The rise in social media platforms uploading naked pictures of women and girls has come to the attention of the Censorship Board in Papua New Guinea with Chief Censor Jim Abani warning about the dangers.

In what many have termed as cyber bullying, a picture of women or girls uploaded on social media is then downloaded by other people who use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in creating new content like images and videos of the women or girls involved in sexual activities, including being naked and also involved in pornography.

Chief Censor Abani said his office had received many complaints regarding GAI in creating new content like images and videos of recent reported cases, including uploading of nude images of females on social media.

• READ MORE: AI-generated nude images spread at Spain school, parents outraged
• Other PNG crime reports

He said it was disrespectful and a “disgrace to our mothers and sisters”.

More than 20 girls in Spain reported receiving AI-generated naked images of themselves in a controversy that has been widely reported globally.

Chief Censor Abani said the increase of using new and advanced technology features was alarming for a young and developing country such as PNG.

“We are talking about embracing communication and connective and empowering economy but also the high risks and dangers of wellbeing is my concern, Chief Censor Abani said.

“I call on those sick minded or evil minded people to stop and do something useful and contribute meaningful to nation building.

New Facebook trend
“This is a new trend with Facebook users in the country on social media platforms increasing with unimaginable ways of discriminating and harassment using fake names to post images — particularly of young females — that are not suitable for public consumption or viewing,” he said.

He said he was calling on all relevant agencies to come together, including the Censorship Office, to start implementing some policies and regulations to address these
issues.

Chief Censor Abani said people were unaware of dangers — “particularly our female users of social media platforms”.

These acts were without the individuals’ consent and knowledge using Generative AI applications.

“Technology is good but we must use wisely and being responsible in using such information that is provided,” he said.

He said the Censorship Office would work closely with Department ICT, DATACO and NICTA, police cybercrime unit to use the Cybercrime Code Act to punish perpetrators while waiting for the Censorship Act to finalise a review and amendments.

Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Atrocities and total war are not pixilated or sanitised. They bring death with unimaginable brutality and obliterate lives with indifference. It is time to stop protecting the New Zealand public from these grim realities of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Our news media post warnings about disturbing images and then obscure them out of a long-held regard for the sensibilities of readers and viewers over portrayal of death. We see shapeless body bags while those lying in the street are given a dignified digital shroud.

Yes, we read and hear descriptions of what the innocent citizens of Ukraine have had to endure at the hands of Russian invaders. However, we are shielded from most graphic detail of what is being done in a mission to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” a democratic nation that posed no defence threat to its neighbour.

• READ MORE: Other Ukraine war reports
• More Gavin Ellis articles

How often do we see and hear the phrase “Warning: The following item includes disturbing images including dead bodies” when, in fact, we are left to imagine what the body looks like under its obscuring mantle?

I was moved to think about New Zealand media depiction of the victims of war crimes in Ukraine by an essay that appeared in The New York Times last Saturday. Written by long-time photojournalist David Hume Kennerly, it was headed “Photographing Hell”.

Kennerly was a combat photographer in Vietnam and was responsible for the iconic image of a vat of cyanide-laced Flavor Aid surrounded by corpses in the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana. He is no stranger to war and death and was reminded of Jonestown when he saw images of the bodies of civilians lying in the street when Bucha, on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, was retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Those images were denounced by the Kremlin as “fakes” and “provocations”, to which Kennerly responded: “The images of these atrocities were taken by trusted photojournalists. They are the truth, and a record of the mendacity and brutality of the Russian military. As accusations of war crimes mount, these photos are the documentation the world needs to finally understand what is really happening in Ukraine.”

‘Direct line to people’
He went on to describe photographs as “a direct line to people, over the heads of officials, pundits and disinformation” and said some photographs will always have the power to make us confront horror.

One of the images accompanying his essay had that effect on me. It was a photograph of a body bag. It had been unzipped far enough to reveal the side of a face staring resolutely ahead. In death, the man was telling us he was an eye-witness to the atrocity that had taken his life.

The photograph had been taken by Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, who covered the conflicts in Kosova and ISIS-held Mosul. Her photographs taken following the liberation of Bucha are confronting and include bodies being exhumed from mass graves, charred corpses, and open caskets. Yet somehow it is the unseeing eye peering from a body bag that is truly iconic.

Kennerly’s essay recalls similarly iconic images from his time in Vietnam, such as Eddie Adams’ picture of a Vietcong suspect being executed in a Saigon street and Nick Ut’s image of a young girl running naked down a road after being burnt by napalm. They helped to change public attitudes to that war.

He could have added Ronald Haeberle’s photograph of a pile of bodies, victims of the My Lai massacre by American soldiers, that appeared on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and forced the U.S. military to confront its own crimes. And Malcolm Browne’s photograph of a Buddhist monk in the act of self-immolation in Saigon shook the United States and elsewhere. And Larry Burrows’ Life magazine cover story showing a helicopter gunner with a dying pilot at his feet.

Or he could have gone back further. Start with Goya’s depictions of the Peninsular War between 1810 and 1820, then move to Robert Capa’s moment-of-death image of a falling soldier in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and Margaret Bourke-White’s graphic portrayal of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp that appeared in Life magazine in May 1945. Our understanding of those events is rooted in what we were shown more than what we were told. As Kennerly observes in the essay: “Evocative images can affect policy, spur action, and every now and then alter the course of history”.

indelibly on the public record
Now we have Ukraine and Kennerly says many of the photographs from that war deserve to live as indelibly on the public record as the photos of Vietnam (and elsewhere).

But will they achieve that status if news media sanitise and, yes, censor them?

Kennerly ends by saying he’s getting tired of endless disclaimers (there is one at the top of his New York Timescontribution) that warn of “Graphic Material”.

“The best photographs of war might make us want to look away. It’s imperative that we do not.”

I agree, but I concede there is a strong tradition in this country (and in many other places) of shielding audiences from the visual depiction of death. I cannot recall, for example, seeing an unobscured image of the face of a dead person in our media, unless from a safe distance.

I certainly don’t recall publishing one during my editorship of The New Zealand Herald although I certainly saw many confronting images. News agencies observed the practice of sending the image and expecting editors to decide whether or not to publish it.

Jessica Fishman, in a very good US study of how the media censor and display the dead entitled Death Makes the News,notes that news organisations make a distinction between writing about death and portraying it visually. Much of her book is devoted to explaining why images are not published, including the dangers of “death pornography”.

Exceptions made by media
However, she identifies exceptions that media make. More often than not those exceptions are made for bodies somewhere else. Too often they are images of people “who don’t look like us”. Those are poor reasons for publication.

There are some good reasons for being extremely circumspect about publishing images from within your own country when there is a strong likelihood they will be seen by grieving relatives and friends. This is the principal reason New Zealand media do not publish pictures of bodies in fatal road crashes. It was one of the compelling judgements made by New Zealand media following the Christchurch mosque massacre when coverage concentrated on survivors.

Inevitably, however, there will be exceptions to this domestic reticence. For example, in 1972 the Daily Mirror in Britain ran a front page picture of a priest administering last rights to a protester, one of 13 killed by British troops in the Bloody Sunday incident. It is a picture I, too, would have published because it bore witness to demonstrably disproportionate use of state force.

Similarly, I would have published a photograph carried on the front page of The New York Times in 2013. It wasn’t local. It documented a war crime.

The image was of a row of bodies, four of them children, in white shrouds with only their faces visible. They were the victims of a Syrian chemical attack in Damascus.

The paper’s public editor Margaret Sullivan, in a column explaining the decision to publish, invoked the images from Vietnam that Kennerly is now resurrecting. She said they brought home the horror in a way that words never could, and the image from Syria was similarly “capable of changing the narrative, possibly affecting the course of history”. Tragically, that picture has not.

Now we have Ukraine and the strong likelihood that images captured by photojournalists in the war zone will contribute to mounting evidence of war crimes. There are precedents: Photographs taken by Ron Haviv in Bosnia played a material part in the conviction of Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić and a local warlord by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.

Images add to outrage
New Zealand publication and broadcast of explicit images of war crimes against Ukraine will not tip the balance of history or convict war criminals. However, as elsewhere, a New Zealand audience’s exposure to them will add to the weight of international public opinion against the perpetrators. Images will add to outrage.

Equally, or perhaps of even greater importance, verified explicit images of war crimes and victims may help to counter Russian propaganda still being freely disseminated in this country through the Daily Telegraph New Zealand website (no connection to the publications of the same name in London and Sydney). It carries, unquestioningly, both RT and Sputnik “news” services.

This is not to say that New Zealand media should declare open season on publishing pictures of the dead. Far from it. We are the better for not being exposed to recurring death pornography.

There are also limits to what the public can be expected the bear. In 1991, for example, Associated Press pulled from the wire an image of the charred corpse of an Iraqi soldier who had failed to escape from a burning truck on the Gulf War’s Highway of Death. One picture editor called it “the stuff of nightmares”. London’s Observer was one of only a handful of papers that ran it — and repeated publication in a book on the war. I vividly recall the image. Would I have inflicted it on a New Zealand audience? No.

Decisions on whether to publish defining images that capture far more than a moment are hard when the central focus is a corpse. It requires not only a determination of newsworthiness but also a self-examination of motives. Publication must serve a higher purpose than merely shocking an audience.

Sadly, pictures that serve that higher purpose will continue to emerge from Ukraine. I hope editors in this country publish them. They were paid for with the lives of innocents.

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 blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Google images of a country or region can offer a wealth of information about the people and cultures that live there. Some images accurately portray reality while others present camouflage, attempting to deceive or twist our perception.

From a marketing standpoint, it’s all about selling the national identity, brands and products.

When you type “West Papua” or “West Papua genocide” into Google Image search, you are immediately confronted with some of the grossest human rights violations on Earth.

• READ MORE: Other West Papuan education reports

Images of other Melanesian island countries, conversely, display pristine, exotic beauty, presenting them as an ideal vocational playground for first-world self-exhausted tourists.

West Papua is a region where its public image is produced and controlled by those who want West Papua to mould to and represent their modern, capitalist ideals.

On the one hand, we have images of West Papua representing a hidden heaven on earth, with majestic glaciers, mountains, lush lowlands, mangrove swamps along the coastline, and coral reefs with a rich biodiversity.

On the other hand, we see images of Indonesian soldiers torturing, killing, bombing, and destroying ancestral homelands; we see images of West Papuan freedom fighters in their jungles with modern machine guns, performing their cultural rituals while declaring war on the Indonesian military.

Freeport’s gigantic hole – a graveyard for Papuans
At the centre of this tragic display of contradiction is the image of a giant gaping hole right in the middle of West Papua’s magnificent ancient glacier — a sacred home of local indigenous people.

Local elders say that this hole has become “a graveyard for Papuans”.

This hole was created by the discovery of a strange-looking, greenish-black rock on Gunung Jayawijaya (Mount Carstensz) by Dutch geologist Jean Jacques Dozy in 1936.

It took some 20 years before the discovery was brought to the attention of American geologist Forbes Wilson in 1959, who was the vice-president of Freeport Minerals Company at the time.

From 1960 to 1969, the Papuan people lived through a century of great historical significance. It began with a sense of hope and optimism as the Dutch prepared Papuans for independence in 1961.

This independence dream was taken to New York in 1962, only to be abandoned at the mercy of the United Nations, and then to Indonesia in 1963.

The controversial UN sponsored “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, which Papuans called “Act of No Choice”, ultimately sealed the fate of Papuans’ independence dream within Indonesia. It may seem that the world and UN have forgotten Papua’s dream, but Papuans have never lost sight of it and continue to die for or because of it.

The US-based Freeport-McMoRan was given the green light to begin digging this hole behind the scenes during that decade, during which Papua’s fate was controlled by world leaders in their cruel puppet show. For the newly created state of Indonesia, this was an economic blessing, but for Papuans it was a death sentence.

Over the past 60 years, this hole has taken the lives of many Papuan mothers, fathers, and children, creating an endless world of grief and mourning.

Papuans not happy, says Governor Enembe
It was these decade-old wounds and grievances that caused Governor Lukas Enembe, the current governor of Papua’s province, to erupt on February 7, 2022.

“Papuans are not happy. Papuans are not happy in all of Papua. Papuans are the most unhappy people on earth. You take note of that,” he said in a recent video posted by senior journalist Andreas Harsono on his Twitter account.

Gubernur Lukas Enembe: Kehidupan orang Papua tidak bahagia. Orang Papua tidak happy di seluruh Papua. Intan Jaya menangis, Puncak menangis, Nduga menangis, Pegunungan Bintang menangis dan Maybrat menangis. Orang tidak hidup aman di negeri kita sendiri https://t.co/VOsuJNOkpe pic.twitter.com/HvTVYo5yXx

— Andreas Harsono (@andreasharsono) February 9, 2022

Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe in the middle: Twitter image

The governor also said that some areas such as Intan Jaya, Nduga, and Star Mountains “cry” with the harsh conditions experienced by the Papuan people.

“Papuans do not live in happiness. Intan Jaya is crying, Puncak is crying, Nduga is crying, The Stars Mountains are crying, and Maybrat is crying. People are crying. People [Papuans] do not live safely in our own country. We were not born for that,” he said.

“We want to live happily. We want to live and enjoy happiness. Papuans have to live happily, that’s the main thing,” Governor Enembe said in a statement he made in a speech circulated on a video on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.

These areas, where the governor is referring to, are among the most militarised in West Papua.

Victor Yeimo, a prominent Papuan, said that over the past three years, Jakarta had sent 21,369 troops to West Papua, some of them referred to as “Satan Troops”, as reported by Arnold Belau on Asia-Pacific Report.

Sadly, this overwhelming military presence in West Papua is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has been sending military troops equipped with western-made and supplied war machines since 1963.

The West Papua National Liberation Army of Free Papua Movement (OPM-TPNPB) is actively engaged in an ongoing war with Indonesian forces, which is being ignored by the international media.

The grace of Papuan mothers
In spite of the tragedies, grievances and the haunting images that Google displays, one story is rarely shown — The story of Papuan mothers. They are known for their resilience, courage, and indomitable will to live and work, despite the odds being stacked against them.

They are hard-working, compassionate, and strong — the backbone of Papuan society. They sacrifice everything to send their children to school and welcome foreigners with open arms.

There was a recent Tiktok video clip circulating in West Papua and Indonesia which received thousands of views and comments. The video footage featured a young Indonesian migrant weeping while singing in Papuan, the language of the Lani people of the highlands. Her name is Julitha Mathelda Wacano. She works in Tolikara, one of the newly created regions in the highlands of West Papua.

@pemilikcancer #stoprasisme #@olvaholvah.official #kobelumrasatinggaldengandorang#sadikasihselimut ## #fypシ ♬ original sound – Wizan Lewa Cidy481 – Tik Toker

The young Indonesian woman singing in the local Papuan language of the Lani people. Video: Tiktok

The following lines are translations of what she wrote on the video below:

I cannot hold this song anymore.

I am a migrant, my hair is straight,

my skin is white, but in Tolikara,

after I return home from office,

food is already prepared on the table.

Who cooks this?” she asks. Then she replied “Mama gunung dorang…” meaning the “mothers from the mountains”.

Julitha Mathelda Wacano
The emotional video depicts the experience of a young Indonesian migrant girl being cared for by people deemed “enemies” by the state in some of the most demonised and militarised areas in Indonesia, due to constant negative representation in media coverage.

She opened a window to the world of Papuan mothers, for others to see the kindness of Papuans in the face of a society segregated by racism and caste.

The video of Julitha singing in the local Lani language has received more than 1500 comments, many of which share their own experiences of the goodness of the Papuan people. Many praise the love and kindness of Papuans, while others praised God and Allah for her story.

Papuan mothers still face so many challenges
Despite their unwavering love for others, Papuan mothers struggle to compete with the might of migrant economic dominance and their modern entrepreneurial skills.

In the eyes of Indonesians, Papuans do not produce anything of value to be traded or sold on either the national, regional, or global market.

Most Papuans produce fresh food, which has its own value and merit for those seeking a healthy lifestyle.

Papuan mothers spend their days sitting in the rain, in the dirt, alongside busy dusty roads. Meanwhile, migrants sell their imported products and gadgets in high-rise buildings, malls, kiosks, and shops, with comfort and convenience.

At sunset and sometimes into the night, if the mothers don’t sell their produce, they have no place to store it — no cool room or freezer– so they either give it away or take it home to be eaten. They have to start it all over again the next morning.

Many of these mothers are torn between taking care of their children, attending constant funeral services for family members, and finding money to send their children to school to participate in the education system that fails them and demonises their identity at every turn.

All roads lead to Rome – West Papua economics
A total of Rp 126.99 trillion (more than US$8 billion) has been distributed to the provinces of Papua and West Papua since Jakarta passed the so-called Special Autonomy Law in 2021. The details of how this figure was distributed throughout the period 2002-2020 are summarized here by Muhammad Idris and Muhammad Idris on compass.com.

Fiscal figure of this type, or any reports provided by those who seek to promote the state’s interests, can be difficult to verify independently, owing to the nature of the mechanism in place by Jakarta to carry out its settler colonial activities on Papuan Indigenous lands. Nevertheless, this type of report gives us some rough insight into what goes on in the region.

Despite such an amount, the poverty rate in these two provinces is nearly three times higher than the national average. Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates are among the highest, and health services and literacy rates are among the lowest in Indonesia.

There is an “all roads lead to Rome” economic system operating in West Papua, to which no matter how much money Jakarta gives to Papuans, it will all end up back in Jakarta, with migrants, security forces, foreign companies, misfits and opportunists.

Unfortunately, Papuan mothers’ hard-earned money ends up in the same hands that control and maintain this brutal settler colonial system.

As part of the efforts to empower Papuan mothers, President Jokowi in 2018 toured the five-story building which he ordered to be constructed two years earlier in Jayapura, the capital city.

As it was dedicated to Papuan mothers, it was named “Pasar mama-mama Papua” (Market for Papuan mothers).

The building can accommodate up to 300 traders. Each floor has been allocated for “mama mama Papua” to sell their produce and to display cultural artifacts. The building also houses a school for Papuan children to learn.

Papuan mothers have unimaginable willpower and determination to compete with Indonesian settlers, who have almost total control of the economic system in West Papua.

Their lives and work are shaped by the realities of constant violence and inequality in one of the most heavily militarised regions in the world.

No matter what the odds are, Papuan mothers overcome them with grace and compassion.

This sacred power broke the heart of that young Indonesian woman living in the highlands of the Lani people.

Papuan mothers and their international students
Unfortunately, the majority of Papuan international students whose scholarship funds were threatened to be cut by President Jokowi’s administration are the sons or daughters of these mama-mama Papua.

The students who are now spread across different continents and countries, from North America, Russia, Asia, Europe and Oceania, have united under the name International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) and strongly condemn any slight alteration in the scholarship package that would have a crippling effect on their education.

These students overcome so many obstacles, from connecting to the right people within the brutal system, to leaving home, learning new languages, and adjusting to a new cultural system.

The constant loss of their family members back home takes a heavy toll on their studies.

Ali Mirin is one such student who is pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

Mirin came from the Kimyal tribe of Yahukimo region of West Papua. He came to Australia on a student visa in 2019 to study at Monash University in Melbourne but struggled to meet the English requirements.

The university placed him in an English language course before enrolling him in a master’s programme. In the end, he was trapped between international student agencies such as International Development Programme (IDP), university and immigration departments since his two-year required study visa had almost run out, though he had yet to complete his master’s degree.

It was not clear to them why he was not in a master’s programme, but he was struggling to make sense of all the information he was receiving from these various parties.

The combination of covid-19 lockdown, passing of family members in West Papua, frustration with adjusting into a new culture, along with inconsistency in scholarship funds nearly cost everything that his mother worked for to help him achieve this level of education.

Additionally, he had to find a part-time job in Melbourne just to survive and pay rent, which nearly led to his study visa being revoked.

Mirin’s case is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges faced by Papuan students studying overseas. Almost all Papuan students have dramatic and traumatic stories to share about the obstacles they faced just to receive a scholarship, let alone the difficulties of studying abroad.

Studying in first world industrialised countries like USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany requires tremendous amounts of money, which the parents of these students will likely never be able to afford in their lifetime.

Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe implemented a policy in 2012 that allows these students to study abroad, based on his own educational struggles in West Papua, Indonesia, and Australia.

The governor knows and understands what it is like to be Papuan (especially from the highlands) and study in Indonesia, let alone overseas.

With all these tragic circumstances Papuans have endured for decades, when the Jakarta government withdraws scholarship funds or changes its policies, Papuan students are shattered.

Papuan mothers, who Jokowi calls “mama-mama”, are the ones most affected by the news of deported or failed Papuan students who are studying abroad.

A new policy needs new minds and hearts in Jakarta
The central government in Jakarta should listen to what students have to say as they clearly stated in Asia Pacific Report on January 27.

Indigenous Papuan representatives should oversee Indonesian and foreign agents and agencies that deal with students’ affairs. Because as long as they are not Papuan, whether Indonesian, American, Australian, or British, it will be difficult for them to fully comprehend the mental trauma and cultural issues that each of the students suffer due to the conditions at home.

Papuan students fail their studies or struggle with them, not because they are unintelligent, but because they are deeply traumatised by the abuse and persecution that their families endure at home.

Most of these result from decades of violence, torture, and denigration of their human value under Indonesia’s settler colonial system in their own homeland.

Whatever the number of expert reports on success and failure stories of education in West Papua, if students’ deepest issues are not being listened to or understood, how can we help them or hope to change things for the better?

The politicisation of these students will continue to cloud Jakarta’s judgment about West Papua as it has for 60 years. Elites in Jakarta forget that these people have no agenda to colonise the island of Java, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ukraine or build nuclear weapons.

They simply want to live peacefully in their own land and pursue their education.

Jakarta’s policies in West Papua are largely influenced by fear, and worst of all, wrong ideas and misguided judgments. They should be more concerned about a potential global nuclear war between the Western Empire and its allies, and the emerging Chinese-led eastern empire, which poses an existential threat to everyone and everything on this planet.

Indonesians target the wrong people and attack the wrong places — West Papua is not your enemy.

Images of ‘Wonderful Indonesia; and West Papua torture
I wonder if Jakarta searched images of West Papua on Google if they would like what they see. Would they see the truth — the horror, torture, abuse, murder, and exploitation of Papuans at their own hands?

Or would they see their ideals reflected back to them, the current state of terrorism that they manufactured in stolen lands.

These images do not represent the true nature of West Papua and its people, it is Indonesia that is reflected in these images.

Indonesia’s famous national promotional image of “wonderful Indonesia” that has been marketed throughout the world can be best authenticated when it uses the situation in West Papua as a mirror in which to see what Indonesia really is.

This hallmark of Jakarta’s nation-building image of Indonesia, which has been marketed around the world, can be best comprehended when it uses West Papua’s reality as a mirror to show the reality of Indonesia. In any case,

It may represent Bali or Java, but for West Papua it is just an elaborate ploy to deceive people about the terror image they have been projecting in the region.

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

Alert level two looked like alert level “zero” today after more than a month of lockdown in Auckland when I caught a local bus into downtown.

There were people in every facet of business smiling and frowning just like Auckland in the old pre-covid days.

The barber shops, coffee shops, takeaways were busy as people returned to their normal routines of keeping their businesses open.

What was disappointing, however, was there was no social distancing on the bus – or elsewhere, even though the bus signs said a maximum of 39 people.

Was I taking a risk? I suppose I was but that is the price you pay when you’re a journalist.

Did anyone on the bus feel threatened? No, a few had face masks on … even fewer people were wearing gloves.

Scent of a hairdo
I could smell the scent of the woman in front of me with her hairdo, which was fragrant and pleasant – so much for keeping your distance.

There were others on the bus, like a woman who sat across from me looking really busy as she answered her phone.

The others looked busy too as we picked up passengers on the way to Newmarket where young men and women would alight. And again there was no social distancing.

Whether they were girlfriends and boyfriends, I wouldn’t know but the sheer joy of seeing each other was something to behold after such a long time of being locked away.

Westfields at Newmarket was open, and it seemed that nothing new had happened. Again I was aghast at the no social distancing.

It was appalling to say the least. It was like the shackles had been taken off and people had come out to play on a sunny day.

Onehunga was busy as the mall returned to business, you couldn’t get a place to park your car, which was a far cry from level 4 or even level 3.

Thai pie and coffee
The joy of having a chicken and mushroom pie and a coffee made by the Thai couple down the road before I caught the bus was palpable. Finally, I could return to something normal – even though it was bad for me.

As were the kids at the playground in Onehunga, I saw from the bus. They were going down the slide after lockdown, and their joy was unbridled.

I stopped off at AUT University – where I study. It was closed with a QR barcode on the door which I didn’t bother to try.

Next was a trip to High Street, it seemed nothing had changed, just as busy as ever.

Auckland, had returned to normal it seemed. Covid-19 has been banished …or has it?

Story and pictures by Sri Krishnamurthi

Covid L2 ... or L zero?

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More than 50,000 New Zealand teachers – from both primary and secondary schools – walked out of classrooms across the country and marched in the city streets.

The government has offered $1.2 billion to the teachers in long-delayed pay increases but they are seeking a better deal.

News reports said the strike had shut down more than half of the nation’s schools and left the parents of almost 774,000 children scrambling to find activities for them.

The teachers vowed to strike again if the government does not improve the offer, RNZ Checkpoint reports.

The Auckland rally had a strong Pasifika presence.

The Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede was at the Auckland teacher’s rally where as estimated more than 10,000 teachers and supporters took part.

She took these pictures and her portfolio can be viewed here.

• RNZ’s Checkpoint on the teacher’s vow to strike again
• Pasifika women face institutional racism

A viral spread of photos and videos from last week’s fatal crash at Nabou has highlighted a need for education surrounding the use of social media in Fiji.

University of the South Pacific’s senior lecturer and coordinator of journalism Dr Shailendra Singh told Asia Pacific Report this was “not a first” for something to be spread across social media.

“It highlights a bigger problem and the lack of action to address it,” he said.

READ MORE: Family shocked at gruesome images

“There is need for a national education campaign on how to use social media in a responsible manner.”

The death toll from the tragic minivan crash now stands at seven and at least 25 people received medical treatment. Many social media postings carried gruesome close-ups of the dead victims.

Dr Singh said mainstream news outlets in Fiji did not use graphic images of the deceased because of ethical reasons.

“None of the mainstream news media carried such images because it’s against professional ethics.”

However, the public did not have the same obligations as the media when it came to what they posted on social media, said Dr Singh.

‘Not bound by rules’
“The public users of social media are not bound by any such rules or ethics.”

USP journalism student Anaseini Civavonovono said that in this digital era with the rapid evolution of technology there was an increased concern for their use.

“Smartphones allow people to stay connected always but the challenge is how (ethically) they use it.”

A big problem that comes with the connectedness of technology is the need to be first, said Civavonovono.

“The trend now is not only about geobragging, but how fast a user can update their post and being the first person to provide the update.”

Save the Children Fiji CEO Iris Low-Mackenzie said people should have more tact before sharing on social media.

“This is a sign that it’s time to evaluate our social media habits because some of the deceased are children, children who belong to families, who have friends and a whole network around them, and to be circulating these horrific videos is very inhumane and insensitive.”

Posts upsetting
Family member of one of the young men who survived the car crash Kasanita Bilitaki told Asia Pacific Report it was upsetting to see the many posts about the tragic event.

“I felt so disgusted by those who were posting graphic images and videos on social media, even before the families knew about the crash had the audacity to do that.”

“It was as if our morals as itaukei went quickly out the door for a few likes on social media.”
Bilitaki said she was thankful that her cousin Jacob Vunicagi was recovering in hospital, but said her family was saddened by the spread of explicit posts on Facebook.

“They were disappointed that people went through all that effort to post up graphic images about the other victims that died instantly.”

Harvard University student and intern for UNICEF Pacific Sruthi Palaniappan witnessed the accident and said although she was in shock, that did not stop her from trying to help.

‘Tried my best’
“I tried my best to help by assisting a woman out of a car, calling the ambulance, and providing water and a towel that I had.

“I remember feeling so helpless in the moment as no one around me was a trained medical professional and I wanted to do more to help but did not know how.”

Since the tragic event, Palaniappan said she was compelled to start a GoFundMe page to raise funds to support those affected.

“The lives of these families will never be the same.

“My heart goes out to the affected families, and I wish them all the strength.”

Leilani Sitagata is a reporter for the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch project.