The issue of Australians — and New Zealanders as well — serving in the Israeli military has sparked growing debate as the genocidal war crimes in Gaza mount.

Most of those involved are believed to be dual Israeli-Australian citizens, and under current Australian law, it is not automatically illegal to join a recognised foreign army, reports OnePath Network.

However, critics say the lack of transparency, including unclear numbers, roles, and oversight, is troubling, especially while international courts are examining serious allegations linked to the conflict.

• READ MORE: Thousands of Western nationals fought Israel’s war on Gaza: What to know
• Other Gaza genocide reports

Proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel is on trial for  genocide in a case brought by South Africa, and International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu and other officials have intensified questions about Australia’s responsibility to monitor its citizens abroad.

According to an Al Jazeera report, more than 50,000 Western nationals — most of them holding US or European Union passports — have joined the Israeli military in its genocidal war that has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.

The largest number is from the United States — 12,350 dual nationality US-Israel citizens and 1207 multiple nationalities — followed by 6127 French dual national citizens and 337 multiple nationalities, according to data obtained by the Israeli NGO Hatzlacha through Israel’s Freedom of Information Law.

Australia is well down the list with 502 dual nationality soldiers and 119 multiple nationality citizens. New Zealand is 56th with 39 and 11.

Accountability major concern
A major concern being raised is accountability: if any Australians serving in Gaza were involved in alleged war crimes, would they actually be investigated?

Legal experts say Australia has “universal jurisdiction” laws, meaning citizens can theoretically be prosecuted for serious crimes committed overseas, but so far, there has been little public evidence of active investigations.

Critics argue this creates a perception of double standards.

The debate ultimately centres on whether Australia is willing to apply the same scrutiny to its own nationals in foreign conflicts, ensuring that military service abroad does not place individuals beyond the reach of the law.

Similar questions apply to New Zealand.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance at their summit meeting in Apia, Samoa, last week.

These Principles highlight the importance of freedom of expression and media freedom to democracy.  They state that Commonwealth governments “should consider repealing or amending laws which unduly restrict the right to freedom of expression”.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association called on states to take practical and effective steps to end arbitrary and excessive restrictions on free expression. The Commonwealth as a whole must audit progress and engage with civil society to ensure that these Principles are implemented in reality.

• READ MORE: RSF tackles Taiwan’s media freedom ‘Achilles heel’, boosts Asia Pacific monitoring action
• Two of the US’s biggest newspapers have refused to endorse a presidential candidate. This is how democracy dies
• Commonwealth takes historic step towards protecting free speech
• Other CHOGM reports

Freedom of expression is not just a right in itself — it is the foundation that allows us to exercise and defend all other human rights, and is safeguarded under international law.

However, as we know all too well, this right is under threat.

According to UNESCO, in Commonwealth countries alone, 178 journalists were killed between 2006 and 2020. Furthermore, the impunity rate for the killings of journalists during that same time is 96 percent — which is notably higher than the global impunity rate of 87 percent.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has documented 547 journalists imprisoned globally as of the end of 2023, with legal harassment often used as a tool to stifle dissent and investigative reporting.

Restrictive, colonial-era laws
Many Commonwealth countries still maintain restrictive, colonial-era laws that curtail free expression, suppress diverse voices, and inhibit the transparency that is essential for democracy.

In the Commonwealth:

• 41 countries continue to criminalise defamation; 48 countries still retain laws related to sedition; and
• 37 still have blasphemy or blasphemy-like laws.

These details are set out in a soon to be released report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA), with other Commonwealth partners, entitled Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth.

“These laws, often enforced through criminal sanctions, have a chilling effect on activists, journalists, iand others who fear retaliation for speaking truth to power”, said William Horsley of the Commonwealth Journalists Association.

“This has led to an alarming rise in self-censorship and a decline in the independent and dissenting voices that are vital for holding governments accountable.”

Civil society response
The Principles were first put forward by a group of civil society organisations in response to  a general deterioration in legal protections and the working environment for journalists.

The CJA convened other civil society organisations, including the CHRI, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, before Commonwealth member states reviewed and adopted the Principles in the form which was adopted by heads of government at the 2024 CHOGM.

States are “urged to take concrete and meaningful steps to implement them within their domestic frameworks, as set out in the CHOGM Samoa Communiqué“.

The joint report Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth reveals the increasing use of criminal law provisions, including those related to defamation, sedition, blasphemy, and national security, to restrict freedom of expression and media freedom within the Commonwealth.

The report is the product of extensive collaboration between Commonwealth partners, legal experts, academics, human rights advocates, and media professionals, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal frameworks governing freedom of expression and outlines clear pathways for reform.

In addition to analysing legal restrictions on free speech in Commonwealth states, the report puts forward actionable recommendations for reform.

These include regional and national-level proposals, as well as broader Commonwealth-wide recommendations aimed at strengthening legal frameworks, promoting judicial independence, encouraging media pluralism, and enhancing international accountability mechanisms.

#Commonwealth Heads of Government (#CHOGM2024) adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance at their summit meeting in Apia, #Samoa.
https://t.co/HP9Lr1Aire

— Oliver T. Mhuriro (@Oliver_Mhuriro) October 27, 2024

Reforms essential
These reforms are essential for establishing an environment where free expression can thrive, allowing individuals to speak without fear of reprisal.

“While many member states share a colonial legal legacy that includes repressive laws still in effect today, they also share a commitment to democratic governance and the rule of law as set out in the Commonwealth Charter,” said Sneh Aurora, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

“The Commonwealth has the potential to lead by example in promoting freedom of expression through legal reform, ensuring that criminal laws are not misused to silence dissent.

“The Principles provide an important opportunity for Commonwealth governments to bring their national laws in line with international human rights laws.”

Republished with permission from Talamua Online.

The Fiji Parliament has voted to “kill” a draconian media law in Suva today, sending newsrooms across the country into celebrations.

Twenty nine parliamentarians voted to repeal the Media Industry Development Act, while 21 voted against it and 3 did not vote.

The law — which started as a post-coup decree in 2010 — has been labelled as a “noose around the neck of the media industry and journalists” since it was enacted into law.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s longest active newsroom keen for ‘kicking out’ of tough media law
• Other Fiji media freedom reports

While opposition FijiFirst parliamentarians voted against the bill, Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad said binning the act would be good for the people and for democracy.

Removing the controversial law was a major election promise by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government.

Emotional day for newsrooms
The news was “one for the ages for us”, Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley, who was dragged into court on multiple occasions by the former government under the act, told RNZ Pacific in Vanuatu.

He said today was about all the Fijian media workers who stayed true to their profession.

“People who slugged it out, people who remained passionate about their work and continued disseminating information and getting people to make well-informed decision on a daily basis.”

“It wasn’t an easy journey, but truly thankful for today,” an emotional Wesley said.

“We’re in an era where we don’t have draconian legislation hanging over our heads.”

He said the entire industry was happy and newsrooms are now looking forward to the next chapter.

“The next phases is the challenge of putting together a Fiji media council to do the work of listening to complaints and all of that, and I’m overwhelmed and very grateful.”

Holding government to account
He said people in Fiji should continue to expect the media to do what it was supposed to do: “Holding government to account, holding our leaders to account and making sure that they’re responsible in the decisions they make.”

Journalists ‘can be brave’
Islands Business magazine editor Samantha Magick said getting rid of the law meant it would now create an environment for Fiji journalists to do more critical journalism.

“I think [we will] see less, ‘he said, she said’, reporting in very controlled environments,” Magick said.

“Fiji’s media will see more investigations, more depth, more voices, different perspectives, [and] hopefully they can engage a bit more as well without fear.

“It’ll just be so much healthier for us as a people and democracy to have that level of debate and investigation and questioning, regardless of who you are,” she added.

RNZ Pacific senior sports journalist and PINA board member Iliesa Tora said the Parliament’s decision sent a strong message to the rest of the region.

“The message [this sends] to the region and the different regional government’s is that you need to work with the media to ensure that there is media freedom,” said Tora, who chose to leave Fiji because he could not operate as a journalist due of the act.

“The freedom of the media ensures that people are also able to freely express themselves and are not fearful in coming forward to talk about things that they see that governments are not doing that they [should] do to really govern in the countries.”

MIDA is dead.

A huge win for media freedom in Fiji.

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) April 5, 2023

‘Step into the light’ – corruption reporting project
Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project co-founder and publisher Drew Sullivan told RNZ Pacific that anytime a country that was not able to do the kind of accountability journalism that they should be doing, this damaged media throughout the region.

“It creates a model for illiberal actors in the region to imitate what’s going on in that country,” Sullivan said.

“So this has really moved forward in allowing journalists again to do their job and that’s really important.”

Fiji journalists, Sullivan said, had done an amazing job resisting limitations for as long as they could.

“Fiji was really a black hole of journalism [in] that the journalists could not participate in on a global community because they couldn’t find the information; they weren’t allowed to write what they needed to write.

“So this is really a step forward into the light to really bring Fiji and media back into the global journalism community.”

Korean cult investigation
Last year, OCCRP published a major investigation on Fiji, working with local journalists to expose the expansion of the controversial Korean Chirstain-cult Grace Road Church under the Bainimarama regime.

Rabuka’s government is currently investigating Grace Road.

Sullivan said OCCRP will continue to support Fijian journalists.

“But [the repealing of the act] will allow a lot more stories to be done and a lot more people will understand how the world really works, especially in Fiji.”

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

ANALYSIS: By Heather Devere, David Robie and Philip Cass

An urgent rethink is needed on several aspects of the Draft National Media Development Policy. In summary, we agree with the statement made by the Community Coalition Against Corruption (CCAC) on 16 February 2023 criticising the extraordinary “haste” of the Ministry’s timeframe for public consultation over such a critical and vitally important national policy.

However, while the ministry granted an extra week from 20 February 2023 for public submissions this was still manifestly inadequate and rather contemptuous of the public interest.

In our view, the ministry is misguided in seeking to legislate for a codified PNG Media Council which flies in the face of global norms for self-regulatory media councils and this development would have the potential to dangerously undermine media freedom in Papua New Guinea.

• READ MORE: APMN calls for ‘urgent rethink’ over PNG draft media regulation plan
• PNG must withdraw media control project, says RSF
• Inside PNG: Media must be watchdog not government-controlled
• Other PNG media freedom reports

The draft policy appears to have confused the purpose of a “media council” representing the “public interest” with the objectives of a government department working in the “national interest”.

If the ministry pushes ahead with this policy without changes it risks Papua New Guinea sliding even further down the RSF World Press Freedom Index. Already it is a lowly 62nd out of 180 countries after falling 15 places in 2021.

Some key points:

• Article 42 of the Papua New Guinea Constitution states that “Every person has the right to freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart ideas and information without interference, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” (Our emphasis)

• Article 43 of the Constitution further states that “Every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to manifest and propagate their religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

• These provisions in the Constitution reflect the importance of media freedom in Papua New Guinea and the commitment to a free, diverse, and independent media environment. There are existing laws in PNG that support these principles.

• In September 2005, Pacific Journalism Review published a complete edition devoted to “media ethics and accountability” which is available online here. In the Introduction, the late Professor Claude-Jean Bertrand, a global expert in M*A*S (Media Accountability Systems) and media councils and free press in democracies, wrote: “Accountability implies being accountable, accountable to whom? To the public, obviously. [i.e. Not to governments]. While regulation involves only political leaders and while self-regulation involves only the media industry, media accountability involves press, profession and public.” The PJR edition cited published templates and guidelines for public accountability systems.

• On World Press Freedom Day 2019, António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, declared: “No democracy is complete without access to transparent and reliable information. It is the cornerstone for building fair and impartial institutions, holding leaders accountable and speaking truth to power.”

• On 12 November 2019, the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum (MMFF) was established and it declared: “A better understanding is needed of the role of journalism in Melanesian democracies. Awareness of the accountability role played by journalists and the need for them to be able to exercise their professional skills without fear is critical to the functioning of our democracies.”

• The Forum also noted: “The range of threats to media freedom is increasing. These include restrictive legislation, intimidation, political threats, legal threats and prosecutions, assaults and police and military brutality, illegal detention, online abuse, racism between ethnic groups and the ever-present threats facing particularly younger and female reporters who may face violence both on the job and within their own homes.” The full declaration is here.

• Media academics who were also present at this inaugural Forum made a declaration of their own in support of the journalists, saying that they “expressed strong concerns about issues of human rights, violence, and freedom of expression. They also expressed concerns about the effect of stifling legislation that had the power to impose heavy fines and prison sentences on journalists.” (Our emphasis). The full statement is here.

APMN proposals regarding PNG’s Draft Media Policy:

• That the Ministry immediately discard the proposed policy of legislating the PNG media Council and regulating journalists and media which would seriously undermine media freedom in Papua New Guinea;

• That the Ministry extend the public consultation timeframe with a realistic deadline to engage Papua New Guinean public interest and stakeholders in a meaningful dialogue;

• That the Ministry ensures a process of serious consultation with stakeholders such as the existing PNG Media Council, which do not appear to have had much opportunity to respond, journalists, media organisations and many other NGOs that need to be heard; and

• That the Ministry consult a wider range of media research and publications and take guidance from media freedom organisations, journalism schools at universities, and an existing body of knowledge about media councils and systems.

• Essentially journalism is not a crime, but a fundamental pillar of democracy as espoused through the notion of a Fourth Estate and media must be free to speak truth to power in the public interest not the politicians’ interest.

Dr Heather Devere, formerly Director of Practice for the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies; Dr David Robie, founding Professor of Pacific Journalism and director of the Pacific Media Centre, convenor of Pacific Media Watch and a former Head of Journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea; and Dr Philip Cass, a PNG-born researcher and journalist who was chief subeditor of the Times of Papua New Guinea and worked on Wantok, and who is currently editor of Pacific Journalism Review.

• More information

A Fiji-based academic challenged the Pacific region’s media and policymakers today over climate crisis coverage, asking whether the discriminatory style of reporting was a case of climate injustice.

Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific, said climate press conferences and meetings were too focused on providing coverage of “privileged elite viewpoints”.

“Elites have their say, but communities facing the brunt of climate change have their voices muted,” he told the Look at the Evidence: Climate Journalism and Open Science webinar panel exploring the role of journalism in raising climate awareness in the week-long Open Access Australasia virtual conference.

• READ MORE: Other open access reports
• Tuwhera’s open access titles

Dr Singh, who is also on the editorial board of Pacific Journalism Review and was speaking for the recently formed Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), threw open several questions to the participants about what appeared to be “discriminatory reporting”.

“Is slanted media coverage marginalising grassroots voices? Is this a form of climate injustice?” he asked.

“Are news media unknowingly perpetuating climate injustice?”

He cited many of the hurdles impacting on the ability of Pacific news media to cover the climate crisis effectively, such as lack of resources in small media organisations and lack of reporting expertise.

‘Jack-of-all-trades’
“We are unable to have specialist climate reporters as in some other countries; our journalists tend to be a jack-of-all-trades, and master of none,” he said.

He did not mean this in a “disparaging manner”, saying “it’s just our reality” given limited resources.

Key Pacific media handicaps included:

• The smallness of Pacific media systems;
• Limited revenue and small profit margins;
• A high attrition rate among journalists (mostly due to uncompetitive salaries);
• Pacific journalists “don’t have the luxury” of specialising in one area; and
• No media economies of scale.

“Our journalists don’t build sufficient knowledge in any one topic for consistent or in-depth reporting,” he said. “And this is more deeply felt in areas such as climate reporting.”

He cited pioneering research on Pacific climate reporting by Samoan climate change journalist Lagipoiva Dr Cherelle Jackson, saying such Pacific media research was “scarce”.

‘Staying afloat in Paradise’
A research fellow with the Reuters Institute and Oxford University, Dr Jackson carried out research on how media in her homeland and six other Pacific countries were covering climate change. The 2010 report was titled Staying Afloat in Paradise: Reporting Climate Change in the Pacific.

Pacific journalists and editors “have a responsibility to inform readers on how climatic changes can affect them, she argued. But this did not translate into the pages of their newspapers.

“Climate change is simply not as high a priority for Pacific newsrooms as issues such as health, education and politics which all take precedence over even general environment reporting,” Dr Jackson wrote.

“For a region mainly classified by the United Nations as ‘least developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, it is apparent that there are more pressing issues than climate change.

“But the fact that the islands of the Pacific are already at the bottom end of the scale in regards to wealth and infrastructure, and the fact that climate change is also threatening the mere existence of some islands, should make it a big story. But it isn’t.”

She has continued her advocacy work on climate change as climate editor of the Associated Press and completing a doctorate on the topic.

Critical of paywalls
Daalder spoke about how open access to scientific papers was vitally important for journalists who needed to read complete papers, not just abstracts. He was critical of the paywalls on many scientific research papers.

Open access enabled journalists to do their job better and this was clearly shown during the covid-19 pandemic — “and we need this to happen for climate reporting”.

Meduna said it took far too long for research, such as on climate change, to filter through into public debate. Open access helped to reduce that gap.

She also said the success of The Conversation model showed that there was a growing demand for scientists communicating directly with the public with the help of journalists.

Dr Sparrow called for a social movement for meaningful action on the climate crisis and more scientific literacy was needed to enable this.

Highly critical of the “dysfunctional” academic publishing industry, he said open access would contribute to “radically accessible” science for the public.

The panel was organised by Tuwhera digital and open access publishing team at Auckland University of Technology.

• Other webinars in the Open Access Week that ends on Friday.

A human rights advocate appealed tonight for people in Aotearoa New Zealand to take personal responsibility in the fight against disinformation and to upskill their critical thinking skills.

Anjum Rahman, project lead of the Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono, said this meant taking responsibility for verifying the accuracy and source of information before passing it on and not fuelling hate and misunderstanding.

“Our democracy is very fragile,” she warned while delivering the annual David Wakim Memorial Lecture 2022 with the theme “Protecting Democracy in an Online World” at Parnell’s Jubilee Hall.

• READ MORE: A lot has changed since March 15, 2019 – but not enough

She said communities were facing challenging and rapidly changing times with climate change, conflicts, inflation and the ongoing pandemic.

“If our democracy fails, all those other things fail as well,” she said.

“And for those of us who are more vulnerable it is a matter of life and death.

“Who most stand to lose their freedom if democracy fails? Who will be on the frontline to be exterminated?”

Rahman is co-chair of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network and a member of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism.

Argued strongly for diversity
As an advocate, she has argued strongly for many years in support of diversity and inclusion and in 2019 was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

On the third anniversary of the 15 March 2019 mosque massacre, she wrote in a column for The Spinoff that “we don’t need any more empty platitudes of sorrow . . . we need firm action and strong resolve. Across the board.”

The David Wakim Memorial Lecture 2022.                      Video: Billy Hania

The recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry were more critical now than ever, and absolutely urgent, she wrote.

“In a world that feels chaotic, with war, rising prices, anger and hate expressed in protests across the world, our hearts seek a certainty that isn’t there.

“We need more urgency, and in many areas. I’m still disappointed with the Counter-Terrorism legislation passed last year, granting greater powers without evidence of any benefit. Hate speech legislation has been delayed, and we await a full review and overhaul of the national security system.”

A founding member of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, Rahman gave a wide-ranging address tonight on the online challenges for democracy, and answered a host of questions from the audience of about 100.

“I’m really worried about trolls,” said one. “They affect government, they influence voters, they have an impact on all sorts of decision making – what can be done about it?”

Rahman replied that it was very difficult question – “I wish there was a simple answer.”

Removing troll incentives
She said there needed to be more education and greater awareness of the activities of trolls and the sort of social media platforms they operated on.

One problem was that the more attention paid trolls got, it often meant the more money they were getting.

A challenge was to remove the incentive being given to them.

Award-winning cartoonist Malcolm Evans asked Rahman what her response was to the global situation “right now” with the invasion of Ukraine where people were “under intense pressure to vilify the Russians . . . treating them as ‘evil’.”

He added that “we live in a time that is probably the most dangerous that I have experienced in my lifetime … we are facing an Armageddon and I blame the media for that.

“It’s a disgrace.”

This led to a discussion by Pax Christi Aotearoa’s Janfrie Wakim about how Evans lost his job as a cartoonist on The New Zealand Herald in 2003 for “naming Israeli apartheid” over the repression of Palestinians to the loud applause of the audience.

‘Quality journalism’ paywalls
In a discussion about media, Rahman said she was disturbed by the failures of the media business model that meant increasingly “quality journalism” was being placed behind paywalls while the public that could not afford paywalls were being served “poor quality” information.

Introducing Anjum Rahman, Pax Christi’s Susan Healy said how “especially delighted the Wakim whanau were” that she had agreed to give the lecture.

David Wakim was the inaugural president of Pax Christi Aotearoa, an independent section of Pax Christi International, a Catholic organisation founded in France at the end of World War Two committed to working “to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity”.

Growing up in a Sydney Catholic family, Wakim was an advocate of interfaith dialogue. His travels in Muslim countries strengthened his links with the three faiths of Abraham – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

He helped establish the Council of Christians and Muslims in Auckland, but was especially committed to Palestinian rights.

Wakim died in 2005 and the annual lecture honours his and Pax Christi’s mahi for Tiriti o Waitangi, interfaith dialogue, peace education, human rights and restorative justice.

New Zealand’s Ombudsman, Peter Boshier, has given government agency media teams a well-deserved kick up the fundamental over some of their dealings with journalists.

Last week he released his report Ready or not? Thematic OIA compliance and practice in 2022. It is highly critical of the way the teams handle some media requests for information. Incredibly, many did not see such requests as falling under the Official Information Act.

The 66-page report revisits 12 government agencies that were investigated by his predecessor in 2015 and it picks out media teams for particular scrutiny.

• READ MORE: Other Gavin Ellis commentaries

“Most of the agencies I investigated have a Media Team responsible for handling information requests from the news media. These Media Teams operate separately from centralised OIA Teams, which typically process information requests from the public.

“While separating requests in this way is not unreasonable in itself, I am concerned that some of the practices associated with this method of request handling has helped to create a false perception that media requests are not OIA requests and, as a result, that agencies do not need to adhere to OIA obligations when handling them.”

The Ombudsman’s report states unequivocally that media information requests are OIA requests, with the core legislative obligations that those confer.

Some excellent service
As one might expect, there were examples of excellent service provided by media teams. He singled out the Ministry of Health Manatū Hauora and the Public Service Commission Te Kawa Mataaho.

The former was praised for its information handling during the pandemic, while the latter’s performance should be a given — it is the lead agency on implementation of the government’s commitments under the international Open Government Partnership.

However, he didn’t mince words over some of the actions of media teams: “In most of the agencies I investigated, I saw evidence of breaches of the law.”

Given some of Peter Boshier’s other findings, that conclusion should not come as a surprise.

“I was deeply concerned to find that the responses from some agencies to my investigation suggested they did not consider that media information requests fall under the OIA. As a result, it had become embedded in the culture and practice of staff in some Media Teams to refuse information without providing a valid reason under the OIA.

“Those staff considered that the OIA did not apply to their actions and decisions on information requests from the media—in stark contrast to their counterparts in OIA Teams operating in the same agency.”

When he gave the agencies a preliminary assessment of this aspect of their operations, one replied that “placing the constraints of the OIA over the work of the ministry’s media team will add a layer of formality over those relationships and despite the best endeavours of staff, will add to the time required to respond.”

Another said it would affect relationships with the media.

Misperceptions a problem
The Ombudsman disagrees with that assessment. And he went further, saying the perception that the OIA did not apply to media information requests was “simply incorrect”. He saw the misperception as the cause of media teams operating contrary to the law.

He called on the leaders of errant agencies to take immediate responsibility for a cultural shift within media teams and ensure policy, practice, and process changes were made to ensure compliance with the law.

The most common breaches have been failure to give reasons for refusing to give information, and failure to acknowledge a right of appeal to the Ombudsman.

He found distinct types of breaches of the requirement to give reasons for refusal:

• The agency acknowledged that information was being refused, but the reason given for refusal was not a valid one under the OIA, e.g. “That information is not centrally located’ and “We’re unable to provide that information within the given timeframe”.
• No information was given and it was not acknowledged there had been a refusal.
• The agency responded with general information but did not actually answer the question, and it was not acknowledged there had been a refusal.

The investigation revealed a curious relationship between media teams and an agency’s OIA team.

Media teams used a “triaging system” to determine when it was more appropriate for the OIA Team to handle the request. The 12 agencies’ media teams “triaged” requests in a broadly similar manner. Where the request could be answered by the media team within the requester’s specified timeframe — typically a matter of hours or days, to accommodate media deadlines — it would be answered by the media team.

Lack of clarity
If the request could not be answered within the timeframe specified by the requester because it was complex, voluminous, or if it was anticipated that withholding grounds may apply, the media team typically advised the requester that their request would need to be handled by the agency’s OIA team.

Some media teams would tell the requester that their request “would need to be an OIA” without making it clear whether they had forwarded the request on, or whether the requester would need to resubmit their request.

“This language and the practice of separating requests in this way is problematic,” the Ombudsman said, “because it helps propagate the misapprehension that quick turnaround ‘media requests’ are distinct from other information requests. It also implies that the OIA does not apply to them, while ‘formal’ OIA requests ‘must’ go through a regimented, multi-stage process which invariably takes the maximum statutory time limit (20 working days).”

The report is couched in measured terms but I cannot help but feel this two-tiered system is a weapon used against the media. Twenty working days is as good as a refusal in the fast moving world of digital daily news. Peter Boshier acknowledges as much in his report.

“Where requested information cannot be provided in a matter of days, but the journalist finds it untenable to wait up to 20 working days, there is rarely a middle ground; the request is sometimes abandoned by the requester­. It is here that Media Teams’ commitment to responding in only hours or days may be a double-edged sword: when Media Teams cannot reply within the media’s specified timeframe, the request may not get answered at all.

Few agencies I investigated have effective mechanisms in place for providing information ‘without undue delay’, or under urgency if it falls outside the media’s requested timeframe. This ‘now or never’ approach to media information requests reinforces the false perception that the OIA requires a separate process for handling ‘formal’ information requests, and it creates a potential gap in the provision of information which is of great concern to me and does not serve the public interest.”

And he concedes that the two-tiered system fuels perceptions that the Official Information. Act is used as a shield by delaying or frustrating requests for information. However, he denies that the Act itself is at fault. It does not prescribe the processes to be followed, “and an agency’s OIA process can be as agile, flexible and swift as the agency is prepared to make it.”

Loopholes to be exploited
He is absolutely right. What he does not acknowledge, however, is the fact that the sometimes loosely-defined and voluminous reasons for refusing information that are contained in the legislation send a signal to agencies and their employees that there are loopholes to be exploited.

And even outside the OIA there are pressures that work against its spirit. For example, the Ombudsman notes that agencies employ a blanket approach to responses sent to ministers ‘for your information’ under the No Surprises Principle. Even when no input is required from the minister, the material is usually sent three to five days before it is due to be sent to the requester.

The Ombudsman puts it rather delicately — “[It] may lead to the perception that input from the Minister is being sought by the agency that might alter the decision planned for release” — but I read that as saying nothing contentious is released without political approval.

Throughout the report there are sensible and workable solutions to the problem that the Ombudsman has uncovered. Training, policy guidelines and culture change led from the top are all ways in which the spirit of the OIA can be met.

And media teams can start obeying the law.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Just the other day a robot guard came along a corridor in a special digital prison, consulted his flatscreen embedded on its wrist and then pressed his thumb on a door, which sprang open.

For the fourth time, I was being released from Facebook prison having served a term of imprisonment imposed upon me by Great Algorithm Machine which we lags shorten to GAM.

Self-sustaining and completely devoid of any human intervention, GAM has deemed me to be a serial hate speech offender. I am absolutely not, but my protests were not only pointless, there was no one listening or reading them.

• READ MORE: Facebook censorship on West Papua – then deafening silence – David Robie
• Facebook criticised for pulling article with West Papuan pic
• Other Facebook reports

Again, with no human hand involved at any point, I was hauled off to solitary inside the Mark Zuckerberg Institution for Global Speech Control.

Now, living in Aotearoa and having our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern create the Paris Call, a powerful new weapon to end online hate speech, it is my patriotic duty to support it.

But lately I have become collateral damage to her Paris Call, and a nagging thought is growing that there may be many other casualties too. Stopping the nutters, the terrorists, the bad guys might additionally include GAM wiping out any one expressing any kind of opinion.

Especially opinions that a human reader — rather than a machine — would immediately recognise as arguments opposed to opinions advanced by bad guys.

Silence save the banal
Algorithms will silence all, except the banal, the bland, the boring and the pointless.

As GAM will run all my words through its system, I am going to avoid using the commonly accepted abbreviation for the National Socialist German Workers Party. Nor will I mention its leader; that’s a fast ticket back to a Menlo Park prison.

After some trepidation, I present a summary of my rap sheet:

October 11, 2021: I made a small posting based on a clipping from New Zealand Paper’s Past, a significant historical online collection of the nation’s newspapers. I posted a little story from the Bay of Plenty Times in 1941 which reported that people in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa were raising money to buy Spitfires in order to defeat the previously mentioned German Workers Party and its leader. I was prevented from any posting or commenting for three weeks.

February 18, 2022: As an anti-covid “freedom convoy” rattled around the country, I posted a meme showing the Workers Party leader in front of the Eiffel Tower, saying he was on a freedom convoy. Locked up again.

May 26, 2022: I posted a link to US CBS News on some new arms non-control measure and commented: “The continued stupidity of (Redacted, insert nationality of a people between Canada and Mexico) bewilders the world.” This got me a big “Hate Speech” stamp, a ban and a declaration that my future posts would be lower in people’s news feeds.

September 13, 2022: I asked why accused woman beater Meli Banimarama and convicted killer Francis Kean were using the “ratu” title. Banned again.

No human review
It was immediately apparent from the formatted notice issue to me, that while GAM had processed the thing, no human in Facebook had. Generously they tell the victim that there is a review system and to fill out a submission.

Dutifully, this gullible fellow did, pressed send and got an instant message back from GAM which said, in effect, that due to covid there were no available humans to read my submission. So, the sentence, imposed entirely by machine, stands every time.

It doesn’t matter what you say; no one is listening.

Facebook’s GAM is lying at this point: Covid has nothing to do with the removal of their humans. They are deliberately sacking them, due to Wall Street demands for more profit.

At one stage I discovered email addresses for assorted Facebook functionaries in Australia and New Zealand. That did no good. They ignored me, if they even existed.

Despite all this, I have been something of a Facebook fan. With Sue Ahearn, I co-manage The Pacific Newsroom with its 60,000 plus followers. The fact that I was in the digital slammer meant that group did not get serviced in the way they normally would.

Facebook plainly does not care.

My worry now is what is all this doing to free speech. At first blush, yes it’s a good idea that something like Mein Kampf cannot be trotted out on Facebook. But wouldn’t it be a good idea for some one or ten to read it and warn us all of what is in it?

Digital trip wires
Currently GAM is looking you up, digitally speaking if certain trip wires are touched in the algorithm.

Paris Call’s GAM model has no space, or ability, to deal with satire, cynicism or sarcasm. Many would say that is, of course, a good thing. Ban them. But they have long been part of human discourse, indeed vital.

And it will silence Paper’s Past! A national treasure now defined by GAM as a gathering of hate speech.

What else do we have to give up to keep evil from exploiting public conversation?

How will we learn the new rules, other than with a spell in the digital penitentiary? Perhaps there will soon be an app, in which The Machine checks each sentence, prior to use, for social acceptability.

Is social media creating a world in which speech can only be made, after The Machine has deemed it acceptable?

Michael Field is an independent journalist and author, and co-manager of The Pacific Newsroom. This article is republished with his permission.

Democracy! We may differ in how we understand and value democracy. But what is the essence of democracy?

On this special day, when we are reminded about democracy, perhaps it is apt that we should hear out the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

This day — September 15 — is listed by the United Nations as the International Day of Democracy.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific democracy reports

Whatever your take is on this special day, whatever it means to you, and whether there is value in it, perhaps we need the space and time to understand it. Perhaps we may then place appropriate value on democracy, understand it, and appreciate what it stands for.

The UN states this day “provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world”.

In his speech for the 15th anniversary of the day, Guterres said: “Yet across the world, democracy is backsliding. Civic space is shrinking.

“Distrust and disinformation are growing. And polarisation is undermining democratic institutions.”

Raising the alarm
Now, he said, was the time to raise the alarm.

He said it was time to reaffirm that democracy, development, and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. He said it was time to stand up for the democratic principles of equality, inclusion, and solidarity. He spoke about the media and its place in society.

“This year, we focus on a cornerstone of democratic societies – free, independent, and pluralistic media,” he said.

“Attempts to silence journalists are growing more brazen by the day – from verbal assault to online surveillance and legal harassment – especially against women journalists.

“Media workers face censorship, detention, physical violence, and even killings – often with impunity.

“Such dark paths inevitably lead to instability, injustice and worse.

“Without a free press, democracy cannot survive. Without freedom of expression, there is no freedom.

Joining forces for freedom
“On Democracy Day and every day, let us join forces to secure freedom and protect the rights of all people, everywhere.”

In the face of all that, we remind ourselves of our role as a newspaper company.

We are sure about where we want to be, and the role we can play to move our beautiful country, Fiji, forward. We are comforted by the fact that thousands of people place great value on democracy and on information.

We know we can be a forum where issues that are relevant to our multiracial mix of people can be raised, discussed and debated.

We appreciate the fact that there must be value placed on the dissemination of information that is fair, credible and balanced.

That would mean placing on a very high pedestal the importance of news that will inform, educate, and create awareness of issues pertinent to our various communities, and ultimately nurture or trigger important discussions, irrespective of where it is you sit on the political divide.

Democracy! How important is it in the greater scheme of things? Do we understand it? How much value do we place on it? Today is a special day!

This Fiji Times editorial under the title “Value on democracy” was published on 15 September 2022. Republished with permission.

The absolute impunity which the Aotearoa New Zealand government has given to Israel’s racist apartheid regime over many decades and the cowering of the Aotearoa New Zealand media in the face of threats of false smears of anti-semitism from the racist pro-Israel lobby are key factors in the daily murder and mayhem conducted by Israeli troops in Palestine.

The latest killing is of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh which was described by Al Jazeera and eyewitnesses as an “assassination in cold-blood”.

This veteran journalist has been the “voice of the voiceless” as she has fearlessly reported for Al Jazeera on Israel’s military occupation of Palestine over many decades.

• READ MORE: Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera reporter killed by Israeli forces
• Western media slammed for coverage of Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing
• Behind the tears for Shireen, more evidence of Israel’s daily crimes with impunity
• A tribute on Al Jazeera’s The Stream
• Other reports on the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh

Her fearlessness is in sharp contrast to local media reporting on Israel/Palestine which includes multiple, repeated inaccuracies which reinforce Israel’s “justifications” for its brutality.

Most New Zealanders do not even know that Israel runs a military occupation over the entire area of historic Palestine.

With rare exceptions, our media simply provide a safe portal for Israeli propaganda.

Israel’s unbridled brutality
Meanwhile, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, if they say anything at all about Israel’s occupation or unbridled brutality are much more likely to criticise Palestinians than they are to criticise Israel.

If they spoke out about the Russian invasion of Ukraine like they do with the situation in the Middle East, they would be blaming Ukrainians for “provocations against Russian troops” and asking Ukrainians to exercise “maximum restraint” in the face of Russian brutality.

It’s hypocrisy on a grand scale.

We call out human rights abuses to a US agenda. We condemn Russia and China but look the other way with Israeli or Indonesian brutality (as in West Papua).

None of this has changed under the current minister Nanaia Mahuta who has been silent for more than 18 months on the Palestinian struggle.

Silence is never an option when it comes to human rights. It is the position of cowards.

Until Israel is called out for its racist apartheid policies and the consequences which flow from that, it will continue to murder with impunity.

We have yet again asked the minister to speak out and demand an independent investigation and accountability for Shireen Abu Akleh’s assassination.

John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with the author’s permission.

Fiji has been ranked as the worst place in the Pacific region for journalists in the latest assessment by the global press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

In RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index released last week, Fiji was placed 102nd out of 180 countries — receiving an overall score of 56.91 out of 100.

The country slipped by 47 places compared to its 2021 rankings when it was placed 55nd out of 180 nations.

• READ MORE:  Media freedom slide in Australia ‘undermining’ ability to project democratic values in Pacific
• Fiji criticised for legal ‘criminalisation’ of journalism in big drop in press freedom ranking
• Other reports on the RSF World Press Freedom Index

RSF changed its system of analysis this year to include a breakdown on specific categories such as legal framework and justice system, technological censorship and surveillance, disinformation and propaganda, arbitrary detention and proceedings, independence and pluralism, models and good practices, media sustainability, and violence against journalists, which partially explains Fiji’s sudden fall on the Index.

The Paris-based media watchdog said “journalists critical of the government are regularly intimidated … by the indestructible Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, in power since the military coup of 2006.”

Other countries from the region surveyed by the Index included Aotearoa New Zealand, which was ranked 11th, Australia (39th), Samoa (45th), Tonga (49th), and Papua New Guinea (62nd).

Neighbouring Timor-Leste improved 54 places to 17th.

RSF said Aotearoa New Zealand, which received an overall score of 83.54, was a “regional model” for press freedom “by having developed safeguards against political and economic influences” for journalists to conduct their work.

The yearly report was released to coincide with last week’s World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Media decree, sedition laws
It said Fiji operated under the 2010 Media Industry Development Decree, which became law in 2018.

RSF said in an earlier report that the sedition laws in Fiji, with penalties of up to seven years in prison, were also used to foster a climate of fear and self-censorship.

“Sedition charges put the lives of three journalists with The Fiji Times, the leading daily, on hold until they were finally acquitted in 2018,” the report stated.

“Many observers believed it was the price the newspaper paid for its independence.”

Fiji was ranked 52nd in both 2020 and 2019 but was 57th in 2018.

The Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) did not respond to a request for comment.

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

#RSFIndex: RSF unveils its 2022 World #PressFreedom Index

1: Norway
2: Denmark
3: Sweden

16: Germany
24: UK
26: France
42: USA
58: Italy
71: Japan
110: Brazil
134: Algeria
150: India

178: Iran
179: Eritrea
180: North Koreahttps://t.co/fdZ3RWSFjN pic.twitter.com/rV2i3sPmwW

— RSF (@RSF_inter) May 3, 2022

A Melbourne-based Indonesian media academic has warned that declining media freedom in Australia is undermining the country’s ability to project liberal democratic values to the Asia-Pacific region.

“Many people who have been watching media and journalism in Australia have been worried,” Tito Ambyo, a journalism lecturer at RMIT, told ABC News.

He said governments in Australia needed “to start seeing journalists as an important part of democracy”.

• READ MORE: The 2022 World Press Freedom Index

“We don’t have journalists being killed or imprisoned in Australia, but we have seen a lot of abuses,” he said, pointing to online harassment that was “often racist or gendered in nature”.

Ambyo was responding to the 2022 World Press Freedom Index released this week by the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders which reported a big slump in media freedoms in Australia.

Media freedom in Australia is “fragile” and less protected than in New Zealand and several emerging democracies in Asia, RSF concluded in its annual Index. The assessment measures have become more comprehensive in changes introduced this year.

Australia slid from 25 to 39 in the Index, ranking below New Zealand in 11th place and Timor-Leste at number 17, but above Samoa (45th), Tonga (49th), Papua New Guinea (62nd) and Fiji (102nd) — with both the latter Pacific countries experiencing big falls while facing elections this year.

Taiwan, which has transitioned from a military dictatorship to a liberal democracy since the late 1980s, ranked just above Australia at 38th.

The Press Freedom Index, which assesses the state of journalism in 180 countries and territories, highlights the disastrous effects of news and information chaos — the effects of a globalised and unregulated online information space that encourages fake news and propaganda.

‘Fox News model’
Within democratic societies, divisions are growing as a result of the spread of opinion media following the “Fox News model” and the spread of disinformation circuits that are amplified by the way social media functions.

At the international level, democracies are being weakened by the asymmetry between open societies and despotic regimes that control their media and online platforms while waging propaganda wars against democracies.

Polarisation on these two levels is fuelling increased tension, says RSF.

The invasion of Ukraine (106th) by Russia (155th) at the end of February reflects this process, as the physical conflict was preceded by a propaganda war.

China (175th), one of the world’s most repressive autocratic regimes, uses its legislative arsenal to confine its population and cut it off from the rest of the world, especially the population of Hong Kong (148th), which has plummeted in the Index.

Confrontation between “blocs” is growing, as seen between nationalist Narendra Modi’s India (150th) and Pakistan (157th). The lack of press freedom in the Middle East continues to impact the conflict between Israel (86th), Palestine (170th) and the Arab states.

Media polarisation is feeding and reinforcing internal social divisions in democratic societies such as the United States (42nd), despite President Joe Biden’s election, reports RSF.

Social media tensions
The increase in social and political tension is being fuelled by social media and new opinion media, especially in France (26th).

The suppression of independent media is contributing to a sharp polarisation in “illiberal democracies” such as Poland (66th), where the authorities have consolidated their control over public broadcasting and their strategy of “re-Polonising” the privately-owned media.

The trio of Nordic countries at the top of the Index — Norway, Denmark and Sweden — continues to serve as a democratic model where freedom of expression flourishes, while Moldova (40th) and Bulgaria (91st) stand out this year thanks to a government change and the hope it has brought for improvement in the situation for journalists even if oligarchs still own or control the media.

The situation is classified as “very bad” in a record number of 28 countries in this year’s Index, while 12 countries, including Belarus (153rd) and Russia (155th), are on the Index’s red list (indicating “very bad” press freedom situations) on the map.

The world’s 10 worst countries for press freedom include Myanmar (176th), where the February 2021 coup d’état set press freedom back by 10 years, as well as China, Turkmenistan (177th), Iran (178th), Eritrea (179th) and North Korea (180th).

Fatal danger for democracies
“Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT (the former Russia Today), revealed what she really thinks in a Russia One TV broadcast when she said, ‘no great nation can exist without control over information,’ said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire.

“The creation of media weaponry in authoritarian countries eliminates their citizens’ right to information but is also linked to the rise in international tension, which can lead to the worst kind of wars.

“Domestically, the ‘Fox News-isation’ of the media poses a fatal danger for democracies because it undermines the basis of civil harmony and tolerant public debate,” he said.

“Urgent decisions are needed in response to these issues, promoting a New Deal for Journalism, as proposed by the Forum on Information and Democracy, and adopting an appropriate legal framework, with a system to protect democratic online information spaces.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

The next Australian government must recommit to press freedom by putting in place overdue reforms to support public interest journalism, says the union for Australia’s media workers.

On World Press Freedom Day, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance is calling on all political parties to act on a range of reforms that are needed to ensure journalists can continue to perform their essential work finding facts, seeking the truth and holding power to account.

MEAA media federal president Karen Percy said the role of public interest journalism in a democratic society had been highlighted by the covid-19 pandemic, when there has been confusion and debate about what is true and what is false, often exploited by deliberate disinformation campaigns.

• READ MORE:  Nobel laureates Ramos-Horta, Ressa demand freedoms, fight for democracy
• Other media freedom reports

“We know from the covid-19 pandemic that the work of journalists saves lives, informs the public, improves public policy and holds the powerful to account,” Percy said in a statement.

“But we’ve also witnessed how people have been confused about what is true and what is false with their vulnerabilities exploited by those pushing disinformation campaigns.

“Australians have relied on journalists to accurately and impartially convey important information, but our jobs have been made all the more difficult when governments suppress information, refuse to answer questions, hide information under the pretext of national security, and when defamation laws are used to quash accountability.

“So, on World Press Freedom Day 2022, it is timely to call for our political leaders — and those aspiring to lead us — to respect and honour public interest journalism, to put accountability and transparency at the heart of our democracy.

“Because without a free press, democracy dies.”

With the federal election underway, MEAA has submitted to the major parties our key priorities for reform to protect media freedom and support public interest journalism.

Among the reforms that are needed are:

• Boosting the Public Interest News Gathering (PING) programme for a minimum of three years with $150 million per annum available to the small and medium news sectors, with substantial funds quarantined for providers of regional news services.
• Restoration of adequate funding to public broadcasters the ABC and SBS, with greater certainty over a five-year funding cycle.
• Implementing reforms to protect whistle blowers who disclose confidential information to media in the public interest.
• Conducting an urgent review of Australia’s security laws to remove impediments and sanctions against public interest journalism.
• Harmonising journalism shield laws across all national, state and territory jurisdictions to protect journalists from identifying sources.
• Introduce new provisions to ensure that any future media mergers meet a “diversity of voices” test before they are approved by government regulators.
• Financial reforms to enable the costs of journalism to be offset via taxation incentives.
• Increasing international advocacy in support of journalists and allied workers when they are exposed to arbitrary detention, imprisonment and threats to their life, and adopting the International Federation of Journalists’ International Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists and Other Media Professionals.

Today, MEAA is also releasing its annual report into the state of press freedom in Australia, titled Truth vs Disinformation: the Challenge for Public Interest Journalism.

The report examines the impact of covid-related disinformation campaigns on journalism and press freedom, including increases in violent attacks, harassment and threats against journalists.

The report is available at pressfreedom.org.au.

“Iron” we called him. And so he was, our iron man at Papua New Guinea’s Post-Courier in Lawes Road, Port Moresby, to the end.

Until Wednesday, Isaac Nicholas was the steely fearless reporter who held us up front, and firmly led us from the front page as chief political reporter.

It is not easy being a political reporter.

• READ MORE: Tributes pour in for the late PNG journalist

Few people survive the beat and the heat.

Your name is mentioned in the halls of power.

You are enemy first and friend second.

Politicians either fear you or hate you.

Wary of his beat
Either way, Isaac Nicholas was always wary of his beat. He played the pollies with a calculated intensity like no-one did.

He was sure fire seeking the truth and quite firm in gaining traction without compromising the essence of fair and unbiased reporting.

He was a friend to all of them but getting under their skins, irritating them, made the Iron a trademark enemy to none.

Some of his best friends, like the MP for Goilala [William Samb], criticised him openly when they could about his reporting but at the end of the day, he would stand up in the newsroom and declare, “the member just called me” and that was it!

This little man from Yangoru, 52, served our newspaper and our country faithfully for the past 15 years, going places where few reporters dare, like the mountains of Goilala and the bush of Telefomin and the crocodile-infested swamps of Kerema.

You can think of many journos from the Sepik and Isaac Nicholas was among the best.

He was friendly, good natured and humorous.

Green iron tins under a mango tree
At the end of a hard day’s news hunt, our Iron would always retire under his mango tree at East Boroko. How ironic it was that his favourite cooling off was always with green iron tins under a green tree.

His notebooks were filled with names and stories.

There’s a box full of them on his table.

That is his life story.

Those of us who knew him, walked with him, talked with him, shared a buai [betel nut], shed our tears for the loss of a close friend.

A protector of junior newshounds, a leader of senior scribes. His leadership and reporting will be missed in Papua New Guinean journalism.

Life is such that we make friends without knowing when that friendship will pass. PNG woke up on Wednesday to the news that our iron man in news-making had breathed his last.

From Yangoru to Manugoro, Dagua to Kagua, Vailala to Goilala, Malalaua to Salamaua, Baniara to Honiara, the name Isaac Nicholas was a trusted forte of political drama and conscience leadership.

Without the generosity of a goodbye, without the curiosity of a farewell, we, his friends at the Post-Courier find it quite hard to fathom losing such a dear brother, news leader and best friend so suddenly.

We remember the late Isaac and comfort Judy Nicholas and their children in this time of sadness.

Vale Isaac, you were truly our IRON MAN!

Tributes flow in for Isaac Nicholas
Isaac Nicholas, 52, was a giant in the Papua New Guinean media fraternity, known for his ability to get answers from PNG’s political heavyweights on any given day, report colleagues in the PNG media industry.

Fellow senior journalists, NBC’s Gregory Moses and Sunday Bulletin’s Clifford Faiparik remembered their friend and the light moments they shared while on the beat.

Moses lamented: “Parliament coverage next week will not be the same.

“I fought back tears whole day, and sat down and reminiscing all the fun and jokes we shared as colleagues and brothers.”

Professor David Robie, who was head of the journalism programme at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) in the 1990s, paid tribute to Nicholas as “one of the outstanding journalists in the making of our times on Uni Tavur”, the award-winning student newspaper featured in his 2004 book Mekim Nius.

• Other tributes

Hong Kong independent media Stand News has announced it has shut down following the arrest last week of six current and former members of its team.

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for the release of all journalists detained and urges democracies to react and defend what is left of the free press in the territory.

On the morning of December 29, six current and former team members of Chinese-language news site Stand News were arrested by the police force’s National Security Department on allegations of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”, a colonial-era crime that bears a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

• READ MORE: Other Hong Kong democracy reports

The detainees are acting chief editor Patrick Lam Shiu-tung, former chief editor Chung Pui-kuen, and four former board members: Denise Ho Wan-see, Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, Chow Tat-chi and Christine Fang Meng-sang.

Next day, December 30, the four board members — Denise Ho Wan-see, Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, Chow Tat-chi and Christine Fang Meng-sang — were released on a bail, while chief editors Patrick Lam Shiu-tung and Chung Pui-kuen will stay in custody until the trial.

Simultaneously on the day of the arrests, a total of 200 police officers raided the Stand News office and searched the house of Stand News’ deputy assignment editor, Ronson Chan Long-sing.

Chan, who is also the chair of Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), was taken away and later released after questioning.

Defend ‘what’s left of free press’
“Exactly six months after the dismantling of the Next Digital group and its flagship newspaper Apple Daily, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam once again shows her determination to terminate press freedom in the territory by eliminating Stand News in a similar fashion”, said Cédric Alviani, RSF East Asia bureau head, who called for the release of all journalists and urges democracies “to act in line with their own values and obligations and defend what’s left of the free press in Hong Kong before China’s model of information control claims another victim”.

Stand News, an independent, non-profit, news website in Chinese founded in 2014, provided in-depth coverage of all trials related to the National Security Law, and was a nominee for the 2021 RSF Press Freedom Awards.

In June, Chief Executive Lam also used the National Security Law as pretext to shut down Apple Daily, the territory’s largest Chinese-language opposition newspaper, and to prosecute at least 12 journalists and press freedom defenders, 10 of whom are still detained.

In a report titled “The Great Leap Backwards of Journalism in China”, published on 7 December 2021, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) revealed the system of censorship and information control established by the Chinese regime and the global threat it poses to press freedom and democracy.

Hong Kong, once a bastion of press freedom, has fallen from 18th place in 2002 to 80th place in the 2020 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

The People’s Republic of China, for its part, has stagnated at 177th out of 180.

Republished with permission. Asia Pacific Report collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

• READ MORE: ‘Under attack’: Report says repression of rights persists in Asia
• Other reports on people power under attack

An open rating means people are free to form associations, demonstrate in public spaces, and share information without fear of reprisals.

Concern in the report highlighted those civic rights are not respected across the region; Fiji, Nauru and Papua New Guinea remain in the “obstructed” category, meaning that restrictions of freedoms of expression, association and assembly have been raised by civil society in these countries.

Restrictions relating to media freedoms, access to information and the right to protest led to the Solomon Islands downgrade. Freedom of expression is of particular concern — in early 2021 the cabinet threatened to ban Facebook over worries about posts with “inflammatory critiques of the government”.

The government eventually backtracked after condemnation from civil society and the opposition.

Public Emergency extended
Freedom of assembly have been documented in the Solomon Islands. In July, the State of Public Emergency was extended for another four months in response to covid-19, even though there were only 20 reported cases in the country.

A march in Honiara to deliver a petition to the government by people from the Malaita province was disrupted and dispersed by the police.

Accessing information is not available to the media in the pandemic as Solomon Islands does not have freedom of information legislation. Additionally, the environment towards civil society groups is becoming more hostile in the country.

For example, in late 2019 the office of the Prime Minister called for an investigation into a number of civil society groups after they called for the prime minister to step down.

“Excessive restrictions on civic freedoms imposed by the government under the guise of preventing covid-19 led to the downgrade of the Solomon Islands. Constant threats to ban Facebook and attempts to vilify civil society have also resulted in the failure of the Solomon Islands to retain a top spot in our global rights rankings,” said Josef Benedict, Asia-Pacific civic space researcher at CIVICUS.

The use of excessive restrictions against activists and critics was the leading violation in 2021 with at least seven countries having been found to have transgressed in the report.

Target on Fiji journalists, activists and critics
In Fiji, provisions relating to sedition in the Public Order (Amendment) Act 2014 have been used to target journalists, activists, and government critics, while other sections of the act have been used to arbitrarily restrict peaceful protests.

The Fiji Trade Unions Congress (FTUC) was denied a permit to hold a rally in Suva, on International Labour Day, 1 May 2021 — no reason, written or verbal for the rejection was given.

The use of restrictive laws is a concern across the Pacific. New criminal defamation laws passed in Vanuatu and Tonga cast a chilling blow to freedom of expression.

In Australia, the government continues to hound whistleblowers through the courts, as seen in the case of Bernard Collaery, the lawyer of an ex-spy, who was charged with allegedly exposing Australia’s bugging of Timor-Leste.

In 2019, Australia was downgraded by the CIVICUS Monitor due to attempts to silence whistleblowers who reveal government wrongdoing, among other concerns.

New Zealand and Australia, which was downgraded in 2019, did not get off scot-free. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association said the pandemic was not reason enough to quell peaceful assembly of protesters.

Indeed, protesters to the lockdown rules were detained this year for violating covid-19 rules.

Intimidation of Pacific activists
Other civic rights violations highlighted by the CIVICUS Monitor include the harassment or intimidation of activists and critics across the Pacific, as documented in Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea.

Fijian surgeon Dr Jone Hawea was detained for questioning after criticising the government’s response to covid-19 in his Facebook live videos, while Papua New Guinean lawyer Laken Lepatu Aigilo was allegedly detained and assaulted by police in April 2021 after lodging an official complaint against a politician.

“The state of civic space in the Pacific may seem relatively positive. However, over the year we have seen restrictive laws being used in several countries, including criminal defamation laws. Protests have also been denied or disrupted under the pretext of handling the pandemic, while activists have faced harassment and intimidation,” said Benedict.

However, there have been some positive developments this year. After strong civil society pressure, Tongan authorities moved swiftly to charge the alleged murderer of leading LGBTQI+ activist Polikalepo “Poli” Kefu, after his body was found on a beach near Tongatapu, Tonga’s main island

More than 20 organisations collaborate on the CIVICUS Monitor to provide an evidence base for action to improve civic space on all continents.

The Monitor has posted more than 500 civic space updates in the last year, which are analysed in People Power Under Attack 2020.

Civic space in 196 countries is categorised as either closed, repressed, obstructed, narrowed or open, based on a methodology which combines several sources of data on the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression.

Of 1000 Fijians surveyed by Transparency International, 11 percent claimed they were asked for sexual favours in exchange for government services or benefits at least once in the past five years.

The survey titled, “Global Corruption Barometer — Pacific Report”, was based on data collected by Tebbutt Research in Fiji between February and March this year.

The report said on the issue of sexual extortion or “sextortion”, sex became the currency of the bribe and people were coerced into engaging in sexual acts in exchange for essential services — including health care and education.

• READ MORE: Corruption in Pacific big problem – and it’s getting worse, says report

Respondents were asked if an official in Fiji made requests of a sexual nature in exchange for a government service or benefits.

However, Fiji’s 11 percent sextortion rate was much lower than other Pacific states, including French Polynesia, which has a 92 percent rate.

“Despite these findings, respondents across the Pacific appear to have difficulty assessing the extent of the problem,” the report read.

“It is worth noting that around a fifth of respondents (17 percent) say that they do not know how often sextortion occurs in their countries.

“It could point to a need for further investigation and community dialogue to better understand and address this heinous form of corruption.”

Survey merely confirms public perception, says Chaudhry

Chaudhry says poll ‘no surprise’
Wanshika Kumar reports that Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry said the Transparency International survey merely confirmed a widespread public perception that corruption had become endemic in the country.

Chaudhry said it was no surprise that the poll showed that the majority of the people believed there were high levels of corruption in government and the business sector.

“What else can one expect when the FijiFirst government refuses to enact constitutionally mandated legislation intended to curb corruption in high public office,” Chaudhry said.

“Section 149 of the imposed 2013 Constitution calls for a Code of Conduct for the President, Speaker, Prime Minister and other government ministers, members of Parliament and other high public officeholders.

“Likewise, Section 150 mandates the enactment of a Freedom of Information legislation to give members of the public the right to access official information and government documents.

“Section 121 calls for an independent Accountability and Transparency Commission with the jurisdiction, authority and powers to receive and investigate complaints against all persons holding a public office.

“Yet, in the past eight years, the government has ignored repeated calls to enact these laws to curb corruption in high public office and the business sector.

“What conclusions can be drawn from its failure to do so? If it were genuinely interested in tackling corrupt practices, it would have introduced these measures long ago.”

Lack of accountability
Chaudhry said another reason for high levels of corruption in public office was a worrying lack of accountability and transparency in the government’s handling of public funds.

“Contracts are either awarded without tenders being called or more often than not, are awarded without due disclosure of the details,” he said.

“We have received reports from several companies to say that they have stopped bidding for public tenders because of the lack of transparency in the handling of contracts.”

He said the appointment of executives of large businesses to the boards of government commercial companies or statutory authorities in situations of conflict of interest was also of serious concern.

“Indeed, some big wigs in government are seen to be too close to top guns in the corporate sector,” he said.

“It is no wonder that more than two-thirds of our people believe corruption is high in government circles.”

Anish Chand and Wanshika Kumar are Fiji Times reporters. This report is republished with permission.

Information as a public good is a powerful theme for this year’s World Press Freedom Day and serves as a reminder to Pacific Island governments that the public have a right to information that affects their lives, says a Fiji-based media educator.

Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, coordinator of the regional journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala campus, said that as the people’s representatives, governments were sworn to uphold this right to information.

In his World Press Freedom Day message, Dr Singh said Pacific news media played a crucial role in facilitating public access to information.

• READ MORE: Other World Press Freedom Day reports
• World Press Freedom Day

Besides acting as a conduit for information, he said the media had the additional job of protecting the public’s right to information, further underscoring their pivotal role.

“It goes without saying that this year’s WPFD theme is not just a reminder for governments, but also for journalists and media organisations about their sacred duty to uphold the public right to information, which is a contested, rather than a guaranteed right,” he said.

“Indeed, trends indicate that some Pacific governments are more inclined to attempt to limit the public’s access to information, for one reason or another.

“For journalists, the challenge is to produce accurate, balanced and relevant information to be delivered in timely fashion to as wide an audience as possible. It requires a high level of professionalism to be doing this job diligently on a daily basis.”

Implement greater access
In recognition that information is a public good, Dr Singh said governments could implement greater and easier access to information through the Access to Information Act and Whistleblower Protection Legislation.

“However, regional governments seem more inclined towards legislation that hinders the free flow of information and access to it,” he said.

“For example, the Vanuatu government’s implementation of criminal defamation legislation this week could arguably be seen as an impingement on the public’s right to information.

“Besides Vanuatu’s national media, the regional media such as Radio Australia were in the forefront of generating debate and discussion on the issue.

“This is the media fighting government attempts to deny the public the right to a public good – information – by limiting freedom of expression through punitive legislation.”

Before Vanuatu passed criminal libel laws that impact on media freedom and the people’s right to express their opinions, Dr Singh said Samoa had re-introduced its Criminal Libel Act in 2017, and Fiji effected the punitive Media Industry Development Decree in 2010.

“Such legislation weakens democracy and decreases the public’s access to information due to a chilling impact on free speech. As part of upholding the public’s right to information, media are duty bound to challenge such laws by, among other things, writing articles to generate debate and discussion on the topic, with the aim of reforming some of these laws to better serve the people,” he said.

Hurdles still faced
Dr Singh said this year’s WPFD underscored the fact that while information was a public good, the full access to this good still faced many hurdles that needed to be overcome.

Meanwhile, the Fijian Media Association paid tribute to its members for their courageous and committed reporting on the coronavirus covid-19 pandemic, which had played a key role in keeping Fijians safe from the virus.

General secretary Stanley Simpson urged journalists to keep learning and developing from the experiences gained and to keep improving their work in disseminating information.

“Work with authorities but keep them accountable and honest, scrutinise the decisions of our leaders and ensure they meet the highest standards, and to ensure that all voices are heard including those that are marginalised,” Simpson said.

“We thank you for the sacrifices you have made, the long hours endured, for taking the flak and criticisms in your stride, for asking the questions that needed to be asked, and for the creativity to disseminate information through various platforms to the Fijian public.

“To our journalists, you have earned this day – World Press Freedom Day.”

Simpson also thanked stakeholders for working with the media and urged them to keep staying true to the ideals and principles of media freedom.

Essential role of journalists
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation director-general Audrey Azoulay said the theme of this year’s WPFD underlined the indisputable importance of verified and reliable information.

“It calls attention to the essential role of free and professional journalists in producing and disseminating this information, by tackling misinformation and other harmful content,” she said.

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated on May 3. It has its origins in a UNESCO conference in Windhoek in 1991.

The event ended with the adoption of the landmark Windhoek Declaration for the Development of a Free, Independent and Pluralistic Press.

According to UNESCO, after 30 years, the historic connection made between the freedom to seek, impart and receive information and the public good remains as relevant as it was at the time of its signing.

Asia Pacific Report collaborates with Wansolwara, the USP journalism newspaper and website. Geraldine Panapasa is the editor-in-chief of Wansolwara and an assistant lecturer at USP.

Thirty Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldiers are working with other security personnel and the NCD covid-19 team to carry out a two-week awareness campaign in urban communities in the capital Port Moresby.

PNGDF commander Major-General Gilbert Toropo told the PNG Post-Courier that the 30 officers from the military police unit at Murray Barracks and Taurama Barracks would assist other security frontliners to boost their capacity.

“It is the NCD Governor Powes Parkop’s initiative to do awareness in Port Moresby communities and he needs manpower to assist NCDC health staff on the awareness programme, and because we have the capacity, he submitted a request for manpower,” Major-General Toropo said.

• READ MORE: The PNG covid crisis

He said his soldiers would be working closely with police and NCDC staff to move into settlements, bus stops, PMV buses and informal market areas conducting awareness on covid-19 for the next two weeks.

He said the awareness team would ensure that the public observed proper protocols of social distancing, wearing masks and giving advice.

“Our people are so complacent they think this is like a joke and they cannot protect themselves. That is why they are not taking measures seriously and Governor Parkop’s initiative to carry out awareness is the best we can do,” he said.

Toropo said that if citizens would listen and follow instructions, “we will stop spreading covid-19”.

He said that after the awareness campaign, penalties would be imposed on individuals, business houses, PMV bus owners and taxi drivers breaching the National Pandemic Act.

Papua New Guinea is suffering from a spike in covid-19 infections with 5184 cases and 45 deaths, including a parliamentarian.

Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

The tech juggernaut Facebook’s shock decision to block all news feeds from Australian media outlets this week in response to a proposed new Media Bargaining law, that will force social media giants to pay for news content that is posted on their platforms, has created fury among Australians.

But it is also turning attention to the impact of Facebook – and Google – on Australian journalism.

Facebook banned Australian users from accessing news in their feeds on the morning of Thursday, February 18, as the government pursues laws that would force it to pay publishers for journalism that appears in people’s feeds.

• READ MORE: Facebook backs away from news across the Tasman – RNZ Mediawatch
• Facebook’s Australia ban threatens to leave Pacific without key news source
• Other News Bargaining law stories

The legislation was introduced to Parliament in Canberra in December 2020. The House of Representatives passed it earlier this week.

The bill that has wide political support in Australia is now under review by a Senate committee before it is presented for a vote in the upper house.

In a lengthy statement issued by Facebook on February 18, the company revealed that it would bar Australian news sites from sharing content on the platform.

Within moments of the announcement being made public, Australian news organisations, media commentators, interest groups and local consumers of Facebook that runs into millions, began voicing their fury.

‘Go directly to source’
National broadcaster ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) immediately posted a notice on their news pages on the website calling on Australians to “go directly to the source” by downloading from their own news application.

Facebook’s head of policy for Asia-Pacific, Simon Milner was unrepentant during an interview on the ABC network, arguing that they disagree with the broad definition of news in the new legislation.

“One of the criticisms we had about the law that was passed by the House of Representatives [on February 16] is that the definition of news is incredibly broad and vague,” he said

Facebook has said earlier that the proposed laws fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between their platform and publishers who used it to share news content.

In fact, Facebook has been arguing for a long time that they are a publisher that provides a free platform for news organisations.

But many media organisations and scholars argue that they are bleeding out revenue from the Australian media running advertising on these pages, which otherwise used to go to the media companies and their platforms such as newspapers and TV stations.

A first of its kind, the success or otherwise of the Australian legislation is closely watched by other countries, especially in Europe.

US government pressure
Interestingly, according to an ABC report on January 18, the US government had tried to pressure the Australian government to drop the proposed legislation.

According to the ABC, a document with the letterhead of the Executive Office of the President has said: “The US government is concerned that an attempt, through legislation, to regulate the competitive positions of specific players … to the clear detriment of two US firms may result in harmful outcomes.”

The Australian government, however, sees the new legislation as designed to ensure these media companies are fairly remunerated for the use of their content on search engines and social media platforms.

Google has begun signing deals with publishers in response, but Facebook has chosen to follow through on its threat and remove news for Australian users.

In an interview on ABC Radio on February 18, Glen Dyer of popular Crikey! media that uses Facebook extensively to reach their audiences described Facebook’s behaviour as “resembling China’s (Community Party)”.

He argued that in the past year China has been imposing trade restrictions literally overnight on spurious grounds inconveniencing Australians at the behest of China’s leader, and Mark Zuckerberg is also behaving in a similar high-handed way.

“It [Facebook] has a management structure that is controlled by a small group headed by Mark Zuckerberg,” he noted.

Boycott Facebook
“Australian advertisers should boycott Facebook”.

However, Dyer added that they would not have the guts because “most of these Australian companies are controlled offshore and the local executives would not risk their bonuses”.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking on ABC TV’s flagship current affairs programme 7.30 Report on February 18, argued strongly for an across the board tax on advertising revenue designed in such a way that both local and foreign companies operating in Australia cannot avoid it.

“The real question is that the revenue model for media has moved into other platforms like Facebook and Google. There is less revenue support for journalism and that has been a worry for some time,” said Turnbull, who was a merchant banker before moving into politics.

“Government will be better off imposing a tax on advertising revenue across the board …. take that revenue from Facebook and Google and make the money available to support public interest journalism,” he recommended.

Turnbull believes that government has lost the plot because they are saying to companies like Facebook and Google, “you have to pay money to those [media companies] who put contents on your site [even though] you are not stealing it or breaching copyrights, you have to pay”.

Thus, he appealed to Australians to go directly to Australia media news platforms and applications – like that offered by the ABC – without using Facebook.

Digital threat to democracy
Chris Cooper, executive director of Reset Australia, a global initiative working to counter the digital threat to democracy has also condemned Facebook’s action.

“Facebook is telling Australians that rather than participate meaningfully in regulatory efforts, it would prefer to operate a platform in which real news has been abandoned or de-prioritised, leaving misinformation to fill the void,” he argued.

Reset Australia had made a submission to the government during the legislation’s drafting stage arguing that the true impact of the legislation should be changes to the news, media and journalism landscape in Australia, that should ensure promoting greater diversity and pluralism within the Australian media landscape.

Cooper argues that Facebook does not care about Australian society nor the functioning of democracy.

“Regulation is an inconvenient impost on their immediate profits – and the hostility of their response overwhelmingly confirms regulation is needed,” he says.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg blasted Facebook’s decision to block access to pages like 1800Respect, the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Speaking on ABC he said that this was done at a time that a bushfire emergency in Western Australia depended on this information, and also when Australia is about to roll out the covid-19 vaccines where people needed access to reliable information.

Frydenberg noted that this heavy-handed action will damage its reputation.

“Their decision to block Australians’ access to government sites — be they about support through the pandemic, mental health, emergency services, the Bureau of Meteorology — was completely unrelated to the media code, which is yet to pass through the Senate,” he said.

“What today’s events do confirm for all Australians, is the immense market power of these digital giants.”

Kalinga Seneviratne is a media analyst and author. This article was first published on IDN-InDepth News and is republished with the permission of the author.

It has indeed been a few strange days for Australian news media. Apparently, monopolies are bad if they are not NewsCorp.

This week, Facebook came through on its threat to ban all news from its service, in retaliation against the Australian Federal government’s proposed new media code, that could see the tech giant paying news producers for content they willingly share on the Facebook platform.

Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp rather predictably ran a story accusing Facebooks’ messenger platform of aiding and abetting paedophiles. A remarkable display of mutual chestbeating.

• READ MORE: Why Google is now funnelling millions into media outlets, as Facebook pulls news for Australia
• Facebook under fire over move to ‘bully democracy’ in Australia
• Google’s and Facebook’s loud appeal to users over the news media bargaining code shows a lack of political power
• Facebook has pulled the trigger on news content — and possibly shot itself in the foot
• Facebook back at negotiating table with Australia
• Facebook move reinforces need for a News Media Bargaining Code
• JERAA demands Facebook stop blocking Australians from receiving news

But it is news media diversity and independent journalism routinely pillaged by Murdoch that will be the real victims of ScoMo trying to extort one billionaire at the behest of another.

Queensland’s independent press, for example, is just beginning to lift its head after Rupert ruthlessly destroyed a whole swathe of rural and regional newspapers of record. I wonder how this posturing between two billionaires will affect those independent newspapers that are slowly beginning to show promise in that desolate landscape.

Sure, there needs to be funding for good journalism, and the tech-giants should pitch in, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, of a rather long “to do list” to ensure a robust and independent news media that includes ensuring media diversity and the public’s access to fact-verified public interest journalism irrespective of petty party politics.

In this respect it’s hard to see this whole fiasco as anything but a half-baked idea built on a NewsCorp orchestrated lie.

Holding readers hostage
News organisations could have easily blocked Google searches listing their content. They could also have stopped putting their content on Facebook pages, explored micro-payments or some such innovative solution, instead of holding readers hostage with archaic subscription models.

Is Australian journalism suffering because of Google and Facebook? What of the media monopolies that have systematically destroyed diversity and independence of the press through concentration of ownership unparalleled in the Western world?

What of the three-decade long devaluing of journalism, and training an entire generation to get free news on vanity websites while simultaneously selling the same content in printed papers, only to then retreat behind paywalls?

What about forcing journalists to pimp their stories by linking KPIs to journalists’ capacity to secure subscriptions and assessing the value of stories on the basis of clicks?

What of the ruthless stripping of journalists’ rights that has created a precariat work force?

And what of the armies of media pundits who jumped on the citizen journalism bandwagon and vigorously claimed we didn’t need professional journalists because we were now all citizen journalists?

What of the media educators who have conflated journalism with media, normalised native advertising and created a grey slurry of content where fact and fiction is indistinguishable and ethics non-existent?

Championed social media
And then there are the media theorists who have championed social media as a great equaliser.

A “town square” where ideas flow freely, or as Mark Zuckerberg calls it a “digital living room” instead of seeing it for what it really is – a privately owned advertising platform hell bent on creating a global monopoly.

Let’s say we manage to force Facebook to pay for content. I wonder exactly how the dollars Zuckerberg doles out to Newscorp will flow onto the journalists and the gutted newsrooms who everyone is suddenly concerned for.

Shouldn’t the money be directly invested in public interest journalism instead of becoming just another version of that wonderfully Liberal idea of trickle-down economics filtered through Rupert’s pockets.

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri is a senior lecturer and journalism programme director at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. An earlier version of this piece was originally a Facebook posting and this been revised and contributed to Asia Pacific Report as a column.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the arbitrary and opaque experiments that Google is conducting with its search engine in Australia, with the consequence that many national news websites are no longer appearing in the search results seen by some users.

The Australian, ABC, Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Guardian Australia and The Sydney Morning Herald are among the media outlets that have not appeared in the search results of around 1 percent of Australian users since January 13, the date on which Google admits that it began its “experiments”.

The experiments are supposedly intended to measure the correlation between media and Google search and are due to end at the start of February.

• READ MORE: Google’s threat to block Australia over content fees sparks anger
• Oh look … the wheels are falling off – The Knightly Views with Gavin Ellis

Neither the media outlets nor Google search users were notified in advance of the consequences of the experiments, namely that they would be deprived of their usual access to many news sources.

“The platforms must stop playing sorcerer’s apprentice in a completely opaque manner,” said Iris de Villars, the head of RSF’s Tech Desk.

“Most Australians use Google to find and access online news, and these experiments confirm the scale of the power that platforms like Google exercise over access to online journalistic content, and their ability to abuse this power to the detriment of the public’s access to information.

“They have a duty to be transparent and to inform their users, a duty that is all the greater in the light of the impact that the current and future experiments can have on journalistic pluralism.”

Thousands of tests every year
Google conducts tens of thousands of tests on its search engine every year.

The experiments that Google and other platforms carry out usually test design changes, algorithmic modifications or new functionalities on some of their users in order to study how they behave and to guide future changes.

This is not the first time one of these experiments has impacted on journalistic pluralism.

Facebook, for example, tested a new functionality called “Explore” in six countries – Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka – from October 2017 to March 2018.

This experiment, in which independent news content was quarantined in a not-very-accessible secondary location, had a disastrous impact on journalistic pluralism in these countries, with traffic to local media outlets falling dramatically.

In Cambodia, many citizen-journalists lost a large chunk of their readers, with the result they had to pay to restore traffic to their sites.

Google’s experiments in Australia have come at a time of tension between the platforms and the Australian government, which has a proposed new law, called the News Media Bargaining Code, under which platforms such as Google and Facebook would have to share advertising money with media companies.

The two tech giants have reacted to the proposal with hostility. Facebook has said it would prevent Australian media outlets and users from sharing journalistic content on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, while Google has added a pop-up message to its search results warning Australian users that “your search experience will be hurt by new regulation”.

When asked about the details of these experiments, their purpose and about transparency towards media outlets and users, Google just referred RSF to an existing, general press release.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Struggling businesses have expressed concerns and international media rights groups have condemned the Solomon Islands government’s proposal to temporarily ban Facebook.

The Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), as the peak body representing private sector in Solomon Islands, is particularly concerned with the negative impacts this decision will have on the country’s micro businesses, entrepreneurs and those in the informal sector dependent on social media for marketing and advertising.

“It is the government’s prerogative to make such a decision, but as a chamber we believe that there are other pressing issues that require our collective focus,” SICCI board chair Jay Bartlett said.

• READ MORE: Solomons to ban Facebook but claims ‘media freedom to remain’
• Solomon Islands Facebook ban under attack

Members of the business community shared their concerns with SICCI today while others opposed the decision to temporarily ban Facebook.

Paula Brake, managing director of Tower Insurance Pacific said Facebook was the most widely used social media platform in the Pacific Islands and was an important communication tool relied upon by individuals, businesses and communities.

“Tower uses Facebook to engage with customers and their communities regarding a variety of matters, most importantly those relating to the preparation for and response to severe weather events.

“The most engagement Tower has on Facebook is relating to claims processing following major events. As such, Tower strongly opposes any proposal to ban Facebook usage in the Solomon Islands,” Brake said.

Important marketing strategy
Seventy percent of SICCI’s membership was made up of small medium enterprises (SMEs), one of them SAMEDIA Limited and director Gloria Hong said that for small businesses interacting with consumers on social media was an important marketing strategy.

“Using social media helps us to build brand awareness, increase our customer base, and connect with customers,” she said.

“In my view, banning Facebook is a threat to businesses, especially the small businesses [that] cannot afford to run advertisements on radio, newspapers and on TV,” Hong said.

Tongs Corporation have invested a lot of time and effort to launch and grow their Facebook presence as a mode of communication with their customers.

Sales and marketing manager John Wopereis said Facebook had been an effective tool in building relationships with the wider community to grow product knowledge and showcase the inspiring stories of builders, contractors and homeowners.

“In terms of our planning for 2021 onwards, it’s important for us to be clear on what to expect as we have outlined facebook as a key marketing tool and have content lined up ready to go. We need to know what’s happening so we can be clear on where to invest our time and effort,” Wopereis said.

As with the covid-19 global pandemic, the tourism sector would be most affected by the Facebook ban.

Heavily reliant on Facebook
Sunset Lodge based on the island of Savo relies heavily on social media to attract customers.

Owner Bernard Kemakeza has taken every opportunity presented by the government and SICCI to improve his business’ online presence and sees this move as a setback.

“Coming into 2020 we did not anticipate the global pandemic impacting on the tourism industry the way that we’re experiencing at the moment,” he said.

“For small operators such as ourselves, we are struggling to pay our workers, to pay tax to government, help our nearby communities and we look forward to when things get back to normal.”

Anthony Fargas, managing director of Coral Sea Resort and Casino, said advertising in the traditional media was not viable in a depressed economic landscape on a regular basis.

“There is a high uptake of Facebook with Solomon Islanders and freedom of expression and information should be encouraged in any democracy or competitive landscape.”

Unjustified media freedom attack
Responding to the Facebook ban plan, the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre condemned the move, saying that it was an unjustified attack on media freedom and freedom of information.

“This is a cynical assault on fundamental human rights launched by ministers with thin skins and bruised egos and it is naive to claim that while Facebook would be banned media freedom would be retained,” said centre director Professor David Robie.

“Many small Pacific media, including in Solomon Islands, have integrated social media and news publishing platforms and strategies. An arbitrary ban on Facebook – even short-term – would be damaging to both the public right to know and the media business models putting at risk their viability.”

Amnesty International’s Pacific researcher Kate Schuetze said: “To ban a social media site simply because people are posting comments that the authorities don’t like is a blatant and brazen attack on human rights.

“Protecting the sensitivities of government officials is not a justifiable reason to limit freedom of expression, which is also a right under the Constitution of the Solomon Islands.”

Robert Iroga is editor of Solomon Business Magazine (SBM). This article is published with permission.

The court case in New Caledonia brought by French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru against the French prosecutor over the Faa’a community station Radio Tefana has been deferred for a second time.

Last month, it was deferred until yesterday but it has now been rescheduled for November 25.

In June, Temaru had sought a preliminary ruling in Tahiti claiming state prosecutor Herve Leroy had violated the assumption that he was innocent.

• READ MORE: The judgment of Tahiti’s Oscar Temaru – a neocolonial sense of déjà-vu

However, the court in Pape’ete found it could not deal with the case impartially and ordered it to be moved to New Caledonia.

Temaru said the prosecutor had asserted that he was convicted of a crime although the trial process had not been concluded because the appeal was still pending.

Temaru had appealed a suspended six-month prison sentence given last year for exercising undue influence over funding arrangements for the community station Radio Tefana.

In June, Leroy ordered the seizure of US$100,000 from Temaru’s savings account before obtaining an authorisation by a judge as part of a new investigation into alleged abuse of public funds.

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

The Jornal Independente newspaper has been awarded Timor-Leste’s mediaoutlet of the year prize in the National Press Council’s 2019 awards.

Rigoberto Monteiro, executive director of Timor-Leste’s Press Council, said the Independente took out the award because of the quality of its stories and “strict adherence to the journalism code of ethics compared to other major media”.

Virgilio Da Silva Guterres, president of the Press Council, said although the Independente was one of the smaller media outlets in the country, its commitment to “writing balanced news and obeying the journalism code of ethics” gave it an edge over other media outlets.

• READ MORE: Timor-Leste’s Independente champions ‘free press’
• AJF condemns impunity over Balibo Five murders in Timor, other killings

Accepting the award, Jose Sarito Amaral, director of the Independente, said he was “very grateful that the Press Council and jury team [had] recognised Jornal Independente as the best media in Timor-Leste.”

Amaral said he promised to continue motivating his journalists to improve the quality of their work.

Introduced in 2017, the Press Council Awards recognise the critical role media plays in access to information and freedom of speech.

The award comes with prize money of US$1500 and a trophy.

• The award also marked the assassination of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo, Timor-Leste, on 16 October 1975, shortly before the invasion of the country by neighbouring Indonesia and the later killing of Roger East, who set up an East-Timor news agency.
• Jornal Independente

Hostile media environments pose growing challenges to Melanesia’s democracies, according to a new edition of the Pacific Journalism Review.

With its first special edition focused on Melanesia, the New Zealand-based research journal warned that laws and cultural restrictions were providing barriers to open information, as well as silencing journalists.

The region’s pressing media problems are explored in depth in what the journal’s editor, David Robie, describes as the most significant volume of Pacific journalism research ever produced.

READ MORE: The full PJR Melanesia edition and past issues online

He said with the region now in a challenging period, when countries confront the pandemic, it was worrying that the climate change crisis was sidelined.

“Because really climate change is the overwhelming issue for their future. And if we’re dealing with media that is being sort of screwed down by governments and prevented from freely reporting information that the public need for democracy, it’s a very disturbing future.”

Professor Robie said this edition of the PJR stemmed from a partnership with the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum which was founded last year at a Brisbane conference in November in conjunction with Griffith University.

In a sign of the pressures on journalists and media practitioners in Melanesia, Vanuatu’s government attempted to deny one of the delegates at the conference, the former Vanuatu Daily Post media director Dan McGarry, permission to re-enter the country.

Recent examples of threats
This is one of a number of recent examples of threats facing journalism in Melanesia which are fleshed out in this edition of the Pacific Journalism Review.

Among the articles and editorials by regional journalists and researchers are examinations of state repression of media freedom in Fiji, Indonesia’s Papua region and Papua New Guinea.

The PJR highlighted how both of PNG’s main daily newspapers were owned by overseas multinationals – the Post-Courier by Australian-US media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and The National by the Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau.

It also looked at how PNG’s burgeoning telecommunications sector was changing the way people accessed media and information in the Pacific’s biggest country.

LISTEN: Dateline Pacific interview with David Robie (duration 3m5s)

Professor Robie said the internet was vitally important to citizens in this region, as public trust was low in mainstream media in countries like PNG, but warned there was also a critical need for balance and verification.

“With such reliance on social media, it’s pretty rampant.. all sorts of scare stories and things that aren’t checked out, and so on,” he said.

“So it’s pretty hard to get a situation with the media where there’s reliable information.”

The PJR’s latest edition ‘Media Freedom in Melanesia’ can be accessed here.

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

Indonesia’s West Papua province has again been recorded as having the worst democracy index in the republic, reports CNN Indonesia.

This year (2019), the West Papuan Democracy Index (IDI) was 57.62, even dropping lower from 2018 when it was 58.29 points.

Based on data from the National Statistics Agency (BPS), West Papua has the lowest score and is in last position – below South-East Sulawesi with a score of 65.21 points.

[Pacific Media Centre editor: West Papua in the Pacific is generally taken to mean the combined mainly Melanesian region of two provinces – Papua and West Papua.]

Following next is Papua province with a score of 62.25 points, North Sumatra with 67.65 points, West Sumatra with 67.69 points, Maluku with 68.22 points, West Java with 69.0 points and Jambi province with 69.76 points.

The BPS Democracy Index categorises the level of democracy as being good, moderate and poor. A Democracy Index score under 60 is classified as a poor democracy while a score of 60-80 represents a moderate democracy and a score above 80 is a good democracy.

Among all 32 provinces in Indonesia, West Papua was the only province with a poor Democracy Index.

BPS head Kecuk Suhariyanto said that there were seven provinces in Indonesia that were categorised as good.

Two provinces improve
“In 2018 there were only five provinces, in 2019 there are seven provinces with a category of good. From five there have been two additions making seven, namely Riau Islands and Central Kalimantan provinces,” he said during an online press conference.

Suhariyanto said Jakarta was the top rated province with a score of 88.29 points followed by North Kalimantan Utara with 83.45 points and Riau Islands with 81.64 points.

This is followed by Bali with 81.38 points, Central Kalimantan with 81.16 points, East Nusa Tenggara with 81,02 points and Yogyakarta Special Province with 80,67 points.

Nationally, Indonesia’s Democracy Index rose slightly to 74.92 in 2019. Last year in 2018 it was recorded at 72.39 points. As a whole, Indonesia’s democratic score is still categorised as moderate.

Nevertheless, looking at this in detail there are six indicators which still rated poorly in the index.

Namely threats of or the use of violence by the public which obstructs freedom of expression with a score of 57.35 points followed by the percentage of women elected as members of provincial parliaments (DPRD) with a score of 58.63 points.

This is followed by violent demonstrations or labour strikes with a score of 34.91 points, regional regulations imitated by DPRDs with a score of 46.16 points, DPRD recommendations to the executive with 16.70 points and finally efforts to provide budgetary information by regional government with a score of 53.43 points.

The Democracy Index is assessed based on three main aspects, namely civil freedoms, political rights and democratic institutions. Each of these three aspects has 11 variables and 28 indicators which are used to make an assessment.

Decline in civil freedoms
Although there was a 4.92 point increase in political rights and a 4.48 point increase in democratic institutions, there was a 1.26 decline in civil freedoms. The score for civil freedoms based on the IDI for this year stood at 77.20 points.

“The index for civil freedoms in 2019 was 77.20. A slight decline compared with the position in 2018 and its respective category is moderately [democratic]”, said Suhariyanto.

Civil freedoms were assessed using four variables with freedom of assembly and freedom of association scoring 78.03 points, a decline of 4,32 points compared with 2018.

Freedom of expression, which stood at 84.29 points, declined by 1.88 points, freedom of belief scored 83.03 points, rising by 0.17 points compared with 2018 and freedom from discrimination scored 92.35 points, rising by 0.58.

If looked at in detail, there was a step back in the indicators which covered threats of or the use of violence by government agencies which obstruct freedom of expression, assembly and association, and the threat of or use of violence by social organisations related to religious teachings.

Next, actions or statements by government officials which were discriminative in terms of gender, ethnicity or other vulnerable groups and or which restricted the freedom to worship.

Meanwhile improvements were found in the indicators covering the threat of or use of violence by the public which obstructed freedom of expression, assembly and association and or on the grounds of gender, ethnicity or other vulnerable groups.

Discriminatory regulations
There were also improvements in written regulations which restrict freedom of worship and religion and or which discriminate against gender, ethnicity or other vulnerable groups.

In the aspect of political rights, two variables were assessed. The breakdown was the right to vote and be elected which scored 79.27 points, rising by 3,5 points, public participation in decision making and government supervision which scored 56.72, rising 2.44 points.

Although this was still categorised as poor.

In terms of democratic institutions, five variables were assessed. The breakdown was free and fair elections which scored 85.75 points, declining by 9.73 points followed by the role of regional parliaments (DPRD) with a score of 61.74, a rise of 2.82 points.

Then the role of the political parties which scored 80.62 points, a decline of 1.48 points followed by the role of regional government bureaucracy which scored 62.58 points, a rise of 6.84 points and the role of an independent judiciary which scored 93.66 points, a rise of
2.94 points.

This abridged translation by James Balowski of IndoLeft News is based on two articles by CNN Indonesia published on August 3. The original title of the first article was “Indeks Demokrasi Papua Barat Paling Buruk, Jakarta Terbaik”. The title of the second article was “Kebebasan Sipil Turun, Indeks Demokrasi Indonesia Naik.”

The consensus of presidents and prime ministers just about everywhere has been that getting accurate news and information out is vital since it can save lives, reports Al Jazeera’s Listening Post.

So what have the authorities in the Philippines done? President Rodrigo Duterte’s government has ordered the country’s biggest television broadcaster, ABS-CBN, off the airwaves.

The government says the network’s franchise had expired, and so had its right to broadcast.

READ MORE: Other ABS-CBN television media shutdown stories

That is nowhere near the full story. President Duterte has persistently attacked ABS-CBN for its critical journalism, including its coverage of his so-called war on drugs. He had long threatened to take the network down.

Now that he has got his wish, other media outlets in Duterte’s crosshairs are wondering if and when he will be coming for them.

Contributors:
Manuel Mogato – editor-at-large, PressOnePH
Inday Espina-Varona – former chair, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
Ging Reyes – head of news, ABS-CBN
Paul Gutierrez – National Press Club of the Philippines

On our radar:
Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about President Donald Trump’s confrontations with journalists by day and tweetstorms by night.

Under the cover of covid: Cracking down on Hong Kong
Before the pandemic hit, hundreds of thousands of people in Hong Kong took to the streets protesting the erosion of their freedoms, demanding independence from China.

The months of demonstrations led to changes in Hong Kong’s media ecosystem. Nascent, digital news outlets reporting on the front lines saw a huge jump in their numbers and support, a reflection of protesters’ growing distrust in their mainstream media – and mainland China’s growing influence.

Things are gradually returning to a new normal but when covid-19 first emptied Hong Kong’s streets, depriving those outlets of editorial content, a question arose – what will become of them?

In addition, both Beijing and Hong Kong authorities appear to have been using the virus as a cover to crack down on voices they do not like, including the city’s only pro-democracy newspaper, the Apple Daily.

The Listening Post‘s Johanna Hoes reports on Hong Kong’s changing media landscape, COVID-19, and the use of a pandemic to silence dissent.

Contributors:
Mark Simon – executive, Apple Daily
Yuen Chan – senior lecturer, City University
Ronson Chan – deputy assignment editor, Stand News
Tom Grundy – founder, Hong Kong Free Press

By Sri Krishnamurthi, contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch

Papua New Guinea’s two daily newspapers – the PNG Post-Courier and The National – which dominate the market, demonstrated “overwhelming deference” to the office of former  Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, says a new report about the country’s media freedom.

Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG) released a preliminary statement from a research report on World Press Freedom Day last Sunday, saying it found “much wrong” with the PNG media. 

The full report, which says public trust in the media is eroding, will be available later in the year.

READ MORE: Pacific governments accused of using coronavirus crisis as cover for media crackdown

The global WPFD20 theme this year was “Journalism Without Fear or Favour” and the Transparency International statement featured media trends in Papua New Guinea and the issue of bias in reporting on governance issues among print media. 

Analysing a period from June 2017 to August 2018, the report examines the balance of coverage on governance issues in particular. 

“The threats to PNG’s media freedom are most obvious when it comes to major national events that require objective reporting in the public interest,” the statement said.

Hampered by other interests
“Recent instances where the ability of the media to report have been hampered by other interests (often political) include:

• the 2017 national election;
• the 2018 APEC Leaders Summit;
• the 2019 Political Transition [after the ousting of O’Neill and the formation of a new government led by current Prime Minister James Marape]; and
  
• the 2020 Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic public spending.

“Journalists in PNG are further disadvantaged by the lack of Right to Information (RTI) legislation to enable them to obtain public documents from the state.” the statement added.

“In the absence of a RTI law in PNG the media outlets are further beholden to political interests as sources of information – which further erodes public trust in news outlets.”

Transparency International also said: “While PNG has enjoyed a relatively free media, this has been under threat in recent years. For instance, the 2020 Reporters Without Borders (RSF)  World Press Freedom Index  assessed PNG to have a press whose independence is ‘endangered’, with a corresponding drop of eight places in rank since last year,” the report said. 

“Interestingly one of the reasons cited by RSF for the diminished ranking is that journalists nonetheless continue to be dependent on the concerns of those who own their media.” 

‘Crisis on multiple fronts’
Commenting on the report, Scott Waide, the Lae bureau chief of EMTV News,  told Pacific Media Watch “what we have here is a crisis on multiple fronts“.

“Debate is stifled, journalists are threatened, abused and ridiculed, editors, CEOs and board members are put under pressure – you are excluded from events  or deliberately not informed,” he said. 

“Politicians feel invincible because of the image we reinforce in the media. They want us to  report the facts  but  not  report the  why and how. They avoid live debates, or live interviews, unless  they feel they have some control over them.

“They avoid interviews unless you push them into a corner, if they cannot fully control them, they will influence them.” 

Waide said he had given lectures on the misgiving of the PNG media which become beset with many problems. 

“Politicians are put on a pedestal and adored, corruption is normalised and legalised. Politicians feel that government policy should not be questioned, and critical thinking  is largely absent in public debate.” 

The problems stemmed from the overall decline in the quality of training at universities where students took journalism as second or third choice. 

‘A constant void’
“As well as the steady exit of senior  journalists, taking with them years of accumulated institutional knowledge, younger journalists leave after an average of five years, there is always a constant void that needs filling in newsrooms and the absence of critical debate driven by the media,” he said. 

He pointed out there was a general absence of proactive action to question, analyse and explain bad government decisions, and fact checking of political statements was non-existent. 

The Transparency International report said: “To reach its potential, however, professional and ethical journalism standards need to be raised in the face of increasing political pressures.”

However, Waide was forthright in his assessment: “The solution is cross-sectoral and  can’t be done only by media organisations.” 

Meanwhile, in Samoa similar problems were expressed by Samoa Observer editors and reporters of not being informed of press conferences by the government. 

The newspaper, one of the region’s leading advocates of media freedom, produced a video on social media speaking about the virtues of media on World Press Freedom Day. 

“You are talking about giving the media the ability to go out there and reach out to the masses, give them a voice, give them the ability to reach out to the leaders of this country, give them an opportunity to tell them this what you should do,” said co-editor Alexander Rheeney, who is also a former editor of the Post-Courier in Port Moresby. 

Samoa media ‘encroachments’
His co-editor, James Robertson, said: “There regular updates on this coronavirus situation in Samoa to which we are not invited, there are regular press conferences by the prime minister to which we are not allowed to send reporters to ask questions.” 

“And these are significant encroachments of press freedom in Samoa,” he said. 

 Rheeney was more philosophical, asking the reporters not to take their jobs for granted. 

 “I asked them not to clock-in in the morning and clock-out in the evening Monday to Friday without thinking about their work as reporters, and the power they have in their hands to change the lives of ordinary Samoans for the better and to influence government policy decisions for the benefit of the people,” he told Pacific Media Watch. 

“There is a big difference between working for a daily newspaper that publishes ordinary news stories Monday to Friday without thinking about the ‘big picture issues’, unlike at the Samoa Observer where we urge our reporters to think outside the box. 

“We strive to get our reporters to tell the bigger story and not just focus on news that gets fed from the Prime Minister’s Facebook livestream or at a press conference where the questions that matter don’t normally get asked,” he said. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Hong Kong authorities to drop all charges against Jimmy Lai, founder and chair of Next Digital, following his arrest yesterday alongside 13 other pro-democracy advocates on suspicion of participating in an “illegal” assembly.

Lai’s media properties, including the Apple Daily, have actively and sympathetically covered the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.

“The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the arrest of 14 prominent pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, including Apple Daily media founder Jimmy Lai,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator, in Washington, DC, in a statement.

READ MORE: Hong Kong activists arrested over last year’s mass arrests

“Hong Kong authorities should end their repeated harassment of Jimmy Lai and drop all charges against him.”

Police also arrested former lawmaker and activist Martin Lee and 12 other pro-democracy advocates on suspicion of participating in the illegal assemblies on August 18 and October 20, 2019, according to news reports.

Hong Kong Police Force’s public relations branch did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of Vanuatu’s leading journalists has said the right to information law has contributed to an air of openness in the country.

The Right to Information Act was passed two years ago and will be extended to cover all government departments from August.

Over the coming months all departments and agencies will have to give information they hold, if requested.

READ MORE: Remote Vanuatu journo goes above and beyond to tell stories

Media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post group Dan McGarry said government bodies have been more forthcoming with information since the law came in.

“If we’re having a conversation and we find somebody was not necessarily being forthcoming, it’s useful for us to say “so is your department under the RTI already or is it coming?” or “when is it coming?”, just to bring that awareness back into the conversation that information is meant to be available to the public unless there’s a good reason to withhold it.”

“So for that we’re really quite happy and I think the government is to be commended for having enacted this.”

A recent article on the travel expenses of a ministry head would not have been possible without the improved air of openness, he said.

“We’ve actually got people within the administrative bodies in government coming forward with this kind of information rather than waiting until we dig it out.”

McGarry said the Vanuatu Daily Post also plans to test out the law with formal requests.

“The problem is it is extremely time consuming, it almost necessarily will involve expense and we’re a very limited media organisation.”

The law will be extended to cover not only government departments but also statutory bodies like the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs, the National Council of Women and the Ombudsman’s Office.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

New debates in Timor-Leste are circulating about political interference in newsrooms. Attempts to condition or determine that somebody cannot make news on a subject or interview this person or that person.

It’s a problem affecting both public and private media groups.

This debate is important in Timor-Leste. There is a lot of promiscuity between “journalists” who work for government or other state institutions, and journalists who work in the news media.

READ MORE: An analysis of the Timor-Leste media at Pacific Journalism Review

And this is reflected in the coverage.

Ensuring the independence of public media is even more important. Interference in newsrooms is unacceptable and should always be tackled. Whoever does this is weakening the quality of the Timorese state.

As for private ownership of the media, organisations may have an editorial line but they must be transparent about this.

They cannot use the “cover” of supposed impartiality one moment, and then fail to meet that impartiality on a day-to-day basis because of “business”.

Editorial transparency
If they support an editorial idea there must be transparency.

But at the same time, the media cannot only act when it considers their own independence is at stake. It is the responsibility of journalists to work ethically, impartially, and responsibly. They should not spread false news, or help advertise party or group propaganda.

They cannot always give their opinion on the subjects they write about when writing factual articles. And they must be careful how they write, not give incomplete information.

Journalists are not just microphones that reproduce, without any contradiction or analysis, what the political leaders say.

If they do that then we don’t need journalists.

Journalists have a responsibility to verify what they are told is true. And they must be very careful about the headings and content of what they post because they can help ignite already tense situations.

The responsibility of journalists and the media is essential.

António Sampaio is a news agency journalist. This column is a personal view expressed on his Facebook page. It was translated from Portuguese.

• Sacked head of state broadcaster RTTL claims ‘political axe’
• How Timor-Leste’s media bloomed from the ashes of violence and bloody conflict

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have written a joint open letter to the prosecutor-general of the Philippines calling for an end to the orchestrated harassment of the news website Rappler and its editor, Maria Ressa, which began more than a year ago.

The website, which has more than 3.7 million followers on Facebook alone, has been under constant bureaucratic and legal attack by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte.

The Department of Justice earlier this month said that it planned to file unspecified tax evasion charges against Rappler and the website’s founder and executive editor, award-winning Maria Ressa.

READ MORE: The Rappler story: Journalism with an impact

The two media freedom advocacy groups said the government was trying to “silence” the website and its journalists.

Later it filed on November 9 a criminal case against two Rappler executives for allegedly avoiding paying  133.8 million pesos ($9.6 million) in tax.

“We urge you to cease this campaign of intimidation and harassment against Rappler, both for the sake of respecting press freedom and for your government’s international credibility,” said Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in the joint open letter.

‘Fearless reporting’
Rappler had said after the tax evasion charges were first reported that: “We are not at all surprised by the decision, considering how the Duterte administration has been treating Rappler for its independent and fearless reporting.

“We maintain that this is a clear form of continuing intimidation and harassment against us, and an attempt to silence journalists.”

The website said there was no legal basis for the action. The open letter said:

Mr Richard Anthony Fadullon
Prosecutor-General
Department of Justice
Ermita, Manila 1000
Republic of the Philippines
Via email: communications@doj.gov.ph

Dear Prosecutor General Fadullon,

We at the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders, two independent non-profit press freedom organisations, ask that you and your office end the politicised persecution of Philippine news site Rappler.

The Department of Justice earlier this month said that it planned to file tax evasion charges against Rappler and the website’s founder and executive editor, Maria Ressa. The charges relate to a company bond sale in 2015 that, according to reports, resulted in 162.5 million pesos (euros 2,7 million) in financial gains. The Justice Department’s statement did not indicate how much Rappler and Ressa allegedly owed in taxes.

Ressa has denied the allegation and said that Rappler is compliant with all Philippine tax laws, including the transaction in question. She said she believes the legal threat is an attempt to silence her news outlet’s critical reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s government. CPJ and RSF have documented in the past year how authorities have retaliated against Rappler’s coverage, including by banning its reporters from the presidential palace and referring to the site as “fake news” and “biased.”

The Department of Justice’s announcement that it will seek to file tax evasion charges is strikingly and worryingly similar to previous legal harassment of Rappler. The news site is still fighting a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) order to revoke its registration. The Court of Appeals ruled in July that the SEC had erred in its move to revoke Rappler’s certificate of incorporation, but the outlet’s motion to fully annul the order is still pending.

We view the tax evasion charges, which carry potential 10-year prison penalties under local law, as a clear and present threat to press freedom. As Ressa has pointed out, the charges could potentially threaten foreign investors who use similar mechanisms, and could thus damage the Philippine economy

We urge you to cease this campaign of intimidation and harassment against Rappler, both for the sake of respecting press freedom and for your government’s international credibility.

Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
Committee to Protect Journalists

Christophe Deloire
Secretary-General
Reporters Without Borders

By RNZ Pacific

Civic freedoms in three Pacific nations are under threat, according to the international civil society watchdog group Civicus.

The watchdog, which represents civil society groups around the world, has released its annual “People Power Under Attack” report which tracks respect for fundamental freedoms in nearly 200 countries.

It downgraded Papua New Guinea and Nauru to join Fiji in the “obstructed” category.

READ MORE: Civic freedoms occupy a shrinking space in Asia Pacific

Nauru’s rating is due to increasing restrictions on press freedom in the country.

Civicus said this hampered independent scrutiny of Nauru’s policies and practices, especially of the Australian-run refugee detention centres on the island, where there have been widespread reports of abuse.

In Papua New Guinea, media freedom continues to deteriorate with journalists subject to harassment and attacks because of their reporting, it said.

Condemned censorship
The report condemned censorship it said was prevalent in parts of the Pacific and pointed to governments such as Fiji’s that tried to control the public narrative by interfering with the media.

However, there are seven countries in the Pacific deemed to be in the Civicus “open” category, although it said freedoms continued to be impinged on in two other Pacific countries in its “narrowed” category.

And it noted improvements such as Solomon Islands’ new Whistleblowers Protection Act, which protects activists exposing corruption.

Civicus also said land rights, environmental and anti-corruption activists faced threats and arrests in the Pacific.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrived today for the leader’s retreat at the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru where she is expected to ask for details about the detention of TVNZ journalist Barbara Dreaver yesterday.

Dreaver, who is there to cover the Forum, was interviewing a refugee outside a restaurant when she was picked up by police.

She says they asked for her visa, told her she was breaching her conditions and cancelled her accreditation for the Pacific Islands Forum.

LISTEN: RNZ Morning Report

It is part of a wider pattern of restricting media coverage across the Pacific.

Sally Round is among a team of RNZ Pacific reporters who have been covering Nauru for many years.

Professor David Robie is the director of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology.

They talk to Susie Ferguson.

Both commentators criticised the media restrictions and obstruction by Nauruan authorities.

“There is nothing like being on the ground in a place when you are covering it – you get the firsthand view of everything,” Round said.

Having the Forum in Nauru presented the first opportunity for many years for journalists to be on the ground to independent reporting of the country.

There is no independent media on the island.

“We were building up to this with the ban on the ABC participating. It’s a clear pattern that’s being going on,” said Dr Robie.

“In fact, I’d say there has been erosion of peace freedom in the Pacific steadily over the last five years – ironically over the same period of the detention centres in Nauru and on Manus.”

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

The breach, thought to be one of Facebook’s biggest, reportedly used the data to influence both the United States 2016 presidential election and the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom.

In the aftermath, Facebook announced a commitment “to reducing the spread of false news on Facebook,” by removing false accounts and using independent third-party factcheckers to curb fake news on the site.

The effectiveness of this new policy remains to be seen.

The revelation of the Cambridge Analytica scandal lead to the Papua New Guinean government threat in May that it would ban the social network for a month in the country.

Communications Minister Sam Basil was reported by news media as saying the ban decision was an attempt to enforce the Cyber Crime Act 2016.

“The Act has already been passed, so what I’m trying to do is to ensure the law is enforced accordingly… We cannot allow the abuse of Facebook to continue in the country.” Basil told the Post-Courier.

Difficult to track
According to The Guardian, Basil had raised concerns about the protection of the privacy of Papua New Guinea’s Facebook users. He had claimed that it was difficult to track those who had posted defamatory comments on Facebook using “ghost profiles”.

Basil later denied in the media that he had said he would ban Facebook, but the Post-Courier stood by its report which had sparked off the flurry of stories and speculation. So far no ban has actually taken place.

Papua New Guinea is not the only country to have banned the social media site. Facebook is already blocked in authoritarian countries such as China, Iran and North Korea.

In March, Sri Lanka blocked the site along with Viber and WhatsApp for nine days, believing it to be the cause of hate speech and violence.

Facebook was also condemned for allowing hate speech to become prominent in Myanmar during the Rohingya crisis earlier in the year.

The platform, according to Reuters, was claimed to have played an important role in the spread of hate speech when Rohingya refugees were fleeing their homeland to Bangladesh.

Other countries have made attempts to combat trolling and fake news, New Zealand included.

In 2015, New Zealand made cyberbullying illegal in an attempt to curb teen suicide. The law, passed in tandem with an amendment to the Crimes Act 1961, was designed to ensure that cyberbullies would face up to two years’ imprisonment.

‘Fake news’ conviction
In April this year, the Malaysian courts convicted its first person under a new fake news law. The Danish citizen was charged after he posted a video claiming that police were not quick to act after receiving distress calls regarding the shooting of a Palestinian lecturer.

Questions regarding free speech have circulated since the Basil reportedly made the announcement.

Only 11 percent of the Papua New Guinean population have access to the internet. The site, for those with the ability to use it, has become a news source in a place where media freedom is increasingly threatened.

PNG “news” blogs have proliferated.

While Freedom House’s most recent report on press freedom says that the press in Papua New Guinea is free, the organisation is quick to note that this freedom has become worse over recent years.

Freedom of speech, information and the press are all guaranteed and inalienable rights in Papua New Guinean law due to Section 46 of the country’s constitution.

What has caused problems, however, for the press is political pressure and violence. Over the years, journalists have been “detained without charge, and their video footage was destroyed”.

Three female journalists were sexually assaulted in 2014, the report states.

Reporters Without Borders also reported police violence against journalists in 2016. It said in a media statement that one NBC journalist had been assaulted by three police officers until another officer intervened. Others had been attacked by a plainclothes officer.

Facebook as news source
In the era of fake news, social media plays a huge role in how the people get their news.
According to Pew Research, two-thirds of American adults got their news through social media in 2017.

A report by the ABC said “more Papua New Guineans have access to social media than ever”.

“Facebook is… being cited as an important hub for news, and the audience is larger than other news websites with 53 percent of weekly users reporting the use of online social media compared to the two main newspapers’ websites,” the report said.

Daniel Bastard, Asia-Pacific director of Reporters Without Borders, said that blocking Facebook “would deprive nearly a million internet users” from news and information.

“Instead of resorting to censorship, the Communications Minister should encourage online platforms to be more transparent and responsible about content regulation.”

There is still concern about the upcoming APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Port Moresby in November and a possible Facebook ban’s impact.

Paul Barker, director of the Institute of National Affairs, told the Post-Courier “It would be a travesty if PNG sought to close down Facebook during the APEC month… as it would be both an attack on embracing technology, undermining the information era and mechanisms for accountability, but also damaging business and welfare.”

Jessica Marshall is a student journalist on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies (Journalism) reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

• Pacific social media threats Part 2 – Samoa

Oro Governor Garry Juffa says the people of PNG find it “frightening” and “alarming”  that the Papua New Guinea government is making a move towards shutting down their opportunity to have access to information and to speak freely.

He says the media freedom issue is not just about Facebook – it is about “fundamental democracy” and free speech in the country.

Juffa was responding to a Parliamentary Privileges Committee hearing about a criticism Opposition Madang MP Bryan Kramer made about Communications Minister Sam Basil in the controversy about a threatened shutdown of Facebook in Papua New Guinea for “research” into abuse.

“This criticism that they [givernment MPs] are complaining about, they are basically complaining about is their feelings of being hurt because of something that has offended them or has demeaned them in some ways, but this comes with the territory,” Juffa has said in the Post-Courier.

“When you are a leader you going to get criticised, that’s normal, [US President] Donald Trump gets criticised you know, the Australian Prime Minister gets criticised and they take it, they don’t go and refer these matters to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee in their countries, they don’t cry about it and demand apologies,” he said.

“We should be feeling hurt about the fact that we don’t have medicines in our aid posts and hospitals, we should be feeling hurt about the fact that our schools are shutting down because they are not getting funds they need, that our teachers are not being paid, we should be getting hurt about the fact that our economy is taking such a nose dive that ordinary Papua New Guineans are losing their homes, they are losing their business, they are not being paid, people are losing their jobs, these are the things that we need to be hurt about and expressing our concerns about.

‘World looking’
“But we have taken three days of Parliament over an issue because someone in Parliament is being hurt about what someone said about them, it’s quite ridiculous and in fact the world is now looking at Papua New Guinea and thinking what is going on in that country.

“This is not about Facebook.

“This is about the freedom of our people to have the opportunity to say what they want, I may not agree with what you say but we must always fight to protect your right to say it because that’s the fundamental hallmark of democracy.

“We are supposed to host APEC, I mean APEC nations that are coming here that promotes and subscribe to democracy will be aghast, will be shocked that here is a country that is deliberately moving to snuff out or stop the opportunity for its people to dissent.

“The Opposition walk-out from Parliament was a demonstration of our disgust at the fact that the government is deliberately moving against our peoples rights to express themselves.”

OPINION: By Keith Jackson in Noosa

Samuel H Basil, the man who might ban Papua New Guineans from Facebook, was not always such a stern opponent of the social media platform he now despises – a platform used by nearly a million of his fellow citizens.

Indeed it was only 18 months ago that Basil – who is now Communications Minister – posted on his own Facebook page: “FB users in PNG have used the medium to their advantage exposing corruption in government…. Everything is changing; people are taking their bloggers seriously and their politicians as comedians.”

Yes, bloggers serious; politicians comic.

READ MORE: Gary Juffa on the Kramer censoring – another attack on free speech

Then last week, having defected not only from his political base but seemingly from his former progressive and liberal ideas, Basil felt able to announce that Facebook could be banned for a month for some mysterious “research” – and maybe disposed of permanently, perhaps to be replaced by Basbook.

An immediate worldwide flambé of curiosity then thrust the story into the news stratosphere, some journalists linking it with Papua New Guinea’s APEC forum later this year. Basil seemed to back away, then push the idea forward again so by week’s end what the government intends to do was very much up in the air.

But one thing did remain constant (see more stories on PNG Attitude) – the desire of most national politicians to get rid of the dreadful FB thing that is causing them so much grief with increasingly savvy and critical voters.

Among the small group of politicians fighting to keep Facebook alive is Madang MP Bryan Kramer who was cheeky enough (in a Facebook post, of course) to allude to Basil in a headline which asked, “Did dumb just get dumber?”.

Parliamentary walkout
Affecting to have been taken aback, in Parliament the majority of members voted to refer Kramer to the Privileges Committee whereupon Opposition Leader Patrick Pruaitch and 23 other members walked out of the chamber in protest.

The committee will decide if Kramer’s post brought Parliament into disrepute.

However, there is something of a problem – the committee is meant to investigate breaches of parliamentary privilege and Kramer’s statement was not made in Parliament.

“I think what is frightening and what is alarming for the people of PNG is a deliberate move towards shutting down their opportunities to have access to information and to also speak freely,” Pruaitch said.

“They [politicians] are complaining about their feelings being hurt.”

Meanwhile, in far away Uganda, Parliament has just passed a new social media tax which will charge a daily fee of 200 Ugandan shillings (about K1.75) to anyone using apps Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. That’s a hefty sum in a country where the average person earns K6 a day.

But, as with Sam Basil’s ill thought through proposition for Papua New Guinea, it is unclear in Uganda how social media use will be monitored and how the money will be collected.

Digging themselves deeper holes in their desire to rein in social media seems to be a developing political trait.

This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission and was originally published by Keith Jackson’s blog PNG Attitude.

• Why Peter Numu wants Facebook banned – and how we’ll stop him

Students studying in Beijing, China, have described the move by Papua New Guinea’s Communications Minister Sam Basil to suspend Facebook for one month as “irrelevant” and damaging for education communications.

The students in a forum have expressed disappointment that there are more pressing issues that the government needs to address yet it is concerned about legislating freedom of speech for the people.

They said that being outside the country they were able to read information and connecting with family back home as many of the people do not have other social media platforms other than Facebook.

READ MORE: Facebook shutdown ‘a mockery to APEC’

They also said through Facebook, leaders were made accountable to their actions and were condemned publicly for their wrongdoing.

“Some people abuse it but the majority use this to express themselves. Why is government so worried about it. They have better things to do than wasting time to fb issue,”  Beijing PNG students vice-president Samuel Ray said.

“The real issues are out there. We have police brutality on the rise, car theft, rural urban drift, poverty, deteriorating infrastructure both school, road and heath services. Drug shortage, TFF policy not working well etc.”

It was also raised that it is obvious that the people have already lost their trust in the government. As a result there would be no positive result coming from this temporary suspension.

‘Top shots on toes’
“Most politicians, top government officials and top shots are always on their toes for being exposed of under the table deals,” the students said.

“Our national media (with due respect to the hard working media team) can sometimes be compromised by the government. Thus leaves social media, with no restrictions on people on what they post. A national social network isn’t a solution. Data of citizens shouldn’t rest in the hands of privileged individuals to manipulate.”

An international relations student suggested that PNG’s Communications and Information Technology Department should focus more on things like how to improve network services around the country and work on helping PNG catch up to the digital era rather than trying to keep PNG away from it.

She said shutting down Facebook will not solve anything and trying to analyse its positive or negative impacts was a waste of time and resources.

“The government, instead of choosing to totally shut down Facebook, should innovate ideas on establishing appropriate alternatives especially on the imposition of penalties on those abusive users of this social media platform,” another student said.

Papua New Guinea is due to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in mid-November.

Melisha Yafoi is a contributor to the Post-Courier.

• PNG plans to shutdown Facebook for one month
• More PNG stories

The greatest challenge facing journalism in Papua New Guinea today is that there is no freedom of the press. Journalists need courage to speak and write the truth, and use the right medium to express their views.

Almost everything that is printed in the press is scrutinised and controlled by the government or an “agent” in the newsroom – most often by the editors.

Papua New Guinean journalists face a much bigger challenge as they have to write according to what their editors can publish, or they get sacked for insubordination.

In PNG, the “kaikai man” is referred to as someone who writes propaganda in return for favour. This syndrome is so deeply rooted that you cannot get away from it.

Even the reporter with full knowledge that someone is corrupt or lying will continue to write good things about the subject. Glorifying parliamentarians and government bureaucrats is common in PNG.

So how do you expect a graduate journalist to deviate from this trend? Years after years, the trend continues. The what, when, where, why and how questions have gone into the bunker. No journalists have got the courage to ask these questions anymore.

Journalists in PNG have got assaulted and some taken to court. This is not because they did the wrong thing, it is all because they are standing up for the truth – and, of course,the truth hurts.

Media suppressed
The media has been suppressed by the very people that the media is supposed to be keeping in check and balance.

So where does democracy and media freedom in Papua New Guinea stand?
 
Social media is the new technology that is now being accessed by almost 80 percent of the Papua New Guinean population. It is the most powerful tool to reach millions of people in PNG other than the mainstream media.

Facebook has taken over the news media role in PNG with almost all news, photos and half-baked stories being published by anybody. Social media news can be inaccurate at times but it seems to be well balanced and expressed more freely than in the mainstream.

Journalists are the mouthpiece for the people. However, continuous social media outbursts have somewhat highlighted poor journalism in terms of investigative reporting.

Let me say it again, it has always been the editors and news bosses who have done the final editing done to the news pieces.

The PNG government has passed laws on cybercrime but how soon these laws can be implemented for the good of our society is yet to become clear.

‘Human’ view
The other challenge is on media outlets to use social media platforms to disseminate news and information.

Social media policies passed by certain media outlets also encourages journalists to have a “human” view on issues and posting them on social media.

I have my personal blog titled My Land – Graun Blong Mi, which I use as an extension to writing feature stories about people and lifestyle in Papua New Guinea.

All in all, media in Papua New Guinea cannot be defined as free. We are still facing a lot of challenges to find our worth in this society of ours.

• In this week’s Reporters Without Borders media freedom report, Papua New Guinea dropped two places to 53rd in the World Press Freedom Index.

Sylvester Gawi is an independent journalist living and working in Papua New Guinea. He blogs at Graun Blong Mi – My Land.

Vanuatu Daily Post editor Jane Joshua, a journalist who has set new standards for social justice and human rights reporting in her country, has been awarded the Hanson Mataskelekele Award for leadership among women.

“We are immensely proud to congratulate Jane,” said the Daily Post media group director Dan McGarry in a social media message to colleagues.

Joshua became chief editor of the Daily Post in February after working for the newspaper for many years.

READ MORE: Jane Joshua and Jenny Nierre win 2018 International Woman’s Day awards

Two awards
Each year, to celebrate International Women’s Day in Vanuatu, the Australian government presents the Andy Lynch Award and the Hanson Mataskelekele Award to two ni-Vanuatu women in recognition of their contributions to the community in the fields of leadership and excellence in the community sector.

High Commissioner Jenny Da Rin presented the leadership award to Jane Joshua, from Malekula, and the community excellence award to Jenny Nierre of Tanna for her “passion, determination and commitment” to teaching despite having no formal  training.

Nierre is committed to providing the children of Lamnatou community in Tanna an education.

“From the beginning, Jane Joshua demonstrated her top-flight journalistic skills. Her reporting has provided an essential addition to the public dialogue,” said McGarry in a recent Daily Post article about her editorial appointment.

“Her reporting of human rights abuses among the country’s prison population contributed to fundamental changes in how our incarcerated population are treated.”

Joshua broke a story detailing the contents of the Commission of Inquiry into the fatal sinking of the local vessel MGY, in which charges of manslaughter were laid against the owner, captain and a crew member of the ship.

Outcry led to reforms
An outcry following this commission of inquiry report led to the creation of a Maritime Regulator and the current wholesale reform of the maritime sector.

Her work as associate editor had recently contributed significantly to the Daily Post company’s expanded radio news and current affairs programming, and its burgeoning presence on social media.

The Daily Post news group is widely regarded as the most reputable source of information and news about Vanuatu in social media today.

“Our social media news coverage has reached as many as 120,000 people in a single day,” said McGarry.

Jane Joshua has written nearly 270 front page stories in the last four years alone.

Her elevation to the rank of editor made her one of few women in the top rank of the news media establishment in the Pacific islands. She is the first woman to occupy the role of editor at the Daily Post.

• More Vanuatu stories

Human rights activists say that the conduct of both physical and communication surveillance is prone to abuse and is a violation of a citizen’s right to privacy. If left unchecked, it can lead to ‘far worse attacks.’

• Human rights groups say the administrations of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Rodrigo Duterte are similar in their “intensity” of use of state surveillance
• The conduct of state surveillance can lead to abuse and violate a citizen’s right to privacy
• The secrecy surrounding state surveillance in the Philippines makes it hard to hold accountable state agents who violate the right to privacy
• The Commission on Human Rights can help those placed under state surveillance without probable cause because they can conduct investigations and issue subpoenas to state agents

READ MORE: State surveillance – a necessary evil?

State surveillance is not new to the Philippines. Administrations across history have engaged in this monitoring to protect national security – to prevent terrorism, rebellions, and attacks.

The conduct of both physical and communication surveillance, however, can lead to abuse and violation of a citizen’s rights to privacy when left unchecked. It also plays a role in silencing dissent and valid criticism, according to human rights activists.

Two administrations post-Marcos stand out when it comes to state surveillance – those of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and President Rodrigo Duterte.

While the Arroyo administration allegedly had a so-called “Order of Battle” (OB), Amnesty International Philippines chairperson Ritz Lee Santos said that the Duterte version is reportedly called “persons of interest”.

The list allegedly includes activists and individuals the administration deemed to be critical.

There are several ways by which surveillance can be carried out, such as through wiretapping, bugging, or physical monitoring.

Human rights groups forced to go ‘old-school’
“We have monitored several instances of physical surveillance,” said Kaparatan secretary general Cristina Palabay. “May nagmamanman, may naghihintay sa amin sa labas (there are people on tailing us, waiting outside) so we had to cancel some meetings, of course, because you can never tell what’s next.”

One of these incidents includes the discovery of a tracking device in Karapatan’s service van. It was discovered after they got the vehicle back from custody at the Manila Police District during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in November 2017.

There were also many hacking attempts of the social media accounts of several human rights activists, according to Santos.

“There are attempts to hack my account, even my email address,” Santos recalled in a mix of English and Filipino. “Because I have this setting on my phone, I get informed if there are attempts to open my email or social media account.”

Karapatan, meanwhile, now refers to their office as a “fixed point” – or a place vulnerable to electronic and physical surveillance. The group fears that their cellphones and landlines have been compromised, exposing their conversations with clients and other groups.

Because of these threats, Palabay said that as much as possible, they do everything “old school.”

“Kapag may mga bagay na tingin namin ay hindi na dapat sinasabi online, we go old school (If there are things that we think shouldn’t be said online, we go old school),” she said. “Offline. No phones, landline, internet.”

Laws and terrorism
Under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable “except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise, as prescribed by law.”

There are also laws such as the Anti-Wiretapping law and the Cybercrime Prevention Act that prevent instances of communication interference without a court order.

However, human rights defenders point out the Human Security Act which says that interception and recording of “any communication, message, conversation, discussion, or spoken or written words,” with the use of any type of surveillance equipment or any means suitable is allowed in cases of terrorism.

This is what scares members of progressive groups – especially with the latest move of the Philippine government seeking to tag at least 600 individuals as terrorists. The list includes alleged leaders and members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA).

The government also wants to label as terrorist several human rights workers such as United Nations rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Tauli Corpuz, Karapatan national executive committee member Elisa Tita Lubi, and Jose Molintas, former Asia representative to the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), among others.

Privacy violations, watchdog role compromised
For many critics, this reflects the Duterte administration’s overall stance against dissent. Human rights organisations and those who have called out government policies – especially the violent war on drugs – have been continually threatened and demonised by the President himself.

Human rights workers main job is to ensure that people – and the government – realise the importance of following due process and protecting rights enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution and various international treaties.

Because they act as watchdogs of the state, placing them under state surveillance is not just a violation of their rights but also an interference of their work, according to Santos.

“If there’s really surveillance and those who are placed under it have no records of criminal offence, are not enemies of the state, and are just exercising their right to say something for or against the government, then there are insecurities,” he said.

Palabay, meanwhile, said that vilifying human rights defenders often goes hand in hand with surveillance. In many cases, several of these incidents lead to far worse attacks just to silence dissent and beyond an act of intimidation by state agents.

“Palaging may physical tapos kasabay niyan ‘yung public vilification sa amin (There’s always physical surveillance partnered with public vilification),” she said. “Kapag hindi na nila mapatahimik (when they know people cannot be silenced), they will try to file cases, and if that doesn’t work, they go on to worst forms of attacks like attempted murder. Sometimes they succeed.”

This was echoed by Jam Jacob, legal and policy adviser for technology and rights advocacy group Foundation for Media Alternatives.

“Surveillance is a violation of privacy, a prelude to more human rights violations like desaparacidos, those abducted,” he explained. “Sa umpisa, tinitiktikan sila, minamanmanan, paano iyong routine nila (At first, they’ll being tailed, monitored, what their routines are).”

READ MORE: ‘Demonizing’ human rights under Duterte

Philippines dangerous for human rights defenders

The Philippines is often referred to as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a human rights defender. In 2017, Front Line Defenders said in its annual report that 80% of deaths of human rights defenders took place in 4 countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, at least 4 human rights workers have been killed under the Duterte administration so far: Karapatan Negros Oriental coordinator Elisa Badayos, Bicol paralegal Edwin Pura, Catholic priest Father Marcelito Paez, and Moro human rights activist Billamin Turabin Hasan.

Since 2001, at least 40 human rights workers of Karapatan have been killed.

It doesn’t help that the President himself have threatened human rights workers in the past.

“One of these days, kayong human rights, kayo ang imbestigahin ko, totoo, conspiracy,” he said on August 16, 2017. “Sabihin mo pulis, barilin mo na ‘yang kasali diyan. If they are obstructing justice, you shoot them. Para makita talaga kung anong klaseng human right… Galit ako sa inyo. Because hindi niyo tinitimpla kung anong klaseng papasukan ninyo. Basta human rights.”

(One of these days, I will investigate you human rights, conspiracy. Tell them, ‘Police, shoot those who are part of it’ so they can see the kinds of human rights. I’m mad at you; you don’t look at what you’re getting into, all about human rights.)

Where to go?
The cloak of secrecy surrounding state surveillance and how it is done in the Philippines makes it hard to fully realize how capable the government is in monitoring individuals and groups. This makes it difficult to hold accountable state agents who violate the right to privacy.

Santos recalled there were several times during formal gatherings or national conferences where they tried to confront state agents about surveillance. They, however, always refuse to admit or deny they engage in this act.

The lack of accountability mechanism, according to Jacob, makes the whole system of state surveillance prone to abuse. It can even lead to others – such as journalists, students, and any individual or groups seen as “destabiliser” by the government – to being monitored.

“So if it is necessary, to some extent yes but is it prone to abuse? Yes, also, especially if it continues to operate the way it is,” he explained. “It’s okay if it’s used to monitor legitimate internal threats to the state, but not individuals or groups who voice out valid criticism.”

“It should not be free rein, like without at all mechanisms to keep things in check,” Jacob added.

What can be done?
According to the Commission on Human Rights, individuals who feel like they are placed under state surveillance can avail of their help.

Mandated by the Constitution to investigate alleged human rights violations by the state, it can issue subpoenas on state agents who can in turn produce documents that can help their case buildups.

“Malalaman natin kung lawful ba ang operation na surveillance on a person or group,” said Richard Laron of CHR’s legal department. “Are they armed with a mission order? Baka naman intimidation iyan? Legitimate ba? Lawful ba? May basis ba yan?”

(We can find out if the surveillance operation on a person or group is lawful. Are they armed with a mission order? Maybe that’s only intimidation? Is it legitimate? Lawful? Is there any basis?)

But the fact still stands that conducting state surveillance on a person without probable cause or “verified information” is tantamount to violating his or her rights.

“If there’s no probable cause or certain specific or verified information you’re engaging in any unlawful activity, the conduct of state surveillance is unlawful or arbitrary,” CHR lawyer Arlene Ven said.

Privacy violation only counts if ‘life-threatening’
Another remedy that can be invoked is the writ of habeas data. A petition for this writ, a remedy against “gathering, collecting or storing of data or information” through surveillance, can be filed before a regional trial court.

Jacob, however, warns that securing this writ can be very hard.

“Kung mapu-prove mo lang na na-violate ang iyong privacy pero wala naman corresponding threat to your life, liberty, and security, walang writ na ibibigay sa’yo (If you can only prove that your right to privacy was violated but it has no corresponding threat to your life, liberty, and security, the courts will not issue a writ),” he said.

While legal remedies is always on the table, human rights organisations often resort to more safety protocols in line with the continuous threats and state surveillance.

Karapatan, example, ramped up their physical and digital security through trainings. Sweeps for any bug or listening device in their office are conducted more frequently, and they’ve worked out ways to protect the data they use for work.

Going through the principle of strength and security in numbers, between 50-100 people join the group’s fact-finding missions – especially in militarised areas in the Philippines.

Human rights organisations will continue to fight
But despite the danger heightened by the administration’s continuous threats, human rights organisations say they will not stop doing their job in depending the rights of marginalised communities under what critics call a “repressive” regime.

“Siyempre hindi na mawawala iyong takot at palaging nandoon iyon,” Palabay said. “Pero sa totoo lang, kaya medyo hindi kami ganoon katakot, wala ito sa mga naranasan ng mga tinutulungan namin.“(Fear is always there but these are nothing compared to the abuses the people we help experience.)

But in a country where democracy is reportedly backsliding, it might only be a matter of time before state surveillance starts targeting ordinary citizens.

Jodesz Gavilan and Sofia Tomacruz have compiled this article as part of a special report series for the independent website Rappler. The website is fighting for survival against a “war on press freedom” being waged by the Duterte government in the Philippines. Read the full series here. Rappler has been running a campaign under the slogan “Support a free and fearless media” for the past six months.

• RSF condemns new threats to outspoken media outlets
• RSF condemns President Duterte’s palace ban on Rappler reporter
• ‘This isn’t the time to be silent,’ say writers defending Rappler
• What you need to know about state surveillance
• You think your data, communications device are safe? Think again
• PMC’s director David Robie on ‘e-martial law’ in the Philippines

A research paper by a National University of Samoa lecturer warns media freedom in Samoa still faces many challenges.

Media freedom has had a long, proud history in Samoa. Struggling against the odds, the country’s only daily newspaper, the Samoa Observer, founded in 1978, championed the free media cause under the leadership of its founder, publisher and inaugural editor, Gatoa’itele Savea Sano Malifa.

Now, as Samoa, enters into a new media generation, there is a pressing need for more training, better salaries, more women involved in media management, better technology facilities and more emphasis on media ethics and values in a Samoan context, argues Misa Vicky Lepou.

A 15-page research paper put together by Misa, an NUS journalism educator and practitioner, published by Pacific Journalism Review in its latest edition, has highlighted some key parts where local journalism practice suffers.

The paper, titled “Samoa’s media freedom climate: Shining the light”, is the introductory article for this special PJR edition on journalism education in Asia-Pacific to mark 10 years of the Pacific Media Centre.

The research traces the growth of journalism in Samoa since its first and still only daily newspaper was established in 1978 by Gatoaitele.

An editorial by Professor David Robie, a former head of the regional University of the South Pacific journalism programme, said: “While the United States was enduring its Vietnam war upheaval and the Watergate break-in challenge to the presidency, in one of the finest periods of truth-to-power global reportage, Misa Vicky Lepou brings alive Samoa’s own golden era of investigative journalism in the 1970s.

“Tracing some of the proud moments of Savea Sano Malifa’s trailblazing investigations and struggle for press freedom with the Samoa Observer, Misa laments an erosion of ethics and media professionalism in contemporary times.”

Media growth
Journalism though has come a long way since then. According to the report, there are now 17 media organisations in Samoa run locally either private or government-owned.

With such a growth, Misa believes it calls for a much high push for better practice and education.

“As a sole provider of journalism education in Samoa, the National University of Samoa has addressed demands from the industry to enhance training curriculum by forging a strong relationship with the media industry,” said Misa.

“The existing Media and Journalism programme requires more resources in order to become a fully-fledged programme,” she added.

“Hence, the National University of Samoa pushing forward with the establishment of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Journalism programme with the hope it will roll out soon.”

The report has also highlighted a strong need for ethical journalism practice in Samoa.

With the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) adopting a new Code of Practice and the incoming Media Council, Misa claims ethical journalism depends on more training and higher education.

Press freedom struggle
The Samoa Observer’s struggle for press freedom also paid the price for not upholding the Code of Practice as highlighted in this research. The infamous front page of a suicide story in 2016, which clearly violated ethical guidelines is also highlighted in this research.

“There are still a lot of ethical guidelines to be observed in conjunction with the law. Journalists and any media practitioner must be knowledgeable and understand the contexts of what the new Code entails and the available laws that protect the work of the media not as organisations but the journalists as individuals.”

Along with other case studies highlighted in this research, Misa also sees the need for sensitivity by journalists in their work when it comes to professionalism.

“Most of the journalists interviewed in this research concurred that journalists should uphold higher standards of journalism as well as physical presentation.”

“The programme under NUS would serve as the go to provider for up-skilling and development of journalism in Samoa. It’s just a matter of those wanting to do journalism and existing journalists to take up the available opportunities to keep abreast of doing journalism in Samoa.”

The research concluded that several challenges became apparent about media working conditions which will be the subject of a future paper.

Poor salaries highlight the need for increases, more women should be involved in media management, and better technology facilities are needed in media offices because not every reporter has access to the internet, better assignment transport is needed, and much more training is needed.

Areas that require particular training attention are photography, digital and social media, radio news presentation, and the values and ethics of doing journalism in Samoa.

Training involving media ethics and standards needs to be observed if Samoa is to maintain its proud record in defence of media freedom, says Misa.

Misa Vicky Lepou is head of the Media and Journalism School at the National University of Samoa (NUS) in Apia. She is also president of the Media Educators Pacific (MEP). An earlier version of this article was presented at the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland, New Zealand, on 14-16 July 2016. Her presence at the conference was funded by a UNESCO scholarship.

• The special edition of PJR on Journalism education in the Asia-Pacific
• Pacific Journalism Review research papers

The Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology is highlighting the threats to media freedom in the Asia-Pacific region in an event today marking its 10th anniversary.

Following the International Day of Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists earlier this month, the PMC is hosting two guest speakers in a panel addressing the so-called “war on drugs” in the Philippines and the extrajudicial killings estimated by officials at more than 7000 while human rights agencies claim a higher figure; and also human rights violations in West Papua.

The event features Malou Mangahas, executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, speaking on journalist safety and the culture of impunity.

The Philippines is the country with the largest single massacre of journalists – 34 on the island of Mindanao in 2009, where a three-month urban siege against jihadists in Marawi City has recently ended with a toll on many newsrooms.

Johnny Blades, a senior journalist of RNZ International (pictured right in Jayapura with Tabloid Jubi editor Victor Mambor), will also speak about his challenging experiences in West Papua, especially during an “official” visit to the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian provinces in 2015.

Livestreaming starts at 6.30pm.

Eight years ago on 23 November 2009, 32 journalists were among the 58 who were killed in what is now known as the Maguindanao Massacre, until then the worst and most tragic incident of media lives lost in a single day.

Multiple murder charges have been filed against more than 100 people for the incident but to this day, the presentation of defence witnesses has not finished, and about 80 other respondents remain at large.

Indeed, acute assaults on journalists and media freedom should not pass with impunity.

Today, as the nation marks the 8th anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre, this composite report of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, illustrates why the press in the Philippines would do well to understand the severity of the challenges it faces under the Duterte administration — a situation of benign and acute impunity, and fettered flow of information.

While we remain a free community in law and theory, and blessed with a Constitution that enshrines protection, a tectonic shift has moved the ground and the foundation of the practice of journalism in the last 16 months.

The press in the Philippines has been described to be among the freest in Asia if not in the world, robust, almost rambunctious in its practice. But in the first 16 months of the Duterte administration, its status and practice have been diminished, shaken down by supporters and trolls of the President who would not tolerate critical coverage.

No less than the President has struck at the heart of the institution with threats of action against major news organisations. He has cursed journalists in public for raising testy questions about his health, catcalled a female reporter, and averred without serving proof that journalists are killed because they are corrupt.

Toxic mix
This toxic mix — over-reaching executive power, the threat of violence and public censure, and divided and fettered newsrooms — has left the flow of information unfree, convoluted, and constrained under the Duterte presidency.

To be sure, the administration has taken steps early in its rule to address the attacks and threats, and a string of unsolved murders of Filipino journalists from earlier years.

Duterte signed Administrative Order No. 1, Creating The Presidential Task Force On Violations Of The Right To Life, Liberty And Security Of The Members Of The Media (PTFoMS), on 11 October 2016. But the agency that is also called PTFoMS lacks resources and personnel to have genuine impact.

The cases of assaults on the media under the Duterte presidency turned bad in succeeding months, however. From May to October this year, the number of casualties among members of the press began to rise again.

In the first 16 months of the Duterte presidency:

• Six journalists have been killed, including the three that had been listed by the Task Force;
• Eight have survived slay attempts and received death threats;
• Three libel cases have been filed, even as a libel case filed in 2015 has led to the arrest of the accused. Other libel cases filed in previous years ended in an acquittal and two convictions; and
• Six major cases of verbal and online threats from local officials or pro-Duterte bloggers have been reported.

These acute and direct attempts to harass and muzzle journalists and media freedom have unfolded alongside more benign but equally grave threats to the practice of journalism and the free flow of information in the Philippines today. For instance:

• Access to information remains problematic for journalists and media agencies covering the war on drugs. Getting information, especially on sensitive and controversial cases, remains constrained;
• Against their will, media personnel are sometimes compelled by police officers to sign on as witnesses in police anti-drug operations, supposedly as mandated by the law;
• Newsroom protection for the safety of journalists covering the war on drugs remains lacking; and
• Psychological trauma overwhelms media coverage teams assigned to the war on drugs on account of their repeated first-hand exposure to revolting images of the dead, the maimed, the enraged, as well as the tremendous grief of the family members of the victims.

Malou Mangahas is executive director of the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism(PCIJ). She will be in Auckland next week to address the Pacific Media Centre’s 10th Anniversary seminar on Thursday.

• The Philippine state of the press and freedom of information report
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One of Cambodia’s last remaining independent newspapers has announced it is closing today after 24 years, the latest in a series of blows to critics of Prime Minster Hun Sen.

The Cambodia Daily said today’s edition would be its last after it was slapped with a US$6.3 million tax bill, which its publishers said was politically motivated, Al Jazeera reports.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy. And after 24 years, one month and 15 days, the Cambodian government has destroyed The Cambodia Daily, a special and singular part of Cambodia’s free press,” the newspaper said in a statement.

The paper blamed “extra-legal threats by the government to close the daily, freeze its accounts and prosecute the new owner” for the closure.

The announcement came hours after Opposition Leader Kem Sokha was arrested and accused of treason.

READ MORE: Kem Sokha detained during Cambodia police raid

The Cambodia Daily was set up in 1993 by veteran American journalist Bernard Krisher in the aftermath of Cambodia’s genocide from 1975-78 and subsequent civil war.

It publishes in English, but also carries some articles in Khmer.

Krisher sold the paper to his daughter Deborah Krisher-Steele in April.

‘Arbitrary’ back taxes
Last month, the Cambodian tax department said the paper owed $6.3m in back taxes, with Hun Sen branding the owners “thieves” in one of his recent speeches.

The paper said the figure was “arbitrary” and not based on an audit of its books.

“It’s a dark day for press freedom in Cambodia,” editor Jodie DeJonge told AFP news agency on Sunday.

“We just can’t believe that on Monday morning we are going to wake up and not come and put out another newspaper. It’s a tremendous loss.”

The paper is not the only independent media organisation to come under pressure. Tax probes have also been announced by the government against the US-funded Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, who say they have complied with local laws.

A group of local radio stations which carried Khmer-language VOA and RFA content have also been shuttered or banned from broadcasting their content.

Last week, the US expressed “deep concern” over the state of Cambodia’s democracy after the government there ordered out an American NGO.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned many media freedom violations during the general elections held in Papua New Guinea from 24 June to 8 July, including a gag order on a popular blogger as a result of a complaint by the head of the PNG Electoral Commission.

Journalists who went to cover the elections in the northern province of Madang were kept at bay by the police and the Electoral Commission, said the Paris-based RSF.

In the capital, Port Moresby, the media were barred from filming or taking photos in the city’s main vote-counting centre.

Amid many reports on social networks of allegations of vote-buying and violence, the authorities also took alarming measures against citizen-journalists, most notably blogger Martyn Namorong after he referred to Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato as a “tomato” in one of his many posts criticising the chaotic elections.

As reported by Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch, Gamato brought a suit claiming that he had been “seriously injured in his character, credit and reputation” in Namorong’s post, which went viral.

Defending his decision to sue, Gamato said: “I don’t look like a tomato, I’m a human being. So that’s defamatory, so I had to take him to court.”

The National Court, located in the Port Moresby administrative district of Waigani, responded by issuing a gag order, banning Namorong from publishing further “defamatory remarks” on Facebook and Twitter.

‘Duty to inform’
“Journalists and citizen-journalists have a duty to inform the public about what has gone wrong during an election.” RSF said.

“The courts and the authorities must recognise that Martyn Namorong committed no crime and must therefore lift the censorship order imposed on him.”

An international NGO that defends the freedom to inform, RSF added: “A country cannot claim to be democratic just because it holds elections. It must also respect and protect media freedom, which is the cornerstone of every democracy.”

Namorong’s lawyer, Christine Copland, said her client had no chance to speak when the gag order was imposed because court officials said they “could not locate him” to serve the documents, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.

Namorong’s response to the order was to post a photo of himself blindfolded and gagged. After another hearing was scheduled for today, he tweeted: “I am as cool as a cucumber about [the] hearing as my lawyers are no couch potatoes.”

Papua New Guinea is ranked 51st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

• Blogger Martyn Namorong gagged

A leading international human rights organisation has called on countries in the Gulf region to pay heed to their own peoples’ desire for accountability from their governments.

Speaking at a two-day international conference in Doha, Qatar, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said rather than trying to crush the tools for freedom “the dictatorships of the region should start to examine themselves”.

The conference is being held against the backdrop of an ongoing economic and political blockade imposed on Qatar by a Saudi Arabia-led Arab bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the United Aran Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt that severed relations with Qatar on June 5, cutting off land, sea and air links.

The bloc issued 13 demands to Qatar to end the crisis. The demands included those requiring that Qatar close the Al Jazeera network, sever alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups, close a Turkish military base and scale down ties with Iran.

The conference theme “Freedom of Opinion, Facing Up to the Threat” is aimed at promoting freedom of expression and discussing contemporary challenges involving the exchange of information and problems of international law.

Speaking to reporters after his plenary session, Roth said the countries engaged in the blockade should recognise that Qatar’s support for Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood reflects its own people’s desire to have accountable government.

“Their people are tired of the autocracy, the corruption and the repression that is the norm in this region,” Roth said.

“And Qatar does stand as an exception to that, although as an exception it has its own reforms to do as well.

‘Reform message to the region’
“We hope that this crisis will be a message to the region to re-examine repression as a means of sustaining power but also be a real message to Qatar to use this crisis as an opportunity to reform itself and emerge as a genuine moral leader in this region.”

He said political freedom and freedom of expression were at the heart of the crisis in Qatar today and he described Al Jazeera as “a dictator’s nightmare”.

The conference is organised by the Qatar National Human Rights Committee in cooperation with the International Federation of Journalists and the International Press Institute.

Among the conference participants are those representing international non-governmental human rights and media organisations, researchers, policy experts, and special rapporteurs from the United Nations.

Associate Professor Joseph M Fernandez is head of journalism at Curtin University and also the Australian correspondent for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. He is attending the “Freedom of Opinion” conference on the invitation of Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. This is a special commissioned report by Asia Pacific Report/Pacific Media Watch.

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