Having known the Filipino photojournalist Alex Baluyut, who died yesterday aged 69, for nearly half a century, I feel that looking at his photos — how he documented the events that unfurled during his lifetime — reveals his own lifelong search for himself.

By documenting the rawest parts of human existence, including war, poverty, and the shifting tides of our history, he was reconciling his own place within those same struggles.

Whether on the frontlines of conflict in Mindanao or the troubled streets of Metro Manila, he wasn’t just looking for a story; he was searching for a sense of truth.

• READ MORE: Award-winning veteran photojournalist Alex Baluyut dies at 69

​I first knew Alex when he was a photographer for the Associated Press. In those days, film was expensive, but it was not a constraint for him.

Having the resources of a major agency gave him a distinct advantage over his colleagues. I noticed how he loved documenting every movement of a subject, while others were often content with a single “good shot” for the day’s coverage.

It surprised me when, after we were dismissed from the Times Journal for union work and were organising a new daily with the late Joe Burgos, Alex approached me and Chuchay Fernandez. He asked if he can join Pahayagang Malaya.

He didn’t focus on the economic difficulties of a struggling paper, but instead embraced the challenge of being part of the “Mosquito Press” during the darkest days of the Marcos martial law era, especially during the surge of outrage following the death of opposition leader Benigno Aquino.

​Risky coverage
Alex was not just focused on protest rallies, his main assignments then. Together, we planned risky coverage of the underground movement, which took us to dangerous locations, including Mindanao to cover the Moro secessionist rebellion.

During the 76-day war in Lanao del Sur, Alex was hesitant to leave even after we received reports of napalm bombing; he stayed until it became clear the site was impossible to reach.

On one occasion, we braved a torturous hike to reach a MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) camp on the border of Lanao and Maguindanao to take the first-ever photos of their forces in formation at their own campsite.

Even then, I noticed a shift in Alex’s mood. His adrenaline was fueled by a drive to expose the plight of the aggrieved, a mission that eventually brought us to the countryside to cover the communist insurgency.

His photos were not always meant for the newspapers; they were documenting the struggle so that people might understand it. Eventually, the pressure of witnessing the stark truths of an armed struggle took its toll on him.

​Interestingly, the photos Alex provided me from his documentation of the underground movement did not show the stark reality of a rebellion, but rather the communities where he was immersed.

He was the best man at my wedding, and my only lament was that he failed to document the ceremony. Instead, he handed me and Merci a photo of a smiling Mangyan — a rare subject given his usual themes.

He told me it was his way of wishing us a happy life.

Mobile kitchen project
Alex also sought to chart a life beyond photojournalism. Driven by his love for cooking, he and some friends set up a small beer garden on the sidewalks of Ermita, which sparked his adventures in the restaurant business.

It was no surprise then that he eventually devoted his remaining years to serving the needy during calamities, co-founding the Art Relief Mobile Kitchen with his wife, Precious.

The news of Alex’s passing from cirrhosis of the liver stunned me, especially knowing the impact our late colleague Tony Nieva had on both of us. Tony also succumbed to the dreaded illness.He was our mentor in the struggle for press freedom and in documenting the lives of the downtrodden.

After Tony passed away, I rarely saw and worked with Alex, except for a few commissioned book projects.

Although I monitored his journey through social media and felt a sense of guilt for not joining his new advocacy, I am grateful to have been part of the life of a man who sought the truth in our ailing society and worked, in his own way, to lift the spirits of the marginalised.

Joel C. Paredes is a Filipino journalist and author who has contributed to BusinessMirror and other Philippine media outlets. He has written about local politics and Philippine history, including a 2010 collection of columns about the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticising the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave.

“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said today via the US social media company X.

Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.

• READ MORE: I can’t in good conscience continue to work for Reuters given their betrayal of journalists in Gaza
• Valerie Zink: Why I resigned from Reuters — Against The Current
• Other reports on the media and Gaza

She criticised Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza on August 10, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.

“I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.

Zink also emphasised that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel’s propaganda” had not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide.

“I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

“I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.

I can’t in good conscience continue to work for Reuters given their betrayal of journalists in Gaza and culpability in the assassination of 245 our colleagues. pic.twitter.com/WO6tjHqDIU

— Valerie Zink (@valeriezink) August 26, 2025

‘Double tap’ strike
Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel’s Monday attack on the al-Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what’s known as a ‘double tap’ strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”

Zink underlined that Western media was directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill of Drop Down News, who said major outlets — from The New York Times to Reuters — had served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitising war crimes, dehumanising victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.

She said Western media outlets, by “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.

The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.

Israel has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the enclave.

Republished from Anadolu Ajansi.

For nearly half a century, Papua New Guinea has been more than just a home for Laurence “Rocky” Roe — it has been his canvas, his inspiration, and his great love.

A master behind the lens, Rocky has captured the soul of the nation through his photography, preserving moments of history, culture, and progress.

He bid farewell to the country he has called home since 1976 in June 2021 and is now retired and living in Australia. We reflect on the extraordinary journey of a man whose work has become an indelible part of PNG’s visual history.

• WATCH: The Malum Nalu’s full interview with Rocky Roe
• Other Malum Nalu articles

A journey born of adventure
Rocky Roe’s story began in Adelaide, Australia, where he was born in 1947. His adventure in Papua New Guinea started in 1976 when he arrived as a mechanical fitter for Bougainville Copper. But his heart sought more than the structured life of a mining camp.

In 1979, he took a leap of faith, moving to Port Moresby and trading a higher salary for a passion — photography. What he lost in pay, he gained in purpose.

“I wanted to see Papua New Guinea,” Rocky recalls. “And I got an opportunity to get paid to see it.”

Capturing the essence of a nation
From corporate photography to historic events, Rocky’s lens has documented the evolution of Papua New Guinea. He was there when leaders rose to prominence, capturing moments that would later adorn national currency — his photograph of Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare graces the K50 note.

His work went beyond the formal; he ventured deep into the Highlands, the islands, and bustling townships, preserving the heart and spirit of the people.

With each shot, he chronicled the changing landscape of Port Moresby. From a city of well-kept roads and modest housing in the 1970s to its present-day urban sprawl, Rocky witnessed and documented it all.

The evolution of photography
Rocky’s career spanned a transformative era in photography — from the meticulous world of slide film, where exposure errors were unforgiving, to the digital revolution, where technology made photography more accessible.

“Autofocus hadn’t been invented,” he recalls. “Half the world couldn’t focus a camera back then.” Yet, through skill and patience, he mastered the art, adapting as the industry evolved.

His assignments took him to mine sites, oil fields, and remote locations where only helicopters could reach.

“I spent many hours flying with the door off, capturing PNG from above. Looking through the camera made it all feel natural. Without it, I might have been scared.”

The man behind the camera
Despite the grandeur of his work, Rocky remains humble. A storyteller at heart, his greatest joy has been the connections he forged—whether photographing Miss PNG contestants over the years or engaging with young photographers eager to learn.

He speaks fondly of his colleagues, the friendships he built, and the country that embraced him as one of its own.

His time in Papua New Guinea was not without challenges. He encountered moments of danger, faced armed hold-ups, and saw the country grapple with law and order issues. Yet, his love for PNG never wavered.

“It’s the greatest place on earth,” he says, reflecting on his journey.

A fond farewell, but not goodbye
Now, as Rocky returns to Australia to tend to his health, he leaves behind a legacy that will live on in the countless images he captured. Papua New Guinea will always be home to him, and its people, his extended family.

“I may come back if someone brings me back,” he says with a knowing smile.

Papua New Guinea bids farewell to a legend, a visual historian who gave us the gift of memories frozen in time. His photographs are not just images; they are stories, emotions, and a testament to a life well-lived in the pursuit of beauty and truth.

Farewell, Rocky Roe. Your work will continue to inspire generations to come.

Independent Papua New Guinea journalist Malum Nalu first published this article on his blog Happenings in Papua New Guinea as part of a series leading up to PNG’s 50th anniversary this year. Republished with permission.

For Doddy Morris, a journalist with the Vanuatu Daily Post, the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Vanuatu last month on December 17, 2024, was more than just a story — it was a personal tragedy.

Amid the chaos, Morris learned his brother, an Anglican priest, had died.

“My mom called me crying and asked, ‘Did your brother die?’. I wasn’t sure and told her I was heading to Vila Central Hospital right away,” he recalled.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu election 2025: Earthquake aftershocks expose high cost of democracy
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

Morris arrived at the hospital to confirm the worst. “My heart sank when I confirmed that my brother had indeed passed away. At that moment, I forgot about my job.”

Despite his grief, Morris joined his remaining brothers at the hospital mortuary that night, staying by their deceased sibling’s side and mourning together. “We were the only ones there. We spent the whole night drinking kava outside while he lay in the cool room,” he said.

The quake — which claimed 14 lives, injured more than 265 people, and displaced more than 1000 — left an indelible mark on Port Vila and its residents. Infrastructure damage was extensive, with schools, homes, and water reserves destroyed, and the Central Business District (CBD) heavily impacted.

In the days following the earthquake, Morris returned to his role as a reporter, capturing the unfolding crisis despite the emotional toll. “When the earthquake struck, I thought I was going to die myself,” he said. Yet, minutes after the tremor subsided, he grabbed his camera and rushed to the CBD.

At the heart of the destruction, he witnessed harrowing scenes. “I was shocked to see the collapsed Billabong building. A body lay covered with a blue tarpaulin, and Pro Rescue teams were trying to save others who were trapped inside,” Morris recounted.

The lack of a network connection frustrated his efforts to report live, but he pressed on, documenting the damage.

A month after the disaster, Morris continues to cover the aftermath as Vanuatu transitions from emergency response to recovery. “A month has passed since the earthquake, but the memories remain fresh. We don’t know when Port Vila will return to normal,” he said.

His photojournalism has been demonstrating the true impact of the earthquake as he continues to capture the mourning of a nation after such a tragic event.

The earthquake left deep scars, not only on the nation’s infrastructure but also on its people. “Unlike cyclones, which we can predict, prepare for, and survive, earthquakes strike without warning and show no mercy,” Morris said.

Through grief and uncertainty, Morris remains committed to his work, documenting the resilience of his community and the challenges they face as they rebuild. His reporting serves as a testament to the strength of both the people of Vanuatu and a journalist who continues to bear witness, even in the face of personal loss.

Reporting on his own community while grappling with personal loss is a reality for many Pacific Island journalists who cover disasters. For Doddy Morris, reporting on the traumatic events of the earthquake meant confronting his own grief while documenting the grief of others.

Dr Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson is a Pacific journalism trainer with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She expresses her support for Morris and his colleagues in showing “extraordinary courage and resilience”. This article was first published by The New Atoll and is republished with permission.

For almost six decades photographer John Miller (Ngāpuhi) has been a protest photographer in Aotearoa New Zealand.

From his first photographs of an anti-Vietnam War protest on Auckland’s Albert Street as a high school student in 1967, to Hīkoi mō te Tiriti last week, Miller has focused much of his work on the faces of dissent.

He spoke of his experiences over the years in an interview broadcast today on RNZ’s Culture 101 programme with presenter Susana Lei’ataua.

• LISTEN: Photographer John Miller talks to RNZ’s Culture 101
• Other Hīkoi mō te Tiriti reports

Miller joined Hīkoi mō te Tiriti at Waitangi Park in Pōneke Wellington last Tuesday, November 19, ahead of its final walk to Parliament’s grounds.

“It was quite an incredible occasion, so many people,”  74-year-old Miller says.

“Many more than 1975 and 2004. Also social media has a much more influential part to play in these sorts of events these days, and also drone technology . . .

“I had to avoid one on the corner of Manners and Willis Streets flying around us as the Hīkoi was passing by.

“We ended up running up Wakefield Street which is parallel to Courtenay Place to get ahead of the march and we joined the march at the Taranaki Street Manners Street intersection and we managed to get in front of it.”

Comparing Hīkoi mō te Tiriti with his experience of the 1975 Māori Land March led by Dame Whina Cooper, Miller noted there were a lot more people involved.

“During the 1975 Hīkoi the only flag that was in that march was the actual white land march flag — the Pou Whenua — no other flags at all. And there were no placards, no, nothing like that.”

There were more flags and placards in the Foreshore and Seabed March in 2004.

“Of course, this time it was a veritable absolute forest of Tino Rangatira flags and the 1835 flag and many other flags,” Miller says.

“Te Mana Motuhake o Tuhoe flags were there, even Palestinian flags of course, so it was a much more colourful occasion.”

Miller tried to replicate photos he took in 1975 and 2004: “However this particular time I actually was under a technical disadvantage because one of my lenses stopped working and I had to shoot this whole event in Wellington using just a wide angle lens so that forced me to change my approach.”

Miller and his daughter, Rere, were with the Hīkoi in front of the Beehive.

“I had no idea that there were so many people sort of outside who couldn’t get in and I only realised afterwards when we saw the drone footage.”

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

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania was captured by several photographers who were standing at the stage before the shooting commenced.

The most widely circulated photograph of this event was taken by Evan Vucci, a Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer known for his coverage of protests following George Floyd’s murder.

A number of World Press Photograph awards have been given to photographers who have covered an assassination.

• READ MORE: The Trump assassination attempt has upended the US election race. How will both parties react now?
• Attempted assassination of Trump: The long history of violence against US presidents
• Other Donald Trump articles

In this vein, Vucci’s image can also be regarded as already iconic, a photograph that perhaps too will win awards for its content, use of colour and framing — and will become an important piece of how we remember this moment in history.

This incredible and dramatic photo by photographer Evan Vucci will be the next ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ and it will for sure be in history books.#trump #Pennsylvania #Butler #DonaldTrump #shooting #journalism #photography #photojournalism #EvanVucci #US #history pic.twitter.com/EaxDsqESmb

— Alessandro Di Maio (@alexdimaio) July 14, 2024

Social media analysis of the image
Viewers of Vucci’s photograph have taken to social media to break down the composition of the image, including how iconic motifs such as the American flag and Trump’s raised fist are brought together in the frame according to laws of photographic composition, such as the rule of thirds.

Such elements are believed to contribute to the photograph’s potency.

To understand exactly what it is that makes this such a powerful image, there are several elements we can parse.

Compositional acuity
In this photograph, Vucci is looking up with his camera. He makes Trump appear elevated as the central figure surrounded by suited Secret Service agents who shield his body. The agents form a triangular composition that places Trump at the vertex, slightly to the left of a raised American flag in the sky.

On the immediate right of Trump, an agent looks directly at Vucci’s lens with eyes concealed by dark glasses. The agent draws us into the image, he looks back at us, he sees the photographer and therefore, he seems to see us: he mirrors our gaze at the photograph.

This figure is central, he leads our gaze to Trump’s raised fist.

Another point of note is that there are strong colour elements in this image that deceptively serve to pull it together as a photograph.

Set against a blue sky, everything else in the image is red, white and navy blue. The trickles of blood falling down Trump’s face are echoed in the red stripes of the American flag which aligns with the republican red of the podium in the lower left quadrant of the image.

We might not see these elements initially, but they demonstrate how certain photographic conventions contribute to Vucci’s own ways of seeing and composing that align with photojournalism as a discipline.

A photographic way of seeing
In interviews, Vucci has referred to the importance of retaining a sense of photographic composure in being able to attain “the shot”, of being sure to cover the situation from numerous angles, including capturing the scene with the right composition and light.

For Vucci, all of this was about “doing the job” of the photographer.

Vucci’s statements are consistent with what most photographers would regard as a photographic way of seeing. This means being attuned to the way composition, light, timing and subject matter come together in the frame in perfect unity when photographing: it means getting the “right” shot.

For Susan Sontag, this photographic way of seeing also corresponded to the relationship between shooting and photographing, a relationship she saw as analogous.

Photography and guns are arguably weapons, with photography and photographic ways of seeing and representing the world able to be weaponised to change public perception.

Writing history with photographs
As a photographic way of seeing, there are familiar resonances in Vucci’s photograph to other iconic images of American history.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

Taken by Joe Rosenthal, it won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and has come to be regarded in the United States as one of the most recognizable images of World War II. https://t.co/Nv5HjF6XMq pic.twitter.com/AGxmQqonM6

— CHRISTINA VONIATIS (@VoniatisC) July 14, 2024

Take for instance, the photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal, The Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima (1945) during the Pacific War. In the photograph, four marines are clustered together to raise and plant the American flag, their bodies form a pyramid structure in the lower central half of the frame.

This photograph is also represented as a war monument in Virginia for marines who have served America.

The visual echoes between the Rosenthal and Vucci images are strong. They also demonstrate how photographic ways of seeing stretch beyond the compositional. It leads to another photographic way of seeing, which means viewing the world and the events that take place in it as photographs, or constructing history as though it were a photograph.

Fictions and post-truth
The inherent paradox within “photographic seeing” is that no single person can be in all places at once, nor predict what is going to happen before reality can be transcribed as a photograph.

In Vucci’s photograph, we are given the illusion that this photograph captures “the moment” or “a shot”. Yet it doesn’t capture the moment of the shooting, but its immediate aftermath. The photograph captures Trump’s media acuity and swift, responsive performance to the attempted assassination, standing to rise with his fist in the air.

In a post-truth world, there has been a pervasive concern about knowing the truth. While that extends beyond photographic representation, photography and visual representation play a considerable part.

Whether this image will further contribute to the mythology of Donald Trump, and his potential reelection, is yet to be seen.

Sara Oscar, senior lecturer in visual communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

As Israel drives the Palestinians deeper into another Nakba in Gaza with its assault on Rafah, the Palestine Youth Aotearoa (PYA) and solidarity supporters in Aotearoa New Zealand tonight commemorated the original Nakba — “the Catastrophe” — of 1948.

• READ MORE: As Israel bombs Gaza, sirens echo in West Bank marking 76 years since Nakba
• Fiji abstains from new UN vote on Palestinian membership bid
• 1000 protest in Auckland over Israel’s war on Gaza, honour Nakba victims
• Other War on Gaza reports

This was when Israeli militias slaughtered more than 15,000 people, perpetrated more than 70 massacres and occupied more than three quarters of Palestine, with 750,000 of the Palestinian population forced into becoming refugees from their own land.

The Nakba was a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing followed by the destruction of hundreds of villages, to prevent the return of the refugees — similar to what is being wrought now in Gaza.

The Nakba lies at the heart of 76 years of injustice for the Palestinians — and for the latest injustice, the seven-month long war on Gaza.

Participants told through their stories, poetry and songs by candlelight, they would not forget 1948 — “and we will not forget the genocide under way in Gaza.”

Photographs: David Robie

Nakba Day vigil in Tāmaki Makaurau in Aotearoa 2024

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Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who has been documenting the impact of the war in the Gaza Strip, has left the enclave for Qatar and gave his first interview there with the Doha-based Al Jazeera global news channel.

Azaiza announced on Instagram yesterday that he was leaving the besieged enclave before boarding a Qatari military airplane at Egypt’s El Arish International Airport.

However, it was unclear how he was able to leave Gaza or why he had evacuated, reports Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: ‘Collective punishment’ inflicted on Gaza – UN
• RSF condemns Israel over ‘silencing of media’ – 31 Palestinian journalists in jail, 80 plus killed
• Friendly fire may have killed hostages on October 7. These Israeli families want answers now
• NZ foreign policy critics warn over ‘inflaming’ Red Sea crisis, call for Gaza ceasefire

“This is the last time you will see me with this heavy, stinky [press] vest. I decided to evacuate today. … Hopefully soon I’ll jump back and help to build Gaza again,” Azaiza said in a video.

The 24-year-old Palestinian captured the attention of millions globally — including in the South Pacific — as he filmed himself in a press vest and helmet to document conditions during Israel’s war, which has killed more than 25,000 people in Gaza.

“Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.

“Humanise a people!”

– Khaled Beydoun

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 people captive. However, there are demands within Israel for an inquiry into allegations that some hostages were killed by “friendly fire” from a tank.

In response, Israel has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in a relentless attack on Gaza.

Azaiza’s coverage often took the form of raw, unfiltered videos about injured children or families crushed under rubble in the aftermath of Israeli air strikes.

He said he has had to “evacuate for a lot of reasons you all know some of it but not all of it”.

In his post, he was seen on a video about to board a grey plane emblazoned with the words “Qatar Emiri Air Force”.

I’m at Al Jazeera studios where they are streaming.
حلل يا دويري pic.twitter.com/fWoABDKD3t

— MoTaz (@azaizamotaz9) January 24, 2024

“First video outside Gaza,” he said in one clip, revealing that it was his first time on a aircraft. “Heading to Qatar.”

He also shared a video of the inside of the plane as it landed in Doha.

Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza leaves Gaza after his “heroic” humanitarian reporting . . . “we are all Palestinian.” Video: Al Jazeera

Since the start of the war, the photojournalist has amassed millions of followers across multiple platforms.

His Instagram following has grown from about 27,500 to 18.25 million in the more than 108 days since October 7, according to an assessment of social media analytics by Al Jazeera.

His Facebook account grew from a similar starting point to nearly 500,000 followers. He now has one million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.

As well as his social media posts, Azaiza has produced content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA).

I left Gaza with a broken heart and eyes filled with tears.
There was no other option after 108 days of continuous massacres against us.
It’s time to move somewhere else so I can do more work and I pray that I can be a reason to stop this war and help rebuild Gaza again.
I’ve… pic.twitter.com/kg3FwTi38d

— MoTaz (@azaizamotaz9) January 24, 2024

Social media users thanked Azaiza for his coverage of the war, many saluting him as a hero.

“Thank you for everything you have done, you have moved mountains, what you have done in the last 100 days people can’t do in their whole lifetime. You were a pivotal voice in showing the world the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Wishing you well and safety,” one user said on X.

Another, Khaled Beydoun, wrote on Instagram, “Motaz Azaiza – A 24-year-old man from Gaza, in 108 days, did what CNN, Fox, the BBC, and all their ‘journalism’ predecessors refused to do for 75 years.

“Humanise a people!”

“I’m so glad you had the opportunity to get out, God willing, YOU WILL RETURN TO A FREE PALESTINE,” wrote another.

“We love you so deeply,” American musician Kehlani wrote, adding, “Thank you for your humanity.”

“Frame that vest. It’s the armor of one of history’s greatest heroes,” comedian Sammy Obeid said.

Pacific Media Watch sourced from Al Jazeera.

A year on from the fall of Kabul, Australian reporter Lynne O’Donnell returned to Afghanistan — and now says she’ll never go back.

O’Donnell returned for three days last month, only to be detained, forced to retract articles, and coerced into making a public apology for accusing the Taliban of sex slavery.

During this harrowing time, she was in close contact with Massoud Hossain, a Kabul-born photojournalist.

• READ MORE: Lynne O’Donnell: Taliban detained, abused and threatened me
• Afghanistan, the Taliban and the liberation narrative: Why it is so vital to be telling our own stories — Pacific Journalism Review
• LISTEN TO RNZ SATURDAY MORNINGS: Lynne O’Donnell and Massoud Hossain describe their ordeal
• See a gallery of Massoud Hossain’s images

The pair have worked together in Afghanistan for years, and both are on a Taliban death list.

Hossain is currently based in New Zealand, where he has been given asylum.

O’Donnell is a Foreign Policy columnist and was Afghanistan bureau chief for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Associated Press (AP) between 2009-2017.

Hossaini is a Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist who joined AFP in 2007. In 2021 he won the William Randolph Hearst Award for Excellence in Professional Journalism.

They talk to RNZ broadcaster Kim Hill on their experiences and how they see the future for Afghanistan.

O’Donnell’s introduction to her Foreign Policy report on July 20:

“I returned to Afghanistan this week, almost one year after the withdrawal of the US military cleared the way for the Taliban’s victory. I wanted to see for myself what had become of the country since I flew out of Kabul on August 15, 2021, hours before the Islamists began what many residents now refer to as a ‘reign of terror’…

“I left Afghanistan today after three days of cat-and-mouse with Taliban intelligence agents, who detained, abused, and threatened me and forced me to issue a barely literate retraction of reports they said had broken their laws and offended Afghan culture. If I did not, they said, they’d send me to jail.”

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

Frontline investigative articles on Aotearoa New Zealand’s 23-day Parliament protester siege, social media disinformation and Asia-Pacific media changes and adaptations are featured in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.

The assault on “truth telling” reportage is led by The Disinformation Project, which warns that “conspiratorial thought continues to impact on the lives and actions of our communities”, and alt-right video researcher Byron C Clark.

Several articles focus on the Philippines general election with the return of the Marcos dynasty following the elevation of the late dictator’s son Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr and the crackdown on independent media, including Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Maria Ressa’s Rappler.

• READ MORE: Pacific Journalism Review archives

Columbia Journalism School’s Centre for Investigative Journalism director Sheila Coronel writes of her experiences under the Marcos dictatorship: “Marcos is a hungry ghost. He torments our dreams, lays claim to our memories, and feeds our hopes.”

But with Marcos Jr’s landslide victory in May, she warns: “You will be in La-La Land, a country without memory, without justice, without accountability. Only the endless loop of one family, the soundtrack provided by Imelda.”

The themed section draws on research papers from a recent Asian Congress for Media and Communication conference (ACMC) hosted by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) introduced by convenor Khairiah A Rahman with keynotes by Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie and Rappler executive editor Glenda Gloria.

In the editorial titled “Fighting self-delusion and lies”, Philip Cass writes of the surreal crises in the Ukraine War and the United States and the challenges for journalists in the Asia-Pacific region:

“Similarly, there are national leaders in the Pacific who seem to truly want to believe that China really is their friend instead of being an aggressive imperialist power acting the same way the European powers did in the 19th century.”

With the Photoessay in this edition, visual storyteller and researcher Todd Henry explores how kava consumption has spread through the Pacific and into the diasporic community in Aotearoa New Zealand.

His “Visual peregrinations in the realm of kava” article and images also examine the way Pasifika women are carving their own space in kava ceremonies.

Unthemed topics include Afghanistan, the Taliban and the “liberation narrative” in New Zealand, industrial inertia among Queensland journalists, and Chinese media consumption and political engagement in Aotearoa.

Pacific Journalism Review, founded at the University of Papua New Guinea, is now in its 28th year and is New Zealand’s oldest journalism research publication and the highest ranked communication journal in the country.

The latest edition is published this weekend.

• Pacific Journalism Review fulltext articles at the Informit database

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.

Internationally acclaimed documentary photographer Robin Hammond recently made a visit to the Wellington campus of Massey University to meet with his former lecturers and students, reports Massey University News.

Hammond’s work focuses on amplifying the stories of marginalised groups through visual storytelling and has graced the covers of National Geographic and Time magazine.

He shared stories from his career as a photojournalist and his not-for-profit organisation Witness Change with students in a guest lecture and student workshop.

• READ MORE: Witness Change – ‘Stigmatised people are often excluded from their own stories’

Hammond studied an “intensive” two-year Diploma in Photography at the Wellington School of Design, graduating in 2001, and was welcomed into Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts’ Hall of Fame Te Pae Tātāriki in 2014.

He credits his photography diploma with exposing him to what photography could do.

“When I started studying I knew that I vaguely liked photography and maybe there could be a job at the end of it, but the lecturers exposed us to the work of some of the really committed photojournalists who were working on social change issues and I was really inspired by that,” he says.

“Within two or three months of being at Massey I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.

‘Most exciting years’
“I have to say that was probably two of the most exciting years of my life. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that I was taught to literally see the world differently.

“It really opened my eyes to a new possibility for what my life could be. I totally credit the passion of the lecturers for photography and a big part of that was exposing me to the work that had come before me from traditional photojournalism practice and they [the lecturers] have always been a constant encouragement.”

After graduating, Hammond worked at the New Zealand Listener before moving to London. His first job was scanning negatives in the basement of a photo agency, during the time when photography was moving from film to digital.

“I got a job in the north of England at a photo agency and that was probably my real start, and has been my only actual salaried job as a photographer.

“It was an amazing and steep learning curve in that I was doing two, three, four jobs a day, every day, working six or seven days a week – it was a real sweat shop, but it was an amazing learning opportunity.”

Hammond has gone on to win multiple awards including two World Press Photo prizes, the RF Kennedy Journalism Award, six Pictures of the Year International Awards, the W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, six Amnesty International awards for Human Rights journalism and was named by Foreign Policy as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015.

He says getting his work first published in National Geographic and on the covers of National Geographic and Time magazine were huge career milestones, as was winning the W. Eugene Smith award in 2013.

‘Massive influence’
“I remember very clearly when it was announced that I [had] won, his work was a massive influence on me. Like a lot of artists I suffer from imposter syndrome, and I think having my work recognised at that level when I knew that some of the best photojournalists in the world have won that award really made me feel that maybe I could do something with my work,” he says.

His not-for-profit organisation Witness Change was created to amplify the voices of marginalised groups. At the moment, it has three main areas of focus: Where Love is Illegal, for LGBTQ+ people who live in countries where who they are or who they love makes them illegal; In My World, which focuses on mental health stories around the world and amplifies the voices of people living with mental health conditions; and 1000 Dreams, a refugee project which is stories about/by refugees in order for refugees to take back control of the narratives of their lives.

The organisation relies on volunteers from all over the world and organisations who offer their services pro-bono.

Hammond says for him, doing this work is his obligation as a privileged person.

“I was largely motivated to found Witness Change out of frustration. I had covered some really important work for some of the biggest newspapers in the world but I didn’t see that translated into change for the people whose lives I was documenting.

“I was deeply moved by their stories and felt a level of obligation to them and I realised that raising awareness wasn’t necessarily going to be enough.

“I had to have this much more change-focused approach to the storytelling. And I had to be able to ensure that if there were other people who were moved like me by these people’s situations, that they had an avenue to be able to support them because I think the great injustice of our world is that your health/life outcomes comes down to essentially an accident of where you’re born.

‘It’s an obligation’
“I don’t feel like what I do is a good thing, I feel it’s an obligation that I have to carry out in order to support people that I meet in my work.”

He will stay in New Zealand until July with his wife and 16-month-old child while they spend time with family, before returning to the United Kingdom to carry on the 1000 Dreams project.

“That will keep us going for the rest of the year,” he says. He also has ongoing work as part of a grant from the National Geographic Society, and some more mental health work in South Sudan.

“Every time I come back to New Zealand I try to get in touch with my lecturers and do workshops like this. The world of photography is pretty small really. It’s amazing just being back here.

“This place definitely holds a special place in my heart and I feel the roots of my career started here.”

A Pacific Media Centre collaborator has been awarded the inaugural Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism at the 2019 Walkley Mid-Year Celebration.

Vanuatu-based Australian photojournalist Ben Bohane was awarded the $10,000 grant out of 22 applicants for his ongoing work in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea.

He told Pacific Media Watch he was honoured to received the grant and hoped it would “grow interest and respect for Pacific-based journalists to better inform Australians about what is going on.”

READ MORE: Ben Bohane: China? No, let’s face the elephant in the Pacific room

WATCH: Ben Bohane responds at the mid-year Walkleys

“For too long this region has been ignored by the Australian media, not to mention global media, but now that it is on the frontline of climate change and geopolitical contest then I expect there to be more interest from now on.”

Bohane has covered the Pacific for 30 years. His work has been both acclaimed and arresting and has featured photos and interviews from all South Pacific conflicts, including West Papua and East Timor.

He has the largest personal photo archive of the South Pacific in the world and two of his portfolios have featured in Pacific Journalism Review.

While travelling and living with tribal groups in the Solomon Islands in the early 1990s, he was able to secure the first pictures of Bougainville Revolutionary Army leader Francis Ona and the only interview and pictures of Guadalcanal warlord Harold Keke.

He said that he would use the grant money to cover the upcoming Bougainville referendum on October 17.

“I plan to do a series of print stories, mainly for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which will highlight the background to the referendum and why Bougainville matters to Australia and the region.”

According to Dr Tess Newton Cain, an academic and the principal of TNC Pacific Consulting, who helped establish the grant, Bohane’s extensive coverage of Bougainville stood out among other grant nominees.

“His was one of several proposals that focused on Bougainville,” she said.

“Ben has been covering Bougainville for many years, including during the civil war period,”

“It was in Bougainville that he and Sean Dorney first met,” said Newton Cain.

Grant namesake Sean Dorney is an Australian journalist and foreign correspondent who has covered Papua New Guinea and the Pacific for 40 years.

The grant was sponsored in recognition of his huge contribution and the importance of getting the real stories of the Pacific and of Pacific people in front of Australian audiences, Newton Cain said.

“I hope this grant will go some way to stimulating an interest in the Australian media to tell their audiences more and better stories about the countries in their immediate region.”

Bohane said he was honoured to receive the grant in Dorney’s name.

“I can’t think of anyone who has done more to keep Australians and the rest of the Pacific informed about Pacific affairs over the past 40 years.”

“He is one of the great correspondents of our time and a pioneering spirit in the development of journalism in the Pacific, along with David Robie, Mary Louise O’Callaghan and a handful of others.”

Award recipients in other categories in the Walkley Mid-Year celebration included Oliver Gordon who won the Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year for his ABC investigation The Black & White Hotel: Inside Australia’s Segregated Hotel Rooms.

Another was Laura Murphy-Oates, who won the Public Service Journalism award for her SBS story exploring historical abuses against Aborigines. 

A dozen other journalists won awards for coverage ranging from the Australian African community to the gender disparity in the Australian theatre.

While many there were many journalists who came away empty handed, Newton Cain said there was other good news which came from the celebrations.

“Next to seeing the grant awarded, the best news I could hear is that an editor has said to one of the unsuccessful applicants ‘that Pacific story you pitched is an important one, we are going to do it anyway’.”

The full list can be found at the 2019 Walkley Mid-Year Celebration website.

• Michael Andrew is contributing editor of the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch project.
• Francis Ona – last rebel standing – SBS and Ben Bohane

Pacific Media Centre’s Del Abcede was on the ground for last Sunday’s “love not hate” rally  with about 2000 people marching down Auckland’s Queen Street in solidarity with the victims and survivors of the Christchurch mosque terrorist attack earlier this month.

Scores of children were among the marchers with placards declaring “Stand up to Islamophobia”, “Peace, love”, “Denying racism is racism”, “Dismantle white supremacy” and “Migrants are welcome, fascists are not”.

Fifty worshippers were killed by a lone gunman in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch on March 15. New Zealand has now banned assault and semi-automatic weapons.

• Other Christchurch mosque terror stories

Love Aotearoa Hate Racism

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The Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior 3, will arrive in Auckland tomorrow on the next stage of her “Making Oil History” tour of New Zealand.

The ship is a custom designed eco-campaign vessel designed to replace the original Rainbow Warrior bombed by French secret agents trying to stop her antinuclear voyage to Moruroa – this is now a living reef under water in Matauri Bay.

Tour programme | Video

The Rainbow Warrior is now “part of our national identity, as a symbol of New Zealand’s successful nuclear free movement”, says Greenpeace New Zealand executive director Russel Norman.

He says New Zealand must rediscover bold action now for the struggle against oil and catastrophic climate change.

The Pacific Media Centre was on hand for the Rainbow Warrior welcome in Matauri Bay, Northland, yesterday.

Photographs: David Robie

• Rainbow Warrior returns to NZ for ‘oil free’ future and activist doco

Rainbow Warrior at Matauri Bay

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Late on the night of August 5, 2018, award-winning Bangladeshi photographer and activist Dr Shahidul Alam was forcibly abducted from his house in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, by 20 men in plainclothes, sparking protests from media freedom and human rights groups.

Alam is the founder of both the Drik Picture Library and the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute and a vocal journalist on issues related to rule of law and the public interest.

It was soon confirmed that a team of the Detective Branch (DB) of police had detained Shahidul from his residence, with the intention of interrogating him over his Facebook posts about ongoing student protests in the capital, Dhaka.

READ MORE: RSF protests over shocking press freedom violations during Bangladeshi student protests

Secondary school students of different educational institutions in the Bangladesh capital have taken to the streets since July 29 demanding improved road safety and rule enforcement, after two of their classmates were killed due to reckless driving by public bus. The students are also demanding justice for the victims.

Excessive police force
Shahidul Alam has been covering the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh in his Facebook and Twitter accounts and discussing the protests on Facebook Live.

More than one hundred students were injured over the weekend as the police resorted to excessive force, including firing rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of peaceful student protesters.

The protests took a violent turn on August 4 when rumours of student protesters being kidnapped, raped and killed began to spread online, but independent media sources at the Dhaka Tribune along with students themselves and a fact-checking Facebook group called Jaachai (fact-check) have denounced these messages as false and debunked doctored photographs.

Nevertheless, many students came out to the streets to protest the deaths. Several violent confrontations between protesters and police have ensued since.

Mobs allegedly associated with Bangladesh’s ruling party have also attacked demonstrators and journalists who were covering the attacks.

Emergency medical teams say they have treated more than 100 protesters who have been injured.

In an attempt to curb rapidly-spreading rumors, mobile internet speed was brought down to a minimum level (2G) shutting down 3G and 3G broadcasts.

Angered authorities
Alongside his social media coverage of the protests, Alam apparently angered the authorities and the ruling party after he gave a TV interview on Sunday evening with Al Jazeera where he talked about the recent situation in Bangladesh and criticised the government.

Expat blogger Rumi Ahmed posted a transcript of the interview on Facebook. Here is an excerpt:

I think what we need to do is to look at what has been happening in the streets today. The police specifically asked for help from these armed goons to combat unarmed students demanding safe roads.

I mean how ridiculous is that? Today, I was in the streets, there were people with machetes in their hands chasing unarmed students. And the police are standing by watching it happen.

In some cases, they were actually helping them…

According to the latest reports, the police have received a seven-day remand to question Shahidul Alam in connection with an ICT Act case filed on August 6, 2018. He was taken to the court barefoot and barely able to walk.

He appears to have been beaten while in custody.

Exiled journalist Tasneem Khalil tweeted:

The police have not yet mentioned why he was detained but referred to the case which accuses him under section 57 of the ICT Act of “abusing” an electronic platform in order to spread “lies” among the population and with the intent to “invalidate and question” the government on the international stage, damage law and order, spread “fear and terror”.

The provisions of Section 57 of Bangladesh’s notoriously broad 2013 Information and Communication Technology Act of Bangladesh have been used to slap hundreds of lawsuits against journalists and online activists to curb the freedom of speech online over the past few years.

Blogger and activist Vaskar Abedin writes on Facebook:

Amnesty International has released a statement which read:

Asia Pacific Report republishes this article with permission under a Creative Commons licence.

Two damning and contrasting books about Indonesian colonialism in the Pacific, both by activist participants in Europe and New Zealand, have recently been published. Overall, they are excellent exposes of the harsh repression of the Melanesian people of West Papua and a world that has largely closed a blind eye to to human rights violations.

In Papua Blood, Danish photographer Peter Bang provides a deeply personal account of his more than three decades of experience in West Papua that is a testament to the resilience and patience of the people in the face of “slow genocide” with an estimated 500,000 Papuans dying over the past half century.

With See No Evil, Maire Leadbeater, peace movement advocate and spokesperson of West Papua Action Auckland, offers a meticulously researched historical account of New Zealand’s originally supportive stance for the independence aspirations of the Papuan people while still a Dutch colony and then its unprincipled slide into betrayal amid Cold War realpolitik.

Peter Bang’s book features 188 examples of his evocative imagery, providing colourful insights into changing lifestyles in West Papua, ranging through pristine rainforest, waterfalls, villages and urban cityscapes to dramatic scenes of resistance to oppression and the defiant displays of the Morning Star flag of independence.

Some of the most poignant images are photographs of use of the traditional koteka (penis gourds) and traditional attire, which are under threat in some parts of West Papua, and customary life in remote parts of the Highlands and the tree houses of the coastal marshlands.

Besides the photographs, Bang also has a narrative about the various episodes of his life in West Papua.

Never far from his account, are the reflections of life under Indonesian colonialism, and extreme racism displayed towards the Papuan people and their culture and traditions. From the beginning in 1963 when Indonesia under Sukarno wrested control of West Papua from the Dutch with United Nations approval six years later under a sham “Act of Free Choice” against the local people’s wishes, followed by the so-called ‘Transmigrassi’ programme encouraging thousands of Javanese migrants to settle, the Papuans have been treated with repression.

‘Disaster for Papuans’
Bang describes the massive migration of Indonesians to West Papua as “not only a disaster for the Papuan people, but also a catastrophe for the rainforest, earth and wildlife” (p. 13).

“Police soldiers conducted frequent punitive expeditions with reference to violation of ‘laws’ that the indigenous people neither understood nor had heard about, partly because of language barriers and the huge cultural difference,” writes Bang (p. 11). The list of atrocities has been endless.

“There were examples of Papuans who had been captured, and thrown out alive from helicopters, strangled or drowned after being put into plastic bags. Pregnant women killed by bayonets. Prisoners forced to dig their own graves before they were killed.” (p. 12)

A book that provided an early impetus while Bang was researching for his involvement in West Papua was Indonesia’s Secret War by journalist Robin Osborne, a former press secretary for Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan, the leader who was later ousted from office because of his bungled Sandline mercenary affair over the Bougainville civil war. Osborne’s book also influenced me when I first began writing about West Papua in the early 1980s.

After travelling through Asia, a young Peter Bang arrived in West Papua in 1986 for his first visit determined to journey to the remote Yali tribe as a photographer and writer interested in indigenous peoples. He wanted to find out how the Yali people had integrated with the outside world since missionaries had first entered the isolated tribal area just 25 years earlier.

When Bang visited the town of Angguruk for the first time, “the only wheels I saw at the mission station were punctured and sat on a wheelbarrow … It was only seven years ago that human flesh had been eaten in the area” (p. 16).

During this early period of jungle trekking, Bang rarely “encountered anything besides kindness – only twice did I experience being threatened with a bow and arrow” (p. 39). The first time was by a “mentally disabled” man confused over Bang’s presence, and he was scolded by the village chief.

Political change
Ten years later, Peter Bang again visited the Yali people and found the political climate had changed in the capital Jayapura – “we saw police and military everywhere” following an incident a few months earlier when OPM (Free Papua Movement) guerrillas had held 11 captives hostage in a cave.

He struck up a friendship with Wimmo, a Dani tribesman and son of a village witchdoctor and healer in the Baliem Valley, that was to endure for years, and he had an adoptive family.

On a return visit, Bang met Tebora, mother of the nine-year-old boy Puwul who was the subject of the author’s earlier book, Puwul’s World. At the age of 29, Puwul had walked barefooted hundreds of kilometres across the mountains from the Jaxólé Valley village to Jayapura, and then escaped across the border into Papua New Guinea. A well-worn copy of Puwul’s World was the only book in the village apart from a single copy of the Bible.

Years later, Bang met tribal leader and freedom fighter Benny Wenda who, with the help of Australian human rights activist and lawyer Jennifer Robinson, was granted asylum in the United Kingdom in 2003: “I felt great sympathy for Benny Wenda’s position on the fight for liberation. By many, he was compared to Nelson Mandela, although he was obviously playing his own ukelele” (p. 81)

Wenda and Filip Karma, at the time imprisoned by the Indonesian authorities for 15 years for “raising the Morning Star flag”, were nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Bang founded the Danish section of the Free West Papua Campaign and launched an activist Facebook page.

One of the book’s amusing and inspirational highlights is his secret “freedom paddle” on the Baliem River when Peter Bang used a yellow inflatable rubber boat and a pocket-sized Morning Star flag to make his own personal protest against Indonesia (p. 123). This was a courageous statement in itself given the continued arrests of journalists in West Papua by the military authorities in spite of the “open” policy of President Joko Widodo.

As a special section, Bang’s book devotes 26 pages to the indigenous people of West Papua, profiling some of the territory’s 300 tribes and their cultural and social systems, such as the Highlands communities of Dani and Yali, and the Asmat, Korowai and Kombai peoples.

Fascinating insight
This book is a fascinating insight into West Papuan life under duress, but would have benefitted with tighter and cleaner copy editing by the English-language volunteer editors. Nevertheless, it is a valuable work with a strong sociopolitical message.

Peter Bang concludes: “Nobody knows what the future holds. In 2018, the Indonesian regime continues the brutal crackdown on the native population of West Papua.”

In contrast to Bang’s authentic narrative of life in West Papua, Maire Leadbeater’s See No Evil book – launched yesterday – is an activist historical account of New Zealand’s shameful record over West Papua, which is just as disgraceful as Wellington’s record on Timor-Leste over 24 years of Indonesian illegal occupation (tempered by a quietly supportive post-independence role).

Surely there is a lesson here. For those New Zealand politicians, officials and conservative journalists who prefer to meekly accept the Indonesian status quo, the East Timor precedent is an indicator that we should be strongly advocating self-determination for the Papuans.

One of the many strengths of Leadbeater’s thoroughly researched book is she exposes the volte-face and hypocrisy of the stance of successive New Zealand governments since Walter Nash and his “united New Guinea” initiative (p. 66).

“A stroke of the pen in the shape of the 1962 New York Agreement, signed by the colonial Dutch and the Indonesian government, sealed the fate of the people of West Papua,” the author notes in her introduction. Prior to this “selling out” of a people arrangement, New Zealand had been a vocal supporter of the Dutch government’s preparations to decolonise the territory.

In fact, the Dutch had done much more to prepare West Papua for independence than Australia had done at that stage for neighbouring Papua New Guinea, which became independent in 1975.

Game changer
Indonesia’s so-called September 30th Movement crisis in 1965 – three years after paratroopers had been dropped on West Papua in a farcical “invasion” – was the game changer. The attempted coup triggered massive anti-communist massacres in Indonesia leading to an estimated 200,000 to 800,000 killings and eventually the seizure of power by General Suharto from the ageing nationalist President Sukarno in 1967 (Adam, 2015).

As Leadbeater notes, the bloodletting opened the door to Western foreign investment and “rich prizes” in West Papua such as the Freeport’s Grasberg gold and copper mine, one of the world’s richest.

“New Zealand politicians and diplomats welcomed Indonesia’s change in direction. Cold War anti-communist fervour trumped sympathy for the victims of the purge; and New Zealand was keen to increase its trade, investment and ties with the ‘new’ Indonesia.” (p. 22)

The first 13 chapters of the book, from “the Pleistocene period” to “Suharto goes but thwarted hope for West Papua”, are a methodical and insightful documentation of “recolonisation”, and New Zealand’s changing relationship are an excellent record and useful tool for the advocates of West Papuan independence.

However, the last two contemporary chapters and conclusion, do not quite measure up to the quality of the rest of the book.

For example, a less than two-page section on “Media access” gives short change to the important media role in the West Papuan independence struggle. Leadbeater quite rightly castigates the mainstream New Zealand media for a lack of coverage for such a serious issue. Her explanation for the widespread ignorance about West Papua is simplistic:

“A major reason (setting aside Radio New Zealand’s consistent reporting) is that the issues are seldom covered in the mainstream media. It is a circular problem: lack of direct access results in a dearth of objective and fully rounded reporting; editors fear that material they do receive may be inaccurate or misrepresentative; so a media blackout prevails and editors conflate the resulting limited public debate with a lack of interest.” (p. 233)

Mainstream ‘silence’
Leadbeater points out that the mainstream media coverage of the “pre-internet 1960s did a better job”. Yet she fails to explain why, or credit those contemporary New Zealand journalists who have worked hard to break the mainstream “silence” (Robie, 2017).

She dismisses the courageous and successful groundbreaking attempts by at least two New Zealand media organisations – Māori Television and Radio New Zealand – to “test” President Widodo’s new policy in 2015 by sending crews to West Papua in merely three sentences. Since then, she admits, Indonesia’s media “shutters have mostly stayed shut” (p. 235).

One of the New Zealand journalists who has written extensively on West Papua and Melanesian issues for many years, RNZ Pacific’s Johnny Blades, is barely mentioned (apart from the RNZ visit to West Papua). Tabloid Jubi editor Victor Mambor, who visited New Zealand in 2014, Paul Bensemann (who travelled to West Papua disguised as a bird watcher in 2013), Scoop’s Gordon Campbell, Television New Zealand’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver and Tere Harrison’s 2016 short documentary Run It Straight are just a few of those who have contributed to growing awareness of Papuan issues in this country who have not been given fair acknowledgement.

Also important has been the role of the alternative and independent New Zealand and Pacific media, such as Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Scoop (both via the Pacific Media Centre), West Papua Media and Evening Report that have provided relentless coverage of West Papua. Other community and activist groups deserve honourable mentions.

Even in my own case, a journalist and educator who has written on West Papuan affairs for more than three decades with countless articles and who wrote the first New Zealand book with an extensive section on the West Papuan struggle (Robie, 1989), there is a remarkable silence.

One has a strong impression that Leadbeater is reluctant to acknowledge her contemporaries (a characteristic of her previous books too) and thus the selective sourcing weakens her work as it relates to the millennial years.

The early history of the West Papuan agony is exemplary, but in view of the flawed final two chapters I look forward to another more nuanced account of the contemporary struggle. Merdeka!

David Robie is director of the Pacific Media Centre and editor of Pacific Journalism Review. He was awarded the 1983 NZ Media Peace Prize for his coverage of Timor-Leste and West Papua, “Blood on our hands”, published in New Outlook magazine.

Papua Blood: A Photographer’s Eyewitness Account of West Papua Over 30 Years, by Peter Bang. Copenhagen, Denmark: Remote Frontlines, 2018. 248 pages. ISBN 9788743001010.
See No Evil: New Zealand’s Betrayal of the People of West Papua, by Maire Leadbeater. Dunedin, NZ: Otago University Press, 2018. 310 pages. ISBN 9781988531212.

References
Adam, A. W. (2015, October 1). How Indonesia’s 1965-1966 anti-communist purge remade a nation and the world. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/how-indonesias-1965-1966-anti-communist-purge-remade-a-nation-and-the-world-48243

Bang, P. (1996). Duianya Puwul. [English edition (2018): Puwul’s World: Endangered native people]. Copenhagen, Denmark: Remote Frontlines.

Osborne, R. (1985). Indonesia’s secret war: The guerilla struggle in Irian Jaya. Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Robie, D. (1989). Blood on their banner: Nationalist struggles in the South Pacific. London, UK: Zed Books.

Robie, D. (2017). Tanah Papua, Asia-Pacific news blind spots and citizen media: From the ‘Act of Free Choice’ betrayal to a social media revolution. Pacific Journalism Review : Te Koakoa, 23(2), 159-178. https://doi.org/10.24135/pjr.v23i2.334

Facebook has been under fire for some time for distributing misinformation and fake news to a potential audience of around two billion users. Only now is it making a concerted effort to filter it out.

But Facebook has also faced criticism for the ways in which it has filtered the news in the past.

Back in September 2016, it censored a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the Vietnam war.

LISTEN TO RNZ MEDIAWATCH

A Norwegian writer posted Nick Ut’s famous picture of severely burned nine year-old Vietnamese girl Kim Phuc fleeing a napalm attack in 1972.  It was part of an online discussion about photographs that had changed history.

Facebook quickly deleted his post and suspended his account, claiming he had violated Facebook’s content standards which prohibit most forms of nudity.

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten then wrote about this on its own Facebook page – and that was summarily deleted by Facebook too.

Norway’s Prime Minister posted the image on her own official Facebook account. Facebook deleted that as well.

An American technology company had censored a foreign head of state, and struck out a sovereign government’s communications.

‘This is serious’
Under the headline “Listen, Mark, this is serious” Aftenposten’s editor-in-chief called out Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg on the newspaper’s front page and online.

Eventually Facebook took the photograph off its blacklist and said: “We’ll keep working to make Facebook an open platform for all ideas.”

Last weekend the Vanuatu Daily Post newspaper published a two-page spread on the growing influence of Indonesia and China in the Melanesian region. It was written by journalist and photographer Ben Bohane who lives in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila and runs picture agency Wakaphoto.

Ben illustrated his story with one of his own pictures taken in 1995. It shows fighters from the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and several other men wearing traditional protective penis sheaths – called nambas.

The article was subsequently republished by  the Pacific Media Centre on its Pacific Media Watch freedom feed and on Asia Pacific Report – which also raised the West Papua political connection – at the Auckland University of Technology on Monday.

Facebook alerts on the newsfeeds of Ben Bohane, Vanuatu Daily Post, the Pacific Media Centre and its director Professor David Robie were all removed by Facebook, which said that the featured image had breached its “community standards” policy.

On Tuesday, Ben Bohane posted his picture featuring the men in the nambas again and was immediately notified that the content has been removed again. He was blocked from posting anything on Facebook for 24 hours.

‘Memo to Facebook’
“Memo to Facebook – this is how Papuans live! Your ‘Community Standards’ obviously don’t include Melanesian culture,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Meanwhile, the Vanuatu Daily Post re-edited Ben Bohane’s story image online to avoid falling foul of Facebook’s policy.

The image is still there but a black box appears over the top where the nambas could once be seen, with these words in white:

THIS IMAGE was censored by FACEBOOK’s COMMUNITY STANDARDS

And off to the side:

Happy now, Facebook?

The problem is millions of Facebook’s users are unhappy with Facebook for episodes like this.

This article has been republished as part of the content sharing agreement between Radio New Zealand and the AUT Pacific Media Centre.

Facebook has censored a West Papuan image by a Vanuatu-based photojournalist for the second time in less than four days – this time “within one minute” after the photograph was posted.

Port Vila resident Ben Bohane has specialised in Melanesian, kastom (custom) and conflict photography for more than two decades. He runs the agency Wakaphotos and is the author of the book The Black Islands: Spirit and War in Melanesia.

Last weekend, a two-page feature spread authored by him about a perceived threat to the region’s stability because of Indonesian political influence in the Melanesian Spearhead Group was published by the Vanuatu Daily Post under the headline “Caught in a pincer”.

READ MORE: The Vanuatu Daily Post feature and photo that sparked the fuss
READ MORE: Massive cyber attack targets West Papuan independence media

The article was subsequently republished in the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report on Monday under the headline “China? No, let’s face the elephant in the Pacific room”,

Facebook alerts on the Vanuatu Daily Post, Asia Pacific Report, Pacific Media Centre along with Ben Bohane and PMC director Professor David Robie’s newsfeeds were removed with blocks saying the featured image had “violated community standards”.

The Bohane image taken in 1995 showed an armed OPM (Free West Papua) guerilla and several other men wearing traditional nambas (protective sheaths).

The photo has previously appeared in The Black Islands and other outlets, and can be seen in a 2006 Bohane photoessay at Pacific Journalism Review.

Facebook ‘test’
Bohane today carried out a Facebook “test” by posting his OPM image again.

He told Pacific Media Watch that within one minute he was “notified that the content has been removed and I am now banned from posting anything on FB for 24 hours”.

Bohane wrote on his Facebook page:

“Facebook seems to be censoring West Papuan images of mine used in news stories, saying they don’t meet ‘Community Standards’ because of “nudity”.

“Either that or the Indonesian government is reporting the images to be removed because they don’t want Papuan resistance photos spread on the web.

“Memo to Facebook – this is how Papuans live! Your ‘Community Standards’ obviously don’t include Melanesian culture.

“I have sent FB messages to complain, as have some regional news media outlets, and am posting images here as a test to see if they will be removed again and the problem persists….”

• Ben Bohane: China?, No, let’s face the elephant in the Pacific room

Dondi Tawatao went from feature photographer in Manila to chasing crime scenes across the city.

The so-called war on drugs in the Philippines has resulted in the deaths of more than 7000 people so far – deaths Tawatao has been capturing through his camera.

Since President Rodrigo Duerte took office last June, there has been a rise in targeted attacks on drug users and suspected dealers.

Backed by a culture of impunity, a wave of vigilantism has resulted in bodies being left in the street and in homes with warning signs.

Tawatao also documents stories of survivors devastated by the killings, some of whom deny their killed relative had any drug ties.

• ‘I will have you jailed too,’ Trillanes warns President Duterte

Auckland-based Samoan photographer Evotia Tamua will use an artist residency at the National University of Samoa to complete a 20-year photography project documenting the changing lives of people in Salelesi village.

Creative New Zealand, in partnership with the National University of Samoa, offers an annual three-month artist residency in Apia. Established in 2006, the residency celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

Describing herself as related to almost everyone in Salelesi, on Upolu Island, Evotia will continue her photography culminating in a solo exhibition at MADD Gallery in Samoa this year and in Auckland in 2017.

“I started this project in 1994 when I began my career as a professional photographer. Travelling to Samoa almost yearly I have photographed how the village has adapted to social, political and environmental change,” says Evotia.

“The village has gone from box type TVs or no TVs to large flat screens in open fale. People have migrated from the village, been banished from the village, married into the village, died in the village or are now growing old there.”

Arts Council member Luamanuvao Winnie Laban said: “This is a fascinating project which I am sure will generate great interest in Samoa and New Zealand.  I am looking forward to seeing this wonderful collection of images by such a gifted photographer in one space.”

Evotia Tamua specialises in documenting the Pacific way of life in the islands and in Auckland. She has exhibited her work in New Zealand, Samoa, Australia and England.  Her photography has appeared in Pacific New Zealand and Samoa: Pacific Pride.

Gap in market
In 2007, seeing a gap in the market for Pacific book publishing, she helped found Little Island Press.

In 2008, she published Pacific Auckland, which documents the lives of Pacific Islanders in Auckland, and Polynesian Festival which has a selection of 15 years of photographs from the ASB Polyfest.

Evotia has also worked on projects with visual artist Fatu Feu’u and multi-disciplinary artist Yuki Kihara.

Evotia works as a commercial photographer and has also worked as a tutor and newspaper photographer.

The residency offers New Zealand Pasifika artists the opportunity to develop their potential, skills and practice and is open to established mid-career and senior Pasifika artists who are resident in New Zealand.

Previous recipients include visual artist Siliga Setoga, multidisciplinary artist Shigeyuki Kihara, choreographer/director Lemi Ponifasio, actor/director Nathaniel Lees, the late curator Jim Vivieaere, playwright Fiona Collins, installation artist Tiffany Singh, and the VaHine Collective (Lonnie Hutchinson, Lily Laita and Niki Hastings-McFall).

“Warm Waters’” a photoessay on climate change by Russian photojournalist Vlad Sokhin, is the best piece of reporting on climate change in the Pacific. It is a must-see collection!

Sokhin’s images and text capture the grave threat climate change poses to the Pacific islands from sea level rise, hotter weather, changes to rainfall and stronger cyclones.

Browse the photoessay here, and encourage your colleagues and friends to see it too!

• Vlad Sokhin’s Warm Waters photoessay on climate change
• Vlad Sokhin’s website
• Vlad Sokhin at Panos Pictures
• Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness reports, videos and images

A unique photographic exhibition in Amsterdam shows what the Dutch state tried to hide from its people about the grueling war it fought against Indonesia, its former colony.

An Indonesian girl playing a tiny banjo sits among smiling Dutch soldiers on a military vehicle, surrounded by locals. This jovial image belies the fact that the streets of Surakarta, Central Java, on December 21, 1948 ­ the day the photo was shot ­ were deserted as the Dutch had just renewed its military offensive on Java.

“The official image of the war on Java and Sumatra aimed at manipulating public opinion,” said the opening text of the exhibition “Colonial War 1945–1949: Desired and Undesired Images” at Amsterdam’s Dutch Resistance Museum.

“Without images of violence there seemed to be no war.”

During World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by Germany on their home soil and by Japan in their colony of the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch barely had time to savour their freedom after Germany’s surrender in May 1945 when it was jolted by its colony’s independence proclamation on August 17, 1945.

In the next four years, close to 100,000 Dutch soldiers ­ out of a population of just under 10 million ­ were sent off to Indonesia in what the exhibition calls “the biggest war the Dutch had ever fought”. Most of the soldiers were drafted. Almost 6,000 Dutch soldiers lost their lives, while 150,000 Indonesians ­ military and civilian ­ died during the clashes.

The Dutch government, however, did its best to hide the intensity of that war, calling it a politionele actie, police action.

‘Serving the people’
“The government wanted to present the image that their soldiers were serving the people in the colony,” said historian Erik Somers of the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies NIOD,  ­ one of the exhibition’s initiators.

During that war the Dutch military information service DLC, the exhibition explains, “basically decided what could be reported”.

“There were barely any Dutch journalists and photographers in the country [Indonesia] at the time and many areas were extremely dangerous […] people in the Netherlands saw very little pictorial evidence of the violence.”

The exhibition lets the images tell the story: it chronologically goes through the four years of war, with “desired” and “undesired” images put side by side.

One corner, for example, shows photos of Dutch soldiers distributing food to villagers, while the next panel shows unpublished photos of terrified Indonesian prisoners. Or corpses in a ditch.

The censorship went as far as staging pictures, said exhibition co-initiator Louis Zweers.

“There is one photo of a supposedly jubilant local crowd welcoming Dutch soldiers in Malang [East Java]. If you look closely, however, you can see a soldier on the sidelines directing the crowd,” historian Zweers said during a seminar in January at Amsterdam’s Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences KNAW.

Photos that did not pass the censor include one from August 1946, which still had the original caption written by photographer H. Wilmar: “An extremist who fired on our marines from a ditch tried to escape, but was captured by a marine. The marines would possibly take the man as a prisoner to extract information about the enemy”.

“I’d be surprised if this man made it out alive,” commented a visitor at the exhibition, Klaas Westrene, as he scrutinised the photograph. “It’s good that this exhibition sheds some light on this episode.”

Also on display are illustrated magazines, such as Panorama and De Spiegel,which “showed little of the military operations”, and instead presented “soldiers on patrol, distributing clothes and providing medical care to the native population”.

Somers points out that “there was hardly any reporting in the Dutch press on the euphoric mood among Indonesians regarding their independence [in August 1945]”.

The most stirring part comes at the end of the exposition, where ageing photo albums belonging to soldiers are displayed.

One yellowed page shows small black-and-white photos: first of Indonesian prisoners marching, while the next are of their corpses. The neat hand-written captions read: “There were prisoners being held, but when we’re being fired upon things get nasty, and then some people die”.

Linawati Sidarto is a Jakarta Post contributor in Amsterdam.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully launched the think-tank, saying it was aimed at supporting sustainable development in the region. Photographs by Del Abcede of the Pacific Media Centre.

Launching the NZIPR

1 of 12

Reporters Without Borders has unveiled its new video campaign, War Reporters. Its release coincides with the publication of RSF’s 50th book in the “100 photos for press freedom” series – this one dedicated to the work of Robert Capa.

Created by the advertising agency BETC (Production Stink and director Owen Trevor), this video highlights the urgency of supporting photoreporters, without whom we would never know the realities of war.

Let’s support those who risk their lives every day to keep us informed and provide us with independent images that are very different from the official ones served up by governments.

As the photoreporter James Nachtwey said: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”

There are the official images. And there is the reality. Photoreporters are heroes. They are men and women who put their life on the line every day.

The craft has lost 40 percent of its personnel in the past 15 years. Supporting them is really urgent.

Thanks to them, newspapers manage to publish reportage photos of great quality. New festivals enable photoreporters to continue working independently and to experience the public’s interest, which proves that the demand is there.

Let’s support photoreporters, so that they are able to work in way that provides a vision of the world that is nuanced, human and complex, one that makes a debate possible.

Let’s support those who show us what the official images don’t show.

Without independent reporters, war would be a pretty show….

Reviewed by David Robie

Saving Independent Journalism: 30 Years Defending Media (39pp); Hostile Climate of Environmental Journalists (27pp). 2015. Paris, France: Reporters Without Borders.

THIRTY years ago, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) began its global campaign for the protection of journalists and against propaganda as a fledgling NGO in the southern French city of Montpellier. As it declares in the editorial of this publication marking the event, RSF has been “cheekily climbing the barricades, boldly waving freedom’s banner, proclaiming the virtues of journalism, supporting heroes, dispensing safety equipment, funding resistance and applying pressure in the palaces where the laws are written” (p. 3).

Three decades on and the now Paris-based agency has matured into a “big little NGO”. It has consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, Council of Europe and the Independent Organisation of La Francophonie. Saving Independent Journalism recounts RSF’s growth and many high points of its media freedom campaigns.

The agency communicates in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Farsi daily and frequently uses Russian and Chinese as well.

It has correspondents in 130 countries – including Australia, NZ and five Pacific countries, eight autonomous national sections and bureau in 12 cities around the world. Two more in the pipeline for Hong Kong and Sao Paulo.

The agency has made many submissions and interventions over press freedom in the South Pacific, notably over Fiji during eight years of military dictatorship from 2006-2014.

Among countless media people RSF has defended are Hla Hla Win, a young woman Burmese journalist sentenced to 27 years in prison for interviewing Buddhist monks during the 2007 “Safron Revolution”; Mexican publisher Jesús Lemus Barajas of El Tiempo newspaper who disappeared while investigating a drug cartel (he was found in jail on trumped up charges and three of his lawyers were murdered); Saudi blogger Raïf Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes over a charge of apostasy; and award-winning Chinese journalist Gao Yu who has been imprisoned since 2014 for sending a copy of an internal Community Party memo to a foreign news organisation.

RSF secretary general Christophe Deloire argues: “Whether totalitarian … violent or soft, information control is taking unprecedented forms that free citizens must oppose with all their strength.” He also offers a strong message for supporters.

The second RSF title reviewed here is very timely, coinciding with the COP21 climate summit in Paris. Hostile Climate for Environmental Journalists has investigated threats to freedom of information about the environment rather than risks to the environment itself:

“The [3000] journalists accredited to COP21 [were] in no danger (except the danger of pressure from lobbyists) but the same cannot be said of many of their colleagues, who are often exposed to terrible dangers.”

The report shows that at least 10 journalists covering environmental issues were murdered between 2010 (the last RSF report) and 2015 – three-fifths of them in the Asia-Pacific region: Cambodia (2), India (2), Indonesia (2), Philippines (2) and Russia (2).

As well as documenting the murder with impunity cases, the report highlights the case of eight “green journalists in red zones” in Algeria, India, Italy, Liberia, Maldives, Russia and Vietnam.

RSF cites gagging by countries such as China, Ecuador and Canada, and notes that many environmental journalists are forming associations with the aim of improving the quality of their stories and protecting their members in the field.