represent a grave threat to press freedom in Australia.

We welcome the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to freedom of the press and openness to discuss the concerns that have been raised.

A healthy democracy cannot function without its media being free to bring to light uncomfortable truths, to scrutinise the powerful and inform our communities. Investigative journalism cannot survive without the courage of whistleblowers, motivated by concern for their fellow citizens, who seek to bring to light instances of wrongdoing, illegal activities, fraud, corruption and threats to public health and safety.

These are issues of public interest, of the public’s right to know. Whistleblowers and the journalists who work with them are entitled to protection, not prosecution. Truth-telling is being punished.

The raids, a raft of recent national security laws, and the prosecutions of whistleblowers Richard Boyle, David McBride and Witness K all demonstrate the public’s right to know is being harmed. Truth-telling is being punished.

It is also clear from the global response to the recent raids that Australia’s proud reputation around the world as a free and open society is under threat.

We urge Parliament to legislate changes to the law to recognise and enshrine a positive public interest protection for whistleblowers and for journalists. Without these protections Australians will be denied important information it is their right as citizens to have.

We urge you to take prompt action to protect our democracy for all Australians.

Yours sincerely,
Keith Jackson AM

• Australia’s press freedom needs more protection: Here’s where to start
• More Australian media raids stories
• Press freedom demonstrators say: ‘Australian democracy is in grave danger’

By Democracy Now!

Press freedom groups are sounding the alarm over a pair of police raids on journalists. Last week, Australian Federal Police swept into the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney, reviewing thousands of documents for information about a 2017 report The Afghan Files that found Australian special forces soldiers may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

The raid came on Wednesday, one day after police in Melbourne raided the home of Annika Smethurst, a reporter with the Herald Sun newspaper.

Democracy Now! speaks to Australian journalism professor Joseph Fernandez – correspondent of Reporters Without Borders and Pacific Journalism Review – and Peter Greste, founding director of the Brisbane-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.

Greste was imprisoned for 400 days in 2013 to 2014 while covering the political crisis in Egypt.

READ MORE: Asia Pacific Report stories on the police ABC raids

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Press freedom groups in Australia are sounding the alarm over a pair of police raids on journalists. On Wednesday last week, Australian Federal Police swept into the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney, reviewing thousands of documents for information about a 2017 report that found Australian special forces may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

ABC investigations executive editor John Lyons spoke on his own network just minutes after police served a warrant naming a news director and the two reporters who broke the story.

JOHN LYONS: They have downloaded 9,214 documents. I counted them. And they are now going through them. They’ve set up a huge screen, and they’re going through, email by email. It’s quite extraordinary.

And I feel—as a journalist, I feel it’s a real violation, because these are emails between this particular journalist and his boss, her boss, its drafts, its scripts of stories.

I’ve never seen an assault on the media as savage as this one we’re seeing today at the ABC. … And the chilling message is not so much for the journalists, but it’s also for the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Wednesday’s raid on the ABC came one day after police in Melbourne raided the home of Annika Smethurst, a reporter with the Herald Sun newspaper. Police served a warrant related to Smethurst’s reporting on a secret effort by an Australian intelligence service to expand its surveillance capabilities, including against Australian nationals.

Australia’s acting Federal Police Commissioner Neil Gaughan defended the raids, saying journalists could face prison time for holding classified information.

COMMISSIONER NEIL GAUGHAN: No sector of the community should be immune for this type of activity or evidence collection, more broadly. This includes law enforcement itself, the media or, indeed, even politicians.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests in Australia. With us from Brisbane is Peter Greste. He is the UNESCO chair in journalism and communications at University of Queensland. He is founding director of Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.

He was imprisoned for over a year, for 400 days, in 2013 to 2014, while covering the political crisis in Egypt.

And joining us from Perth, Australia, Professor Joseph Fernandez is with us, a media law academic at Curtin University, Australia’s correspondent for Reporters Without Borders.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Joseph Fernandez, let’s begin with you. Lay out exactly what happened and when it took place, all the details as you know them, both the raiding of ABC and the journalist’s home.

At her home, the Australian Federal Police spent seven-and-a-half hours going through every nook and cranny of her belongings, including the rubbish bin outside the house. And they sought to access her email messages, phone messages and anything they could lay their hands on, including what she might have kept away in her undies drawer.

Annika obviously was very traumatised by this, but she has held her head up high, in the knowledge that the story about which she was being investigated was really something very arguably and very strongly in the public interest or of legitimate public concern.

The second raid, the following day …

AMY GOODMAN: And that story was?

JOSEPH FERNANDEZ: Sorry. Can you say that again, please?

AMY GOODMAN: And that story was, Joseph?

JOSEPH FERNANDEZ: The story was that there was a discussion, a discussion about a plan to expand state surveillance, that would have possibly included surveillance of ordinary citizens. And this was quite an unprecedented idea.

And the objective of such a plan was obviously going to be justified on the premise of protecting national security.

The second raid happened at the headquarters of the national broadcaster ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in Sydney. And police officers entered the premises armed with a warrant with an exhaustive inventory of things that they were looking for.

And as you have noted, they scoured hundreds and thousands of documents and materials, and left with a small collection of materials in a sealed package, with the agreement not to use them until a possible challenge is considered in the days ahead.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Joseph Fernandez, these raids coming within a day of each other, was there any coordination, or were these related in any way?

JOSEPH FERNANDEZ: That’s an interesting question. One of the first questions that sprung into people’s minds was whether they were related, whether this was instigated by the government. The prime minister quickly moved to distance himself and his government from the raids, claiming that the two agencies and the police were acting entirely of their own accord.

And the police themselves are on record as saying that the two events are unrelated. And so, it’s left to be seen, you know, whether new light will be shed on the real circumstances that led to these raids. It’s quite hard to accept, without inquiry as to whether there was absolutely no notice given, whether informally or formally, to the bosses in government.

AMY GOODMAN: And for people to understand, I mean, the ABC is the leading broadcaster throughout Australia. I wanted to bring Peter Greste into this conversation. We had you here in our studio after you were imprisoned for well over for year by Egypt with your two Al Jazeera colleagues.

You were working with Al Jazeera at the time. You certainly knew what it meant to be arrested, to not have rights, not to be even told at the beginning why the Egyptian authorities were holding you. Now you see the situation in Australia.

And I was wondering if you can talk about the laws around press freedom, if you have them in Australia. Amazingly, in this warrant, the warrant gave the police wide-ranging authority to view, seize, edit and destroy virtually any document it saw fit.

PETER GRESTE: Yeah, that’s right. Look, there are a whole host of questions in there, Amy, but let me deal with the very beginning of it, and that’s the way I felt when I heard about the news, because it did—I mean, even now I can feel my skin pricking up, thinking about the raids and what that would have felt like, because I know exactly what it was like to have agents burst into your room looking for evidence, and all of the confusion that surrounds that, the outrage that surrounds that.

But I never really honestly expected to see it take place here in Australia. And it seems to me that even though I’m not suggesting Australia is about to become an authoritarian state like Egypt anytime soon, I think that we are being pushed in the same direction by the same kind of imperatives around national security, the prioritising of national security over the human rights and democratic rights of citizens, largely because it’s much easier to make the political case for national security legislation, particularly when you see attacks in the streets and the consequences of that, but much harder to make the more abstract case for human rights and citizens’ rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and so on, until you see what that means in practical terms.

And that’s what we saw last week with these two raids. I think it’s very, very concerning to me, and I’m deeply worried.

Now, as you mentioned, we don’t have in Australia any explicit protection for press freedom written into the law, nothing about freedom of speech. Australia has no bill of rights. All we have is an implied right of political communications, that the High Court decided that was there as a function of our democracy.

They said that we live in a representative democracy, and you can’t have an effective representative democracy without political communication, therefore, that right is somehow inferred in the Constitution.

But without anything like the First Amendment in the United States here in Australia, without any explicit protection for press freedom, what we’re seeing is a lot of scope for our legislators to draft laws that really intrude on press freedom in all sorts of deeply troubling ways that make it much harder for journalists to protect their sources, make it much harder even for journalists to contact sources within government.

And so, what we’re seeing is a vast web of interconnected national security laws that, in all sorts of ways, make these kinds of raids that we saw last week possible.

I’m not so critical of the Federal Police for carrying out the raids. I accept that they were probably doing their jobs. And as we’ve been hearing, there may well have been some kind of political involvement in there.

But let’s take what the Federal Police have been saying at face value, that there was nothing political. If there was nothing political, if they were simply fulfilling their duties under the law, then, clearly, the law needs to change. And that’s what we need to start talking about.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Peter Greste, we have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you, in terms of—who determines the violations of state secrets? Is there one centralised agency, or can various federal agencies decide to conduct these kinds of raids in Australia?

PETER GRESTE: No. Look, it’s quite difficult to know quite how the laws come into effect or come into force. I mean, let’s take a look at the data retention laws, the metadata. In any number of more than 20 agencies, government agencies can look into any Australian’s metadata without a warrant.

Now, they need to apply for a special journalist warrant if they want to investigate journalists’ metadata in a search for sources, but, otherwise, there is no—there is no warrant system. They can look anywhere, anywhere that they want.

And I think that’s the kind of scope that we’re talking about. That’s overreach. You talk to any lawyer, any civil rights activist, anyone who knows about the way the law operates, and they’ll acknowledge that that’s overreach. And we need to really start a vigorous conversation within this country about the limits of state power and the kind of ways that we need to encourage and support press freedom, and also the protection of whistleblowers, because, ultimately, these raids were in the hunt for the sources of these stories, for the journalists’ sources, for the whistleblowers that felt that these stories needed to be told.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we have to wrap up right now, but we want to continue the vigorous discussion, and we’re going to bring folks Part 2 at democracynow.org under web exclusives.

Peter Greste, we want to thank you, UNESCO chair in journalism and communications, University of Queensland, founding director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, imprisoned for more than 400 days.

Also, Joseph Fernandez, a media law academic at Curtin University, Australia’s correspondent for Reporters Without Borders. Stay with us. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

• This Democracy Now! transcript is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
• The Afghan Files: Defence leak exposes deadly secrets of Australia’s special forces

As I stood out the front of the ABC’s Sydney headquarters on Wednesday morning (June 5), I couldn’t help but feel the conflicting senses of both pride and anxiety.

Just moments earlier, a group of first-year UTS Journalism students, including myself, had raced from our lecture upon learning that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) were conducting a raid of the ABC building next door. It was over the 2017 story The Afghan Files.

We waited with perched phones in the middle of an eager scrum of professional journalists from organisations such as Sky News, Channel 9, Channel 7 and Reuters News.

READ MORE: The Afghan Files – Defence leak exposes deadly secrets of Australian special forces

We took photographs and short videos before posting them to our Twitter accounts and watching as audience responses flooded in.

It wasn’t until I saw the comments from international news organisations requesting to use my footage, that I understood the significance of where I was, and what I was doing.

I checked my tweet engagement and interaction statistics and realised that people were following my posts for breaking information.

Hi Allie, I’m a journalist with Storyful News. OK to clear this for use in broadcast/online news with attribution to you and UTS News? Thanks! Details: https://t.co/FDYxmeYB08

— StoryfulNews (@StoryfulNews) June 5, 2019

I was at the scene and, to the best of my ability, I was responsible for letting the world know the truth and facts of the events that were unfolding.

Feeling accomplished and alive
It was the first time that I had been in such a position. Indeed, it was the first time that I had felt what it is like to be a journalist. And to tell you the truth, I had never felt so accomplished and alive.

The videos of fellow journalism students were also picked up by top news organisations. For instance, a video of ABC News director Gaven Morris, shot by Nicholas Rupolo, was reposted by The Australian and news.com.au.

RELATED STORY: AFP Raids: ‘Journalism is not a crime’ says ABC News boss

Through to the afternoon, I was constantly refreshing my feed to check for updates from the ABC’s Head of Investigative Journalism, John Lyons, who was live tweeting from inside the ABC building. He was sharing information on what the AFP officers were searching for, as they rummaged through 9214 files that belonged to the ABC, and were considered of interest in their investigation.

It may sound melodramatic, but my heart became heavy when Lyons posted two photographs of the search warrant that the police had obtained. I was truly astounded by the scope and broadness of what information the AFP had the power to search and seize.

I thought back to how I had felt earlier that day; the immense zest I’d felt for journalism had now been replaced with a fear for it’s future.

I was confronted with the true irony of the fact that I was reporting freely on an investigation that epitomised the gradual restrictions on my chosen career.

Using this as my incentive, I continued to follow the raid as it stretched into the night.

By 7:30pm, there were six journalists and photographers, seven including myself, who remained out the front of the ABC building.

Keeping an eye out
We chatted among ourselves while keeping an eye out for any movements or updates on the raid. Lyons then tweeted photographs of the AFP filling out paperwork. He approximated that the raid would be concluding in 45 minutes.

At 8:14pm, one of the photographers sighted the AFP officers walking through the security gates of the ABC building.

“Get your cameras ready!,” he yelled.

Remembering the tips and tricks that I had learnt about shooting videos on a mobile phone, I captured the AFP as they made a swift exit from the building across Harris Street, taking with them bags that were filled with what we can only assume to be evidence.

I returned to the ABC building along with the other journalists and photographers. We sat and looked through the photographs and videos that we’d been able to get, and in doing so, I was relieved.

Admittedly, it’s a strange emotion to have felt. But I was relieved by the determination of those who I’d waited with. For over eight hours, some without a break, they had stayed to break the news that the raid had finally ended.

Their sheer perseverance gave me hope in the otherwise grim future of journalism.

Scrolled through Twitter
When I went home, I scrolled through Twitter and noticed another post from Lyons.

“Bravo to this country’s media for taking on the government over the new war on the media”, he said.

“I’ve never seen such a united front. Old rivalries put aside. Journalism matters”.

I owe a great deal of gratitude to Lyons and the other news organisations who showed their support for journalism in the wake of the ABC raid.

It is comforting to know that, as long as people continue to fight for its freedom, journalism will survive.

Befitting what Wednesday’s events taught me – and as quoted by former Washington Post president and publisher Philip L. Graham – “Journalism is the first rough draft of history”.

Alexandra Menzies is a first year journalism student at the University of Technology Sydney with a passion for politics and human rights. This article was first published by the UTS Central News journalism lab

In their raids on media organisations, journalists and whistleblowers, the Australian Federal Police have shown themselves to be the tool of a secretive, ruthless and vindictive executive government.

Secretive because the extensive web of laws passed under the rubric of national security, on top of the secrecy provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, gives the executive wide powers to classify as secret anything it wishes to hide.

As the former investigative reporter Ross Coulthart once memorably said, it could include the office Christmas card.

READ MORE: Why the raids on Australian media present a clear threat to democracy

Ruthless because the stories revealed by whistleblowers and reporters targeted by the AFP and other security agencies have offered accounts of cruelty, misconduct, dishonesty and slyness. These include:

• harm done to the mental health of asylum-seeker children on Manus Island and Nauru
• bugging the East Timor cabinet office as part of an attempt to cheat the Timorese out of their fair share of the Timor Sea oil reserves
• alleged breaches of the rules of engagement by Australian military personnel in Afghanistan
• proposals to intensify domestic spying on Australian citizens.

Real threat lacking
Vindictive because in the most recent two cases it has taken more than a year after publication for the AFP to take action, revealing how utterly lacking in any real threat to national security the leaks and publications were.

It follows that these raids are a naked attempt to take revenge on whistleblowers and intimidate the journalists who published their stories.

As for the AFP, while it is true they are acting in response to references from other government agencies, it raises questions about the way they exercise their vaunted operational independence.

What weight do they give to how real a threat to national security is posed by any particular leak? What weight do they give to the imperative that leakers be made an example of and journalists be intimidated?

Or do they just want to show the rest of the executive branch that they are on the team?

In addition to this question of AFP culture, many interrelated factors have brought Australia to this point – a clear and present danger to freedom of the press.

One is the catch-all nature of section 70 of the Commonwealth Crimes Act. This makes it an offence punishable by up to two years’ jail for a public servant or former public servant to make an unauthorised disclosure of any fact or document they come across in their role as a public servant.

70 national security laws
Another is the vast body of national security laws — about 70 of them at last count.

In the context of press freedom, one of the most oppressive is the so-called metadata law of 2015, which makes it relatively easy for the police and security forces to carry out electronic surveillance of communications between journalists and their sources.

Not only do these laws provide for the criminal prosecution of journalists, they also contain very limited public-interest defences. In many instances, they reverse the onus of proof, so the journalist has to prove a defence rather than the prosecution having to prove guilt.

A third factor is the Commonwealth’s weak whistleblower protection law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act. This offers no specific protection for a whistleblower who goes to the media, even after he or she has tried to get the wrongdoing corrected internally.

We are seeing this play out in the courts now with the prosecution of Tax Office whistleblower Richard Boyle.

Three government ministers — Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Attorney-General Christian Porter — have all batted away questions about the latest police raids, taking refuge in saying it is the law taking its course.

That is not the point. The point is that the politicians have constructed a repressive legal regime designed to protect the executive branch of government, impede accountability to the public and exert a chilling effect on the press.

Labor support
This is not a party-political argument. Labor has largely supported the creation of this regime, although to be fair it has forced through some amendments to give some protection to journalists.

A fourth factor is that Australia is alone among the “Five Eyes” countries that make up the West’s main intelligence network in having no constitutional protection for freedom of the press. The US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand all have this protection in some form.

Finally, laws that do exist in Australia to protect journalists’ sources offer no protection from police raids and electronic surveillance.

These laws – called “shield laws” because they are designed to shield the identity of confidential sources – apply only in court proceedings. They allow a journalist to claim a privilege against disclosing information that may identify a confidential source. The court then has to weigh up the consequences of forcing the journalist to identify the source.

If a source is identified by electronic surveillance or seizure of files or electronic devices, the journalist is powerless to keep any promise of confidentiality.

We are back to the days when communicating with confidential sources can be done safely only through snail mail or – after leaving mobile devices behind – in underground car parks.

• Denis Muller is senior research fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
• Other Australian media raids stories
• Pacific Media Watch updates

By RNZ News

An Australian police raid on public broadcaster ABC risks having a chilling effect on freedom of the press, its editorial director says.

Police officers left the ABC’s Sydney headquarters more than eight hours after a raid began over allegations it had published classified material.

It related to a series of 2017 stories known as The Afghan Files about alleged misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: Why the raids on Australian media present a clear threat to democracy

ABC editorial director Craig McMurtrie told RNZ Morning Report the message the raids sent to sources and whistleblowers who wanted to reveal things in the public interest was concerning.

LISTEN: ‘Chilling effect on freedom of the press’ – Morning Report

“We’re concerned obviously about a chilling effect it has on freedom of the press,” he said.

The stories, by ABC investigative journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, revealed allegations of unlawful killings by Australian special forces in Afghanistan and were based on hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC.

McMurtrie said the ABC believed it had acted lawfully and stood by its reporters.

And so it’s off into the night for the six AFP officers. For nine hours they’ve searched through ABC emails and documents. I think there’s a big question for the Australian public: is this what a free press looks like? Thank you all for your interest today. Regards, JL. pic.twitter.com/EXnXhyOPQQ

— John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) June 5, 2019

‘Not cavalier’
“It’s not as though we’re cavalier about these things. We have exhaustive quality control and checking processes and we always strive to act in the public interest.

“It is our job as journalists to hold government authorities and agencies to account and that is why this is so important.”

Police officers leaving the ABC’s Sydney headquarters took with them two USB drives containing a small number of electronic files, which were sealed in plastic bags pending a review by ABC’s lawyers, the broadcaster reported.

AFP technicians password-protected the files and police will be unable to access them until the two-week period of review is over.

Police searched for article drafts, graphics, digital notes, visuals, raw television footage and all versions of scripts related to The Afghan Files stories. Thousands of items were found which matched search terms listed in the warrant.

ABC investigations editor John Lyons ended up live tweeting the raid and said it was a “bad, sad and dangerous day” for Australia.

Australian police raided the Canberra home of a News Corp journalist on Tuesday but said the raids were not linked.

Unauthorised leak
They alleged there had been an unauthorised leak of national security information in a story by Annika Smethurst in April 2018 which said the government was considering giving spy agencies greater surveillance powers.

News Corp, controlled by media baron Rupert Murdoch, called the raid “outrageous and heavy handed”, and “a dangerous act of intimidation”.

Police questioning of journalists is not new, but raids on two influential news organisations sparked warnings that national security was being used to justify curbs on whistleblowing and reporting that might embarrass the government.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
• More Australian media raids stories
• The Afghan Files

The Australian Federal Police has this week conducted two high-profile raids on journalists who have exposed government secrets and their sources.

On Tuesday, seven AFP officers spent several hours searching News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst’s Canberra home, her mobile phone and computer. The AFP linked the raid to “the alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret”.

This stemmed from Smethurst’s 2018 article, which contained images of a “top secret” memo and reported that senior government officials were considering moves to empower the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to covertly monitor Australian citizens for the first time.

READ MORE: The Afghan Files – the special investigation by the ABC into allegations of atrocities by Australian special forces

Soon after, 2GB Radio Presenter Ben Fordham revealed he had been notified by the Department of Home Affairs that he was the subject of a similar investigation, aimed at identifying the source of classified information he had reported regarding intercepted boat arrivals.

And then on Wednesday, the AFP raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters. This dramatic development was in connection with the 2017 “Afghan files” report based on “hundreds of pages of secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC”.

These documents revealed disturbing allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces.

Widespread reaction
The reaction to the raids was immediate and widespread.

The New York Times quoted News Corp’s description of the Smethurst raid as “a dangerous act of intimidation towards those committed to telling uncomfortable truths”. The Prime Minister was quick to distance his government from the AFP’s actions, while opposition leader Anthony Albanese condemned the raids.

But to those familiar with the ever-expanding field of Australian national security law, these developments were unlikely to surprise. In particular, enhanced data surveillance powers and a new suite of secrecy offences introduced in late 2018 had sparked widespread concern over the future of public interest journalism in Australia.

The crackdown of the past few days reveals that at least two of the core fears expressed by lawyers and the media industry were well-founded: first, the demise of source confidentiality and, secondly, a chilling effect on public interest journalism.

Source confidentiality
Upon finding out he was the subject of an investigation aimed at uncovering his sources of government information, Ben Fordham declared:

The chances of me revealing my sources is zero. Not today, not tomorrow, next week or next month. There is not a hope in hell of that happening.

Source confidentiality is one of journalists’ most central ethical principles. It is recognised by the United Nations and is vital to a functioning democracy and free, independent, robust and effective media.

One of the greatest threats to source confidentiality is Australia’s uniquely broad data surveillance framework. The 2015 metadata retention scheme requires that all metadata (that is, data about a device or communication but not, say, the communication itself) be retained for two years.

It may then be covertly accessed by a wide array of government agencies without a warrant. Some reports suggest that by late 2018, some 350,000 requests for access to metadata were being received by telecommunications service providers each year.

READ MORE: Data retention plan amended for journalists, but is it enough?

The government was not blind to the potential impact of this scheme on source confidentiality. For example, obtaining metadata relating to a journalist’s mobile phone could reveal where they go and who they contact and easily point to their sources.

This led to the introduction of the “Journalist Information Warrant” (JIW). This warrant is required if an agency wishes to access retained metadata for the direct purpose of identifying a professional journalist’s source.

So, access to a professional journalist’s metadata in order to identify a confidential source is permitted, provided the access has a particular criminal investigation or enforcement purpose and the agency can show it is in the public interest and therefore obtain a JIW.

This week’s raids suggest that either JIWs could not be obtained in relation to Smethurst, Fordham or the ABC Journalists, or the journalists’ metadata did not reveal their sources, or the AFP did not attempt to access their metadata.

Reasons unclear
Alternatively, if metadata had identified the journalists’ sources, it is less clear why these dramatic developments took place.

After 2015, journalists were advised to avoid using their mobile devices in source communications. They were also encouraged, wherever possible, to encrypt communications.

But in 2018, the government went some way to closing down this option when it introduced the complex and highly controversial Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018.

As well as expanding computer access and network access warrants, the Act provided a means for government agencies to co-opt those in the telecommunications industry to assist agencies with their investigations.

This could include covertly installing weaknesses and vulnerabilities in specific devices, circumventing passwords or allowing encrypted communications to be decrypted. A warrant would then be required to access the device and communication data.

It is impossible to know whether Australian journalists have been targeted under the Act or had weaknesses or spyware installed on their personal devices. This week’s raids suggest the AFP would be prepared to target journalists under this framework in order to identify journalists’ confidential sources.

However, this could only be done for some purposes, including in the investigation of a secrecy offence.

Secrecy offences
In June 2018, the government introduced a suite of new espionage, foreign interference and secrecy offences. This included an offence of current or former Commonwealth officers communicating information, obtained by virtue of their position, likely to cause harm to Australia’s interests. This offence is punishable by imprisonment for seven years. If the information is security classified or the person held a security classification, then they may have committed an “aggravated offence” and be subject to ten years’ imprisonment.

This week’s raids reveal just how common it is for public interest journalism to rely on secret material and government sources.

But the journalists themselves may also be facing criminal prosecution. The 2018 changes include a “general secrecy offence”, whereby it is an offence (punishable by imprisonment for five years) to communicate classified information obtained from a Commonwealth public servant.

Fordham’s radio broadcast about intercepted boat arrivals was, for example, a clear communication of classified information.

Again, journalists are offered some protection. If prosecuted, a journalist can seek to rely on the “journalism defence” by proving that they dealt with the information as a journalist, and that they reasonably believed the communication to be in the public interest.

The meaning of “public interest” is unclear and, in this context, untested. However, it will take into account the public interest in national security and government integrity secrecy concerns as well as openness and accountability.

Protecting media freedom
Australia has more national security laws than any other nation. It is also the only liberal democracy lacking a Charter of Human Rights that would protect media freedom through, for example, rights to free speech and privacy.

In this context, journalists are in a precarious position – particularly journalists engaged in public interest journalism. This journalism is vital to government accountability and a vibrant democracy, but has a tense relationship with Australia’s national interests as conceived by government.

National security law has severely undercut source confidentiality by increasing and easing data surveillance. National security laws have also criminalised a wide array of conduct related to the handling of sensitive government information, both by government officers and the general public.

And these laws are just a few parts of a much larger national security framework that includes: control orders, preventative detention orders, ASIO questioning and detention warrants, secret evidence, and offences of espionage, foreign interference, advocating or supporting terrorism, and more.

JIWs, and the inclusion of a journalism defence to the secrecy offence, recognise the importance of a free press. However, each of these protections relies on a public interest test. When government claims of national security and the integrity of classifications is weighed into this balance, it is difficult to see how other interests might provide an effective counterbalance.

One of the most disturbing outcomes is not prosecutions or even the raids themselves, but the chilling of public interest journalism. Sources are less likely to come forward, facing risk to themselves and a high likelihood of identification by government agencies. And journalists are less likely to run stories, knowing the risks posed to their sources and perhaps even to themselves.

Against this background, the calls for a Media Freedom Act, such as by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, have gained significant traction. It may take this kind of bold statement to cut across the complexities of individual laws and both recognise and protect the basic freedom of the press and the future of public interest journalism in Australia.

• Rebecca Ananian-Welsh is senior lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
• More Australian media raids stories

After the latest Australian federal police raid targeting the media – this time the Sydney headquarters of the national public broadcaster ABC – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned the Australian government about the grave threat it is now posing to investigative journalism and the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.

“In a scene that might be expected in an authoritarian country but not in a democracy, six federal officers entered the ABC building this morning and began examining computers, email accounts and data storage devices under a warrant authorizing them to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ any content they find,” reports RSF on its website.

The warrant was reportedly issued in order to help them to identify the sources for an Afghan Files report broadcast on the ABC current affairs programme The 7.30 Report on 10 July 2017 about the alleged role of Australian special forces personnel in the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: RSF’s earlier report on the Australian raids

“Persecuting a media outlet in this way because of a report that was clearly in the public interest is intolerable,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“This kind of intimidation of reporters and their sources can have devastating consequences for journalistic freedom and independent news reporting.”

Bastard added: “We urge Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government to stop harassing investigative journalists, using national security as a pretext in connexion with subjects on which Australian citizens clearly have the right to be informed.”

The raid on ABC headquarters in Sydney came less than 24 hours after Tuesday’s equally shocking raid on the Canberra home of Annika Smethurst, the political editor of News Corp’s Sunday newspapers.

After the raid on Smethurst’s home, Ben Fordham, a presenter for the Sydney radio station 2GB, revealed that he was also being investigated by the department of home affairs in connection with a story broadcasted on Monday about six asylum-seeker boats heading for Australia.

Australia is ranked 21st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index, after falling two places.

• The Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch project works in collaboration with RSF.
• More Australian media raids stories

Two raids by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on journalists and media organisations within the last 24 hours represent a disturbing attempt to intimidate legitimate news journalism that is in the public interest, says the union for Australian journalists, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).

Yesterday’s raid on a News Corporation Australia journalist, and today’s raid on the public broadcaster ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and three of its journalists, suggest that no media organisation is immune from government attacks on press freedom.

“A second day of raids by the AFP sets a disturbing pattern of assaults on Australian press freedom. This is nothing short of an attack on the public’s right to know,” said MEAA media section president Marcus Strom in a statement.

READ MORE: ABC’s Sydney headquarters raided by Australian Federal Police over Afghan Files stories

WATCH: John Lyons of the ABC’s The Drum sums up the Australian Federal Police raid

“Police raiding journalists is becoming normalised and it has to stop.

“These raids are about intimidating journalists and media organisations because of their truth-telling.

“They are about more than hunting down whistleblowers that reveal what governments are secretly doing in our name, but also preventing the media from shining a light on the actions of government,” Strom said.

“It is equally clear that the spate of national security laws passed by the Parliament over the past six years have been designed not just to combat terrorism but to persecute and prosecute whistleblowers who seek to expose wrongdoing.

‘Poisonous laws’
“These laws seek to muzzle the media and criminalise legitimate journalism. They seek to punish those that tell Australians the truth.

“Yesterday’s raid was in response to a story published a year ago. Today’s raid comes after a story was published nearly two years ago.

“Suddenly, just days after a federal election, the Federal Police launches this attack on press freedom. It seems that when the truth embarrasses the government, the result is the Federal Police will come knocking at your door,” Strom said.

“MEAA demands to know who is responsible for ordering these coordinated raids, and why now. We call for the government and opposition to take collective responsibility for the legal framework they’ve created that is allowing for what appears to be politically motivated assault on press freedom,” Strom said.

“For years the Liberal and Labor parties have engaged in a high-stakes game of bluff which has seen the introduction of anti-democratic laws in the guise of national security legislation.

“It is time that the government and opposition had a common sense approach to defusing these poisonous laws that are effectively criminalising journalism. This attack on the truth must end.”

• The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) is the Australian union defending press freedoms and is a member of the International Federation of Journalists.
• More media freedom stories

The investigations violate the principles of protection for the confidentiality of sources and whistleblowers, the media watchdog said in a statement.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have been investigating TV channels, newspapers and news websites since May 19 in connection with the revelations about cost overruns at NBN, which is behind schedule with the job of providing all Australian homes with high-speed fibre internet connections.

According to the news website Crikey, the federal police warrant makes reference to The Weekend Australian, the Australian Financial Review, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), The Sydney Morning Herald and the tech news website Delimiter.

ABC News said a warrant issued to the police “names Labour Senator Stephen Conroy, staffers, technology bloggers, and four major media organisations including the ABC,” suggesting that the “police are casting a wide net in their investigation.”

Delimiter said the police may have obtained journalists’ metadata.

“This investigation has dealt a serious blow to media freedom and freedom of information in Australia,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

‘Severity towards whistleblowers’
“Unfortunately, this confirms Australia’s decline in the latest World Press Freedom Index resulting from growing severity towards whistleblowers and journalists’ sources and the media’s resulting self-censorship. The authorities must terminate these police excesses, which clearly violate principle of proportionality in the limitations placed on media freedom.”

RSF expresses its support for the Media Alliance, an organisation that represents the Australian media, and its chief executive officer, Paul Murphy, who described the investigation as “a disturbing new twist in pursuit of whistleblowers and legitimate public interest journalism.”

“The raids are a heavy-handed and over-the-top response to media stories which have embarrassed the government,” Murphy said. “Once again, the government wants to shoot the messenger rather than address the issues raised by journalists in their reporting.”

Murphy has also called on the police to say whether journalists’ metadata have been accessed without their knowledge.

Australia is ranked 25th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index but its performance score has suffered a decline in the past year due mainly to the threats to whistleblowers and sources and the resulting self-censorship within the media.

• NBN leaks: Labor to take privilege issue to Senate
• Snowden: NBN leaker raids a ‘misuse’ of Australian federal police

Aumua also spoke about the issues of negative Pacific stereotypes represented in the media.

“I know when I say the word ‘Pacific’ a lot of us think of the white sand beaches, clear waters, tropical heat and dream holiday destinations,” she said.

“But when I say Pacific people or Pacific Islanders, the atmosphere changes. People roll their eyes.”

Aumua said indigenous and minority communities in the world need opportunities and platforms to bring their truthful stories and human rights issues to the forefront.

The Sepik traditional storyboard was donated by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie a decade ago to encourage better diversity journalism.

Fellow AUT Communications Studies graduate Joshua Iosefo was jointly awarded the MediaWorks Award with Harriet Maire for television and screen production graduate of the year.

Film award
The trailer of Iosefo’s short film Forgotten Dawn Children, which pays tribute to people who suffered in the raids on the homes of alleged Pacific Island overstayers in the 1970s was screened.

He thanked his grandparents, and honoured the conflict they endured during the time of the raids.

Iosefo, also a passionate advocate for the Pacific community, and well known for his speeches on youth empowerment, is furthering his study in a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies at AUT.

Niklas Pedersen of the Danish School of Media and Journalism, on an exchange programme with AUT last year, was also awarded the annual Radio New Zealand International Prize for the top student in the postgraduate Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course.

He reported from Fiji on climate change and other issues on a two-week assignment last September.

Pedersen was not able to attend from Denmark and TJ Aumua accepted the award on his behalf.

In a message to the awards audience, he said:

It is my great honor to accept this award …

I had a wonderful time at AUT in the spring and especially in the Asia-Pacific Journalism class under the guidance of the inspirational Dr David Robie. I really enjoyed learning about journalism practices in cultures very different from the one that I’m used to in Denmark.

I was lucky enough to not only study about these practices in the Asia-Pacific Region but also experience them first-hand during my internship at Wansolwara and Repúblika Magazine in Suva, Fiji. This experience has given me invaluable tools and knowledge, which I know use in my job as a journalist back in Denmark. 

I’m sorry, I couldn’t be there tonight but I want to let you know that if there was anywhere in the world, I would travel 18.000 kilometers to be for just one night, it would be AUT. I sincerely hope that I will be able to return in the future and revisit the place that gave me the experiences of a lifetime.  

Once again, thank you for this award. And a special thanks to Dr David Robie, Radio NZ International and PMC who made all of this possible.

In another success for diversity, India-born Anuja Nadkarni, who spent two of her early years living in Fiji, won the National Business Review Award for outstanding Bachelor of Communication Studies journalism graduate.

• The awards at Pacific Media Watch
• Niklas Pedersen stories on Asia Pacific Report