The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Israel has stepped up systematic attacks on journalists and media infrastructure since the start of its northern Gaza campaign.

Israeli strikes killed at least five journalists in October and Israeli forces began a smear campaign against six Al Jazeera journalists reporting on the north, the global media watchdog said in a statement.

“There are now almost no professional journalists left in the north to document what several international institutions have described as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Israel has not allowed international media independent access to Gaza in the 13 months since the war began,” CPJ said.

• READ MORE: Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza ‘betrayal of true feminism’
• Silencing the messenger
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

“It seems clear that the systematic attacks on the media and campaign to discredit those few journalists who remain is a deliberate tactic to prevent the world from seeing what Israel is doing there,” said CPJ programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna.

“Reporters are crucial in bearing witness during a war, without them the world won’t be able to write history.”

“The situation is catastrophic and beyond description,” a camera operator for the privately owned Al-Ghad TV, Abed AlKarim Al-Zwaidi, told CPJ.

“We do not know what our fate will be in light of these circumstances.”

Media watchdogs have varying figures on the death toll of Gazan journalists, but the Palestine Media Office reports at least 188 have been killed in the Israeli war on the enclave.

This figure includes four more journalists who have been killed and have been named by the media office: Zahraa Muhammad Abu Sakhil and Ahmed Muhammad Abu Sakhil, siblings killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City on Saturday; Mustafa Khader Bahr, a correspondent killed on March 31 near the Kuwait roundabout south of Gaza City; and Abdul Rahman Khader Bahr, a photojournalist killed on October 6 in al-Karama, northwest of Gaza

Rights groups say the Gaza conflict has been the most dangerous ever recorded for journalists.

Could not answer questions
The IDF responded on October 31 to CPJ’s email requesting comment on these killings, repeating previous statements it could not fully address questions if sufficient details about individuals were not provided.

The statement reiterated previous comments that it “directs its strikes only towards military targets and military operatives, and does not target civilian objects and civilians, including media organisations and journalists.”

CPJ is also investigating reports that two other journalists were killed during this time in northern Gaza.

Al Jazeera report on the Amsterdam clashes.  Video: AJ

Meanwhile, the UN Special Reporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories, Francesca Albanese, has called for Western media to be investigated over their coverage of the clashes between Israeli football fans and locals in the Dutch city of Amsterdam.

The call came after some Western media outlets failed to report on or minimised the actions of the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv ahead of and during the confrontations on Friday.

“Once again, Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities,” Albanese said in a post on X.

“In other contexts, international tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other international crimes.”

Once again. Western media should be investigated for the role they are playing in obscuring Israel’s atrocities. In other contexts, intl tribunals have found media figures responsible for complicity, incitement, and other intl crimes. https://t.co/YGBA9cpxNW

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 9, 2024

In one video from the clashes, Israeli fans were heard singing: “Let the [Israeli army] win, and f*** the Arabs!” while another showed them tearing down a Palestinian flag from a building.

A timeline distributed on social media clearly indicated how the Israeli fans provoked the attack by their own violence, but this was largely ignored by Western media.

We are witnessing the total collapse of journalism. Instead, cognitive dissonance and blatant falsehoods reign supreme. Did anyone expect anything different from Western and Zionist media? pic.twitter.com/7vPP4dnaxm

— red. (@redstreamnet) November 8, 2024

The United States’ airdrops of aid into Gaza are a textbook case of cognitive dissonance on the part of the US administration — dropping food while continuing to send Israel bombs with which to pulverise Gaza, reports Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post.

And, says the media watch programme presenter Richard Gizbert, the gulf between what is happening on the ground and the mainstream media’s reportage continues to widen.

Gizbert criticises the airdrops, what he calls the “optics of urgency, the illusions of aid”.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Nearly 100 people killed in last 24 hours
• Other Listening Post items

“An absurd spectacle as the US drops aid into Gaza while also arming Israel,” he says.

Gizbert critically examines the Israeli disinformation strategy over atrocities such as the gunning down of at least 116 starving Gazans in the so-called “flour massacre” of 29 February 2024 — first denial, then blame the Palestinians, and finally accept only limited responsibility.

“The US air drops into the Gaza Strip are pure theatre. The US has been supplying thousands of tonnes into the Gaza Strip — but those have been high explosives,” says Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya.

“And then to claim that somehow it is ameliorated by 38,000 meals ready to eat is quite obscene to put it politely.

“People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.”

‘Who is the superpower?’
Australian author Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, says: “When I saw the US drop food, my first response was really anger; it was horror that this is apparently the best the US can do.

Absurd Aid Air Drops in Gaza.   Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post, 9 March 2024

“Who is the superpower here? Is it the US or Israel? There is no place that is safe. There is no place where you can find reliable food, where people can get shelter.

“Gazans are exhausted, angry and scared, and do not buy this argument that the US is suddenly caring about them by airdropping a handful of food.”

“People have compared these scenes to The Hunger Games and for good reason.

Contributors:
Laura Albast — Fellow, Institute for Palestine Studies
Mohamad Bazzi — Director of NYU’s Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
Antony Loewenstein — Author, The Palestine Laboratory
Mouin Rabbani — Co-editor, Jadaliyya

On Our Radar:
Since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, the war has been a delicate subject for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The war has led to censorship of news coverage and suppression of public protest. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

Israel’s cultural annihilation in Gaza
The Listening Post has covered Israel’s war on Gaza through the prism of the media, including the unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists. But there is another level to what is unfolding in Gaza: the genocidal assault on Palestinian history, existence and culture.

Featuring:
Jehad Abusalim – Executive director, The Jerusalem Fund

• The Listening Post is a weekly media watchdog programme at Al Jazeera

An Australian advocacy group supporting West Papuan self-determination has appealed to Foreign Minister Penny Wong to press Indonesia to halt all military operations in the region following new allegations of Indonesian atrocities reported in The Guardian newspaper.

In a letter to the senator yesterday, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) protested against the report of torture and killing of civilians in West Papua.

According to an investigative report by Mani Cordell in The Guardian on Monday, Indonesian security forces tortured and burned to death a 17-year-old high school student, Wity Unue.

• READ MORE: Release of Victor Yeimo from Indonesian prison rekindles West Papuan fight against racism
• Other West Papua reports

Quoting Raga Kogeya, a West Papuan human rights activist, the report said:

“Wity had been interrogated and detained along with three other boys and two young men under suspicion of being part of the troubled region’s rebel army.

“They were taken by special forces soldiers who rampaged through the West Papuan village of Kuyawage, burning down houses and a church and terrorising locals.

“Transported by helicopter to the regional military headquarters 100km away, the group were beaten and burnt so badly by their captors that they no longer looked human.

“Kogeya says Wity died a painful death in custody. The other five were only released after human rights advocates tipped off the local media.

“‘The kids had all been tortured and they’d been tied up and then burned,’ says Kogeya, who saw the surviving boys’ injuries first-hand on the day of their release.”

The AWPA letter by spokesperson Joe Collins said: “Numerous reports have documented the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua, the burning of villages during military operations and the targeting of civilians including children.”

The most recent cited report was by Human Rights Monitor titled “Destroy them first… discuss human rights later” (August 2023), “brings to attention the shocking abuses that are ongoing in West Papua and should be of concern to the Australian government”.

Quoting from that report, the letter stated:

“This report provides detailed information on a series of security force raids in the Kiwirok District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Papua Pegunungan Province (until 2022 Papua Province) between 13 September and late October 2021.

“Indonesian security forces repeatedly attacked eight indigenous villages in the Kiwirok District, using helicopters and spy drones. The helicopters reportedly dropped mortar grenades on civilian homes and church buildings while firing indiscriminately at civilians.

“Ground forces set public buildings as well as residential houses on fire and killed the villagers’ livestock.”

The AWPA said Indonesian security force operations had also created thousands of internal refugees who have fled to the forests to escape the Indonesian military.

“It has been estimated that there are up to 60,000 IDPs in the highlands living in remote shelters in the forest and they lacking access to food, sanitation, medical treatment, and education,” the letter stated.

In light of the ongoing human rights abuses in the territory, the AWPA called on Senator Wong to:

• urge Jakarta to immediately halt all military operations in West Papua;
• urge Jakarta to supply aid and health care to the West Papuan internal refugees by human rights and health care organisations trusted by the local people; and to
• rethink Australia cooperation with the Indonesian military until the Indonesian military is of a standard acceptable to the Australian people who care about human rights.

A New Zealand advocacy group has also called for an immediate government response to the allegations of torture of children in West Papua.

“The New Zealand government must speak out urgently and strongly against this child torture and the state killing of children by Indonesian forces in West Papua this week,” said the West Papua Action Aotearoa network spokesperson Catherine Delahunty.

The lawyer of the families of the victims of the Mimika murder case has criticised the military reconstruction of the killings and mutilation of the four Nduga residents, describing it as “odd” and calling for an independent investigation.

“The reconstruction of the murder by the security forces is very odd,” lawyer Gustaf R Kawer said in Jayapura yesterday.

“It is mostly the version of the perpetrators and less from the witnesses.”

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Mimika military murder and mutilation

According to Kawer, the reconstruction that took place last Saturday demonstrated 40 scenes. Of these, only 10 showed the role of the Raider/20 Ima Jaya Keramo Infantry Brigade soldiers accused over the murder and mutilation.

Kawer questioned how the reenactment of the crime emphasised the role of Roy or RMH — a fugitive still at large who did not participate in the reconstruction.

“The story that was built in the reenactment from the beginning to the end revolved around Roy. But the person was not even there.

“It was as if Roy was made the sole perpetrator even though there were Indonesian military [TNI] members named as suspects,” Kawer said.

‘Finding it strange’
The murder and mutilation of four civilians from Nduga Regency occurred at Settlement Unit 1, Mimika Baru District, Mimika Regency on August 22, 2022.

The four victims were Arnold Lokbere, Leman Nirigi, Irian Nirigi and Atis Tini.

Kawer said the reenactment showed one of the victims, Arnold Lokbere, in front of a mosque at 10pm local time.

“We find it strange that people around the location who are mentioned in the reenactment do not know about the murder,” he said.

Kawer called for an independent team to fully investigate the chronology and reconstruction of the Mimika murder and mutilation.

“The case has now been handed over to the military police and the police, and will be tried in the general court and military court as a general criminal case,” Kawer said.

Meanwhile, Papua Legislative Council member Namantus Gwijangge said the victims’ families considered the reenactment of the murder scene as “rushed”.

Call for ‘death sentence’
“The family asked the Papua Legislative Council to have the case investigated by an independent team, and the perpetrators be sentenced to death,” Gwijangge said.

On Monday, the Papua Office of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM Papua) said the reconstruction had not fully revealed the murder and mutilation.

Komnas HAM Papua head Frits Ramandey noted that several accused refused to act out certain scenes so some roles were replaced by other people.

Komnas HAM Papua also said that the reconstruction raised suspicion that there were two more soldiers of the Raider/20 Ima Jaya Keramo Infantry Brigade involved in the murder and mutilation but they had not been named as suspects.

However, Komnas HAM Papua did not mention the names or ranks of the two other soldiers allegedly involved.

Republished from Tabloid Jubi/West Papua Daily with permission.

Authorities arrested six Indonesian soldiers last week suspected in the killing and mutilation of four Indigenous Papuans in Indonesia’s West Papua province.

The bodies of the four men were discovered on August 26 by local residents of Iwaka village, outside the town of Timika, in sacks floating down the Pigapu River.

The victims were identified as Irian Nirigi, a local village leader, Arnold Lokbere, Atis Tini, and Kelemanus Nirigi. It is not clear why the men were killed.

• READ MORE: Mutilation of Nduga residents in Timika motivated by robbery
• Atrocities in Papua a result of phobia and stigma against Papuans: Council of Churches
• Timika murder: Family of victims search bodies without help from police
• Killing of four West Papuans ‘brutal reminder of reality’ under Jakarta rule, says Wenda
• Other reports on Papuan human rights

The authorities claimed they were insurgents and were allegedly on their way to meet someone in Timika to purchase weapons.

The men’s families deny this, saying they were carrying money from the village fund to purchase agricultural equipment. What is clear is the money the men were carrying is gone.

The killings come at a time of rising tensions between the Indigenous people of Papua and the Indonesian security forces, with incidents of violence becoming increasingly frequent and deadly.

Last month, unidentified persons shot dead nine non-Papuan civilians in Nduga, where the Indonesian government maintains a heavy military presence.

Anti-racism protests
This violence follows a series of anti-racism protests using the hashtag #PapuanLivesMatter, responding in part to President Joko Widodo’s contentious move to divide Papua and West Papua into four separate provinces.

Activists are raising concerns that the plans will lead to the further militarisation of the region, with critics describing it as a ploy to “divide and conquer” the Indigenous Papuans.

President Jokowi, once celebrated for releasing Papuan political prisoners in 2015, leads a government responsible for systemic discrimination against Papuans.

Killing of four West #Papuans ‘brutal reminder of reality’ under #Jakarta rule, says Wenda #AsiaPacificReport @westpapuamedia @westpapuanews @BennyWenda #HumanRights #HumanRightsViolations #atrocities #PapuanLivesMatter @PNGAttitude @FreeWestPapua https://t.co/LcK8pKhBzQ pic.twitter.com/ypfxF9zm2Y

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) August 31, 2022

Last week he was in Timika, in part to visit the Freeport project and surrounding areas, which is the site of the largest gold mine in the world.

It is important that the authorities fairly and appropriately prosecute the soldiers arrested and any others implicated in the killings.

But the Indonesian government needs to address the deteriorating human rights situation in Papua by conducting an independent and impartial investigation into the involvement of the security forces more generally in atrocities against Indigenous Papuans, and keeping its promise to invite United Nations human rights monitors to visit the region.

Robbie Newton is Asia coordinator of Human Rights Watch.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is warning in a new report that mass killings of civilians could occur in Indonesia’s troubled West Papua region in the next year to 18 months if current conditions deteriorate to a worst-case scenario.

Although large-scale violence against civilians is not occurring yet in Papua, early warning signs are visible and warrant attention, says the report, titled “Don’t Abandon Us: Preventing Mass Atrocities in Papua.”

The museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide published the 45-page report this week authored by an Indonesian, Made Supriatma, who conducted field research in the region.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua human rights reports

“Indonesia ranks 27th on the list of countries with risks of mass atrocities. This report should be considered as an early warning,” Supriatma said.

A combination of factors — increasing rebel attacks, better coordination and organisation of pro-independence civilian groups, and the ease of communication — makes it plausible that the unrest could reach a new level in the next 12-18 months, the report said.

“If political and social unrest persist, and if it were to spread across the region, it is possible that the Indonesian government could determine that the scale or persistence of the protests would justify a more severe response, which could lead to large-scale killing of civilians,” it said.

The risks are rooted in factors such as past mass atrocities in Indonesia, the exclusion of indigenous Papuans from political decision-making, Jakarta’s failure to address their grievances and conflicts over the exploitation of the region’s resources, according to the report.

Human rights abuses
Other factors include Papuans’ resentment over Jakarta’s failure to hold accountable security personnel implicated in human rights abuses and conflict between indigenous Papuans and migrants from other parts of Indonesia over economic, political, religious, and ideological issues, it said.

Under one scenario that the report envisions, pro-Jakarta Papuan militia, backed by the military and police, commit mass atrocities against pro-independence Papuans.

But such a scenario depends on indigenous Papuan groups remaining divided into pro-Jakarta and pro-independence groups, it said. The other scenario involves Indonesian migrants and Indonesian security forces committing atrocities against indigenous Papuans, the study said.

The report recommends that the government improve freedom of information and monitoring atrocity risks, manage conflicts through nonviolent means, and address local grievances and drivers of conflict.

Supriatma said indigenous Papuans he spoke to as part of his research confirmed that real and perceived discrimination had fueled an “us-against-them” mentality between indigenous Papuans and Indonesians.

Papua, on the western side of New Guinea Island, has been the scene of a low-level pro-independence insurgency since the mainly Melanesian region was incorporated into Indonesia in a United Nations-administered ballot in the late 1960s.

In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua — like Indonesia, a former Dutch colony — and annexed the region.

Only 1025 people voted in the UN-sponsored referendum in 1969 that locals and activists said was a sham, but the United Nations accepted the result, essentially endorsing Jakarta’s rule.

‘Not based on facts’
An expert at the Indonesian presidential staff office, Theofransus Litaay, questioned the study’s validity.

“There’s something wrong in the identification of research questions. The author extrapolated events in East Timor to his research,” he said, referring to violence by pro-Jakarta militias before and after East Timor’s vote for independence from Indonesia in 1999.

“It’s not based on the facts on the ground,” he said, without elaborating.

Gabriel Lele, a senior researcher with the Papuan Task Force at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said the report was based on limited data.

“It is true that there has been an escalation of violence, but the main perpetrators are the OPM [Free Papua Movement] and the victims have been civilians, soldiers and police,” lele said.

He said rebels had also attacked indigenous Papuans who did not support the pro-independence movement.

Violence has intensified in Papua since 2018, when pro-independence rebels attacked workers who were building roads and bridges in Nduga regency, killing 20 people, including an Indonesian soldier.

Suspected rebels killed civilians
In the latest violence, suspected rebels gunned down 10 civilians, mostly non-indigenous Papuans, and wounded two others on July 16.

A local rebel commander from the OPM’s armed wing, Egianus Kogoya, claimed responsibility.

“We suspect they were spies, so we shot them dead on the spot,” the Media Indonesia newspaper quoted him as saying on Monday.

The attack in Nduga regency came a little more than two weeks after legislators voted to create three new provinces in Papua amid opposition from indigenous people and rebel groups.

In March this year, insurgents killed eight workers who were repairing a telecommunications tower in Beoga, a district of Puncak regency.

No desire to address racism
Reverend Dr Benny Giay, a member of the Papua Church Council, said Jakarta had not shown a desire to address racism against Papuans, who are ethnically Melanesian, and instead branded pro-independence groups terrorists.

“Authorities allow arms trade between armed groups and members of the TNI [military] and police, which perpetuates the violence and in the end can have fatal consequences for the indigenous people,” Dr Giay said.

The influx of migrants from other parts of Indonesia has created inter-communal tensions and conflicts over regional governance, analysts said.

Indigenous people are concerned that a massive project to build a trans-Papua highway, as part of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s drive to boost infrastructure, could lead to economic domination by outsiders and the presence of more troops, said Cahyo Pamungkas, a researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).

“The road will mainly benefit non-Papuans, and indigenous people will benefit little economically because they are not ready to be involved in the economic system that the government wants to build,” Cahyo said.

Republished from Benar News. Co-author Victor Mambor is editor-in-chief of the indigenous Papuan newspaper and website Jubi.

Today is Nakba Day — “the great catastrophe”. This is the day marking the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and forced off their land by Israeli militias in 1948.

For 74 years Israel has refused to allow them to return to their homes and land in Palestine despite dozens of United Nations resolutions requiring them to do so.

The Nakba has continued every day since 1948 as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and creates more Palestinian refugees every day.

A random selection of photographs from today’s action in Auckland’s Aotea Square that also mourned the assassination of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli troops last Wednesday.

Photographs by David Robie

• Other reports on the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh and Nakba 2022.

Nakba Day in Auckland 2022

1 of 12

The discovery of many civilian bodies lying dead in the Ukrainian city of Bucha this week has brought out more Western rhetoric of horror, disgust, anger and fury at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has renewed calls for more sanctions against Russia, more weapons to the Ukrainians and calls for Putin to be put on trial as a war criminal.

That’s a strong response to war and those responsible for starting a military invasion of a sovereign state.

Let’s shift the focus to Iraq in 2003 for a moment.

• READ MORE: Bucha killings: ‘The world cannot be tricked anymore’

On the marches to protest against the US-UK-Australian-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 one of the chants used was “Never forget Fallujah!”.

So, for those that were too young to know, or now too old to remember, here are a few well-referenced paragraphs from Wikipedia about what happened when the US invaders attacked that city as part of an invasion of another sovereign state, Iraq.

The United States bombardment of Fallujah began in April 2003, one month after the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. In April 2003, United States forces fired on a group of demonstrators who were protesting against the US presence. US forces alleged they were fired at first, but Human Rights Watch, who visited the site of the protests, concluded that physical evidence did not corroborate US allegations and confirmed the residents’ accusations that the US forces fired indiscriminately at the crowd with no provocation.

Seventeen people were killed and 70 were wounded.

Further killings
In a later incident, US soldiers fired on protesters again; Fallujah’s mayor, Taha Bedaiwi al-Alwani, said that two people were killed and 14 wounded. Iraqi insurgents were able to claim the city a year later, before they were ousted by a siege and two assaults by US forces.

These events caused widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis in the city and surrounding areas. As of 2004, the city was largely ruined, with 60 percent of buildings damaged or destroyed, and the population at 30–50 percent of pre-war levels.

At least one US battalion had orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not. In violation of the Geneva Convention, the city’s main hospital was closed by Marines, negating its use, and a US sniper was placed on top of the hospital’s water tower.

On November 13, 2004, a US Marine with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, was videotaped killing a wounded combatant in a mosque. The incident, which came under investigation, created controversy throughout the world.

The man was shot at close range after he and several other wounded insurgents had previously been left behind overnight in the mosque by the US Marines. The Marine shooting the man had been mildly injured by insurgents in the same mosque the day before.

On November 16, 2004, a Red Cross official told Inter Press Service that “at least 800 civilians” had been killed in Fallujah and indicated that “they had received several reports from refugees that the military had dropped cluster bombs in Fallujah, and used a phosphorus weapon that caused severe burns.”

On 17 May 2011, AFP reported that 21 bodies, in black bodybags marked with letters and numbers in Roman script, had been recovered from a mass grave in al-Maadhidi cemetery in the centre of the city.

Blindfolded, legs tied
Fallujah police chief Brigadier General Mahmud al-Essawi said that they had been blindfolded, their legs had been tied and they had suffered gunshot wounds. The Mayor, Adnan Husseini said that the manner of their killing, as well as the body bags, indicated that US forces had been responsible.

Both al-Essawi and Husseini agreed that the dead had been killed in 2004. The US Military declined to comment.

There were no sanctions against the US, UK and Australia, there were no US soldiers, military leaders or politicians held to account. There were no arms sent to help the Iraqis facing overwhelming odds in their fight against the US and its allies.

There were no moves to charge George Bush (US President), Tony Blair (UK Prime Minister) or John Howard (Australian Prime Minister) for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.

Yes Vladimir Putin should be on trial at the International Criminal Court, but before he appears we should have seen George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard face the same charges first.

We should never forget Bucha — but we must never forget Fallujah either. The people of both cities deserve justice at the ICC. Let’s do all we can to hold them to account.

Incidentally, US President Joe Biden was pushing hard for the invasion of Iraq back in 2003. His hypocrisy now in condemning Putin is the stuff of legends.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

A West Papuan leader has praised the “bravery and spirit” of Ukrainians defending their country against the Russian invasion while condemning the hypocrisy of a self-styled “peaceful” Indonesia that attacks “innocent civilians” in Papua.

Responding to the global condemnation of the brutal war on Ukraine, now into its second week, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda highlighted a statement by United Nation experts that has condemned “shocking abuses” against Papuans, including “child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people”.

Wenda also stressed that the same day that Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN said that the military attack on Ukraine was unacceptable and called for peace, reports emerged of seven young schoolboys being arrested, beaten and tortured so “horrifically” by the Indonesian military that one had died from his injuries.

• LISTEN TO ABC PACIFIC BEAT: ‘Double standards’ claims as world reacts to Ukraine crisis, ignores Papua
• UN report calls for independent probe into ‘shocking’ rights abuses in Papua
• Other West Papua reports at Asia Pacific Report

“The eyes of the world are watching in horror [at] the invasion of Ukraine,” said Wenda in a statement.

“We feel their terror, we feel their pain and our solidarity is with these men, women and children. We see their suffering and we weep at the loss of innocent lives, the killing of children, the bombing of their homes, and for the trauma of refugees who are forced to flee their communities.”

Wenda said the world had spoken up to condemn the actions of President Vladimir Putin and his regime.

“The world also applauds the bravery and spirit of Ukrainians in their resistance as they defend their families, their homes, their communities, and their national identity.”

Russian attack unacceptable
Wenda said Indonesia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Arrmanatha Nasir, had stated that that Russian attack on Ukraine was unacceptable and called for peace. He had said innocent civilians “will ultimately bear the brunt of this ongoing situation”.

“But what about innocent civilians in West Papua? asked Wenda.

“At the UN, Indonesia speaks of itself as ‘a peaceful nation’ committed to a world ‘based on peace and social justice’.

“This, on the very same day that reports came in of seven young boys, elementary school children, being arrested, beaten and tortured so horrifically by the Indonesian military that one of the boys, Makilon Tabuni, died from his injuries.

“The other boys were taken to hospital, seriously wounded.”

Wenda said the Indonesian military was deliberately targeting “the young, the next generation. This, to crush our spirit and extinguish hope.

“These are our children that [Indonesian forces are] torturing and killing, with impunity. Are they not ‘innocent civilians’, or are their lives just worth less?”

A leading West Papuan activist is comparing the plight of his region to that of the crisis in Ukraine. https://t.co/K3qsMtXXWI

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) March 4, 2022

Urgent humanitarian access
Wenda said that this was during the same week that UN special rapporteurs had called for urgent humanitarian access and spoken of “shocking abuses against our people”, including “child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people”.

This was an acknowledgement from the UN that Papuan people had been “crying out for”.

Wenda said 60-100,00 people were currently displaced, without any support or aid. This was a humanitarian crisis.

“Women forced to give birth in the bush, without medical assistance. Children are malnourished and starving. And still, Indonesia does not allow international access,” he said.

“Our people have been suffering this, without the eyes of the world watching, for nearly 60 years.”

In response, the Indonesian Ambassador to the UN had continued with “total denial, with shameless lies and hypocrisy”.

“If there’s nothing to hide, then where is the access?”

International community ‘waking up’
Wenda said the international community was “waking up” and Indonesia could not continue to “hide your shameful secret any longer”.

“Like the Ukrainian people, you will not crush our spirit, you will not steal our hope and we will not give up our struggle for freedom,” Wenda said.

The ULMWP demanded that Indonesia:

• Allow access for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and for humanitarian aid to our displaced people and to international journalists;
• Withdraw the military;
• Release political prisoners, including Victor Yeimo and the “Abepura Eight”; and
• Accept the Papuan right to self-determination and end the illegal occupation of Papua.

By Antonio Sampaio in Dili

Filmmaker and journalist Max Stahl, 66, has died almost 30 years after capturing images of the Indonesian massacre at Santa Cruz cemetery in the Timor-Leste capital Dili, which helped accelerate the country’s struggle for independence.

By coincidence, he died on the same day in 1991 as Sebastião Gomes, the young man who was buried in Santa Cruz and whose death led to the protest that ended in the Santa Cruz Massacre.

More than 2000 people went to Santa Cruz to pay tribute to Gomes, who was killed by Indonesian-backed militia in the Motael neighbourhood.

• READ MORE: Timor-Leste’s Max Stahl – documenting the audiovisual and development “war” — David Robie’s tribute to Max on Café Pacific
• British filmmaker and war correspondent Max Stahl dies after long illness

The atrocity by the Indonesian military was secretly filmed by Max Stahl and footage smuggled out of the country. International attention on East Timor dramatically changed as a result.

At the graveyard, the Indonesian military opened fire on the crowd, killing 74 people at the scene. Over the next few days, more than 120 young people died in hospital from their wounds or as a result of the crackdown by occupying forces.

Most bodies were never recovered.

Born on 6 December 1954 in the United Kingdom, journalist and documentary maker Christopher Wenner, better known as Max Stahl, began his ties to the country in 1991 when he managed to enter East Timor for the first time.

He became a Timorese citizen in 2019.

Hiding among the graves
On November 12, hiding among the graves of Santa Cruz cemetery, he filmed the massacre — one of many during the Indonesian occupation of the country. Images were circulated  around the world’s media and this changed history.

Decorated with the Order of Timor-Leste, the highest award given to foreign citizens in the country, the Rory Peck Prize for filmmakers, and several other rewards, Max Stahl leaves as a legacy the main archives of images from the last years of the Indonesian occupation of the country.

The Max Stahl Audiovisual Center in Timor-Lete (CAMSTL) contains thousands of hours of video documentary, including extended interviews with key actors in the Timorese struggle for independence.

The archive was adopted by UNESCO for the World Memory Register and has been used for teaching and research on Timor’s history under the framework of cooperation between the University of Coimbra, the National University of East Timor and CAMSTL.

The original 1991 Dili massacre footage by Max Stahl. Video: Journeyman Pictures

Stahl studied literature at the University of Oxford and he was a fluent speaker of several languages, including the two official languages of East Timor — Portuguese and Tetum.

He began his career writing for theatre and children’s television shows. However, he found his calling as a war correspondent when he lived with his family. At the time his father was ambassador to El Salvador where Stahl reported on the civil war between 1979 and 1992.

Stahl covered other conflicts such as those of Georgia, former Yugoslavia and East Timor (from 30 August 1991), where he arrived as a “tourist” at the invitation of resistance groups.

“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max passed away this morning.”

— Max Stahl’s wife Dr Ingrid Brucens

Historic resistance leaders
Throughout his long ties to East Timor, where he lived until he had to travel recently to Australia for medical treatment, he interviewed historic resistance leaders such as Nino Konis Santa, David Alex and others.

Santa Cruz and the 12 November 1991 massacre made the name Max Stahl known internationally with his images exposing the barbarism of the Indonesian occupation.

In Portugal, the images made a special impact — both through the brutality of the violence portrayed and because the survivors gathered in the small chapel of Santa Cruz, praying in Portuguese while listening to the bullets being fired by the Indonesian military and police.

The 1999 referendum prompted Max Stahl to return to East Timor when he covered the violence before the referendum and after the announcement of independence victory. He also accompanied families on the flight to the mountains.

News of Max Stahl’s death on Wednesday at a Brisbane hospital quickly became the most commented subject on social media in East Timor, prompting condolences from several personalities during the struggle for independence.

In statements to Lusa news agency, former President José Ramos-Horta described Max Stahl’s death as a “great loss” to Timor-Leste and the world. He said it would cause “deep consternation and pain” to the Timorese people.

“Someone like Max, with a big heart, with a great dedication and love for East Timor … [has been] taken to another world,” he told Lusa.

Dr Ingrid Brucens, Max Stahl’s wife, and who was with him and the children in Brisbane, announced his death to friends.

“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max passed away this morning,” she wrote in messages to friends.

Antonio Sampaio is the Lusa correspondent in Dili.

CAMSTL video tribute
This video below is the  CAMSTL team’s tribute to the memory of Stahl, who had dedicated 30 years of his life to the people of Timor-Leste. CAMSTL colleagues said on their Facebook page:

“The images and testimonies recorded by the journalist in the 1990s alerted the world to the serious human rights violations taking place in Timorese territory.

“From then on, the country’s independence restoration process gained momentum.

“Today, the journalist’s heroic trajectory ends on the earthly plane, but his legacy will continue to live on in the large archive created and directed by him, the Centro Audiovisual Max Stahl Timor-Leste.

“Dear Max. We will always be together with you in preserving the memory of the resistance struggle and the construction of the Timorese nation.

“We would like to thank Max’s friend José Ramos-Horta — Nobel Peace Prize and Former President of the Republic– for participating in this video.”

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

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

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

• READ MORE: Other Myanmar coup reports

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

He described this as a “public revolution”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

British and Indonesian human rights defender Carmel Budiardjo, founder of TAPOL watchdog and the movement’s driving force for many decades, has died peacefully aged 96.

TAPOL said in an announcement that she had died on Saturday and would be greatly missed by an extensive network of people whose lives had been “touched — and sometimes transformed — by her passionate and determined campaigning for human rights, justice and democracy in Indonesia, East Timor, Aceh and West Papua”.

For many, she had been a great mentor as well as a beloved friend, TAPOL said.

• WATCH: Carmel Burdiadjo and the story of TAPOL
• Surviving Indonesia’s Gulag: A Western Woman Tells Her Story
• Carmel Budiardjo: rights defender who shone a light on Papua

TAPOL stands for “tahanan politik” or “political prisoners” in Indonesian.

Budiardjo, a British citizen then living in Indonesia, was imprisoned without trial by Indonesian authorities following former President Suharto’s rise to power in 1965.

An Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Budiardjo was released after three years’ imprisonment and she returned to the UK.

In 1973, she founded TAPOL to campaign for the release of the tens of thousands of political prisoners following the 1965 atrocities by the Suharto regime and in support of the relatives of the hundreds of thousands who were killed.

Raised awareness of atrocities
Budiardjo was determined to raise international awareness about those atrocities and injustices in which many Western countries, including the UK, were “complicit in their attempts to halt what they saw as the rise of communism”.

Over the next three decades, TAPOL’s work broadened to encompass wider issues of human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia, including in Aceh, East Timor and the contested Melanesian territory of West Papua.

“Wherever possible, and despite the extreme repression of the New Order regime, we built close relationships and collaboration with the very brave human rights defenders and pro-democracy campaigners there,” said TAPOL.

In 1995, Budiardjo received the Right Livelihood Award, after being nominated by the International Federation for East Timor.

With awareness growing also of the environmental damage being wrought by the regime on nature and local communities, in 1988 Budiardjo helped set up a sister organisation, Down to Earth, to fight for ecological justice.

Later, in 2007, Budiardjo and TAPOL were also founder members of the London Mining Network, established to support communities harmed by London-based mining companies.

“As Indonesia became more democratic during the 2000s, we increasingly turned our attention to the region of West Papua. There, human rights violations have continued, largely out-of-sight and un-discussed within Indonesia as well as internationally,” said TAPOL.

John Rumbiak Award
For TAPOL’s international work on West Papua, Budiardjo also received the John Rumbiak Human Rights Defender Award and was honoured as an “Eldest Daughter of Papua” by leaders of West Papuan civil society in 2011.

TAPOL is still today very much as Budiardjo set it up — a small organisation/network of committed staff, volunteers and collaborators, all aiming for a big impact.

“We remain committed to her ideals of promoting justice and equality across Indonesia, and are deeply grateful for all that she contributed and taught us,” the TAPOL statement said.

“Our thoughts and sincere condolences for this huge, sad loss go to Carmel’s family in particular, but also to all those across the globe who knew and loved her.”

A counter-terrorism hui intended to help heal the wounds inflicted in Christchurch two years ago sparked a walk-out which hit the headlines. The news media were also there to be questioned about their rights and responsibilities after 15 March 2019.

When police National Security Adviser Cameron Bayly revealed that two possible shootings in Christchurch had been foiled in 2019 – one before and one after the atrocity on March 15 – it quickly made headline news.

The revelation came last Tuesday morning during a panel discussion at He Whenua Taurikura – an annual hui recommended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH: Christchurch terror attacks puts NZ media under the spotlight
• Hui on countering terrorism sees mass walkout over Hezbollah comment
• NZ terror trial reporting protocols in Pacific Journalism Review

He Whenua Taurikura means “a land at peace”. But the hui created rancour when an invited speaker, Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses, referenced a rally in Auckland’s Queen Street in 2018 at which some had expressed support for Hezbollah.

That had not been condemned and leaders should be consistent when confronting terrorism, Moses said.

That prompted members of the Christchurch Muslim community to walk out.

One  – Azad Razzaq Khan from the Foundation Against Islamophobia and Racism – said this “implied New Zealand Muslims support terrorism”.

This led news bulletins that evening and next morning – and the anger was amplified by the fact no victims or witnesses of the mosque atrocities were among speakers at the hui.

Following the startling news that a film studio wants to tell the March 15 story without consulting with victims or Muslim leaders in the city, this was a problem waiting to happen.

However, it didn’t derail He Whenua Taurikura’s second day on Wednesday, during which Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand leader Anjum Rahman gave an eye-opening talk on online extremism after the Christchurch attacks.

Rahman, who is an adviser to the Christchurch Call and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, showed how social media’s hyperactive algorithms still spread anti-Muslim stuff that extremists latch onto.

Media leaders face up

“Listen and respond. Do not write narratives about us without us. Do not talk over us or for us.”

— Khairiah Rahman

Leaders from New Zealand’s news media also faced questions at the hui last Tuesday.

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher admitted news media coverage of ethnic issues and communities is often only surface-deep and through a European lens.

But she insisted our news media have a social conscience that social media does not.

“I can think of a handful of examples in recent years where media have not published information because of the risk it could bring to someone’s safety,” Boucher told the hui.

New Zealand Herald head of premium content Miriyana Alexander said those gathered at the hui would have different ideas about how news serves the public interest.

“We are often asked not to report something, because a certain group doesn’t believe it’s in the public interest,” Alexander said.

“We are fiercely protective of that right [to report], while we acknowledge that rights carries responsibilities.”

Reporting if gunman’s crimes
A case in point was the reporting of Brenton Tarrant’s crimes back in 2019.

Stuff didn’t publish his name for a while and only minimal details of his background and apparent beliefs. The NZ Herald published a lot more about him back in March 2019.

All mainstream news media agreed on protocols for reporting his trial last year and stuck to guidelines designed to ensure he couldn’t grandstand or promote his beliefs.

“I’ve never seen that happen before in my time in media and I think it was a great credit to all organisations involved,” Alexander said.

“It was a powerful thing to do and it laid a strong foundation for the ongoing coverage and relationships.”

RNZ head of news Richard Sutherland said individual media organisations would probably have followed the same principles anyway, without a binding pact in place.

But some free speech and media freedom advocates were alarmed by that.

Media crisis meetings
Alexander  – the current chair of the Media Freedom Committee which represents the mutual interests of the news media – said the media had been meeting twice a year with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (which organised this week’s hui), with terror attacks or crises in future in mind.

“Some protocols have been drafted,” said Alexander.

“I’m not aware of this happening in any other jurisdiction and it’s evidence of the media’s desire to be a responsible member of our community.”

Providing a Muslim community perspective on the panel was Khairiah A Rahman, a senior lecturer at the School of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and a board member and researcher of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.

She analysed Representations of Islam and Muslims in New Zealand Media in 2017 and in March 2019 she told Mediawatch she had found reporting lacking in several ways.

About 13,000 of just over 14,000 stories in the New Zealand media that included the word Islam also mentioned either terrorism or Islamic Jihad — and most were from from overseas sources.

“There appears to be a growing misconceived hatred for a faith supported by 1.5 billion of the world’s population, but more importantly, this destructive trend is promoted by the media, consciously or not,” Rahman’s paper concluded.

Praised media response
Last Tuesday in Christchurch, she praised the media response to the mosque attacks, but pointed to examples of reporting from the past that had caused offence.

She cited coverage of the so-called “jihadi brides” issue.

In 2015, Prime Minister John Key called New Zealand women travelling to Syria and Iraq “jihadi brides.” The director of the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) said the numbers were rising.  But in 2016, the SIS revealed none of the women involved actually left from New Zealand.

Rahman also warned visual elements of stories could be discriminatory and cited a Sunday Star Times story from 2014: Fears of terror in our own backyard.

The story was published at a time when government ministers were considering new measures to stop New Zealanders heading overseas as foreign fighters.

The main photo portrayed was of Sheik Abu Abdullah outside his home in West Auckland, under which a caption read: “FIREBRAND OR MAN OF PEACE?”

“You have to wonder what was the purpose of that,” Rahman said.

Experienced journalists
The story was written by two experienced journalists and focused on this controversial figure, also known as Abu Hamam, who had been barred from the Avondale Islamic Centre.

“He was not interviewed in the story so how is it fair to call him ‘Firebrand… or man of peace?’

“If you understand the people you’re reporting on in the marginalised position that they come from it’s not that difficult,” she said.

The story included comment from Muslims in Auckland who knew him, followers and Muslim experts. On the face of it the story has the kind of context and community input critics say is often missing.

“I disagree. If you were to run that story past the Muslim community there will be some things they will point out to you. You find that the voices are diminished, because at the end there is a list of people who have been through Australia and joined ISIS.”

At the foot of the article was a list of four “Kiwi Jihadis”, including Daryl Jones and Christopher Havard, killed in a US drone strike alongside al-Qaeda militants in 2013. The paper said Havard’s family claimed he was radicalised at a mosque in Christchurch.

“If you have a good introduction, but the final part is horrible, you go away thinking Muslim people are horrible,” Rahman said.

‘Largely negative’
Her research on how the New Zealand media treated Muslims before the Christchurch attacks showed coverage was “largely negative”.

“But in the Royal Commission’s report, there was no mention of the media having any responsibility. I made a submission to the Royal Commission pointing out that the media was responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes and ideas – largely from international media,” Rahman said.

“I think it’s a start to recognise this.”

Rahman left the media with this message last Tuesday:

“Listen and respond. Do not write narratives about us without us. Do not talk over us or for us.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Tomorrow I will move a motion calling on the New Zealand Parliament to join the Green Party in recognising the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood.

This is about acknowledging the humanity and dignity of Palestinians at a time when they are facing extreme violence and degradation, once again, at the hands of Israeli occupying forces.

The harrowing violence we are witnessing in Gaza and East Jerusalem are part of an ongoing atrocity against the Palestinian people.

• READ MORE: Green Party puts forward NZ parliamentary motion to declare Palestine a state
• Other Israel-Palestine conflict reports

Violence against civilians, whether committed by Hamas or the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) must be condemned in the strongest terms, but the massively disproportionate death toll — more than 200 Palestinian deaths, 50 of them children, and 10 Israelis, including two children — speaks to the context of a powerful military force indiscriminately attacking a trapped community.

The path forward from the latest bout of violence must be lasting peace, supported by the international community.

Statehood as part of a two-state solution would uphold and celebrate the inherent rights and dignity of Palestinians.

It would allow that strong and resilient community to move forward to a future where Palestinian children can look forward to building their lives free from violence, with hopes and dreams that they so richly deserve.

This is a longstanding Green Party kaupapa that we hope the House will unanimously support.

Golriz Ghahraman is a Green Party list MP and spokesperson on foreign affairs and social justice issues. She is an Iranian-Kiwi refugee and made history as the first ever refugee to be sworn in as an MP in New Zealand.

Afghanis who say they have witnessed torture and murder at the hands of Australian soldiers want the chance to testify in court as well as compensation, a journalist says.

Australia’s Defence Force Chief Angus Campbell announced yesterday that there is information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 special forces personnel in Afghanistan.

He was commenting on a four-year inquiry that found “credible information” supporting allegations of war crimes by the country’s special forces.

• READ MORE: Afghans recall days when Australians unleashed dogs, gunfire
• Australia funds evidence of war crimes in Afghanistan inquiry

Major-General Paul Brereton’s report also said junior soldiers were often required by their patrol commanders to shoot prisoners to get their first kill in a practice known as “blooding”.

The inquiry also found evidence soldiers gloated about their actions, kept kill counts and planted phones and weapons on corpses to justify their actions.

One victim had told him four of his family had been killed – two brothers and two cousins.

In another village he spoke to a number of victims about their bad experiences and they described “murders after murders”.

“One man did say to me that he wanted to look up in the eyes of these killers and ask them why did they kill so many innocent Afghans.”

Another man he interviewed could not stop crying as he likened the sound of bullets from a gun with a silencer to “drops of water”.

“These families… have been telling me that they want to get justice, that they want to make sure this is a transparent process and that those responsible are brought to justice.”

They have asked him if those directly affected will get the chance to fly to Australia to give evidence in courtrooms there, Sarwary said.

Many of the people involved were very poor and they had also asked him about their chances of receiving compensation from Australia.

Sarwary said that the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission has demanded that Australia adopts a transparent process as it lays charges against the perpetrators and there should be compensation for victims.

‘We crossed a very bad line’ – ex-soldier
The Brereton inquiry heard from more than 400 witnesses, including former SAS paramedic Dusty Miller, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012.

He told the ABC he witnessed a number of unlawful killings and has since struggled with “psychological wounds”.

He said he felt vindicated after reading the report and was in no doubt that some of the soldiers needed to go to jail for their crimes. It might be hard for the Australian public to accept such behaviour had occurred, he said.

“We’ve got this proud ANZAC tradition that we’re trying to uphold but unfortunately it’s like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real.

“We crossed a very bad line and we crossed it for a number of years and we need to pay that price now.”

The report also warned that more killings would be revealed in the future and Miller said he was sure that is true.

Some soldiers’ lives had been ruined by what they had witnessed in Afghanistan. It also meant the end of his own military career, Miller said.

‘Everybody knew what was going on’
“Everybody knew what was going on. It was a day-to-day occurrence. We normalised it… you certainly had to go along with what was happening because the alternative would have been professional suicide. You’d have been ostracised.

“There was no way you would have flagged this with the commanders or speak up – that would have been unthinkable.”

Miller said the commanders must have known what was happening especially as they had debriefs after every mission.

However, it was “a minority group” who acted badly and the majority of men he served with were “honourable” although they operated in a “dog eat dog” aggressive environment.

Clear differences between NZ and Australian troops, says author
Investigative journalist Jon Stephenson, the co-author of Hit and Run, the book which led to the Operation Burnham Inquiry, said there was a difference between the way Australian forces behaved and the conduct of New Zealand forces.

“It’s clear that for Operation Burnham the allegations concerned civilian casualties but they weren’t deliberate. The New Zealand forces were involved in an action in Afghanistan that led to civilian casualties but they didn’t intend for those people to die,” Stephenson told Morning Report.

“Whereas in the Australian case, there’s a clear difference, in that they deliberately planned and carried out unlawful actions, alleged war crimes – shooting people who were in their custody and posed no threat or civilians.”

Australian and New Zealand troops worked together in some places, such as headquarters, but they did not go out in large numbers on missions together.

After New Zealand troops had bad experiences working with the US in Afghanistan a decision was made that New Zealand troops would operate as independently as possible so they would not be “contaminated” by some of the behaviour they saw.

In some cases they did support missions, but generally they acted on their own or with the Afghans, Stephenson said.

Australian federal police will investigate the specifics and decisions will be made about which troopers should be prosecuted over the 39 alleged murders. This process may take years, he said.

“It would be my expectation, based on what I’ve heard, and the people I’ve spoken to, that there will definitely be a large number of prosecutions.

“It’s inconceivable to me given that, for example, people have been shown on camera shooting unarmed young men in a field who posed no threat, that there will not be successful prosecutions, convictions and some people will serve serious jail time.”

Defence Force chief General Angus Campbell identified a significant problem with what he called “toxic warrior culture” in Australian forces and this was not seen in the New Zealand forces.

However, Stephenson said it is important for New Zealanders to consider if their troops had served as many rotations in the same same high intensity conflict areas and had lost as many troops in conflicts as the Australians did whether such a culture might evolve.

He believes that NZ troops would not have resorted to this type of behaviour.

“I think there are significant cultural problems in the Australian military. They have got a very different attitude towards indigenous people than our troopers have.

“That’s not to say that our forces have acted impeccably at all times, but I do think there are significant cultural differences, training differences between New Zealand and Australia.”

With New Zealand’s smaller numbers it was also easier to identify bad behaviour.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

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

About 60 people from the Sri Lankan community and human rights advocates gathered in Auckland’s Aotea Square today in a solidarity vigil for the survivors of the Easter Sunday bombings.

More than 320 people were killed in the Sri Lankan atrocities.

Today’s vigil was organised by the Federation of Tamil Associations in NZ (FTANZ).

Meanwhile, the New Zealand and Sir Lankan governments are treating with caution reports that the suicide bombings of three Christian churches and three tourist hotels in three cities across Sri Lanka were carried out by Islamic State (ISIS) in retaliation for the Christchurch mosques terror attacks on March 15.

The terrorist group’s Amaq news agency says ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings.

It is the deadliest overseas operation claimed by ISIS since it proclaimed its “caliphate” almost five years ago, and would suggest it retains the ability to launch devastating strikes around the world despite multiple defeats in the Middle East, reports The Guardian.

• ‘We all need to act on terror’, says PM

In the aftermath of the tragic loss of life in Christchurch last Friday, the focus needs to be on supporting those who have lost their loved ones and on fostering a sense of national unity in the face of an heinous act of terrorism.

At this early stage we know the perpetrator of the most devastating terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history was a white supremacist. We know he accessed and stockpiled firearms over a long period of time, and that his racist beliefs motivated his actions.

But there are other lessons and important points to make about the attack. These should shape the longer-term response by the New Zealand government.

READ MORE: Other Asia Pacific Report coverage of the Christchurch mosque attacks

1. Muslims are the biggest victims of terror across the globe
The first is a more sustained governmental and societal focus on right-wing extremism. It may turn out that the extremist who committed this attack acted alone, but the ideology that motivated him has spread around the globe and is infecting our politics and discourse.

We know right-wing radicals have committed atrocities before. The most notable perhaps was an extremist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. But this is part of a long history of extremist violence on the right.

According to research by the Anti-Defamation League, over the last decade, 73.3 percent of all extremist-related fatalities in the US could be linked to domestic right-wing extremists, while 23.4 percent were attributable to Islamist extremists. We should pay attention to these statistics in New Zealand. The fear that jihadist terrorism will occur sometime in New Zealand is real, but we haven’t adequately recognised the threat from neofascist ideology.

It is a tragic footnote to this story that globally Muslims have been by far the most victimised group by terrorism in the post-9/11 era. In a 2011 report, the US government’s National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), said:

In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 percent and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.

Clearly, we need to do more to protect Muslim communities from acts of violence and to focus more tightly on the ideology of fascism, which underpins both right-wing groups and those who commit violence in the name of Islam.

2. Extremists share a lot in common
A second lesson relates to the process of radicalisation. We need to better understand why people who commit mass murder fall into a set of hateful beliefs. This is clearly a serious social problem caused by many variables, including demographic change, inequality, poverty and lack of education.

The latest research on radicalisation suggests many of those responsible for “lone wolf” acts are socially illiterate and have fallen out of the mainstream of society. They often indicate these beliefs via social media, suggesting we could do more to report these viewpoints to authorities.

Radicals also tend to share a set of psychological or cognitive traits that underpin their actions. According to recent reports by the European Institute for Peace these include grievances that are galvanised by a unifying ideology, a process of cognitive “de-pluralisation”, in which they tend to focus on a very limited set of ideas to interpret the world, and confirmation bias, where events are re-packaged into existing beliefs and assumptions.

Other research shows radicals climb a “staircase” to violent acts involving a series of incremental steps over a period of years. This suggests earlier intervention will be the key to having people back away from violence.

The social and cognitive alienation of young people in contemporary society is a growing problem. Radicalisation expert Scott Atran says:

Violent extremism represents not the resurgence of traditional cultures, but their collapse, as young people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity that gives personal significance and glory. This is the dark side of globalisation.

3. The dark web is a breeding ground for hatred
A third lesson is that global communications technology is providing a breeding ground for extremism and hatred. In this sense “lone wolves” aren’t acting alone. They are connected to a structured and well-financed global neo-Nazi ideology that uses the internet to propagate its beliefs.

According to a recent report by the Data & Society Research Institute, far-right actors are regularly spreading white supremacist thought, Islamophobia and misogyny on the internet through sites such as 4chan and 8chan.

Right-wing groups have regularly circulated propaganda within social media channels and have sown racial and ethnically charged divisions within society through memes and disinformation. This was a tactic of the far right in the US elections in 2016, and has been used regularly since, including in the Brexit debates.

These websites aren’t easy to take down. As recent efforts by Google show, neo-Nazi sites that are blocked or banned “go dark” behind encrypted platforms that are out of reach of tech companies and security services.

Timothy Snyder, a renowned holocaust historian, notes this form of “mass manipulation” is based on appealing to emotions rather than reason. The spread of fake news and propaganda on the internet creates a perfect platform to increase fear, anger and anxiety. These are the psychological conditions from which acts of violence are committed.

4. New Zealand does have a right-wing problem
The final lesson is a wider, political one for New Zealand. There has undoubtedly been a tendency in some quarters of New Zealand politics to assume we are living in a largely benign international environment. This is part of a troubling isolationist tendency in New Zealand politics that contributes to us not taking security seriously and investing in it accordingly. The Christchurch attacks have shattered these illusions.

The right-wing problem in New Zealand has historical roots. White pride marches have taken place in Christchurch on numerous occasions. A far-right candidate who was convicted of firebombing a marae (Māori meeting place) stood for mayor three times in recent years, most recently in 2013 when he received a small but significant number of votes.

On the international stage we need to stand up against the beliefs that underpin right-wing extremism. Jacinda Ardern’s call to Donald Trump to be compassionate to Muslims was a good start and reminds us racism at the top of society can create a permissive environment for extremism.

We also need to reorient our foreign and security policy towards de-radicalisation processes both domestically and internationally. The UK’s Prevent programme, which has seen a big increase in efforts to prevent right-wing extremism, may be a good model to follow.

New Zealanders now know the fear and chaos that follows terrorism. But the goal of terrorism is to use that fear to undermine our democracy and way of life. So we need to channel our response in a way that protects our values.

We must be aware of the perils of over-reacting, but nevertheless need to redouble our efforts to create multi-level, evidence-led strategies to target radicalism, recognising global and local drivers of extremism.

Dr Joe Burton is a senior lecturer at the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science, University of Waikato. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

• Christchurch mosque shootings must end New Zealand’s innocence about right-wing terrorism
• Why news outlets should think twice about republishing the New Zealand mosque shooter’s livestream

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

READ MORE: Massacre in Myanmar – the Reuters investigation

This is the open letter:

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

Paris, 6 September 2018

Dear State Counsellor,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Massacre in Myanmar – a Reuters special report

Dr Swee Ang, doctor on board Al Awda, reports on the events from July 29 when Israeli navy commandos stormed the Freedom Flotilla boat Al Awda, hijacked and diverted it from its intended course to break the Gaza blockade, and forced her to go to Israel.

The last leg of the journey of Al Awda (The Return) was scheduled to reach Gaza on 29 July 2018. We were on target to reach Gaza that evening.

There were 22 people on board, including crew, with US$15,000 of antibiotics and bandages for Gaza.

At 12.31 pm we received a missed call from a number beginning with +81… Mikkel was steering the boat at that time. The phone rang again with the message that we were “trespassing into Israeli waters”.

Mikkel replied that we were in international waters and had right of innocent passage according to maritime laws. The accusation of trespassing was repeated again and again with Mikkel repeating the message that we were sailing in international waters.

This carried on for about half an hour, while Al Awda was 42 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza.

Prior to the beginning of this last leg, we had spent 2 days learning non-violent actions and had prepared ourselves in anticipation of Israeli invasion of our boat. Vulnerable individuals especially those with medical conditions were to sit at the rear of the top deck with their hands on the deck table.

The leader of this group was Gerd, a 75-year-old elite Norwegian athlete and she had the help of Lucia a Spanish nurse in her group.

Non-violent barrier
The people who were to provide non-violent barrier to the Israelis coming on deck and taking over the boat formed 3 rows – two rows of threes and the third row of 2 persons blocking the wheelhouse door to protect the wheelhouse for as long as possible.

There were runners between the wheelhouse and the rear of the deck. The leader of the boat, Zohar and I, were at the two ends of the toilets corridor where we looked out at the horizon and inform all of any sightings of armed boats. I laughed at Zohar and said we are the “Toilet Brigade”, but I think Zohar did not find it very funny.

It was probably bad taste under the circumstances. I also would be able to help as a runner and will have accessibility to all parts of the deck in view of being the doctor on board.

Soon we saw at least three large Israeli warships on the horizon with 5 or more speed boats (Zodiacs) zooming towards us. As the Zodiacs approached I saw that they carried soldiers with machine guns and there was on board the boats large machine guns mounted on a stand pointing at our boat.

From my lookout point the first Israeli soldier climbed on board to the cabin level and climbed up the boat ladder to the top deck. His face was masked with a white cloth and following him were many others, all masked. They were all armed with machine guns and small cameras on their chests.

They immediately made to the wheelhouse overcoming the first row by twisting the arms of the participants, lifting Sarah up and throwing her away. Joergen the chef was large to be manhandled so he was tasered before being lifted up.

They attacked the second row by picking on Emelia the Spanish nurse and removed her thus breaking the line. They then approach the door of the wheel house and tasered Charlie, the first mate, and [New Zealand’s Unite union leader] Mike Treen who were obstructing their entry to the wheel house.

Mike bleeding
Charlie was beaten up as well. Mike did not give way with being tasered in his lower limbs so he was tasered in his neck and face. Later on I saw bleeding on the left side of Mike’s face. He was semi-conscious when I examined him.

They broke into the wheelhouse by cutting the lock, forced the engine to be switched off and took down the Palestine flag before taking down the Norwegian flag and trampling on it.

They then cleared all people from the front half of the boat around the wheel house and moved them by force and coercion, throwing them to the rear of the deck. All were forced to sit on the floor at the back, except Gerd, Lucy and the vulnerable people who were seated around the table on wooden benches around her.

Israeli soldiers then formed a line sealing off people from the back and preventing them from coming to the front of the boat again.

As we entered the back of the deck we were all body searched and ordered to surrender our mobile phones or else they would take it by force. This part of search and confiscation was under the command of a woman soldier.

Apart from mobile phones – medicines and wallets were also removed. No one as of today (4 August 2018) got our mobile phones back.

I went to examine Mike and Charlie. Charlie had recovered consciousness and his wrists were tied together with plastic cable ties. Mike was bleeding from the side of his face, still not fully conscious. His hands were very tightly tied together with cable ties and the circulation to his fingers was cut off and his fingers and palm were beginning to swell.

At this stage the entire people seated on the floor shouted demanding that the cable ties be cut. It was about half an hour later before the ties were finally cut off from both of them.

Trampled flag
Around this time Charlie, the first mate, received the Norwegian flag. He was visibly upset telling all of us that the Norwegian flag had been trampled on. Charlie reacted more to the trampling of the Norwegian flag than to his own being beaten and tasered.

The soldiers then started asking for the captain of the boat. The boys then started to reply that they were all the captain. Eventually the Israelis figured out that Herman was the captain and demanded to take him to the wheelhouse. Herman asked for someone to come with him, and I offered to do so.

But as we approached the wheelhouse, I was pushed away and Herman forced into the wheelhouse on his own. Divina, the well known Swedish singer, had meanwhile broken free from the back and went to the front to look through the window of the wheel house.

She started to shout and cry, “Stop – stop they are beating Herman, they are hurting him.”

We could not see what Divina saw, but knew that it was something very disturbing. Later on, when Divina and I were sharing a prison cell, she told me they were throwing Herman against the wall of the wheel house and punching his chest. Divina was forcibly removed and her neck was twisted by the soldiers who took her back to the rear of the deck.

I was pushed back to the rear of the boat again. After a while the boat engine started. I was told later by Gerd who was able to hear Herman tell the story to the Norwegian Consul in prison that the Israelis wanted Herman to start the engine, and threatened to kill him if he would not do so.

But what they did not understand was that with this boat, once the engine stopped it can only be restarted manually in the engine room in the cabin level below.

Arne, the engineer, refused to restart the engine, so the Israelis brought Herman down and hit him in front of Arne making it clear that they will continue to hit Herman if Arne would not start the engine.

Engineer aged 70
Arne is 70 years old, and when he saw Herman’s face went ash colour, he gave in and started the engine manually. Gerd broke into tears when she was narrating this part of the story.

The Israelis then took charge of the boat and drove it to Ashdod.

Once the boat was on course, the Israeli soldiers brought Herman to the medical desk. I looked at Herman and saw that he was in great pain, silent but conscious, breathing spontaneously but shallow breathing.

The Israeli Army doctor was trying to persuade Herman to take some medicine for pain. Herman was refusing the medicine.

The Israeli doctor explained to me that what he was offering Herman was not army medicine but his personal medicine. He gave me the medicine from his hand so that I could check it. It was a small brown glass bottle and I figured that it was some kind of liquid morphine preparation probably the equivalent of oromorph or fentanyl.

I asked Herman to take it and the doctor asked him to take 12 drops after which Herman was carried off and slumped on a mattress at the back of the deck. He was watched over by people around him and fell asleep. From my station I saw he was breathing better.

With Herman settled I concentrated on Larry Commodore, the Native American leader and an environmental activist. He had been voted chief of his tribe twice. Larry has labile asthma and with the stress all around my fear was that he might get a nasty attack, and needed adrenaline injection.

Deep breathing
I was taking Larry through deep breathing exercises. However Larry was not heading for an asthmatic attack, but was engaging an Israeli who covered his face with a black cloth in conversation.

This man was obviously in charge.

I asked for the Israeli man with black mask his name and he called himself Field Marshal Ro…..Larry misheard him and jumped to conclusion that he called himself Field Marshal Rommel and shouted how can he an Israeli take a Nazi name.

“Field Marshal” objected and introduced himself as Field Marshal? Ronan. As I spelt out Ronan he quickly corrected me that his name is Ronen, and he, Field Marshal Ronen, was in charge.

The Israeli soldiers all wore body cameras and were filming us all the time. A box of sandwiches and pears were brought on deck for us. None of us took any of their food as we had decided we do not accept Israeli hypocrisy and charity.

Our chef Joergen had already prepared high calorie high protein delicious brownie with nuts and chocolate, wrapped up in tin foil to be consumed when captured, as we knew it was going to be a long day and night.

Joergen called it food for the journey. Unfortunately when I needed it most, the Israelis took away my food and threw it away. They just told me ”It is forbidden”. I had nothing to eat for 24 hours, refusing Israeli Army food and had no food of my own.

Total darkness
As we sailed towards Israel we could see the coast of Gaza in total darkness. There were 3 oil /gas rigs in the northern sea of Gaza. The brightly burning oil flames contrasted with the total darkness the owners of the fuel were forced to live in.

Just off the shore of Gaza are the largest deposit of natural gas ever discovered and the natural gas belonging to the Palestinians is already being siphoned off by Israel.

As we approached Israel, Zohar our boat leader suggested that we should start saying goodbye to each other. We were probably 2-3 hours from Ashdod. We thanked our boat leader, our captain, the crew, our dear chef, and encouraged each other that we will continue to do all we can to free Gaza and also bring justice to Palestine.

Herman, our captain, who managed to sit up now, gave a most moving talk and some of us were in tears.

We knew that in Ashdod there would be the Israeli media and film crews. We would not enter Ashdod as a people who had lost hope as we were taken captive. So we came off the boat chanting “Free Free Palestine” all the way as we came off.

Mike Treen, the union man, had by then recovered from his heavy tasering and led the chanting with his mega-voice and we filled the night sky of Israel with “Free Free Palestine” as we approached. We did this the whole way down the boat into Ashdod.

We came directly into a closed military zone in Ashdod. It was a sealed off area with many stations. It was specially prepared for the 22 of us. It began with a security x-ray area.

Money belt stolen
I did not realise they retained my money belt as I came out of the x-ray station. The next station was strip search, and it was when I was gathering up my belongings after being stripped when I realised my money belt was no longer with me.

I knew I had about a couple hundred euros and they were trying to steal it. I demanded its return and refused to leave the station until it was produced. I was shouting for the first time.

I was glad I did that as some other people were parted from their cash. The journalist from Al Jazeera, Abdul, had all his credit cards and US1800 taken from him, as well as his watch, satellite phone, his personal mobile, his ID. He thought his possessions were kept with his passport but when he was released for deportation he learnt bitterly that he only got his passport back.

All cash and valuables were never found. They simply vanished.

We were passed from station to station in this closed military zone, stripped searched several times, possessions taken away until in the end all we had was the clothes we were wearing with nothing else except a wrist band with a number on it. All shoe laces were removed as well.

Some of us were given receipts for items taken away, but I had no receipts for anything. We were photographed several times and saw two doctors. At this point I learnt that Larry was pushed down the gangway and injured his foot and sent off to Israeli hospital for check-up. His blood was on the floor.

I was cold and hungry, wearing only one teeshirt and pants by the time they were through with me. My food was taken away; water was taken away, all belongings including reading glasses taken away.

Toilet not allowed
My bladder was about to explode but I am not allowed to go to the toilet. In this state I was brought out to two vehicles – Black Maria painted gray. On the ground next to it were a great heap of ruqsacks and suit cases.

I found mine and was horrified that they had broken into my baggage and took almost everything from it – all clothes clean and dirty, my camera, my second mobile, my books, my Bible, all the medicines I brought for the participants and myself, my toiletries. The suitcase was partially broken.

My ruqsack was completely empty too. I got back two empty cases except for two dirty large man size teeshirts which obviously belonged to someone else. They also left my Freedom Flotilla teeshirt.

I figured out that they did not steal the Flotilla teeshirt as they thought no Israeli would want to wear that teeshirt in Israel. They had not met Zohar and Yonatan who were proudly wearing theirs.

That was a shock as I was not expecting the Israeli Army to be petty thieves as well. So what had become of the glorious Israeli Army of the Six Day War which the world so admired?

I was still not allowed to go to the toilet, but was pushed into the Maria van, joined by Lucia, the Spanish nurse, and after some wait taken to Givon Prison. I could feel myself shivering uncontrollably on the journey.

The first thing our guards did in Givon Prison was to order me to go to the toilet to relieve myself. It was interesting to see that they knew I needed to go desperately but had prevented me for hours to! By the time we were re-x-rayed and searched again it must have been about 5 – 6 am.

Rusty and dusty
Lucia and I were then put in a cell where Gerd, Divina, Sarah and Emelia were already asleep. There were three double decker bunk beds – all rusty and dusty.

Divina did not get the proper dose of her medicines; Lucia was refused her own medicine and given an Israeli substitute which she refused to take. Divina and Emelia went straight on to hunger strike.

The jailors were very hostile using simple things like refusal of toilet paper and constant slamming of the prison iron door, keeping the light of the cell permanently on, and forcing us to drink rusty water from the tap, screaming and shouting at us constantly to vent their anger at us.

The guards addressed me as “China” and treated me with utter contempt. On the morning of 30 July 2018, the British Vice-Consul visited me. Some kind person had called them about my whereabouts. That was a blessing as after that I was called “England” and there was a massive improvement in the way England was treated compared to the way China was treated.

It crossed my mind that “Palestine” would be trampled over, and probably killed.

At 6.30am, 31 July 2018, we heard Larry yelling from the men’s cell across the corridor that he needed a doctor. He was obviously in great pain and crying. We women responded by asking the wardens to allow me to go across to see Larry as I might be able to help.

We shouted “We have a doctor” and used our metal spoons to hit the iron cell gate get their attention. They lied and said their doctor would be over in an hour. We did not believe them and started again. The doctor actually turned up at 4 pm, about 10 hours later and Larry was sent straight to hospital.

Women punished
Meanwhile to punish the women for supporting Larry’s demand, they brought hand cuffs for Sarah and took Divina and me to another cell to separate us from the rest. We were told we were not going to be allowed out for our 30 minutes fresh air break and a drink of clean water in the yard. I heard Gerd saying “Big deal”.

Suddenly Divina was taken out with me to the courtyard and Divina given 4 cigarettes at which point she broke down and cried. Divina had worked long hours at the wheelhouse steering the boat. She had seen what happened to Herman.

The prison had refused to give her one of her medicines and given her only half the dose of the other. She was still on hunger strike to protest our kidnapping in international waters. It was heartbreaking to see Divina cry. One of the wardens, who called himself Michael, started talking to us about how he will have to protect his family against those who want to drive the Israelis out.

And how the Palestinians did not want to live in peace…and it was not Israel’s fault. But things suddenly changed with the arrival of an Israeli judge and we were all treated with some decency even though he only saw a few of us personally. His job was to tell us that a Tribunal will be convened the following day and each prisoner had been allocated a time to appear, and we must have our lawyer with us when we appear.

Divina by the end of the day became very giddy and very unwell so I persuaded her to come out of hunger strike, and also she agreed to sign a deportation order. Shortly after that possibly at 6 pm since we had no watches and mobile phones, we were told Lucia, Joergen, Herman, Arne, Abdul from Al Jazeera and I would be deported within 24 hours and we would be taken to be imprisoned in the deportation prison in Ramle near Ben Gurion airport immediately to wait there.

It was going to be the same Ramle Prison from which I was deported in 2014. I saw the same five strong old palm trees still standing up proud and tall. They are the only survivors of the Palestinian village destroyed in 1948.

When we arrived at Ramle prison Abdul found to his horror that he his money, his credit cards, his watch, his satellite phone, his own mobile phone, his ID card were all missing – he was entirely destitute.

We had a whip round and raised around 100 euros as a contribution towards his taxi fare from the airport to home. How can the Israeli Army be so corrupt and heartless to rob someone of everything?

Shocking behaviour
We, the six women on board al-Awda had learnt that they tried to completely humiliate and dehumanise us in every way possible. We were also shocked at the behaviour of the Israeli Army, especially petty theft and their treatment of international women prisoners. Men jailors regularly entered the women’s cell without giving us decent notice to put our clothes on.

They also tried to remind us of our vulnerability at every stage. We know they would have preferred to kill us but of course the publicity incurred in so doing might be unfavourable to the international image of Israel.

If we were Palestinians it would be much worse with physical assaults and probably loss of lives. The situation is therefore dire for the Palestinians.

As to international waters, it looks as though there is no such thing for the Israeli Navy. They can hijack and abduct boats and persons in international water and get away with it. They acted as though they own the Mediterranean Sea.

They can abduct any boat and kidnap any passengers, put them in prison and criminalise them.

We cannot accept this. We have to speak up, stand up against this lawlessness, oppression and brutality. We were completely unarmed.

Our only crime according to them is we are friends of the Palestinians and wanted to bring medical aid to them. We wanted to brave the military blockade to do this.

This is not a crime.

Palestinian toll
In the week we were sailing to Gaza, they had shot dead 7 Palestinians and wounded more than 90 with life bullets in Gaza. They had further shut down fuel and food to Gaza.

Two million Palestinians in Gaza live without clean water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity, in homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, in a prison blockaded by land, air and sea for 12 years.

The hospitals of Gaza since the 30 March had treated more than 9071 wounded persons, 4348 shot by machine guns from 100 Israeli snipers while they were mounting peaceful demonstrations inside the borders of Gaza on their own land.

Most of the gunshot wounds were to the lower limbs and with depleted treatment facilities the limbs will suffer amputation.

In this period more than 165 Palestinians had been shot dead by the same snipers, including medics and journalists, children and women.

The chronic military blockade of Gaza has depleted the hospitals of all surgical and medical supplies.

This massive attack on an unarmed Freedom Flotilla bringing friends and some medical relief is an attempt to crush all hope for Gaza. As I write, I learnt that our sister Flotilla boat, Freedom, has also been kidnapped by the Israeli Navy while in international waters.

But we will not stop, we must continue to be strong to bring hope and justice to the Palestinians and be prepared to pay the price, and to be worthy of the Palestinians. As long as I survive I will exist to resist. To do less will be a crime.

All crew and passengers on the Al Awda, including Kiwi human rights defender Mike Treen, have since been deported to their countries. Treen spoke last night at a packed public meeting in the Freemans Bay Community Centre. Those on board the second flotilla boat to be captured, the Freedom, are currently undergoing a similar process of being deported from an Israeli prison. Asia Pacific Report has shared information with the New Zealand humanitarian group Kia Ora Gaza.

Today, we are watching history repeat itself in Southeast Asia in the worst possible way.

Once again, the Myanmar military has launched a brutal military campaign against the Rohingya minority, killing civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

And once again, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has failed to take a stand against horrors unfolding in one of its member states.

There is no question that what is taking place in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State is ethnic cleansing. Since August 25, when a Rohingya armed group attacked security posts and killed at least 12 security officers, the Myanmar military has responded with vicious, unlawful and disproportionate violence targeting the Rohingya population as a whole.

Soldiers have torched entire villages and opened fire on people fleeing in panic in what amounts to a clear and deliberate campaign to drive the Rohingya people out of their country once and for all.

The Asean Charter, the treaty that binds Asean states together, declares a clear commitment to human rights, and Asean leaders have been paying lip service to this for years.

So the crisis in Rakhine State would have been – perhaps still is – an opportunity to prove that this was more than just talk. Instead, the regional bloc has so far, once again, proved that it is both unwilling and unable to address ongoing violations.

Bland statement
It took Asean almost a full month to even issue a statement on the situation, but the organisation might have been better off staying silent.

When it finally did materialise, on September 24, the statement by Asean foreign ministers, expressed “concern” over developments in Rakhine State, but completely failed to even mention the word “Rohingya” and atrocities so obviously inflicted on them by the security forces.

Instead, the foreign ministers labelled the crisis a “complex inter-communal issue” and only condemned the August 25 attacks on Myanmar security forces and “all acts of violence”.

The statement was so bland that at least one individual Asean member state felt a need to distance itself. The Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman called the statement a “misrepresentation of the reality of the situation”.

It is to Kuala Lumpur’s credit that it has taken a strong stance on the crimes of the Myanmar army, even though its treatment of Rohingya refugees inside its own borders leaves a lot to be desired.

Strong and urgent Asean action is all the more important as there is no sign of the violence in Rakhine State ending any time soon. Despite the claims by Aung San Suu Kyi – Myanmar’s de facto leader – that the fighting has stopped, Amnesty International was able to confirm fresh burnings in Myanmar as late as last week.

Fleeing in desperation
And people continue to flee in desperation into Bangladesh – more than half a million according to latest UN figures.

There is also a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding within Rakhine State, as the Myanmar government has cut off aid agencies’ access to affected areas and severely restricted their life-sustaining activities in other parts of the state.

Recently, we have received credible reports that Rohingya are not just fleeing violence but also face the very real risk of starvation, as food is running desperately short in many places.

The Rakhine State crisis could also have spill-over affects across Southeast Asia as a whole. Many of us will still remember the “boat crisis” in 2015, when thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshis were stranded in the Bay of Bengal as governments in the region refused to let their boats in.

Asean countries must ensure that refugees are able to take safe routes to enter their countries, and that no one is forced to return to a country where they could face persecution or serious human rights violations, as the Rohingya most definitely will.

Asean should immediately hold an emergency summit to deal with the crisis in Rakhine State. Its members must also acknowledge and condemn the human rights violations being committed by the Myanmar military in strong and unequivocal terms.

Crimes against humanity
And make no mistake, what we are witnessing in Rakhine State are, under international law, crimes against humanity – surely a concern to Asean as well.

Asean states must also work to ensure that the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya does not succeed, and that Myanmar ends all persecution, and discrimination against and segregation of the Rohingya.

All this would be well within the provisions of the Asean Charter, which allows its leaders to take action “in the case of a serious breach of the Charter” and to “address emergency situations affecting Asean by taking appropriate actions”.

It is time for Asean to bring to the fore these core values – of responding to emergencies and of respecting human rights – which are just as germane to Asean and part of its constitution as the over-flaunted principle of “non-intervention”.

This is a moment of truth for Asean, when the association has to decide which side of history it wants to be on. With ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity taking place on its doorstep, will it do everything it can to end and redress it or simply sit idly by?

Josef Benedict is the Amnesty International’s deputy campaigns director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The Intercept, co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, a journalist known for his stories about the US National Security Agency’s mass surveillance, published the story earlier this week.

Citing intelligence documents, unnamed generals and protest leaders, it alleges that huge protests in Jakarta against the capital’s minority Christian governor Ba­suki “Ahok” Tja­haja Pur­nama — defeated in this week’s election — were a front for a movement to unseat Jokowi.

READ MORE: Trump’s Indonesian allies in bed with ISIS-backed militia seeking to oust elected president

READ MORE: Indonesian military denies ‘coup’ claim

The military’s statement yesterday said an account of The Intercept story, written by investigative journalist Allan Nairn, translated and published by the Indonesian site Tirto, was either “not true” or a “hoax”.

It said it was reporting Tirto so it could be “investigated and proceeded against in line with existing laws”.

Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman has interviewed Allan Nairn and writes:

“Nairn reveals Indonesians involved in the coup attempt include a corporate lawyer working for the mining company Freeport-McMoRan [which owns the controversial Freeport mine in West Papua], which is controlled by Donald Trump adviser Carl Icahn.

Video has even emerged showing the lawyer at a ceremony where men are swearing allegiance to ISIS. According to Allan Nairn, two of the other most prominent supporters of the coup are close associates of Donald Trump: Fadli Zon, the vice-speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, and Hary Tanoe, Trump’s primary Indonesian business partner, who’s building two Trump resorts, one in Bali and one outside Jakarta.

“Nairn’s article is making waves in Indonesia. The Indonesian military is threatening legal action against the news portal tirto.id, after it published a partial translation of the article and ran a profile about Allan Nairn.

“In response, Nairn tweeted a message to the Indonesian military, saying, quote, ‘Dear TNI: If you want to threaten brave Indonesian reporters and publishers, please threaten me too,’ unquote.”

In the interview with Democracy Now!, Nairn said:

“Indonesia is in the midst of a political crisis, in that there is an attempt to stage what people on both sides of the conflict call the coup. And this is a de facto, or even direct, coup against the elected president, the elected government of Indonesia, which is headed by President Widodo — Jokowi.

“Jokowi was the first person from outside the political elite who ever was elected president. He’s—on certain issues, in certain respects, he’s a bit of a reformist.

“He got elected, in an important part because he speaks the language of the poor, and people relate to him. He has been pushing social programs on health and education.

“But, especially in recent months, his government has been fighting for survival. Those backing this coup project include the top generals in the country, who are seeking to escape any whisper of accountability for their past mass murders — mass murders that have been supported by the US — and for their ongoing atrocities in West Papua, also the friends and business partners and political associates of Donald Trump.

“The local Trump people in Indonesia, including his top political backer, the politician Fadli Zon, including his local business partner, Hary Tanoe, and others, have been funding and backing this coup movement.”The instrument they have been using is a—what purports to be a radical Islamist street movement, which has been staging massive demonstrations on the streets of Jakarta, demonstrations drawing out hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people.

“And their hook is what they claimed to be a religious issue, where they are attacking and demanding the death by hanging of the incumbent governor of Jakarta, who happens to be an ethnic Chinese Christian who is currently standing trial for insulting religion, for insulting Islam.

“And he could actually be sent to prison.”

• The Intercept article on the alleged coup plot
• Prosecutors spare Ahok after election defeat
• Asian Correspondent article carries military denial

The co-authors, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, also criticised the prime minister for taking the “next step in the seven-year cover-up” by rejecting an inquiry.

The book has alleged six civilians were killed and 15 injured in a “revenge” raid after the first death of New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell on August 4, 2010.

“In the past two weeks since Hit & Run was published, there have been calls for an independent inquiry from New Zealanders from all sides on the political spectrum,” said Hager.

“It is disappointing and concerning that Bill English has refused.

“When the book came out, Jon Stephenson and I emphasised that Bill English had no responsibility for the deeds done in 2010 and so was in a good position to offer aid to the Afghan villages and launch a proper inquiry. But he has joined the people trying to hide and dodge over what happened.

“I believe this decision is the result of military pressure on the government: the tail wagging the dog. That is not good for the country.

“Bill English is an experienced minister who knows the difference between being shown selective information by an interested party, as he has been by the Defence Force, and having an independent inquiry.

“This does not appear a rational decision based on evidence; it is helping the military bureaucracy to avoid having to front up. It is the next step in the seven-year cover-up.

“But, most of all, Bill English has just ensured that the issue will continue to boil and fester. It is not going to go away until it is properly addressed.”

After receiving Defence Force chief Lieutenant General Tim Keating’s advice that troops involved in the raids met the “benchmark” of acting according to the rules of engagement, Prime Minister English yesterday watched video footage taken from aircraft involved in the 2010 raids in Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, reports The New Zealand Herald.

The classified video he saw confirmed the “extensive steps, restraint and care” that forces took to minimise the chances of civilian casualties, English said.

English would not go into detail about what the footage showed and said it would not be publicly released.

He did not watch footage of the whole operation but was confident in what he saw.

• SAS soldier backs up Afghan raid claims
• Military chief’s Op Burnham accounts highlights key Afghan legal concerns
• PMC’s Southern Cross on Hit & Run

“Moving on without justice being served is not moving on—it’s giving up.”

This was the reminder of University of the Philippines professor and anti-Martial Law advocate Professor Crispin Maslog to University of Santo Tomas journalism students and faculty in a public forum held in Metro Manila at the weekend.

Dr Maslog, a former publisher of a weekly newspaper in Dumaguete that was closed down due to Martial Law between 1972 and 1981, urged millennials to open their eyes to the damages to the mass media the Marcos era had brought, even though they were not yet born at the time it happened.

“People without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture [are] like [trees] without roots,” Dr Maslog said, quoting Jamaican political leader and journalist Marcus Garvey.

“The mass media became very critical and Marcos clamped down on the mass media with his military forces,” he said.

“There were the years of protest, social unrest…The youth were taking to this stage to rally against corruption, that’s an old issue.”

Protesters and journalists were beaten and students were tortured, went missing, or found dead, Maslog added, citing Ricardo Manapat’s book on Martial Law.

The chairman of the Manila-based Asian Media Information and Communication Center also slammed the government for its poor education system and the mass media for misleading stories about Martial Law that caused ignorance of the people on the issue.

“It is not the students’ fault. It should be the government and the mass media that should be blamed for misleading information,” Dr Maslog said.

Likewise, Pacific Media Center director Professor David Robie emphasized truth as the core of journalism.

“Journalism is really about truth, any experience of truth, and establishing that truth,” Dr Robie said.

He was speaking about a digital strategy on human rights for journalists and cited the PMC’s own Asia Pacific Report of successful examples of independent campus based media.

Dr Robie added that it was important for journalists to achieve independence in their job of disseminating stories, noting that fact verification through multiple crosschecking and research is a fundamental part of a journalist’s job.

The forum titled Asia-Pacific Journalism for Filipinos Lessons by Seasoned Journalists and Journalism Educators was organised by the Faculty of Arts and Letters Department of Communication and Media Studies in partnership with the Journalism Graduate School, Research Center for Culture, Education and Social Issues-Research Interest Group on Communication.

Dr Robie also ran a workshop on Asia-Pacific reporting.

Maria Eden T. Dino reports for The Flame, official student publication of the University of Santo Tomas’ Faculty of Arts and Letters Department of Communication and Media Studies.

• Martial law amnesia
• Martial law and independent media forum

The statement reminded the world of the human rights allegations against Wiranto over his attempts to block independence in the country after 14 years of illegal Indonesian rule.

“We have been monitoring a real life political phenomenon happening in Indonesia, namely the decision of President Jokowi to include former General Wiranto as the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs in his new cabinet,” said the ANTI statement.

“This decision has unsettled us a great deal.  We recall what happened in 1999, before, during, and after the referendum in Timor-Leste which resulted in more than 200,000 civilians suffering torture, rape, forceful removal, enforced disappearance and murder.

“These acts violate the fundamental human rights principles and values set out in international humanitarian law. For this reason, these acts are deemed crimes against humanity.”

ANTI said that for more than a decade, victims and the families of victims in Timor-Leste had consistently insisted on truth and justice for Timor-Leste from Indonesia and the international community, especially from the members of the UN Security Council.

“In 1999 Wiranto was the Supreme Commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces who had the competence and power to ensure security and stability for the process during and after the Referendum as set out on May 5, 1999, in agreement from the Minister for Foreign Affairs from Indonesia, the Minister for Foreign Affairs from Portugal, and the United Nations Secretary-General.

‘Systematic violence’
“Former General Wiranto was the Supreme Commander of the Indonesian military and is a responsible member for the large scale and systematic violence, removal and persecution that resulted in 280 deaths and forced 200,000 people to flee to Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) in Indonesia, as well as the mass destruction inflicted on the personal possessions and assets of the Timorese people.

“In March 2003 the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) issued an indictment against former general Wiranto and others.

“The aforementioned unit also requested for the Dili District Court to issue a warrant of his arrest. on March 19, 2004. The Deputy Prosecutor General for Serious Crimes issued a letter to support the issuance of a warrant of arrest against General Wiranto, with irrefutable evidence against him proving that General Wiranto committed human rights violations and crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste.

“Despite these gross charges, former general Wiranto lives as a free man holding positions of influence and power in Indonesia today.  He has never gone under any formal justice procedures where he could be prosecuted for his crimes and rather lives with an ambiguous status of ‘accused’, and trusted within the Widodo administration.

ANTI’s demands
“Based on these facts, the Timor-Leste National Alliance for an International Tribunal (ANTI) demands the following:

1. For the international community to influence the Jokowi Government to take seriously the  prevention of nominating criminals within the government structure in order to further strengthen the process of democracy and to uphold human rights in Indonesia and elsewhere around the world;

2. For the UN Security Council to consistently uphold its decision to combat impunity, based on the indictment issued by the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in 2003. We ask that an effective mechanism be sought to ensure that criminals are held accountable in a credible fashion, in particular the former General Wiranto;

3. Indonesia and Timor-Leste need to strengthen and foster democracy to break the chain of impunity and establish societies that respect human rights values and strengthen the democratic rule of law. Therefore, we urge and stand by Indonesia to immediately remove Wiranto from the Joko Widodo Government structure.

4. We Call on the international community members state has a moral responsibility to arrest the accuse former General Wiranto.

The statement was signed by the following non-government and human rights groups – all members of ANTI: JSMP, HAK, La’o Hamutuk, ACbit, Asosiasaun Vitima, KSI, Front Mahasiswa Timor-Leste, MDI, Sek. Fongtil, Fokupers, AJAR-TL and Verupupuk.