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Category: Asia Report

  • Weaponising antisemitism – BDS, antisemitism and the silencing of criticism of Israel

    COMMENTARY: By Cathy Peters

    To be Jewish does not mean an automatic identification with the rogue state of Israel. Nor does it mean that Jews are automatically threatened by criticism of Israel, yet our media and Labor and Liberal politicians would have you believe this is the case.

    We are seeing a debate in Australia about the so-called rise of antisemitism which includes rally chants for Gaza at a time when we are witnessing the most horrific Israeli genocide of Palestinians in which our government is complicit.

    Jewish peak bodies here and internationally have continually linked their identity to that of Israel.

    Why? Can generations of Jews in this country still believe that Israel represents anything like the myths that were perpetrated at its inception?

    The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Jewish Board of Deputies and others, all staunchly defend this apartheid state that is accused of plausible genocide by the UN International Court of Justice and confirmed by dozens of human rights and legal NGOs, UN Rapporteurs, medical organisations and holocaust scholars.

    Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister have been charged as war criminals by the International Criminal Court and must be arrested and tried in the Hague, yet Australia maintains a cosy relationship with Israel and our media dutifully repeats its outright lies verbatim.

    Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been the main focus of the Israeli state and its defenders for decades. With the emergence of the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement in 2005, Israel’s narrative was countered, leading to a persistent Israeli directed campaign to link BDS with antisemitism.

    Colonial, occupying power
    BDS focuses on the actions of Israel as a colonial, occupying power violating international law against the indigenous people of Palestine. It is anti-racist and human rights-centred.

    On December 11, we heard Prime Minister Albanese at the Jewish Museum in Sydney combining his support for Jewish people with his ongoing condemnation and active campaigning against BDS.

    He referred to the Marrickville Council BDS motion, (which I proposed back in 2010 along with my Greens councillor colleague, Marika Kontellis), and again repeated the bald-faced mistruths that were spread back then about BDS and the intent and focus of the Marrickville motion.

    “I was part of a campaign against BDS in my own local government area. At the time I argued that if you start targeting businesses because they happen to be owned by Jewish people, you’ll end up with the Star of David above shops.

    “And that ended in World War II, during the Holocaust, with six million lives lost, murdered. We need an end to antisemitism.”

    In one sentence we see Albanese’s extremely offensive equation of the horror of the Holocaust and antisemitism, directly linked to BDS. Why would a prime minister and local federal member deliberately mischaracterise BDS, given the movement has always been clear that its targets are global companies and corporations that are complicit in the Israeli state’s apartheid and genocidal actions, as well as Israeli government bodies and arms companies?

    What is in it for Albanese, Wong, Plibersek or Dutton and all of the politicians back in 2010/2011 who appeared to think there was political advantage in scapegoating BDS by jumping on the frenzied anti-BDS campaign?

    Fawning support for Israel
    It was obvious back then, as it is now, that their fawning support for the rogue Israeli state knows no bounds. Lock step in line with the United States outlier position, Australia has maintained its repugnant inaction in the face of 15 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite continued condemnation by the UN and a majority of states.

    But Australia has, however, appointed a public supporter of Zionism and the Israeli state, as its special envoy on antisemitism.

    The inaction by all states since 1948 to apply sanctions has gifted Israel the impunity that’s led to its industrial scale slaughter of innocents in Gaza and its continuing violence and killing of civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All governments must bear responsibility for this.

    Albanese has been described as an opportunist, liar and a bully.

    At the time of the Marrickville BDS, he used the situation to attempt to discredit the Greens who were challenging the incumbent Labor state member, Carmel Tebbutt (his former wife). He fanned the national media frenzy that was fed by pro-Israel Jewish lobbyists who were the long-time custodians of the “reputation” of Israel.

    Marrickville Council and the Greens were characterised as antisemites who would be pulling Jewish books out of the local library.

    This insanity was akin to what is happening today. The legitimate opposition to the worst, most egregious, brutality of the Israeli state has somehow been cleverly morphed into so-called expressions of antisemitism.

    Absurd claims on protest
    In the media conference of December 11, Albanese also made absurd claims that the peaceful 24-hour protest outside his electorate office in Marrickville was displaying Hamas symbols in a vile attempt to discredit the constituents he had refused to meet for more than eight months.

    He and his colleagues in Canberra continue to appease the powerful Israel lobby at the expense of our rights and the rights and visibility of the whole Palestinian population here and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories who are now literally on death row.

    Back then, we heard locally that he and the party had bullied the four Labor councillors to vote to rescind the Marrickville BDS motion that they had all previously wholeheartedly supported. Some months earlier these same councillors had also supported a motion condemning the latest Israeli strike against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

    The meaning of BDS was no secret to them — they appreciated that it was important for a council to check its ethical purchasing guidelines to ensure that it was not supporting companies that were in violation of international human rights law by operating in the illegal Israeli settlements or by providing technology or services that maintained Israel’s apartheid and dispossession of Palestinians.

    They knew then, as we know now, that this is not antisemitic. They knew then that no Jewish businesses per se were the target of this peaceful civil rights movement. And they knew then that the Labor Party was lying for political gain.

    Now, as for far too many decades, political parties in power in this country have failed Palestinians for political gain and at the behest of Israel lobby groups which dare to speak on behalf of anti-Zionist Jews like me.

    Despite all the gratuitous rhetoric, these politicians have failed to uphold the basic precepts of human rights law — rights they regularly give lip service to, but rights they will never defend by taking the action required of them as signatories to numerous UN conventions.

    Australia must sanction Israel
    To act with humanity and to act as required by international law, Australia must sanction and end all economic and military ties with the Israeli state.

    We must expel the Israeli ambassador and bring our ambassador back and we must prosecute any Australian citizen or resident who has joined the IDF to kill Palestinians. We must also support Palestinian refugees and take all action necessary to assist those in Gaza for as long as it takes.

    But as we have seen so clearly this year, most governments have not acted to pressure Israel to end its barbaric colonial project. To protest as allies and to call out the hypocrisy of governments and politicians that speak of a rules-based order while enabling a state that has continually breached fundamental human rights laws, is to be called antisemitic.

    The pressure applied to governments, universities and the like in recent years to adopt the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism is precisely because it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

    It’s the perfect tool for shutting down condemnation of Israel’s grave human rights violations. We’ve seen some universities and parliaments endorse it in deference to this pressure, despite the serious flaws that have been identified, including from Jewish Israeli experts.

    Now more than ever BDS is imperative.

    BDS campaigns will work to isolate Israel as it should be isolated until it complies with international law. Multinational companies are increasingly loath to be associated with this terror state.

    Major pension funds are divesting from companies that are complicit in Israel’s human rights violations and local councils, unions and universities are taking steps to ensure they divest from any partnerships or investments that would make them part of the chain of complicity and liable for prosecution by the International Court of Justice as enabling Israel’s genocide.

    The facts are indisputable. Australia’s complicity with Israel’s genocide and colonisation of Palestine can be countered by individuals, churches, unions, councils and students taking immediate and urgent BDS action.

    Do not wait for Labor or Liberal politicians in this country to act, as they are doing their best to shut us down and to appease Israel. Their complicity will never be forgotten.

    Cathy Peters is a former Greens councillor on the Marrickville Council from 2008-2011 and the co-founder of BDS Australia. She worked as a radio producer and executive producer for the ABC for 30 years making some documentaries on the Israeli occupation. She is Jewish and her grandparents and other relatives perished in the Holocaust. She has travelled to Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories on a number of occasions and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights and justice. First published in the Australia social policy journal Pearls and Irritations and republished with permission.

  • Young Israelis ‘don’t want peace’, warns former Israeli top diplomat

    Asia Pacific Report

    A former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Alon Liel, has warned over a “dangerous” attitude of younger generations in Israel towards the war on Gaza.

    “They’re accepting the fact that there is no alternative to fighting, and this is the majority, especially the young people today,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.

    He added that as part of the older generation in Israel, he could remember a time when even the right wing used to say they wanted peace.

    “Now young people . . . say we don’t want peace. We will not benefit from peace,” he said.

    Liel said that he believed it ws “a very dangerous attitude that is developing” and there needed to be “a very fundamental change in the thinking of Israel, and maybe a fundamental change in the attitude of the international community to the conflict, too”.

    He also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had so far failed to achieve his goals in the 15-month war — “destroying” Hamas and freeing the hostages.

    Israelis were frustrated that captives remained in Gaza and surprised that, in recent weeks, Israeli military activity there had intensified, Liel said.

    ‘Surprised’ over military intensity
    “Generally speaking, Israelis are quite surprised that the intensity of the military activity is growing. I think the general feeling here was a month or two ago that [the war] will fade away and slow down, but it is not,” he said.

    Two Israeli soldiers were killed and six wounded yesterday in further battles with the Palestinian resistance in northern Gaza.

    Netanyahu, meanwhile, still faced the problems of looking like he had no victory in the war, and that any prisoner exchange with Hamas could topple him, he added.

    “Any exchange will involve the release of many prisoners we have in our jails, and might — and probably will — topple his government,” Liel said.

    “So he’s trying to manoeuvre and trying to find the point in time in which we will not be seeing the Hamas people and their supporters dancing in Gaza when they get the prisoners back and describing the result as a victory.”

    Brazil court order over Israeli soldier
    Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, hailed a decision by a court in Brazil to order a probe against a visiting Israeli soldier, saying legal actions against Israelis suspected of crimes in Gaza were “necessary and overdue”.

    The remarks on X came in response to the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) announcing that a Brazilian court had acted on a complaint it had filed against Israeli solider Yuval Vagdani and ordered the country’s police to launch an investigation.

    Israeli media later reported that Vagdani had fled the South American country.

    The Hind Rajab Foundation was established to breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honouring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.

    Hind Rajab was a five-year-old girl murdered by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024 in a car in which six family members were also killed, and two would-be paramedic rescuers were also slaughtered. She died with 335 bullet wounds in her body.

    “Apartheid Israel will go to great lengths to shield its soldiers since a conviction abroad for crimes against Palestinians is a precedent it cannot afford,” Albanese wrote on X.

    “Yet, justice is unstoppable,” she said.

    Israeli plans to help accused soldiers
    The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Israel’s government was preparing to assist soldiers who may face arrest for participating in war crimes in Gaza when they travel abroad.

    So far, more than 50 complaints have been filed against Israeli soldiers in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Belgium, France and Brazil.

    Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Al Jazeera is part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, say activists and analysts.

    The ban came almost a month after the PA launched a crackdown on a coalition of armed groups that call themselves the Jenin Brigades, reports Al Jazeera.

    The groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

    Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most of its residents in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.

    An Israeli apartheid placard at last Saturday's Auckland solidarity for Gaza health professionals
    An Israeli apartheid placard at last Saturday’s Auckland solidarity for Gaza health professionals . . . the crime against humanity includes the “intent to maintain domination of one racial group over another”. Image: APR

    indiscriminate Jenin tactics
    However, its indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and human rights groups told Al Jazeera.

    Critics have claimed that the PA crackdown due to pressure by the Israeli authorities which have also imposed recent bans on Al Jazeera.

    The PA originated with the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. It mandated that the PA recognise Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.

    Israel, however, has used the last 30 years block statehood while to expanding illegal settlements on large swathes of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank to 700,000.

    As an occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the PA is supposed to be in full control.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Ghost of Suharto’ marks Prabowo’s new phase in West Papua occupation

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Paul Gregoire

    United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) provisional government interim president Benny Wenda has warned that since Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto took office in October, he has been proven right in having remarked, after the politician’s last February election, that his coming marks the return of “the ghost of Suharto” — the brutal dictator who ruled over the nation for three decades.

    Wenda, an exiled West Papuan leader, outlined in a December 16 statement that at that moment the Indonesian forces were carrying out ethnic cleansing in multiple regencies, as thousands of West Papuans were being forced out of their villages and into the bush by soldiers.

    The entire regency of Oksop had been emptied, with more than 1200 West Papuans displaced since an escalation began in Nduga regency in 2018.

    Prabowo coming to top office has a particular foreboding for the West Papuans, who have been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, as over his military career — which spanned from 1970 to 1998 and saw rise him to the position of general, as well as mainly serve in Kopassus (special forces) — the current president perpetrated multiple alleged atrocities across East Timor and West Papua.

    According to Wenda, the incumbent Indonesian president can “never clean the blood from his hands for his crimes as a general in West Papua and East Timor”. He further makes clear that Prabowo’s acts since taking office reveal that he is set on “creating a new regime of brutality” in the country of his birth.

    Enhancing the occupation
    “Foreign governments should not be fooled by Prabowo’s PR campaign,” Wenda made certain in mid-December.

    “He is desperately seeking international legitimacy through his international tour, empty environmental pledges and the amnesty offered to various prisoners, including 18 West Papuans and the remaining imprisoned members of the Bali Nine.”

    Former Indonesian President Suharto ruled over the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1967 until 1998.

    In the years prior to his officially taking office, General Suharto oversaw the mass murder of up to 1 million local Communists, he further rigged the 1969 referendum on self-determination for West Papua, so that it failed and he invaded East Timor in 1975.

    Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto (left) and West Papuan exiled leader Benny Wenda
    Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto (left) and West Papuan exiled leader Benny Wenda . . . “Foreign governments should not be fooled by Prabowo’s PR campaign.” Image: SCL montage

    Wenda maintains that the proof Prabowo is something of an apparition of Suharto is that he has set about forging “mass displacement, increased militarisation” and “increased deforestation” in the Melanesian region of West Papua.

    And he has further restarted the transmigration programme of the Suharto days, which involves Indonesians being moved to West Papua to populate the region.

    As Wenda advised in 2015, the initial transmigration programme resulted in West Papuans, who made up 96 percent of the population in 1971, only comprising 49 percent of those living in their own homelands at that current time.

    Wenda considers the “occupation was entering a new phase”, when former Indonesian president Joko Widodo split the region of West Papua into five provinces in mid-2022.

    Oksop displaced villagers
    Oksop displaced villagers seeking refuge in West Papua. Image: ULMWP

    And the West Papuan leader advises that Prabowo is set to establish separate military commands in each province, which will provide “a new, more thorough and far-reaching system of occupation”.

    West Papua was previously split into two regions, which the West Papuan people did not recognise, as these and the current five provinces are actually Indonesian administrative zones.

    “By establishing new administrative divisions, Indonesia creates the pretext for new military posts and checkpoints,” Wenda underscores.

    “The result is the deployment of thousands more soldiers, curfews, arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses. West Papua is under martial law.”

    Ecocide on a formidable scale
    Prabowo paid his first official visit to West Papua as President in November, visiting the Merauke district in South Papua province, which is the site of the world’s largest deforestation project, with clearing beginning in mid-2024, and it will eventually comprise of 2 million deforested hectares turned into giant sugarcane plantations, via the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands.

    Five consortiums, including Indonesian and foreign companies, are involved in the project, with the first seedlings having been planted in July. And despite promises that the megaproject would not harm existing forests, these areas are being torn down regardless.

    And part of this deforestation includes the razing of forest that had previously been declared protected by the government.

    A similar programme was established in Merauke district in 2011, by Widodo’s predecessor President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who established rice and sugarcane plantations in the region, aiming to turn it into a “future breadbasket for Indonesia”.

    However, the plan was a failure, and the project was rather used as a cover to establish hazardous palm oil and pulpwood plantations.

    “It is not a coincidence Prabowo has announced a new transmigration programme at the same time as their ecocidal deforestation regime intensifies,” Wenda said in a November 2024 statement. “These twin agendas represent the two sides of Indonesian colonialism in West Papua: exploitation and settlement.”

    Wenda added that Jakarta is only interested in West Papuan land and resources, and in exchange, Indonesia has killed at least half a million West Papuans since 1963.

    And while the occupying nation is funding other projects via the profits it has been making on West Papuan palm oil, gold and natural gas, the West Papuan provinces are the poorest in the Southeast Asian nation.

    Indonesian military forces on patrol in the Oksop regency of the West Papua region
    Indonesian military forces on patrol in the Oksop regency of the West Papua region. Image: ULMWP

    Independence is still key
    The 1962 New York Agreement involved the Netherlands, West Papua’s former colonial rulers, signing over the region to Indonesia. A brief United Nations administrative period was to be followed by Jakarta assuming control of the region on 1 May 1963.

    And part of the agreement was that West Papuans undertake the Act of Free Choice, or a 1969 referendum on self-determination.

    So, if the West Papuans did not vote to become an autonomous nation, then Indonesian administration would continue.

    However, the UN brokered referendum is now referred to as the Act of “No Choice”, as it only involved 1026 West Papuans, handpicked by Indonesia. And under threat of violence, all of these men voted to stick with their colonial oppressors.

    Wenda presented The People’s Petition to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner in January 2019, which calls for a new internationally supervised vote on self-determination for the people of West Papua, and it included the signatures of 1.8 million West Papuans, or 70 percent of the Indigenous population.

    The exiled West Papuan leader further announced the formation of the West Papua provisional government on 1 December 2020, which involved the establishment of entire departments of government with heads of staff appointed on the ground in the Melanesian province, and Wenda was also named the president of the body.

    But with the coming of Prabowo and the recent developments in West Papua, it appears the West Papuan struggle is about to intensify at the same time as the movement for independence becomes increasingly more prominent on the global stage.

    “Every element of West Papua is being systematically destroyed: our land, our people, our Melanesian culture identity,” Wenda said in November, in response to the recommencement of Indonesia’s transmigration programme and the massive environment devastation in Merauke.

    “This is why it is not enough to speak about the Act of No Choice in 1969: the violation of our self-determination is continuous, renewed with every new settlement programme, police crackdown, or ecocidal development.”

    Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He is the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Abducted Gaza doctor’s life in danger due to torture – call for immediate international intervention

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

    The fate of Palestinian Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was “arrested” by Israeli forces last month after defiantly staying with his patients when his hospital was being attacked, featured strongly at yesterday’s medical professionals solidarity rally in Auckland.

    The Israeli government bears full responsibility for the life of Dr Abu Safiya’s life amid alarming indications of torture and ill-treatment since his detention.

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has received information that Dr Abu Safiya’s health has deteriorated due to the torture he endured during his detention, particularly while being held at the Sde Teyman military base in southern Israel.

    Euro-Med Monitor warns of the grave risk to his life, following patterns of deliberate killings and deaths under torture previously suffered by other doctors and medical staff arrested from Gaza since October 2023.

    Euro-Med Monitor has documented testimonies confirming that Israeli soldiers physically assaulted Dr Abu Safiya immediately after he left the hospital on Friday, 27 December 2024. He was then directly targeted with sound bombs while attempting to evacuate the hospital in compliance with orders from the Israeli army.

    According to testimonies gathered by Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army subsequently transferred Dr Abu Safiya to a field interrogation site in the Al-Fakhura area of Jabalia Refugee Camp.

    There, he was forced to strip off his clothes and was subjected to severe beatings, including being whipped with a thick wire commonly used for street electrical wiring. Soldiers deliberately humiliated him in front of other detainees, including fellow medical staff.

    Transferred to Sde Teyman military camp
    He was later taken to an undisclosed location before being transferred to the Sde Teyman military camp under Israeli army control.

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has also received information from recently released detainees at the Sde Teyman military camp, confirming that Dr Abu Safiya was subjected to severe torture, leading to a significant deterioration in his health.

    Protester Jason holds a placard calling for Kamal Adwan Hospital medical director Dr Hussam Abu Safiyyan to be set free
    Protester Jason holds a placard calling for Kamal Adwan Hospital medical director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya to be set free at yesterday’s Palestinian solidarity rally in Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR

    This occurred despite him already being wounded by Israeli air strikes on the hospital, where he worked tirelessly until the facility was stormed and set ablaze by Israeli forces.

    The Israeli army has attempted to mislead the public regarding Dr Abu Safiya’s detention and torture.

    Pro-Israeli media outlets circulated a misleading promotional video portraying his treatment as humane, even though he was tortured and humiliated immediately after filming.

    Euro-Med Monitor warns of the severe implications of Israel’s denial of Dr Abu Safiya’s detention, describing this as a deeply troubling indicator of his fate and detention conditions. This denial also reflects a blatant disregard for binding legal standards.

    Physicians for Human Rights — Israel (PHRI) submitted a request on behalf of Dr Abu Safiya’s family to obtain information and facilitate a lawyer’s visit on 2 January 2024. However, the Israeli authorities claimed to have no record of his detention, stating they had no indication of his arrest.

    Dr Hussam Abu Safiya
    Dr Hussam Abu Safiya . . . subjected to severe torture, leading to a significant deterioration in his health. Image: Euro-Med Monitor

    Deep concern over execution risk
    Euro-Med Monitor expresses deep concern that Dr Abu Safiya may face execution during his detention, similar to the fate of Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, head of the orthopaedics department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, who was killed under torture at Ofer Detention Centre on 19 April 2024.

    Dr Al-Bursh had been detained along with colleagues from Al-Awda Hospital in December 2023.

    Likewise, Dr Iyad Al-Rantisi, head of the obstetrics department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, was killed due to torture at an Israeli Shin Bet interrogation centre in Ashkelon, one week after his detention in November 2023. Israeli authorities concealed his death for more than seven months.

    Dozens of doctors and medical staff remain subjected to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in Israeli prisons and detention centres, where they face severe torture and solitary confinement, according to testimonies from former detainees.

    The last photograph of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, before he arrested and abducted by Israeli forces
    The last photograph of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, before he was arrested and abducted by Israeli forces. Image: @jeremycorbyn screenshot APR

    The detention of Dr Abu Safiya must be understood within the context of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has persisted for nearly 15 months. His arrest, torture, and potential execution form part of a broader strategy aimed at destroying the Palestinian people in Gaza — both physically and psychologically — and breaking their will.

    This strategy includes not only the deliberate destruction of the health sector and the disruption of medical staff operations, particularly in northern Gaza, but also an attack on the symbolic and humanitarian role represented by Dr Abu Safiya.

    Despite the grave crimes committed against Kamal Adwan Hospital, its staff, and patients, especially in the past two months, Dr Abu Safiya remained unwavering in his dedication to providing essential medical care and fulfilling his medical duties.

    Call on states, UN to take immediate steps
    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor calls on all concerned states, international entities, and UN bodies to take immediate and effective measures to secure the unconditional release of Dr Abu Safiya. His fundamental rights to life, physical safety, and dignity must be protected, shielding him from torture or any cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

    Euro-Med Monitor also urges international and local human rights organisations to be granted full access to visit Dr Abu Safiya, monitor his health condition, provide necessary medical treatment, and ensure he is free from human rights violations until his release.

    Furthermore, Euro-Med Monitor reiterates its call for the United Nations to deploy an international investigative mission to examine the grave crimes and violations faced by Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

    It calls for the immediate release of those detained arbitrarily, for international and local organisations to be granted visitation rights, and for detainees to have access to legal representation.

    Euro-Med Monitor expresses regret over the continued inaction of Alice Jill Edwards, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, who has failed to address these atrocities. It condemns her bias and deliberate negligence in fulfilling her mandate and calls for her dismissal.

    A new Special Rapporteur who is neutral and committed to universal human rights principles must be appointed.

    Additionally, Euro-Med Monitor urges the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to conduct immediate and thorough investigations into crimes committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

    Call for prosecution of Israeli crimes
    It calls for direct engagement with victims and families, as well as for reports to be submitted to pave the way for investigative committees, fact-finding missions, and international courts to prosecute Israeli crimes, hold perpetrators accountable, and compensate victims in line with international law.

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor renews its call for relevant states and entities to fulfil their legal obligations to halt the genocide in Gaza.

    This includes imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, holding it accountable for its crimes, and taking effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians. Immediate steps must also be taken to prevent forced displacement, ensure the return of residents, release arbitrarily detained Palestinians, and facilitate the urgent entry of life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza without obstacles.

    Finally, Euro-Med Monitor demands the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the entire Gaza Strip.

    Republished from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel orders patients, staff to ‘evacuate’ last two hospitals in northern Gaza siege

    Asia Pacific Report

    Israel is forcing two hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate under threat of attack as its ethnic cleansing campaign continues.

    Israeli forces have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital, where many staff and patients sought shelter after nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was destroyed in an Israeli raid last week, reports Al Jazeera.

    Late on Friday, a forced order to evacuate was also issued for the al-Awda Hospital, where 100 people are believed to be sheltering.

    The evacuation order came today as New Zealand Palestine solidarity protesters followed a silent vigil outside Auckland Hospital yesterday with a rally in downtown Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today, where doctors and other professional health staff called for support for Gaza’s besieged health facilities and protection for medical workers.

    Protester Jason holds a placard calling for Kamal Adwan Hospital medical director Dr Hussam Abu Safiyyan to be set free
    Protester Jason holds a placard calling for Kamal Adwan Hospital medical director Dr Hussam Abu Safiyyan to be set free at today’s Palestinian solidarity rally in Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR

    When one New Zealand medical professional recalled the first time that the Israel military bombed a hospital in in Gaza November 2023, the world was “ready to accept the the lies that Israel told then”.

    “Of course, they wouldn’t bomb a hospital, who would bomb a hospital? That’s a horrible war crime, if must have been Hamas that bombed themselves.

    “And the world let Israel get away with it. That’s the time that we knew if the world let Israel get away with it once, they would repeat it again and again and we would allow a dangerous precedent to be set where health care workers and health care centres would become targets over and over again.

    “In the past year it is exactly what we have seen,” he said to cries of shame.

    “We have seen not only the targeting of health care infrastructure, but the targeting of healthcare workers.

    “The murdering of healthcare workers, of aid workers all across Gaza at the hands of Israel — openly without any word of opposition from our government, without a word of opposition from any global government about these war crimes and genocidal actions until today.”

    In an impassioned speech about the devastating price that Gazans were paying for the Israeli war, New Zealand Palestinian doctor and Gaza survivor Dr Abdallah Gouda vowed that his people would keep their dream for an independent state of Palestine and “we will never leave Gaza”.

    The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation into the Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals and medical workers.

    Volker Türk told the UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East that Israeli claims of Hamas launching attacks from hospitals in Gaza were often “vague” and sometimes “contradicted by publicly available information”.

    Tino rangatiratanga and Palestinian flags at the Gazan health workers solidarity rally
    Tino rangatiratanga and Palestinian flags at the Gazan health workers solidarity rally in Auckland today. Image: David Robie/APR

    Palestine urges UN to end Gaza genocide, ‘Israeli impunity’
    Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said: “It is our collective responsibility to bring this hell to an end. It is our collective responsibility to bring this genocide to an end.”

    The UNSC meeting on the Middle East came following last week’s raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arbitrary arrest and detention of its director, Hussam Abu Safia.

    “You have an obligation to save lives”, Mansour told the council.

    “Palestinian doctors and medical personnel took that mission to heart at the peril of their lives. They did not abandon the victims.

    “Do not abandon them. End Israeli impunity. End the genocide. End this aggression immediately and unconditionally, now.”

    Palestinian doctors and medical personnel were fighting to save human lives and losing their own while hospitals are under attack, he added.

    “They are fighting a battle they cannot win, and yet they are unwilling to surrender and to betray the oath they took,” he said.

    Norway is the latest country to condemn the attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers.

    On X, the country’s Foreign Ministry said that “urgent action” was needed to restore north Gaza’s hospitals, which were continuously subjected to Israeli attack.

    Without naming Israel, the ministry said that “health workers, patients and hospitals are not lawful targets”.

    A critical "NZ media is Zionist media" placard at today's Auckland solidarity rally for Palestinian health workers
    A critical “NZ media is Zionist media” placard at today’s Auckland solidarity rally for Palestinian health workers. Image: APR

    Israel ‘deprives 40,000’ of healthcare in northern Gaza
    The Israeli military is systematically destroying hospitals in northern Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said.

    In a statement, it said: “The Israeli occupation continues its heinous crimes and arbitrary aggression against hospitals and medical teams in northern Gaza, reflecting a dangerous and deliberate escalation.”

    These acts, it added, were being carried out amid “unjustified silence of the international community and the UN Security Council”, violating international humanitarian law and human rights conventions.

    The statement highlighted the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital, where its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, was arrested and reportedly subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

    The GMO described these acts as “full-fledged war crimes”.

    According to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli military had conducted more than 136 air raids on at least 27 hospitals and 12 medical facilities across Gaza in the past eight months.

    The GMO report demanded an independent international investigation into these violations and accountability for Israel in international courts.

    Protesters at today's Auckland rally in solidarity with Palestinian health workers
    Protesters at today’s Auckland rally in solidarity with Palestinian health workers under attack from Israeli military. Image: David Robie/APR

    Amnesty International criticises detention of Kamal Adwan doctor
    Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, said Israel’s detention of Dr Hussam Abu Safia underscored a pattern of “genocidal intent and genocidal acts” by Israel in Gaza.

    “Dr Abu Safia’s unlawful detention is emblematic of the broader attacks on the healthcare sector in Gaza and Israel’s attempts to annihilate it,” Callamard said in a social media post.

    “None of the medical staff abducted by Israeli forces since November 2023 from Gaza during raids on hospitals and clinics has been charged or put before a trial; those released after enduring unimaginable torture were never charged and did not stand trial.

    “Those still detained remain held without charges or trial under inhumane conditions and at risk of torture,” she added.

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa secretary Neil Scott speaking at today's Auckland rally
    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa secretary Neil Scott speaking at today’s Auckland rally supporting health workers under Israeli attack in Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Suspend Israel ties’ plea to global medical professionals – Auckland hospital protest vigil over Gaza

    Asia Pacific Report

    The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, has called on “medical professionals worldwide” to suspend ties with Israel in an act of solidarity with the more than “1000 colleagues of yours” killed in Gaza over the past 14 months.

    Countless more Palestinian medical workers “were arrested, tortured, disappeared”, Albanese said in a post on social media.

    “Out of dismay [and] solidarity you should revolt, and urge suspension of ties with Israel until it stops the genocide [and] accounts for it. What are you waiting for,” she said.

    Her appeal came as about 100 New Zealand protesters held a “silent vigil” outside the country’s largest medical institution, Auckland Hospital, declaring health workers were “not a target”.

    Earlier on Friday, Albanese and the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Physical and Mental Health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, issued a joint statement denouncing the “blatant disregard” for the right to health in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the detention of its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia.

    “For well over a year into the genocide, Israel’s blatant assault on the right to health in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory is plumbing new depths of impunity,” the UN experts said.

    The Auckland protesters spread in a long line outside Auckland hospital with banners declaring “healthcare workers in Aotearoa call for a ceasefire” and “stop the genocide”, and placards with slogans such as “healthcare workers and hospitals are not a target”, “Free Dr Hussam Abu Saffiya” and “hands off Kamal Adwan [a northern Gaza hospital destroyed by Israeli forces last week].

    New Zealand protesters against the genocide and attacks on the healthcare workers and hospitals in Gaza
    New Zealand protesters against the genocide and attacks on the healthcare workers and hospitals in Gaza outside Auckland City Hospital today. Image: David Robie/APR

    Palestinian Prisoners Society warn over ‘danger’ to Dr Hussam
    The Palestinian Prisoners Society has warned of “a danger” to Dr Hussam Abu Safiyya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, following the Israeli military’s denial of any records proving his arrest, reports Anadolu Ajensi.

    Munir al-Bursh, the Director-General of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said the ministry submitted a request through the Physicians for Human Rights organisation to inquire about Abu Safiyya’s fate, but the Israeli occupation responded by saying that it had no detainee by that name.

    Al-Bursh told the Al Jazeera news channel that there was concern that the Israeli occupation may execute Dr Abu Safia after his arrest about a week ago.

    In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said that Dr Abu Safiyya “is one of thousands of detainees from Gaza facing the crime of enforced disappearance”.

    The group said that “despite clear evidence of Dr Abu Safia’s arrest on December 27, 2024, the occupation is denying what it had previously stated and is also dismissing the evidence, including photos and videos it published as well as testimonies from some detainees who were released.”

    It held the Israeli authorities fully responsible for his fate.

    It also reiterated its call for the “international human rights system to save what remains of its role amid the ongoing genocide, after its function has eroded due to a frightening state of impotence.”

    Last Saturday, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced the arrest of Dr Abu Safiyya by the Israeli military in northern Gaza.

    The Auckland City Hospital silent vigil protest today over the genocide in Gaza
    The Auckland City Hospital silent vigil protest today over the genocide in Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR

    ‘Proud’ of 15 months of NZ protest
    Meanwhile, the national chair of New Zealand’s Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) issued a statement today critical of the government’s inaction in the face of the ongoing genocide and the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system as protests continued across the country.

    “While the stench of decaying morality hangs over [New Zealand’s] coalition government and its MPs after 15 months of complicity with genocide, nationwide protests against Israel’s genocide continue in 2025,” said national chair John Minto.

    “Over 15 months of weekly nationwide protests is unprecedented in New Zealand history on any issue at any time.

    “We are enormously proud of New Zealanders who stand with the vast mass of humanity against Israel’s systematic, indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

    “This week’s protests are the first of New Year and they will continue while our government cowers under the bedclothes and refuses to sanction Israel for genocide.”

    The Gaza death toll stands at more than 45,000 — the majority killed being women and children.

    “Today’s death toll of innocents killed is a repeating nightmare” for Palestine, he said while Western media highlighted “Israeli propaganda to justify the endless massacres while ignoring Palestinian voices”.

    The United Nations has denounced the targeting of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, saying that medical facilities need “to be off limits”.

    UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said that there were more than 12,000 people in Gaza who need medical evacuation.

    A protester chalks a "Boycott Israel, boycott genocide" sign on the pavement near Auckland Hospital today
    A protester chalks a “Boycott Israel, boycott genocide” sign on the pavement near Auckland Hospital today. Image: David Robie/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Five Pacific region geopolitical ‘betrayals’ in 2024

    COMMENTARY: By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report

    With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.

    Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua – and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.

    Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as betrayals:

    1. Fiji and PNG ‘betrayal’ UN votes over Palestine

    Just two weeks before Christmas, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip under attack from Israel — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against were Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.

    The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.

    Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

    The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.

    Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.

    Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.

    Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.

    However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.

    Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.

    Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.

    Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.

    Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.

    The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

    Flags of decolonisation in Suva, Fiji
    Flags of decolonisation in Suva, Fiji . . . the Morning Star flag of West Papua (colonised by Indonesia) and the flag of Palestine (militarily occupied illegally and under attack from Israel). Image: APR

    In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.

    Condemning the US and Fiji, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared: “Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative.”

    Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.

    However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.

    Indonesian military forces on patrol in the Oksop regency of the West Papua region.

    2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo
    For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.

    This year was no different in spite of the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate such a visit.

    Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.

    A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.

    But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.

    Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.

    Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.

    Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.

    And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.

    Protesters at Molodoï, Strasbourg, demanding the release of Kanak indigenous political prisoners being detained in France
    Protesters at Molodoï, Strasbourg, demanding the release of Kanak indigenous political prisoners being detained in France pending trial for their alleged role in the pro-independence riots in May 2024. Image: @67Kanaky
    /X

    3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation progress
    When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead, intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.

    I was quoted at the time by The New Zealand Herald and RNZ Pacific of blaming France for having “lost the plot” since 2020.

    While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.

    This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.

    “It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.

    France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.

    In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.

    New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.

    But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.

    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka
    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians.” Rabuka also had a Pacific role with New Caledonia. Image: Fiji govt/RNZ Pacific
    4. Pacific Islands Forum also fails Kanak aspirations
    Kanaks and the Pacific’s pro-decolonisation activists had hoped that an intervention by the Pacific Islands Forum in support of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) would enhance their self-determination stocks.

    However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.

    On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.

    In other words, back off on the independence demands. Rabuka was quoted by RNZ Pacific reporter Lydia Lewis as saying, “look, don’t slap the hand that has fed you”.

    Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.

    But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.

    Taking the world's biggest problem to the world’s highest court for global climate justice
    Taking the planet’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court for global climate justice. Image: X/@ciel_tweets

    5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
    In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.

    Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.

    This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.

    Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.

    The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.

    The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.

    The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.

    Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.

    Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

    The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.

    Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:

    “Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ condemns ban on Al Jazeera – network decries bid to ‘hide the truth’

    Pacific Media Watch

    The New York-based global media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned a decision by the Palestinian Authority to suspend Al Jazeera’s operations in the West Bank and called for it to be reversed “immediately”.

    “Governments resort to censoring news outlets when they have something to hide,” said CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg in a statement.

    “The Palestinian Authority should reverse its decision to suspend Al Jazeera’s operations and allow journalists to report freely without fear of reprisal.”

    Ginsburg also strongly condemned the PA decision in a separate interview with Al Jazeera, calling for an immediate reversal of the “temporary” ban.

    She described the move as “really disturbing”, but said it was not a surprise given the PA’s track record on press freedom.

    Listen to Ginsberg’s full comments here.

    The Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported yesterday that the PA had suspended Al Jazeera on grounds of “inciting material”.

    The ban comes after the authority criticised Al Jazeera’s last week coverage of a standoff between Palestinian security forces and militant fighters in Jenin camp, located in the West Bank, according to reports.

    Israel raided Al Jazeera’s Ramallah offices in September and ordered its closure for 45 days, accusing the broadcaster’s West Bank operations of “incitement to and support of terrorism”.

    Israel banned Al Jazeera’s Israel operations in May, citing national security concerns.


    Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Al Jazeera.  Video: Al Jazeera

    In a statement, the Al Jazeera network has condemned the PA closure of its offices in the occupied West Bank, calling the move “consistent” with the Israeli occupation’s “practices against its crews”.

    The network “considers the Palestinian Authority’s decision an attempt to dissuade it from covering the escalating events taking place in the occupied territories”, the statement said.

    It added the move “comes in the wake of an ongoing campaign of incitement and intimidation by parties sponsored by the Palestinian Authority against our journalists”.

    The network further called the ban “an attempt to hide the truth about events in the occupied territories”, particularly in Jenin.

    Political pressure ‘from Israel’
    Political pressure from Israeli authorities on the PA is likely behind the temporary ban decision, claims the network’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.

    “There is no doubt pressure by the Israeli authorities to ban Al Jazeera like it was banned in Israel,” Bishara said.

    “The PA is foolishly and short-sightedly trying to prove its credentials to Israeli authorities . . . because they want a role in Gaza and the only way they can do that is by appeasing the Israeli occupation.”

    Bishara said the suspension would fail to curtail the channel’s coverage of events in Palestine, just as it had failed to achieve the same goal in Israel.

    “This is not going to stop us, this is not going to shut us up,” he said. “We question power and that’s what we do, we question the PA and every other authority in the world.”

    Also condemning the PA ban, Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the opposition Palestinian National Initiative, said the ban was “a big mistake” and “should be reversed as soon as possible”.

    “I think this is a wrong decision, especially in the light of the fact that Al Jazeera . . . has been at the avant garde in exposing the crimes against the Palestinian people, and continues to do so — especially the genocide that is taking place in Gaza,” said Barghouti, who had previously served as Palestinian minister of information.

    “This is an issue of freedom of expression, an issue of freedom of press, an issue of freedom of media,” he told Al Jazeera.

    He added that the Palestinian Authority was taking a “dangerous path” that underlines the lack of unified Palestinian leadership.

    “At the end of the day, the Israeli occupation is targeting everybody, including Fatah and Hamas and everybody else,” he said.

    “So our approach should be an approach of unity, encouraging freedom of expression, because at the end of the day, freedom of expression will only support the struggle against the occupation.”

    Palestinian ban follows Israeli ban, killing of journalists
    The PA’s temporary ban on Al Jazeera comes months after the network was banned from operating by the Israeli government.

    Israel, which has sought to disrupt Al Jazeera’s coverage multiple times throughout its 18-year history, ordered the closure of Al Jazeera’s offices and a ban on its broadcasting in Israel in May.

    A month earlier, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that allowed Israel to temporarily shut down foreign media outlets deemed to be security threats.

    Al Jazeera condemned the move as a “criminal act” and has stood by its coverage, particularly of Israeli operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

    In September, Israeli authorities shut down Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a move decried by Amnesty International’s MENA director as a “shameless attack on the right to freedom of expression and a crushing blow for press freedom”.

    Several Al Jazeera journalists and their families have been killed while reporting in the occupied Palestinian territories in recent years, including Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned correspondent fatally shot by Israel while reporting in Jenin in May 2022.

    Amid the war in Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, cameraman Ahmed al-Louh, and journalist Hamza Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh.

    Pacific Media Watch and news agencies.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A ‘genocidal project’ – Dr Abu-Sittah on Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health system

    Democracy Now!

    Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed that close to 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s ongoing assault, but Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah estimates the true number is closer to 300,000.

    “This is literally and mathematically a genocidal project,” says Dr Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who worked in Gaza for more than a month treating patients at both Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist hospitals.

    Israel continues to attack what remains of the besieged territory’s medical infrastructure.

    On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others. On Friday, Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza’s last major functioning hospital, and set the facility on fire.

    Many staff and patients were reportedly forced to go outside and strip in winter weather.

    The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was arrested, and his whereabouts remain unknown. [Editor: He is reportedly being held in the Sde Teiman base in Israel’s Negev desert, a place notorious for the torture and deaths of detainees].

    “It’s been obvious from the beginning that Israel has been wiping out a whole generation of health professionals in Gaza as a way of increasing the genocidal death toll but also of permanently making Gaza uninhabitable,” says Abu-Sittah.

    “On October 7, the Israelis crossed that genocidal Rubicon that settler-colonial projects cross.”


    ‘A genocidal project’.          Video: Democracy Now!

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where a sixth baby has died from severe cold as the death toll tops 45,500 and Israel’s assault on medical infrastructure continues in the besieged territory.

    On Sunday, an Israeli attack on the upper floor of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City killed at least seven people and wounded several others.

    On Friday, Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, northern Gaza’s last major functioning hospital.

    The director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was arrested, [and he is reportedly being held in the Sde Teiman base in Israel’s Negev desert, a place notorious for the torture and deaths of detainees].

    Many staff and patients were reportedly forced to go outside and strip in winter weather. This is nurse Waleed al-Boudi describing Dr Hussam Abu Safiya’s arrest.

    WALEED AL-BOUDI: [translated] Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was arrested from Al-Fakhoura School after he had stayed with us and refused to leave. Even though they told him to and that he was free to go, he told them that he won’t leave his medical staff.

    He took all of us and wanted to get us out at night. But they yelled at him and arrested him, a man of great humanity.

    We appeal to the entire world, all of the world, all the human rights organiSations to stand by Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the great man, the man who planted, within us and within our hearts, patience so we can persevere in our steadfast north.

    I swear we wouldn’t have left, but by force. We cried blood on the doors of Kamal Adwan Hospital when we were forced out by the occupation army.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: A person who was with Dr Hussam Abu Safiya shared testimony that, quote, “The Israeli forces whipped Dr Hussam using an electrical wire found in the street after forcing him and others from the medical staff to remove their clothes”.

    This is Dr Hussam Abu Safiya in one of his final interviews before being detained, produced by Sotouries.

    DR HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] I always say the situation requires one to stand by our people’s side and not run away from it.

    Gaza is our homeland, our mother, our beloved and everything to us. Gaza deserves all of this steadfastness and deserves all of the sacrifices.

    It is not just about Gaza, but we deserve to be a people that deserves freedom just like every other people on Earth.

    I think the occupation wants us to get out and for us to ask them to get us out, so they can publicly say that the healthcare system is the one asking to leave and that it wasn’t them who asked us to, but we are aware of that.

    But we will not leave, God willing, from this place, as I said, for as long as there are humanitarian services to be provided to our people in the northern Gaza Strip.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Dr Hussam Abu Safiya in one of his last interviews before Israeli forces arrested him on Friday in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital along with at least 240 others in a raid which left the hospital nonoperational.

    Israel’s military alleged that Hamas militants were using Kamal Adwan Hospital [But have never provided evidence for their claims].

    The World Health Organisation is calling on Israel to end its attacks on Gaza hospitals. Earlier today, the World Health Organization’s chief, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, said: “People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!”

    Last week, World Health Organisation spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris was asked on Channel 4 News whether there was any evidence of the Israeli claim that the hospital is a Hamas stronghold.

    DR MARGARET HARRIS: So, whenever we send a mission, we go and we look at the health situation.

    Now, I’ve not had at any point our healthcare teams come back and say that they’ve got any concerns beyond the healthcare, but I should say that what we do is look at what the health situation is and what needs to be done.

    But all we’ve ever seen going on in that hospital is healthcare.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, for more, we go to Cairo, Egypt.

    AMY GOODMAN: Nermeen, thanks so much. I am here with a man who knew Dr Abu Safiya well and is in constant contact with people on the ground in Gaza, particularly the medical professionals.

    Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah is with us here, British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon. He worked last year in Gaza for almost — for over a month with Médecins Sans Frontières — that’s Doctors Without Borders (MSF) — in two hospitals. He worked at Al-Shifa, the main hospital in Gaza, as well as Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

    Welcome to Democracy Now! You’ve been in touch with family of Dr Abu Safiya. If you can talk about where he is right now, believed to have been arrested by the Israeli military, and then the crisis just right now on the ground with the closing of Kamal Adwan and more?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, unfortunately, the family is afraid that he has been moved to the infamous Sde Teiman torture camp, an internment camp where, before him, Dr Adnan al-Bursh was tortured, and tortured to death, Dr Iyad Rantisi was tortured to death, where there is documented evidence of not just Israeli guards taking part in torture, but even Israeli doctors taking part in the torture of Palestinians.

    And so, that is the fear that not just the family has, but all of us have.

    And what we’ve seen in this process, in this destruction, systematic destruction of the health system, with the total destruction of all of the hospitals in the north, so not just Kamal Adwan, before that, the Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital, and, immediately after, the targeting of al-Wafa Hospital and then the targeting again of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, which was the first hospital the Israelis targeted on the October 17.

    The targeting of al-Wafa Hospital was intended to kill medical students from Gaza’s Islamic University who were sitting in exam in that hospital. And luckily for them, the Israelis got the wrong floor. And then the targeting of Al-Ahli Hospital, which is now the last hospital functioning in that whole arbitrarily created northern part of Gaza, is a sign that the Israelis will now move towards the Ahli Hospital for destruction.

    I just want to highlight there is research that is about to be published that shows that the chances of being killed as a nurse or a doctor in Gaza during this genocidal war is three-and-a-half times that of the general population.

    So it’s been obvious from the beginning that Israel has been wiping out a whole generation of health professionals in Gaza as a way of increasing the genocidal death toll but also of permanently making Gaza uninhabitable.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, you, of course, as we mentioned, as Amy mentioned in the introduction, you have worked in two Gaza hospitals. You’ve just talked a little bit about what’s recently — the recent Israeli attacks on medical infrastructure in Gaza, but if you could explain, just to give a sense of what’s happened overall since October 7, 2023.

    If you could say the scale of the destruction of medical infrastructure, as well as the systematic attacks on medical personnel, as you said, this new research that’s coming out that shows that they’re three to four times more likely to be killed than the general population?

    So, if you could just say, begin from October 2023 to now?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, what happened on October 12th is that the Israeli army started to call by phone medical directors of all of the hospitals, telling them that unless they evacuated the hospitals, the blood of the patients would be on their hands.

    And I remember that day I was with Dr Ahmed Muhanna from Al-Awda Hospital, who’s still been arrested now for over a year, an anesthetist and a medical director, and he received a phone call from the Israeli army to tell him to evacuate Al-Awda Hospital.

    Of course, we realised at that point that the destruction of the health system was going to be a prerequisite for the kind of ethnic cleansing that the Israelis wanted in Gaza.

    I was in Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on the day of the October 17, when the Israelis bombed that hospital, killing over 480 patients. And then we had the whole narrative about Shifa Hospital, the siege of Shifa Hospital, the destruction of three pediatric hospitals in the north, and then the first attack on Shifa Hospital.

    And then, after that, 36 hospitals in Gaza have now been reduced to the three partially working hospitals in the south and only a remnant of Al-Ahli Hospital in the north. We have had over a thousand health workers — doctors, nurses, health professionals — killed, over 400 imprisoned, and then the destruction of the health infrastructure, the destruction of water and sewage, the use of water as a tool of collective punishment in order to create the public health catastrophe that exists in Gaza in terms of infectious diseases, and the intentional famine.

    And so, at the moment, we have in Gaza what the doctors are referring to as the triad of death: hypothermia because of the winter, wounding because of the injuries, and malnutrition.

    And with the three, what happens is that people die of at higher temperatures, people die of lesser injuries, because the coexistence of these three conditions means that the body is depleted of any physiological reserve.

    And so, that’s why we’re watching over seven kids in the last week die of hypothermia, an adult nurse die of hypothermia, not because the temperatures are subzero — the temperatures are just hovering above zero — but because they’re so malnourished and they’re injured and a lot of them have infectious diseases, and so they’re dying at the same time.

    Israel has created a genocidal machine that takes Palestinian lives beyond the injury, beyond the bombs, beyond the shrapnel.

    And so people are dying of infectious diseases. People are dying because of the health system has collapsed, and so their chronic diseases become medical emergencies. And people are dying from the famine and the malnutrition.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, in light of that, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, if you could comment on the fact that so many people now, an increasing number of people, are questioning this death toll of 45,500, over that number who have been killed in Gaza since or who have died in Gaza since October 2023?

    People are saying that is a vast undercount. From what you’re saying, that seems almost certain. If you could comment as a medical professional? You know, what do you think might be a more accurate figure?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, 45,000 are people whose bodies were taken to a Ministry of Health hospital, and they were taken by people who witnessed or who recognised them, and a death certificate was issued.

    This 45,000 excludes the tens of thousands who are still under the rubble, more so in the north, where the emergency services were targeted by the Israelis and so are now completely unable to function.

    And so, we see pictures of dogs eating bodies of those killed in the streets. Not only people under the rubble, people who have been killed and not reported, or their bodies have not been retrieved.

    When you drop 2000-pound bombs, there’s very little of the human body that is left. And so there are people who literally pulverized by these bombs.

    Then you have those whose chronic illnesses, once untreated, became deadly, so the kidney dialysis patients, the heart disease patients, the diabetics, who were no longer able to get treatment.

    It doesn’t take into account the women who are dying from maternal care, from obstetric injuries during delivery, because they’re delivering in makeshift hospitals, they’re delivering in the tents, and they’re malnourished when they give birth, and so them and their babies have a higher rate of maternal mortality, of infant mortality.

    And then you have those who are dying of infectious diseases, of the thousands who have hepatitis at the moment, of the polio, and those who are dying not immediately from their injuries but from the wounds that do not have access to healthcare to stop the infection setting in, and then, eventually, the infection becoming sepsis and killing them.

    The number is closer to 300,000. This is around 10 to 12 percent of Gaza’s population.

    France, at the end of the Second World War, 4 percent of its population were killed. This is literally and mathematically a genocidal project.

    This is not a political term. This is a literal and mathematical term, where you want to eliminate the population and to ensure that whoever is left is incapable of becoming part of a society, because they’re tending to their wounds or they’ve been so severely debilitated by the injuries and the neglected injuries.

    AMY GOODMAN: Dr Abu-Sittah, you have asked, “How can a live-streamed genocide continue unhindered?” What is your response to that question right now?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Right now with the arrest of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, where is the British Medical Association? Where is the American Medical Association? Where are the royal colleges? Where is the French Medical Association?

    Western medical institutions, their moral bankruptcy has become so astounding during this genocide. For them to become part of a genocidal enablement apparatus, for their silence and, in a lot of times, their collusion to silence those who speak out against the genocide.

    For me, as a health professional, you’re shocked at how completely empty of any moral value these medical associations have become, when they have become complicit in a televised genocide which targets doctors.

    AMY GOODMAN: You know, I’m speaking to you here in Cairo. In May, Germany did not allow you in to speak. You are a British Palestinian doctor.

    Since you were in Gaza last year, you’ve been speaking out about what’s happening. Explain exactly what happened. I mean, Human Rights Watch and other groups were demanding that this ban be lifted. They banned you from where?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, I was invited to speak at a conference in Germany. I was stopped at Berlin Airport and was told that I’m banned from going into Germany for a month, and I was deported at the end of that day back to the UK.

    A few months later, I had an invitation from the French Senate. When I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I discovered that the Germans, a few days after they deported me, had put in a ban for the whole of the Schengen — and Schengen is the EU plus Norway, plus Sweden, plus Switzerland — using an administrative law so that they wouldn’t have to put it in front of the judge. We then were able to challenge that and have it overturned.

    But at the same time, pro-Israel groups, like UK Lawyers for Israel, submitted multiple complaints against me with the General Medical Council to have my medical licence removed, submitted complaints against me with the Charity Commission in the UK to have me banned for life from ever holding office in a UK registered charity.

    This is what — this is why this genocide has continued unhindered and unchallenged for over 14 months. There are apparatus of genocide enablement that exists in the West, either through collusion or by actively targeting.

    Over 60 doctors in the UK have had complaints against them with the General Medical Council to have their medical licences removed as a result of their support of the Palestinians during the genocide.

    AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr Abu-Sittah, Jimmy Carter died yesterday at the age of 100. He wrote the book in the 2000s, which is quite amazing, but after he was president, Palestine: Peace [Not] Apartheid. I’m going to rejoin Nermeen for the end of the show, an interview I did with him on that issue. But your thoughts on President Carter?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: The logic of the relationship between the Zionist colonialist movement and the Palestinian indigenous population has always been that of elimination.

    At a certain point — and that’s unfortunately now behind us since the 7th of October — apartheid separation was the chosen method of elimination of the Palestinians. On the 7th of October, the Israelis crossed that genocidal Rubicon that settler-colonial projects cross.

    And once the genocidal Rubicon is crossed, the elimination of the indigenous population by the settler-colonial project then purely becomes genocidal.

    Israel, even at the end of this genocidal war in Gaza, will not be able to deal with the Palestinians in a nongenocidal way. Once the settler-colonial project becomes genocidal, it cannot undo itself.

    We’ve seen that in North America with the killing of the children in Canada. We’ve seen that in Australia. We’ve seen that everywhere.

    AMY GOODMAN: And Carter, again, as we just have 30 seconds, writing the book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Well, Carter had a historic opportunity to change the course of this struggle, had he insisted that part of the Camp David Accords was the creation of a Palestinian state. And no amount of recantation will ever change that missed opportunity.

    He could have forced on the Israeli government, and the first right-wing Israeli government at that point, under Begin — he could have forced the creation of a Palestinian state, but he failed to do that.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, we just have 30 seconds. You just said that a genocidal settler-colonial project cannot undo itself. How do you see this ending, then?

    DR GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: You see, the world has a choice, because surplus populations like the Palestinians, like refugees crossing the Mediterranean, like the poor people in the favelas and in the inner-city slums, these will either be dealt with through a genocidal project, as Israel has dealt with the Palestinians in Gaza — and this kind of response or this kind of template will become part of the military doctrine that is taught to armies across the world in dealing with these surplus populations.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, thank you so much for joining us, a British Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who worked in Gaza as a volunteer with Doctors without Borders treating patients at both Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

    Amy will rejoin us for our last segment talking about her interview with former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100.

    This article/transcript is republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Palestine protest group condemns NZ’s ‘normalisation of apartheid’ over Israeli tennis player

    Asia Pacific Report

    A Palestine solidarity group has protested over the participation of Israeli tennis player Lina Glushko in New Zealand’s ASB Tennis Classic in Auckland this week, saying such competition raises serious concerns about the normalisation of systemic oppression and apartheid.

    The Palestine Forum of New Zealand said in a statement that by taking part in the event Glushko, a former Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldier, was sending a “troubling message that undermines the values of justice, equality, and human rights”.

    In the past 15 months, Israel’s military has killed almost 45,500 people in the besieged enclave of Gaza, mostly women and children.

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared the occupation of Palestine, including Gaza, illegal, and Israel should end settlements as soon as possible.

    Since the court ruling in July, Israel has intensified attacks on the civilian population in Gaza and their natural resources and infrastructure, including hospitals and health clinics.

    “Welcoming Israeli athletes to Aotearoa is not a neutral act. It normalises the systemic injustices perpetrated by the Israeli state against Palestinians,” said Maher Nazzal of the Palestine Forum.

    “Just as the international sports community united to oppose South Africa’s apartheid in the 20th century, we must now stand firm against Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and human rights.”

    Implements apartheid policies
    He said former soldier Glushko symbolised a regime that:

    • Implements apartheid policies: As documented by leading organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch;
    • Operates under leadership accused of war crimes: With an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued against Israeli officials; and
    • Continues its illegal occupation of Palestine: In direct violation of international law and countless United Nations resolutions.

    The statement said: “While sports often aim to transcend politics, they cannot be isolated from the realities of injustice and oppression.

    “By welcoming athletes representing an apartheid regime, we risk ignoring the voices of the oppressed and allowing sports to be used as a tool for whitewashing human rights abuses.

    “We urge the international and local sports community to remain consistent in their principles by refusing to host representatives of regimes that perpetuate apartheid.

    “The global boycott of South African athletes during apartheid proved that sports can be a powerful force for change. The same principle must apply today.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Killing of five Gaza journalists by Israel strike highlights weak NZ media response

    By David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch

    My message today is really simple but brutal. 

    Israel kills the journalists deliberately. This is unprecedented. The Western media — including here in Aotearoa New Zealand — kills the truth about genocide in Gaza.

    On Boxing Day, an Israeli air strike killed five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked white vehicle outside a hospital in central Gaza.

    The journalists from the Al-Quds Today TV channel were outside the al-Awada Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp when their satellite broadcast van was struck by a pre-dawn Israeli strike.

    Video footage that went viral showed the van with the words “PRESS” clearly marked in red block letters engulfed in flames.

    Middle East Eye reporter Hani Aburezeq said from the scene: “The van was entirely burnt and destroyed. It was fully engulfed in flames.”

    The slain journalists were – let’s honour their names — Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan and Ayman al-Jadi.

    Jadi had gone to the hospital with his wife who was giving birth to their first child. He had gone out to check on the car and his mates when it was bombed.

    Baby born on day father died for ‘truth’
    Imagine that, the baby was born on the very day his father died while doing his job as a journalist — reporting the truth.

    It is another cruel example of the tragic lives lost in this genocide by Israel which has killed more than 45,400 people, mostly women and children.


    Al Jazeera’s report on the journalist killings. Video: AJ

    Just last week, four other journalists were killed over two days. And now the total is 201 Palestinian journalists killed since 7 October 2023.

    This is by far the highest death toll of journalists in any war or conflict.

    By comparison, in the six years of the Second World War only 69 journalists were killed.

    And in 20 years of the Vietnam War, just 63 journalists were killed.

    Al Jazeera reports that Israel, which has not allowed foreign journalists to enter Gaza except on military embeds with the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF), which is increasingly being dubbed by critics as the Israeli “Offence” Forces (“IOF”), has been condemned by many media freedom organisations.

    Samoan Palestine decolonisation activist Michel Mulipola
    Samoan Palestine decolonisation activist Michel Mulipola . . . speaking at today’s Auckland rally about the 95th anniversary of the Black Saturday Mau massacre by NZ forces in Samoa. Image: APR

    Gaza ‘most dangerous region’
    The besieged enclave is now regarded as the “most dangerous region of the world” for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders in its annual report.

    New Zealand journalist and author Dr David Robie
    New Zealand journalist and author Dr David Robie . . . critical of New Zealand media’s role over the Gaza genocide. Image: Del Abcede/APR

    Al Jazeera itself was banned by Israel in May from reporting within the country, and was subsequently barred from reporting within the occupied West Bank and the closure of the Ramallah bureau in mid-September.

    Israel has tried to silence Al Jazeera previously in by threatening it in 2017, bombing its broadcast office in Gaza in 2021, and assassinating celebrated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and other reporters with impunity.

    Al Jazeera, TRT News and many independent news outlets as Democracy Now!, The Intercept, Middle East Eye and The Palestine Chronicle stand in contrast to mainstream media such as BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post that have frequently been called out in investigative reports for systemic bias against Palestine.

    Among the poignant messages from Palestinian journalists documenting this war are Bisan Owda, who signs on her video reports every day with “I’m still alive”.

    But I would like to share this reflection from another journalist, videographer Osama Abu Rabee who says on his X news feed that he is “capturing the untold stories of resilience and hope”. He said in one post this week:

    Kia Ora Gaza facilitator Roger Fowler (in hat)
    Kia Ora Gaza facilitator Roger Fowler (in hat) . . . a tribute for his many years of support for the Palestine freedom cause. Image: APR

    ‘Moments away from death’
    “One of my most vivid memories is when three journalists and I were in Eastern Jabalia and we needed to connect our e-sims to edit and upload content of a massacre.

    “We went to a room but the connection wasn’t good so I suggested we go into another room. Less than 5 minutes later, the room we had been in got bombed.

    “People came over running thinking that we were killed but luckily there were only injuries.

    “This was one of the many times that I was moments away from death. I know that I’m targeted as a Palestinian but also as a journalist.

    “Every single day I step out of my house and put on my ‘press’ vest and I look behind at my family, I’m not sure if I’ll see them again.

    “I hope you understand the risks we are taking to show you the truth.

    “Even 15 month later, we continue to go out every single day  and document the horrors that people in Gaza experience.

    “We do this so that when God asks what you do, we respond with ‘we did what we could’.”

    NZ media’s role shameful
    Can journalists and the media in Aotearoa New Zealand say with hand on heart that “we did what we could” in the face of this genocide?

    Palestinian advocate Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab
    Palestinian advocate Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab . . . powerful address in how people in New Zealand can help in the face of Israel’s genocide. Image: APR

    Of course not, the role of New Zealand media has been shameful, apart from notable exceptions such as Gordon Campbell.

    It has failed to hold the Christopher Luxon coalition government to account over its pathetic inaction over the genocide.

    It has failed to press the government into taking a stronger and more principled stance at the United Nations to call for sanctions against the apartheid and genocidal regime, or to even expel Israel from the global chamber — or the ambassador from Wellington.

    It has failed to argue for New Zealand to join the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

    Take Ireland, a smallish country like New Zealand, as an inspirational example. Earlier this month, Ireland responded immediately to the closure of Israel’s embassy in Dublin by opening a Palestinian museum on the premises.

    Prime Minister Simon Harris condemned Israel’s genocidal actions, particularly against children and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to human rights and international law.

    He said Ireland would not be silenced over Israel. He continued:

    “You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible.

    “You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza.

    “You know what I think is reprehensible? People being left to starve and humanitarian aid not flowing,”

    Silence of the news media
    Have we ever had such a courageous statement like this from our Prime Minister. Absolutely not.

    It is shameful that our government has not taken a stand.

    And it is shameful that the New Zealand media has been so silent over this most horrendous episode of our times — genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in front of our very eyes for 15 months.

    To my knowledge, journalists in Aotearoa have not made even made statements of solidarity with the journalists of Gaza and their horrific sacrifice to bear witness to the truth.

    I made a plea for such a stand last January and it was ignored. Australia is making a better job of challenging the status quo.

    New Zealand journalists have already “normalised” the genocide. Shameful.

    Dr David Robie is convenor of Pacific Media Watch and editor of Asia Pacific Report. This was first presented as an address to a Palestinian solidarity rally in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Te Komititanga Square in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau on 28 December 2024.

    A banner condemning New Zealand media for being "silent and complicit"
    A banner condemning New Zealand media for being “silent and complicit” over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Image: APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Five journalists killed by Israeli air strike near hospital – media watchdogs condemn killings

    Pacific Media Watch

    Five Palestinian journalists have been killed in a new Israeli strike near a hospital in central Gaza after four reporters were killed last week, reports Al Jazeera citing authorities and media in the besieged enclave.

    The journalists from the Al-Quds Today channel were covering events near al-Awda Hospital, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp, when their broadcasting van was hit by an Israeli air strike.

    Footage from the scene circulating on social media shows a vehicle engulfed in flames.

    The video of the white-coloured van shows the word “press” in large red lettering across the back of the vehicle.

    The dead journalists have been named as Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan and Ayman al-Jadi.

    Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif reports that Ayman al-Jadi had been waiting for his wife in front of the hospital while she was in labour to give birth to their first child.

    Civil defence teams retrieved the bodies of the victims and extinguished a fire at the scene, the Quds News Network said.

    Israel claims ‘targeted’ attack
    Israel’s military confirmed the strike.

    It claimed it had carried out a “targeted” attack against a vehicle carrying members of Islamic Jihad and that it would continue to take action against “terrorist organisations” in Gaza.

    “Prior to the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial observations, and additional intelligence information,” the military said in a post on X.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) earlier this month condemned Israel’s killing of four Palestinian journalists in the space of a week, calling on the international community to hold the country accountable for its attacks against the media.

    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also condemned the killing of the journalists last week as a “continuation of the war crimes committed by Israel”.

    “On December 14 and 15, the Israeli army murdered three media professionals in northern Gaza and the central Gaza Strip,” RSF said in a statement.

    “Some of the few remaining reporters in the northern region, subjected to a ground invasion by Israeli forces, were recently forced to evacuate their homes.”

    RSF named three of the killed journalists as Al-Jazeera cameraman Ahmad al-Louh, a 39-year-old media worker who was was filming a report on the Palestinian Civil Defence in the Nuseirat camp when he was killed on December 15 by an air strike; Mohammed Balousha, a reporter for the Emirati channel Al-Mashhad who was mortally wounded by a targeted drone strike while reporting in the Sheikh Radwan district in northern Gaza, and correspondent Mohammed Jaber al-Qarinawi, 30, who was killed along with his wife and their three children by an isolated air strike — “a sign that his home had probably been targeted”.

    ‘Stark reminder’ on media attacks, says RSF
    RSF’s director of campaigns Rebecca Vincent said: “These latest killings are a stark reminder of the ongoing assault by Israeli forces against media professionals in northern Gaza, where the handful of journalists remaining are now at risk of disappearing altogether.

    “In parallel to ongoing attacks on media in central Gaza where displaced persons are now seeking refuge, this is a clear continuation of the Israeli authorities’ attempts to control the narrative on its war through any means possible.

    “We repeat in the strongest possible terms that targeting journalists is a war crime, and these atrocious attacks must stop. It is time for concrete action by other states — in particular Israel’s allies — to urge the Israeli government to immediately comply with international law.”

    Ninety-six percent of Gaza’s journalists have been forcibly evacuated from their homes, and 92 percent have lost essential reporting equipment, according to data from RSF’s local NGO partner, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ).

    At least 141 journalists have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the CPJ.

    However, other monitoring agencies put the death toll higher — the Gaza-based Government Media Office has documented 201 killings of journalists by Israel.

    Israel has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 people, most of them women and children, since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on 7 October 2023.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Cardinal David slams Israel, says Jesus would have been born in Gaza

    By Victor Barreiro Jr in Manila

    Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, bishop of Kalookan, has condemned the state of Israel on Christmas Eve for its relentless attacks on Gaza that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

    “I can’t think of any other people in the world who live in darkness and are always in the shadow of death than them,” Caridinal David said in Filipino during the last Simbang Gabi Mass on Tuesday, December 24.

    Cardinal David, 65, connected this to the Christmas message by leading churchgoers to reimagine Jesus’ birth.

    A biblical scholar educated at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, David has often emphasised “the role of imagination” in interpreting the Bible.

    Cardinal David, known for his defence of human rights, especially during Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, said Catholics should not “romanticise” the manger at Bethlehem.

    “I think that if the Holy Family were to look for an inn today, they would not stay in Bethlehem but in the Gaza Strip and find a collapsed house in which to give birth to the Son of God,” the cardinal said.

    Cardinal David said he understood that many Filipinos showed great sympathy toward Israel because the Philippines was a Christian-majority country.

    Endorsed Pope’s ‘cruelty’ criticism
    In addition, many Filipinos work in Israel under Jewish employers. “So it is but natural that many Filipinos would feel greater affinity with the Israelis,” he said.

    Cardinal David said, however, that Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza should not be condoned. He echoed Pope Francis who recently said that Israel’s bombing of Palestinians, including children, “is cruelty.” and who also criticised Israel in his Christmas message.

    The Israel in the Bible was a far cry from the state of Israel, Cardinal David added.

    The biblical Israel is not the same Israel now at war with Hamas, as the following Rappler video explainer shows. The Israel in the Bible, called Judea, was destroyed by the Roman Empire in the second century, and the current state of Israel was established in 1948.


    Israel’s war on Gaza as viewed by Cardinal David. Video: Rappler

    “It is no longer an Israel that is disadvantaged and defenseless and oppressed by the powerful, but an Israel that is aggressive, at an advantage in war, and supported by world powers,” Cardinal David said.

    Israel, he explained, should learn from the biblical experience of David, who mistakenly thought he only needed to build God a temple to attain elusive peace.

    It is the other way around, he said, and God is the one who will build a temple for David.

    “That will not happen as long as we treat each other as enemies,” said Cardinal David.

    ‘A God of love’
    “No matter our religion, culture, or race, we all come from the same God — a God of love, a God who humbles, a God who does not call for revenge or exacts punishment but a God who forgives,” the cardinal added.

    This was one of Cardinal David’s first comments on a global issue since the Pope elevated him to the College of Cardinals on December 7.

    As a cardinal, David is one of 253 clergymen chosen as advisers to the leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church. He is also one of 140 cardinals below the age of 80, who are eligible to join the next papal election.

    The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1139 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.

    Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 45,200 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.

    Republished from Rappler with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gaza Christians pray for end of Israeli war’s ‘death and destruction’

    Asia Pacific Report

    Silent Night is a well-known Christmas carol that tells of a peaceful and silent night in Bethlehem, referring to the first Christmas more than 2000 years ago.

    It is now 2024, and it was again a silent night in Bethlehem last night, reports Al Jazeera’s Nisa Ibrahim. Not because of peace. But a lack of it.

    Israel’s war on Gaza and violence in the occupied West Bank has frightened away visitors who would traditionally visit Bethlehem at this time of year.

    Her full report is here.

    Meanwhile, in Gaza City, hundreds of Christians gathered at a church on Christmas Eve, praying for an end to the war that has devastated much of the Palestinian territory.

    Gone were the sparkling lights, the festive decorations and the towering Christmas tree that had graced Gaza City for decades.

    The Square of the Unknown Soldier, once alive with the spirit of the season, now lies in ruins, reduced to rubble by relentless Israeli air strikes.

    Amid the rubble, the faithful sought solace even as fighting continued to rage across the Strip.

    “This Christmas carries the stench of death and destruction,” said George al-Sayegh, who for weeks has sought refuge in the 12th century Greek Orthodox Church of St Porphyrius.

    “There is no joy, no festive spirit. We don’t even know who will survive until the next holiday.”

    ‘Christ still in the rubble’
    On Friday, the Palestinian theologian and pastor Reverend Munther Isaac delivered a Christmas sermon at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, in occupied West Bank — the birthplace of Jesus — called “Christ Is Still in the Rubble.” He said in this excerpt from Democracy Now!:

    ‘“Never again” should mean never again to all peoples. “Never again” has become “yet again” — yet again to supremacy, yet again to racism and yet again to genocide.

    ‘And sadly, “never again” has become yet again for the weaponisation of the Bible and the silence and complicity of the Western church, yet again for the church siding with power, the church siding with the empire.

    ‘And so, today, after all this, of total destruction, annihilation — and Gaza is erased, unfortunately — millions have become refugees and homeless, tens of thousands killed.

    ‘And why is anyone still debating whether this is a genocide or not? I can’t believe it. Yet, even when church leaders simply call for investigating whether this is a genocide, he is called out, and it becomes breaking news.

    ‘Friends, the evidence is clear. Truth stands plain for all to see. The question is not whether this is a genocide. This is not the debate. The real question is: Why isn’t the world and the church calling it a genocide?

    ‘It says a lot when you deny and ignore and refrain from using the language of genocide. This says a lot. It actually reveals hypocrisy, for you lectured us for years on international laws and human rights. It reveals your hypocrisy.

    ‘It says a lot on how you look at us Palestinians. It says a lot about your moral and ethical standards. It says everything about who you are when you turn away from the truth, when you refuse to name oppression for what it is. Or could it be that they’re not calling it a genocide?

    ‘Could it be that if reality was acknowledged for what it is, that it is a genocide, then that it would be an acknowledgment of your guilt? For this war was a war that so many defended as “just” and “self-defense.” And now you can’t even bring yourself to apologise . . .

    ‘We said last year Christ is in the rubble. And this year we say Christ is still in the rubble. The rubble is his manger. Jesus finds his place with the marginalised, the tormented, the oppressed and the displaced.

    ‘We look at the holy family and see them in every displaced and homeless family living in despair. In the Christmas story, even God walks with them and calls them his own.’


    Christ is still in the Rubble – Reverend Munther Isaac’s Christms message.   Video: Reverend Isaac

    Story of Jesus one of oppression
    “Pastor Isaac joined journalist host Chris Hedges on a special episode of The Chris Hedges Report to revisit the story of Christmas and how it relates to Palestine then and now.

    He wasted no time in reminding people that despite the usual jolly associations with Christmas, the story of Jesus Christ was one of oppression, one that involved the struggle of refugees, the rule of a tyrant, the witnessing of a massacre and the levying of taxation.

    “To us here in Palestine,” Reverend Isaac said the terms linked to the struggle “actually make the story, as we read it in the Gospel, very much a Palestinian story, because we can identify with the characters.”

    Journalist Hedges and Reverend Isaac invoked the story of the Good Samaritan to point out the deliberate blindness the world has bestowed upon the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza in the midst of the ongoing genocide.

    The conclusion of the [Good Samaritan] story is that there is no us and them, Reverend Isaac told Hedges.

    “Everybody is a neighbour. You don’t draw a circle and determine who’s in and who’s out.”

    It was clear, Reverend Isaac pointed out, “the Palestinians are outside of the circle. We’ve been saying it — human rights don’t apply on us, not even compassion.”

    The nativity scene on Christmas Eve in New Zealand's St Patrick's Cathedral in Auckland last night
    The nativity scene on Christmas Eve in New Zealand’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland last night . . . no mention of Bethlehem’s oppression by Israel and muted celebrations, or the Gaza genocide in the sermon. Image: Asia Pacific Report


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israeli-American historian describes attacks on Gaza as ‘war of annihilation’

    Asia Pacific Report

    “It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza.

    Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an “act of annihilation” of the Palestinian people, reports Middle East Eye.

    Dr Bartov said that not only had Israeli forces been moving displaced Palestinians around the Gaza Strip but they had also been strategically bombing mosques, museums, hospitals, and anything that served the health or culture of a people — in an attempt to cleanse the entire area of Palestinians.

    Al Jazeera reports that an Israeli drone attack on the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza targeted a group of people gathered at a phone charging and internet distribution point, killing three people.

    According to a witness, this was the only point in the refugee camp where people trapped in the area charge their phones and connect to the internet to be in touch with family members who are displaced in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

    This was not the first time that the Israeli military has carried out deliberate attacks on such connectivity points.

    Houthis ballistic missile wounds 14
    Meanwhile, a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen has broken through Israeli defences above and below the Earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Tel Aviv, reports Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.

    It said interceptors from the Arrow missile defence system were launched into the upper atmosphere after detecting the missile, but missed the target and failed to stop it before it entered Israeli territory.

    As captured in numerous videos, two more interceptors were then fired in the lower atmosphere, also failing to shoot down the missile.

    At least 14 people were wounded after a failed interception of the ballistic missile.

    This was the third incident of its kind just this week. The Israeli army says it was now investigating why it was not intercepted and why this was such a significant failure.

    Since the start of the war, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles, and more than 170 drones in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in the besieged enclave.

    In July, there was a drone that evaded all Israeli air defences, no siren sounded, and it was able to detonate in the middle of Tel Aviv and kill one person.

    This time, it was just one minute from the time the sirens rang until the moment of impact.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ govt plans to make ‘heavy handed’ change to free speech rules for universities

    By John Gerritsen, RNZ News education correspondent

    The New Zealand government coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly “risk-averse approach” to free speech.

    The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues.

    Each university will then have to adopt a “freedom of speech statement” consistent with the central government’s expectations.

    The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.

    Associate Education Minister David Seymour said fostering students’ ability to debate ideas is an essential part of universities’ educational mission.

    “Despite being required by the Education Act and the Bill of Rights Act to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression, there is a growing trend of universities deplatforming speakers and cancelling events where they might be perceived as controversial or offensive,” he said.

    “That’s why the National/ACT coalition agreement committed to introduce protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech to ensure universities perform their role as the critic and conscience of society.”

    Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds said freedom of speech was fundamental to the concept of academic freedom.

    “Universities should promote diversity of opinion and encourage students to explore new ideas and perspectives. This includes enabling them to hear from invited speakers with a range of viewpoints.”

    It is expected the changes will take effect by the end of next year, after which universities will have six months to develop a statement and get it approved.

    Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington said the important issue of free speech had been a dominant topic throughout the year.

    It believed a policy it had come up with would align with the intent of the criteria laid out by the government today.

    However, the Greens are among critics, saying the government’s changes will add fuel to the political fires of disinformation, and put teachers and students in the firing line.

    Labour says universities should be left to make decisions on free speech themselves.

    ‘A heavy-handed approach’
    The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said proposed rules could do more harm than good.

    They have been been welcomed by the Free Speech Union, which said academic freedom was “under threat”, but the TEU said there was no problem to solve.

    TEU president Sandra Grey said the move seemed to be aimed at ensuring people could spread disinformation on university campuses.

    “I think one of the major concerns is that you might get universities opening up the space that is for academic and rigorous debate and saying it’s okay we can have climate deniers, we can have people who believe in creationism coming into our campuses and speaking about it as though it were scientific, as though it was rigorously defendable when in fact we know some of these questions . . .  have been settled,” she said.

    Grey said academics who expressed views on campus could expect them to be debated, but that was part and parcel of working at a university and not an attack on their freedom of speech.

    “There isn’t actually a problem. I do think universities, all the staff who work there, the students, understand that they’re covered by all of their requirements for freedom of speech that other citizens are.

    “So it feels like we’ve got a heavy-handed approach from a government that apparently is anti-regulation but is now going to put in place the whole lot of requirements on a community that just doesn’t need it.”

    Some topics ‘suppressed’

    Jonathan Ayling of the Free Speech Union submits to Parliament's Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee regarding the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, 15 February 2024.
    Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling . . . some academics are afraid to express their views and there is also a problem with “compelled speech”. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News

    Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling said freedom of speech was under threat in universities.

    “We’ve supported academics . . .  where they feel that they have been unfairly disadvantaged simply for holding a different opinion to some of their peers. Of course, that is also an addition to the explicit calls for people to be cancelled, to be unemployed,” he said.

    Ayling said some academics were afraid to express their views and there was also a problem with “compelled speech”.

    “Forcing certain references on particularly ideological issues. There’s questions around race, gender, international conflicts, covid-19, these are all questions that we’ve found have been suppressed and also there’s the aspect of self-censorship,” he said.

    “As we have and alongside partners looked into this more and more, it seems that many people in the academy exist in a culture of fear.”

    University committed to differing viewpoints
    Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington is committed to hearing a range of different viewpoints on its campuses, vice-chancellor Professor Nic Smith says.

    Free speech had been an important issue during 2024, and the university had arrived at a policy that covered both freedom of speech and academic freedom.

    By consulting widely, there was now a shared understanding of “foundational principles”, and its policy would be in place early in the new year.

    “We believe this policy aligns with the intent of the criteria [from the government] as we understand them. It recognises the strength of our diverse university community and affirms that this diversity makes us stronger,” Professor Smith said.

    “At the same time, it acknowledges that within any diverse community, individuals will inevitably encounter ideas they disagree with-sometimes strongly.

    “Finding value in these disagreements is something universities are very good at: listening to different points of view in the spirit of advancing understanding and learning that can ultimately help us live and work better together.”

    The university believed in hearing a range of views from staff, rather than adopting a single institutional position.

    “The only exception to this principle is on matters that directly affect our core functions as a university.”

    ‘Stoking fear and division’

    Francisco Hernandez delivers his maiden statement.
    The Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez . . . this new policy has nothing to do with free speech. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News

    Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez, said the new policy had nothing to do with free speech.

    “This is about polluting our public discourse for political gain.”

    Universities played a critical role, providing a platform for informed and reasoned debate.

    “Our universities should be able to decide who is given a platform on their campuses, not David Seymour. These changes risk turning our universities into hostile environments unsafe for marginalised communities.

    “Misinformation, disinformation, and rhetoric that inflames hatred towards certain groups has no place in our society, let alone our universities. Freedom of speech is fundamental, but it is not a licence to harm.”

    Hernandez said universities should be trusted to ensure the balance was struck between academic freedom and a duty of care.

    “Today’s announcement has also come with a high dose of unintended irony.

    “David Seymour is speaking out of both sides of his mouth by on the one hand claiming to support freedom of speech, but on the other looking to limit the ability universities have to take stances on issues, like the war in Gaza for example.

    “This is an Orwellian attempt to limit discourse to the confines of the government’s agenda. This is about stoking fear and division for political gain.”

    Labour’s Associate Education (Tertiary) spokesperson Deborah Russell responded: “One of the core legislated functions of universities in this country is to be a critic and conscience of society. That means continuing to speak truth to power, even if those in power don’t like it.”

    “Nowhere should be a platform for hate speech. I am certain universities can make these decisions themselves.”

    ‘Expectations clarified’ – university
    The University of Auckland said in a statement the announcement of planned legislation changes would help “to clarify government expectations in this area”.

    “The university has a longstanding commitment to maintaining freedom of expression and academic freedom on our campuses, and in recent years has worked closely with [the university’s] senate and council to review, revise and consult on an updated Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy.

    “This is expected to return to senate and council for further discussion in early 2025 and will take into account the proposed new legislation.”

    The university described the nature of the work as “complex”.

    “While New Zealand universities have obligations under law to protect freedom of expression, academic freedom and their role as ‘critic and conscience of society’, as the proposed legislation appreciates, this is balanced against other important policies and codes.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji pro-Palestine nativity scene exposes Gaza as ‘hell on earth’ at Christmas

    Asia Pacific Report

    Fiji activists have recreated the nativity scene at a solidarity for Palestine gathering in Fiji’s capital Suva just days before Christmas.

    The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network recreated the scene at the FWCC compound — a baby Jesus figurine lies amidst the rubble wrapped in a piece of black and white checked fabric, a Palestinian keffiyeh, draped over his body.

    This reproduces the nativity scene displayed by the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine, a year ago in December 2023.

    The scene was created to symbolise the reality of the children living and being born in Palestine at this time.

    “If Christ were to be born today,” said Pastor Munther Ishaq, “he would be born under the rubble and the Israeli shelling.”

    Activists say the scenes witnessed over the past year in the besieged Gaza enclave support this imagery.

    “Photos of children covered in dust, families bent over the bodies of loved ones, aid workers carrying the injured into hospitals that lack the elements needed to offer care,” said the FWCC in a social media post.

    45,000 Palestinians killed
    “Over the past year, Israeli attacks have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, equal to 1 out of every 55 people living there.

    “At least 17,000 children have been killed, the highest number of children recorded in a single year of conflict over the past two decades.

    “More than 17,000 children have lost one or both parents.

    “At least 97,303 people are injured in Gaza — equal to one in 23 people.”


    The Bethlehem nativity scene a year ago in December 2023.   Video: Al Jazeera

    According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, every day 10 children lose one or both legs, with operations and amputations conducted with little or no anaesthesia due to Israel’s ongoing siege.

    In addition to the killed and injured, more than 10,000 people are feared buried under the rubble.

    With few tools to remove rubble and rescue those trapped beneath concrete, volunteers and civil defence workers rely on their bare hands.

    “It is NOT Merry Christmas as people in Gaza continue to experience ‘hell on earth’,” said the FWCC post.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • West and media are ‘erasing’ Palestinian history, say critics

    Asia Pacific Report

    Palestinian history is “deliberately ignored” and is being effectively “erased” as part of Western news media narratives, while establishment forces work to shut down anyone speaking out against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, academics have told a university conference of legal and Middle East experts.

    A two-day online summit Erasure and Defiance: the Politics of Silence and Voice on Palestine, hosted by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Diversities and Social Inclusion Research Centre, also heard the type of reporting in the mainstream media “normalised violence” against Palestinians, reports the UTS Central News.

    Also, the murder of Palestinians and resistance by them had been routinely mischaracterised as “loss and failure” on their part as though it was their own fault.

    Although the conference took place over one and-a-half days in July and brought together Arab, Muslim, Jewish and Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Australia, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, details have only just been released.

    The release of the conference proceedings comes more than one year on from the start of the Israeli War on Gaza, now extended into Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and an Amnesty International investigation concluding Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

    The western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts… and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians.

    According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at least 45,097 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 17,492 children, with more than 107,244 people injured and in excess of 10,000 people missing under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

    Israeli forces, meanwhile, have killed journalists at a faster rate than any conflict on record, with estimates varying between 137, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 188 documented by Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi, and the 196 killed as reported by the Gaza Government Media Office.

    By comparison 63 journalists were killed in 20 years of the Vietnam War.

    Posed war crime questions
    The conference posed major questions regarding the erasing of Palestinian history, how it enables present-day war crimes and how defiance has resonated and inspired ongoing resistance by:

    • Palestinians fighting to defend their lives and their land, or as seen around the world, in civic protests;
    • the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement;
    • human rights advocacy;
    • alternative social media production; and
    • legal challenges in the highest of our international institutions, the ICC and the International Court of Justice.

    The conference was officially opened with the Welcome to Country, from Uncle Greg Simms, Gadigal elder of the Dharug Nation.

    Uncle Greg spoke about the importance of land and country to the survival of Australia’s Indigenous people, the role of ancestral ties and connections, the importance of history and allies in the face of genocide, and the need to empathise with the people of Palestine at this time.


    Dr Janine Hourani’s address.    Video: UTS

    Janine Hourani from the University of Exeter and Palestinian Youth Movement, in her keynote speech detailed the history of Palestinian resistance to Zionist occupation, addressing how the recording of history, privileged by a select few, served to stifle narratives, as well as erase key figures and moments in time, “reproducing a particular version of Palestinian history that focuses on defeat and loss, rather than resistance and rebellion”.

    “The Western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts, reporting Palestinians as ‘died’ and Israeli settlers as ‘murdered’ and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians,” said Hourani.

    “Since October we’ve heard multiple political interventions being made about the Western media’s complicity in the current genocide in Palestine.”

    Souheir Edalbi, a law lecturer at Western Sydney University, convened the session that followed, featuring four speakers.

    Anti-Palestinian racism
    Randa Abdelfattah, an author, lawyer and academic, addressed anti-Palestinian racism which serves to disarm criticism of Israel and Zionism.

    Udi Raz, an academic and activist based in Germany, presented a case study of Mizrahi or Arab Jews in Germany, interrogating the definition of semitism and otherness in that context, the culturally pervasive racism towards Arabs, and German anxieties about what constitutes a non-European identity.

    Annie Pfingst, an author and academic, listed 11 different types of “erasure” by Israel, from the confiscation, possession and renaming of Palestinian villages through to the holding of Palestinian bodies killed by the Israeli forces, not returned to their families, or buried in the “cemetery of numbers”.

    She described a “necrological regime” that turns dead bodies into prisoners of the state, penalising and torturing the community, serving “to further evict the native in line with the structure of the settler colonial imperative of elimination”.

    We have seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.

    Jessica Holland, a researcher, curator and archivist, discussed how the history of archiving of Palestinian material is “deeply embedded within a legacy of coloniality”, and the importance of Palestinian social history and archiving projects, in redressing and countering hegemonic understandings and organisation of materials.

    “Journalists, teachers, doctors, health care workers, public servants, lawyers, artists, food hospitality workers. Across every profession and industry [showing] solidarity with Palestine has been met with a repertoire of repressive tactics, disciplinary employment processes, cancelled contracts, lawfare, police brutality, parliamentary scrutiny, coordinated complaints and harassment campaigns, media coverage, doxxing, harassment, attempts at law reform and policy amendments,” said Abdelfattah.

    “We have seen in the past few days the treatment of [Senator] Fatima Payman and the intimidation, bullying and silencing she has endured.

    “We have also seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.”

    On day two of the conference Aunty Glendra Stubbs gave the Acknowledgement of Country, which was followed by the keynote speaker Jeff Halper, anthropologist, author, lecturer, political activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

    Normalising violence
    Halper addressed how Israel as a Zionist settler colonial state normalises violence, erasure and apartheid against Palestinians, where physical and cultural genocide are built in, necessitating indigenous resistance.

    A second panel, “Social Movements, in Defiance”, convened by Alison Harwood, a social change practitioner, included speakers Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia, and Latoya Rule from UTS Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.

    Speakers shared insights on how social movements mobilise from within their diverse communities, to reach and potentially impact the Australian and international social and political stage.

    Interdisciplinary storyteller and media producer Daz Chandler presented a series of pre-recorded interviews and a live discussion with participants involved in University campus encampments from around the world including activists from Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank, Mexico, Trinity College in Dublin, UCLA, the University of Melbourne, University of Tokyo, University of Sydney and Monash University.

    Two further sessions focused on responses “From the Field”, with a third panel convened by Paula Abboud, a cultural worker, educator, writer and creative producer, featuring The Age journalist Maher Moghrabi, author and human rights lawyer Sara Saleh, Lena Mozayani from NSW Teachers for Palestine, and Dr Sana Pathan from ANZ Doctors for Palestine.

    Each reflected on their work and the challenges they encountered in their respective professional fields. Obstructions they faced ranged from hindering and silencing the expression of ideas, through to the prevention of carrying out critical on-the-ground work to save lives.

    Hometown of Nablus
    The final panel of the conference was moderated by Derek Halawa, a Palestinian living in the diaspora, who shared his experience of travelling to his hometown of Nablus.

    He followed virtual footsteps from his cousin’s video, through the alley ways, to reach the home of his great grandfather, a journey which culminated in reaching the steps of Al Aqsa Mosque, with both spaces symbolising belonging and hope.

    Cathy Peters, media worker and co-founder of BDS Australia described a diverse range of disruption movements calling for the end of ties with Israeli companies, since the war on Gaza.

    This was followed by RIta Jabri Markwell, solicitor and adviser to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, addressing specific points of Australian law dealing with terrorism, freedom of speech, and racial discrimination.

    The conference, which was was co-convened by Barbara Bloch, Wafa Chafic, James Goodman, Derek Halawa and Christina Ho, concluded with UTS Sociology Professor James Goodman giving an overview of the proceedings and potential actions post-conference.

    One post-conference outcome is an additional series of interviews produced by Daz Chandler exploring the power of creative practices utilised within the Palestinian resistance movement.

    It features renowned Palestinian contemporary artist Khaled Hourani, Ben Rivers: co-founder of the Palestinian Freedom Bus, Yazan al-Saadi: co-founder of Cartoonists for Palestine, Taouba Yacoubi: Sew 4 Palestine, Birkbeck University of London; and artist and activist from Naarm Melbourne, Margaret Mayhew.

    Republished from the UTS Central News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Civil society groups call on NZ to bar new Israeli envoy over ‘flagrant’ Gaza genocide

    Asia Pacific Report

    A broad coalition of civil society organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand have signed an open letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters urging the coalition government to refuse to accept the credentials of a new Israeli ambassador while the state continues to disregard international law and to commit war crimes.

    The term of Israel’s ambassador to New Zealand, Ran Yaakoby, has ended as the Israeli military continues its more than 14-month genocide in Gaza, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal.

    About 40 civil society organisations and prominent individuals at institutions have signed the open letter.

    The ICJ has made it clear that all states parties — including New Zealand — have obligations not to recognise, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by measures that are illegal under international law.

    The international community has failed to hold Israel to account for its actions.

    Kate Stone from Justice for Palestine, one of the signatory organisations, said in a statement: “As we say in the letter, while ambassadors usually provide an important avenue for dialogue, it is clear that the Israeli regime is not prepared to respond to the concerns of the New Zealand government, or the international community more broadly, and intends to continue to disregard international law.

    “This is about demonstrating that there are consequences for Israel’s actions in breach of international law, and at the expense of Palestinian human rights.”

    Just this week, the Israeli government announced its decision to close its embassy in Dublin, citing Ireland’s decision to join the ICJ case considering whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Clearly, Israel is not prepared to maintain diplomatic relations with states that seek to uphold international law.

    Those who have signed the letter are urging the New Zealand government to not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel until it is prepared to comply with international law.

    “New Zealand should stand with those seeking to uphold international law and human rights, not with those seeking to avoid accountability for their actions which have resulted in the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians.” said Kate Stone.

    Open letter

    16 December 2024

    Tēnā koe Minister,

    We are aware that the term of the current Israeli ambassador is coming to an end. We, the undersigned organisations, urge you, on behalf of the New Zealand government, to refuse to accept the credentials of a replacement ambassador while Israel continues to disregard international law.

    The Israeli regime is currently committing a genocide in Gaza and the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion from July 2024 declared Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal and identified numerous international law obligations that Israel is violating, manifesting in systematic breaches of Palestinians’ fundamental human rights.

    The current Israeli regime, and any representative of that regime, is flagrantly flouting international law and has ignored all calls for it to cease its illegal activities in Gaza and the wider Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is quite clear that Israel intends to continue expanding its illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to re-settle Gaza — changing the facts on the ground to such an extent that a two-state solution, or any just solution, becomes an impossibility.

    The ICJ makes it clear that all states parties — including New Zealand – have obligations not to recognize, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by measures that are illegal under international law. The failure of the international community to hold Israel to account for its actions is undermining the integrity of the rules-based international order that New Zealand relies upon.

    While ordinarily a diplomatic mission provides an avenue for dialogue, it is clear that the Israeli regime is not prepared to respond to the concerns of the New Zealand government.

    Therefore, we urge you to announce that New Zealand will not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel until it demonstrates that it is prepared to comply with its international obligations. Please do not accept diplomatic credentials from a regime carrying out war crimes.

    Nā mātou noa, nā

    Justice for Palestine

    ActionStation

    Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ)

    Aotearoa Christians for Peace in Palestine

    Aotearoa Healthcare Workers for Palestine

    Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga

    Auckland Action Against Poverty

    Auckland Peace Action

    The Basket Hauraki – Social and Environmental Justice

    Ceasefire Now Hawkes Bay

    Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation

    DECOL Collective Whanganui

    Falastin Tea Collective

    First Union – Dennis Maga, General Secretary, on behalf of First Union Kaiāwhina Tāmaki

    Matika mō Paretinia

    Mauri o te Moana

    NZCTU – Te Kauae Kaimahi

    Otago Staff for Palestine

    Otago Students for Justice in Palestine

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa Whanganui

    Palestine Solidarity Network Whangārei

    Palestine Solidarity Taranaki

    Palestine Human Rights Campaign Waikato

    Peace Action Wellington

    Peace Movement Aotearoa

    People Against Prisons Aotearoa

    Professor Richard Jackson, Co-Director Te Ao O Rongomaraeroa – The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago

    Protect Pūtiki

    Rainbow Youth

    Reanga Taketake

    Satellites

    Stand with Palestine Waiheke

    Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke

    Students for Justice in Palestine Canterbury

    Tauranga Moana for Palestine

    Te Kuaka

    Te Tau Ihu Palestine Solidarity

    University of Auckland Student Justice for Palestine

  • Superpower rivalry makes Pacific aid a bargaining chip – vulnerable nations still lose out

    ANALYSIS: By Sione Tekiteki, Auckland University of Technology

    The A$140 million aid agreement between Australia and Nauru signed last week is a prime example of the geopolitical tightrope vulnerable Pacific nations are walking in the 21st century.

    The deal provides Nauru with direct budgetary support, stable banking services, and policing and security resources. In return, Australia will have the right to veto any pact Nauru might make with other countries — namely China.

    The veto terms are similar to the “Falepili Union” between Australia and Tuvalu signed late last year, which granted Tuvaluans access to Australian residency and climate mitigation support, in exchange for security guarantees.

    And just last week, more details emerged about a defence deal between the United States and Papua New Guinea, now revealed to be worth US$864 million.

    In exchange for investment in military infrastructure development, training and equipment, the US gains unrestricted access to six ports and airports.

    Also last week, PNG signed a 10-year, A$600 million deal to fund its own team in Australia’s NRL competition. In return, “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the Pacific nation”.

    These arrangements are all emblematic of the geopolitical tussle playing out in the Pacific between China and the US and its allies.

    This strategic competition is often framed in mainstream media and political commentary as an extension of “the great game” played by rival powers. From a traditional security perspective, Pacific nations can be depicted as seeking advantage to leverage their own development priorities.

    But this assumption that Pacific governments are “diplomatic price setters”, able to play China and the US off against each other, overlooks the very real power imbalances involved.

    The risk, as the authors of one recent study argued, is that the “China threat” narrative becomes the justification for “greater Western militarisation and economic dominance”. In other words, Pacific nations become diplomatic price takers.

    Defence diplomacy
    Pacific nations are vulnerable on several fronts: most have a low economic base and many are facing a debt crisis. At the same time, they are on the front line of climate change and rising sea levels.

    The costs of recovering from more frequent extreme weather events create a vicious cycle of more debt and greater vulnerability. As was reported at this year’s United Nations COP29 summit, climate financing in the Pacific is mostly in the form of concessional loans.

    The Pacific is already one of the world’s most aid-reliant regions. But considerable doubt has been expressed about the effectiveness of that aid when recipient countries still struggle to meet development goals.

    At the country level, government systems often lack the capacity to manage increasing aid packages, and struggle with the diplomatic engagement and other obligations demanded by the new geopolitical conditions.

    In August, Kiribati even closed its borders to diplomats until 2025 to allow the new government “breathing space” to attend to domestic affairs.

    In the past, Australia championed governance and institutional support as part of its financial aid. But a lot of development assistance is now skewed towards policing and defence.

    Australia recently committed A$400 million to the Pacific Policing Initiative, on top of a host of other security-related initiatives. This is all part of an overall rise in so-called “defence diplomacy”, leading some observers to criticise the politicisation of aid at the expense of the Pacific’s most vulnerable people.

    Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise
    Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise, the nation closed its borders to foreign diplomats until 2025. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Lack of good faith
    At the same time, many political parties in Pacific nations operate quite informally and lack comprehensive policy manifestos. Most governments lack a parliamentary subcommittee that scrutinises foreign policy.

    The upshot is that foreign policy and security arrangements can be driven by personalities rather than policy priorities, with little scrutiny. Pacific nations are also susceptible to corruption, as highlighted in Transparency International’s 2024 Annual Corruption Report.

    Writing about the consequences of the geopolitical rivalry in the Solomon Islands, Transparency Solomon Islands executive director Ruth Liloqula wrote:

    Since 2019, my country has become a hotbed for diplomatic tensions and foreign interference, and undue influence.

    Similarly, Pacific affairs expert Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has argued the Australia–Tuvalu agreement was one-sided and showed a “lack of good faith”.

    Behind these developments, of course, lies the evolving AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and United Kingdom, a response to growing Chinese presence and influence in the “Indo-Pacific” region.

    The response from Pacific nations has been diplomatic, perhaps from a sense they cannot “rock the submarine” too much, given their ties to the big powers involved. But former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor has warned:

    Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.

    While there are obvious advantages that come with strategic alliances, the tangible impacts for Pacific nations remain negligible. As the UN’s Asia and the Pacific progress report on sustainable development goals states, not a single goal is on track to be achieved by 2030.

    Unless these partnerships are grounded in good faith and genuine sustainable development, the grassroots consequences of geopolitics-as-usual will not change.The Conversation

    Dr Sione Tekiteki, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • US on target in Guam with first Marine redeployment and missile test

    By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam

    The United States is advancing the fortification of its territory closest to China with the arrival of the first Marines from Okinawa and its first interceptor missile test in Guam last week.

    About 100 Marines from Japan landed on Saturday, the vanguard of about 5000 due to be relocated to Guam under a security treaty with the US.

    The US successfully downed one of its own unarmed ballistic missiles last Tuesday in what will be a regular occurrence in the territory over the next decade.

    The milestones come as the House of Representatives last week also passed the 2025 National Defence Authorisation Act — with more than US$2 billion in spending for Guam — that now goes to the Senate for approval.

    Nicknamed the “tip of the spear” due to its proximity to China, Guam is considered a potential target in any conflict between the two nations. The island has no bomb shelters and the unprecedented military build-up continues to divide residents.

    “The intensity of the build-up is overwhelming for citizens and public agencies trying to keep track and respond to military plans as they unfold,” said Robert Underwood, chairman of the Guam-based Pacific Centre for Island Security.

    “A master plan is needed for understanding by all concerned. One must exist and we are not privy to it,” he told BenarNews.

    Lays the groundwork
    The arrival of the first troops lays the groundwork for preparing Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz to receive thousands more.

    “Relocations will take place in a phased approach, and no unit headquarters will be moving during this iteration,” a US Marine Corps press release said on Saturday.

    20240303 camp blaz guam DVIDS.jpg
    An aerial photo shows the front gate and ongoing construction progress at Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz in Guam, pictured in March this year. Image: DVIDS/BenarNews

    “Forward presence and routine engagement with allies and partners are essential to the United States’ ability to deter attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion and respond to crises in the region, to include providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief when necessary,” the USMC said.

    Japan will pay US$2.8 billion to fund some of the infrastructure projects on Naval Base Guam, Andersen Air Force Base and Camp Blaz.

    2024-12-10T224109Z_1255056712_RC2MMBAC8FUU_RTRMADP_3_USA-PENTAGON-GUAM-MISSILE-DEFENSE.JPG
    A missile is fired from the Vertical Launching System at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, as part of a ballistic missile exercise last week. Image: DVIDS/BenarNews

    The Missile Defence Agency last Tuesday tested its Aegis system, firing off an interceptor from Andersen Air Force to down an unarmed, medium-range ballistic missile more than 200 nautical miles north-east of Guam.

    “The event marked a pivotal step taken in the defence of Guam and provides critical support to the overall concept for the future Guam defence system,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a press briefing last Wednesday.

    The launch was the first in a series of twice-yearly missile defence tests on Guam over the next 10 years.

    16 sites planned
    The US Indo-Pacific Command plans to build a missile defence system with 16 sites, touted to provide 360-degree protection for Guam.

    The urgency was highlighted after China conducted a rare ballistic missile test with a dummy warhead in September. Its flight path crossed near Guam, Federated States of Micronesia and Marshall Islands before falling into the ocean in the vicinity of Kiribati.

    Guam China Reuters GFX.jpg
    China’s short and mid-range missiles cannot reach Guam, but its intermediate-range missiles, including DF-26, nicknamed the “Guam Express,” can. Image: BenarNews

    In July, US military officials had announced that the first missile defence test was set to take place in Guam “by the end of the year,” but did not provide the exact date.

    Nanette Reyes-Senior, a resident of Maina village, said she was “extremely surprised” that the MDA launched the flight test “without prior notice to the public — unless there was notice that I missed.”

    Underwood has called for greater transparency about the missile defence of Guam.

    “The missile testing had already been announced . . . but no specific week, let alone date was announced,” Underwood said.

    With more tests to be launched in the coming years, Underwood said: “The general public should be given advanced notice and especially land owners.”

    No significant impact
    After public consultation earlier this year, the Missile Defence Agency decided the planned tests would not significantly impact humans or the natural environment.

    President of the Pacific Association of Radiation Survivors Robert Celestial welcomed the US missile defense test.

    “China had 23000 ballistic missiles, numerous ICBM missiles and 320 nuclear warheads. It is evident that we are preparing for war, so we should at least prepare to protect the civilian population from a nuclear attack,” he told BenarNews.

    “Growing up in the 1960s we had duck-and-cover drills. I feel better prepared now than [to] suffer later.”

    Guam is no stranger to war, being part of the Pacific campaign during World War II.

    Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s visit to Guam earlier this month to strengthen ties has raised residents’ fears of the territory being further targeted in escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing.

    Shelly Vargas-Calvo, a senator-elect who will assume her seat in the Guam legislature next month, said the growing tensions in the region will take Guam into the path of war.

    “I applaud the successful test launch,” she said. “It is imperative to show power and capability despite having a small footprint in the region to send a message that we and our allies are not to be messed around with.”

    Republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Al Jazeera cameraman third journalist killed by Israel in Gaza in last 24 hours

    Asia Pacific Report

    An Israeli air strike has killed Palestinian photojournalist Ahmed Al-Louh and five Palestinian Civil Defence workers in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp as Tel Aviv announces that it will double illegal settlements in the Golan Heights.

    Al-Louh, who worked as a cameraman for Al Jazeera alongside other media outlets, was killed yesterday in the strike on the Civil Defence post in the central Gaza camp, according to medics and local journalists.

    The attack occurred as Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 Palestinians on Sunday, medics said. Allouh is the third journalist killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours.

    Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to increase the number of settlers in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, days after seizing more Syrian territory following the ousting of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, reports Al Jazeera.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the government had “unanimously approved” the “demographic development” of the occupied territory, which would seek to double the Israeli population there.

    This new settlement plan is only for the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel has occupied since 1967. In 1981, Israel’s parliamentary Knesset moved to impose Israeli law over the territory, in an effective annexation.

    Al Jazeera Arabic reported that journalist Al-louh was working while he was killed, wearing a “press” vest and helmet. He was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s city of Deir el-Balah.

    Al Jazeera condemns ‘heinous crime’
    Al Jazeera Media Network condemned Al-Louh’s killing, and called on human rights and media organisations “to condemn the Israeli Occupation’s systematic killing of journalists in cold blood, the evasion of responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice”.


    Israeli strike kills Al Jazeera journalist.        Video: CNN News

    “We urge relevant international legal institutions to take practical and urgent measures to hold the Israeli authorities and all those who are responsible accountable for their heinous crimes and to adopt mechanisms to put an end to the targeting and killing of journalists,” the network added.

    Al-Louh had been covering Israel’s war on Gaza when it first began in October 2023, embedded with the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian Civil Defence teams, Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary said.

    “It’s another heartbreaking day for Palestinians, Civil Defence teams, journalists. We [have been] wondering, how many times are we going to continue reporting on the killing[s] of our colleagues and beloved ones?” Khoudary said, reporting from Deir el-Balah.

    Gaza’s media office said the head of the civil emergency service in Nuseirat, Nedal Abu Hjayyer, was also killed in Sunday’s attack.

    “The civil emergency headquarters in Nuseirat camp was hit during the crews’ presence. They work around the clock to serve the people,” said Zaki Emadeldeen from the civil emergency service to reporters at the hospital.

    “The civil emergency service is a humanitarian service and not political. They work in war and peace times for the service of the people,” he said, adding that the place was hit directly by an Israeli air strike.

    The Israeli military said they were looking into the attack.

    Journalists ‘paying highest price’
    “Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

    “Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”

    Several other Palestinian journalists were killed this past week, with 195 killed in Gaza since Israel’s war began, Khoudary said.

    Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said earlier on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli air attack that targeted their home in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, late on Saturday.

    Earlier on Saturday, Al Mashhad Media said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.

    Several AJ journalists killed
    Several Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, including Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Rifi, Samer Abudaqa and Hamza Dahdouh.

    Also on Sunday, an air strike hit people protecting aid trucks west of Gaza City. Medics said several were killed or wounded but exact figures were not yet available.

    Residents also said at least 11 people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City. Nine were killed in the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia camp when clusters of houses were bombed or set ablaze, and two were killed by drone fire in Rafah.

    Earlier on Sunday, at least 15 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces stormed Khalil Oweida School in Beit Hanoon, sources told Al Jazeera.

    Several other Israeli attacks earlier on Sunday killed Palestinians near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza; and in Shujayea, in Khan Younis.

    According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 44,976 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Global watchdog condemns Fiji for ‘blocking’ protest marches over Gaza genocide

    Asia Pacific Report

    A global civil society watchdog has condemned Fiji for blocking protest marches over the Palestine genocide by Israel and clamping down on a regional Pacific university demonstration with threats.

    However, while the Civicus Monitor rates the state of civic space in Fiji as “obstructed” it has acknowledged the country for making some progress over human rights.

    “While the government took steps in 2023 to repeal a restrictive media law and reversed travel bans on critics, the Public Order (Amendment) Act, which has been used to restrict peaceful assembly and expression and sedition provisions in the Crimes Act, remains in place,” said the Civicus Monitor in a statement on its website.

    “The police have also restricted pro-Palestinian marches” — planned protests against Israel’s genocide against Gaza in which more than 44,000 people have been killed, mostly women and children.

    The monitor said the Fiji government had “continued to take steps to address human rights issues in Fiji”.

    In July 2024, it was reported that the Fiji Corrections Service had signed an agreement with the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission to provide them access to monitor inmates in prison facilities.

    In August 2024, a task force known as Fiji’s National Mechanism for Implementation, Reporting, and Follow-up (NMIRF) was launched by the Attorney-General Graham Leung.

    The establishment of the human rights task force is to coordinate Fiji’s engagement with international human rights bodies, including the UN human tights treaty bodies, the Universal Periodic Review and the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.

    In September 2024, it was announced that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) would be established to investigate and address human rights violations since 1987.

    TRC steering committee chair and Assistant Minister for Women Sashi Kiran said that they were working on drafting a piece of legislation on this and that the commission would operate independently from the government.

    “In recent months, the police once again blocked an application by civil society groups to hold a march for Palestine, while university unions were threatened with a pay dock for their involvement in a strike,” the Civicus Monitor said.

    Police deny Palestine solidarity march
    “The authorities have continued to restrict the right to peaceful assembly, particularly around Palestine.”

    On 7 October 2024, the police denied permission for a march in the capital Suva by the NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji.

    Fiji's Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations Livai Driu
    Fiji’s Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations Livai Driu . . . “The decision [to ban a pro-Palestine march] was made based on security reasons.” Image: FB/Radio Tarana
    The Fiji Police Force ACP Operations Livai Driu was quoted as saying: “The decision was made based on security reasons.”

    “The march was intended to express solidarity with the Palestinian people amidst the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The coalition’s application to hold the march was met with repeated delays and questioning by government authorities,” said the Civicus Monitor.

    “The coalition said that this was ‘reminiscent of a dictatorial system of the past’.

    The coalition added: “It is shameful that the Fiji Coalition Government which has lauded itself internationally and regionally as being a promoter of human rights and peace has continued to curtail the rights of its citizens by denying permit applications calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

    Activists also pointed out the double standards by the police, as permits were provided to a group in support of Israel to march through Suva and wave the Israeli flag, said the Civicus Monitor.

    “The restriction around protests on Palestine and waving the Palestinian flag has persisted for over a year.

    “As previously documented, the activists have had to hold their solidarity gatherings in the premises of the FWCC office as the police have restricted solidarity marches, under the Public Order (Amendment) Act 2014.

    “The law allows the government to refuse permits for any public meeting or march deemed to prejudice the maintenance of peace or good order.

    “It has often been misused by the authorities to restrict or block peaceful gatherings and demonstrations, restricting the right to peaceful assembly and association.

    “Protest gatherings at FWCC have also faced intimidation.”

    The UN Human Rights Council and human rights groups have called for the repeal of restrictive provisions in the law, including the requirement for a police permit for protests, which is inconsistent with international standards.

    These restrictions on solidarity marches for Palestine are inconsistent with Fiji’s international human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which guarantees freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

    These actions also contravene Fiji’s constitution that guarantees these rights.

    University threatens union members
    In October 2024, members of the Association of the University of the South Pacific (USP) and the University of the South Pacific Staff Union who went on strike were reportedly threatened by the university, reported the Civicus Monitor.

    The human resource office said they would not be paid if they were not in office during the strike.

    The unions commenced strike action on 18 October 2024 in protest against the alleged poor governance and leadership at the university by vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia and the termination of former staff union (AUSPS) president Dr Tamara Osborne Naikatini, calling for her to be reinstated.

    “The unions expressed dissatisfaction following the recent release of the Special Council meeting outcome, which they say misleadingly framed serious grievances as mere human resource issues to be investigated rather than investigating [Professor] Ahluwalia.

    “The unions say they have been raising concerns for months and called for Ahluwalia to be suspended and for a timely investigation.”

    Alongside the staff members currently standing in protest were also several groups of students.

    On 24 October 2024, the students led a march at the University of the South Pacific Laucala campus that ended in front of the vice-chancellor’s residence. The students claimed that Professor Ahluwalia did not consider the best interests of the students and called for his replacement.

    The USP is owned by 12 Pacific nations, which contribute a total 20 percent of its annual income, and with campuses in all the member island states.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australia denies some Israeli soldiers visas over war crimes – PSNA urges NZ to do same

    Asia Pacific Report

    Israeli soldiers have been denied visas to enter Australia over war crime concerns — and the New Zealand government is now being called on by Palestine solidarity activists to act immediately to stop Israeli soldiers visiting.

    Some Israeli soldiers have been denied visas to enter Australia after being required to fill in a 13-page form designed to determine if they had been involved in war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

    The Middle East Eye reports Israeli visa applicants are asked about their involvement in physical or psychological abuse, their roles as guards or officials in detention facilities, and whether they had participated in war crimes or genocide.

    This follows last month’s ruling from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity over atrocities committed since October 7 last year.

    However, Israelis coming to New Zealand face no such requirements, says the Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA)

    Since 2019, Israelis have been able to enter New Zealand for three months without needing a visa. This visa-waiver is used by Israeli soldiers today for “rest and recreation” from the genocide in Gaza.

    “We face having Israeli soldiers rejected by Australia over war crime concerns jumping on a plane to New Zealand,” said PSNA national chair John Minto in a statement.

    ‘Suspend all IDF visas’ call
    “We cannot depend on Israeli soldiers to give accurate reports of their involvement in war crimes so we have asked the government to suspend all visas for Israelis who are serving or who have served in the Israeli Defence Force [IDF].”

    United Nations officials, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and now Amnesty International have all used the term genocide to describe the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza where more than 45,000 People – mostly women and children – have been slaughtered by the IDF.

    “Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Minto said.

    “All the red flags for genocide have been visible for months but our National-led coalition government is giving the green light to those responsible for war crimes to enter New Zealand.

    “New Zealand’s response to genocide in Gaza has been a cowardly refusal to stand up for the Genocide Convention which requires us to ‘prevent and punish’ the crime of genocide.

    “This needs to change today.”

    Former Israeli justice minister barred
    Australia’s recent denial of visas to two Israeli soldiers — siblings in one family — follows a similar case involving the former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who was denied a visa last month over fears of “incitement”, reports the Middle East Eye.

    The Australian Department of Home Affairs told the former Israeli justice minister she had been denied a visa to travel to the country under the Migration Act.

    The act allows the government to deny entry to individuals likely to “vilify Australians” or “incite discord” within the local community.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Why is Israel bombing Syria? – ‘because it can get away with it’, says Bishara

    Asia Pacific Report

    Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has condemned Israel’s extensive airstrikes on Syrian installations — reportedly 500 times in 72 hours, comparing them to historic Israeli actions justified as “security measures”.

    He criticised the hypocrisy of Israel’s security pretext endorsed by Western powers.

    Asked why Israel was bombing Syria and encroaching on its territory just days after the ousting of the Bashar al-Assad regime after 54 years in power, he told Al Jazeera: “Because it can get away with it.”

    Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara
    Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara . . . Israel aims to destabilise and weaken neighbouring countries for its own security. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    Bishara explained that Israel aimed to destabilise and weaken neighbouring countries for its own security.

    He noted that the new Syrian administration was overwhelmed and unable to respond effectively.

    Bishara highlighted that regional powers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia had condemned Israel’s actions, even though Western countries had been largely silent.

    He said Israel was “taking advantage” of the chaos to “settle scores”.

    “One can go back 75 years, 80 years, and look at Israel since its inception,” he said.

    “What has it been? In a state of war. Continuous, consistent state of war, bombing countries, destabilising countries, carrying out genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.

    “All of it for the same reason — presumably it’s security.

    A "Palestine will be free" placard at today's Auckland solidarity rally for Palestine
    A “Palestine will be free” placard at today’s Auckland solidarity rally for Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR

    “Under the pretext of security, Israel would carry [out] the worst kind of violations of international law, the worst kind of ethnic cleansing, worst kind of genocide.

    “And that’s what we have seen it do.

    “Now, certainly in this very particular instance it’s taking advantage of the fact that there is a bit of chaos, if you will, slash change, dramatic change in Syria after 50 years of more of the same in order to settle scores with a country that it has always deemed to be a dangerous enemy, and that is Syria.

    “So I think the idea of decapitating, destabilising, undercutting, undermining Syria and Syria’s national security, will always be a main goal for Israel.”

    "They tried to erase Palestine from the world. So the whole world became Palestine."
    “They tried to erase Palestine from the world. So the whole world became Palestine.” . . . a t-shirt at today’s Auckland solidarity rally for Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR

    In an Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau solidarity rally today, protesters condemned Israel’s bombing of Syria and also called on New Zealand’s Christopher Luxon-led coalition government to take a stronger stance against Israel and to pressure major countries to impose UN sanctions against Tel Aviv.

    A prominent lawyer, Labour Party activist and law school senior academic at Auckland University of Technology, Dr Myra Williamson, spoke about the breakthrough in international law last month with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants being issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.


    Lawyer and law school academic Dr Myra Williamson speaking at the Auckland rally today.  Video: Asia Pacific Report

    “What you have to be aware of is that the ICC is being threatened — the individuals are being threatened and the court itself is being threatened, mainly by the United States,” she told the solidarity crowd in Te Komititanga Square.

    “Personal threats to the judges, to the prosecutor Karim Khan.

    “So you need to be vocal and you need to talk to people over the summer about how important that work is. Just to get the warrants issued was a major achievement and the next thing is to get them on trial in The Hague.”


    ICC Annual Meeting — court under threat.      Video: Al Jazeera

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Damascus and Gaza prisoners: Syrians and Palestinians search for ‘disappeared’ loved ones

    Democracy Now!

    AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

    DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.

    AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.

    This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.

    Israel’s Defence Minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the UN-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel”.

    On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the UN buffer zone.

    In Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s Foreign Minister and the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the US and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers “terrorist”.

    For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who is based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.

    Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —

    SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.

    AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.


    Report from Damascus: Searching for loved ones in prisons and morgues.  Video: Democracy Now!

    SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.”

    But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.

    AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.

    HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons.

    But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”

    AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.

    SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone.

    Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya [prison]. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before.

    I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.

    So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers.

    And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.

    What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found.

    Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killings in the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.

    AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —

    SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —

    AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.

    YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport.

    He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.

    AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body is found.

    SARAH EL DEEB: I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.

    His heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the US — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.

    One of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years.

    People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. That is on top of all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.

    So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.

    AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.

    TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.

    REPORTER: Travis.

    TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.

    REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.

    TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.

    REPORTER: That’s right.

    TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.

    REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?

    TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.

    AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a ‘blessing.’” What can you share about him after interviewing him?

    SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated.

    He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.

    His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.

    AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —

    SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.

    AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?

    SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.

    I think the search, the US administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria in 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison.

    But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons were chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.

    AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing.

    I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.

    SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital.

    They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They [Israeli military] entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.

    But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.

    And I think what her case kind of symbolises is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detentions, these raids.

    Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved.

    And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.

    AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.

    Next up, today is the 75th day of a hunger strike by Laila Soueif. She’s the mother of prominent British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah. She’s calling on British officials to pressure Egypt for the release of her son. We’ll speak to the Cairo University mathematics professor in London, where she’s been standing outside the Foreign Office. Back in 20 seconds.

    This article is republished from the Democracy Now! programme under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RSF says global attacks on journalists ‘alarming’, Gaza ‘most dangerous’ and seeks ‘urgent action’

    Pacific Media Watch

    The global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed an “alarming intensification of attacks on journalists” in its 2024 annual roundup — especially in conflict zones such as Gaza.

    Gaza stands out as the “most dangerous” region in the world, with the highest number of journalists murdered in connection with their work in the past five years.

    Since October 2023, the Israeli military have killed more than 145 journalists, including at least 35 whose deaths were linked to their journalism, reports RSF.

    Also 550 journalists are currently imprisoned worldwide, a 7 percent increase from last year.

    “This violence — often perpetrated by governments and armed groups with total impunity — needs an immediate response,” says the report.

    “RSF calls for urgent action to protect journalists and journalism.”

    Asia second most dangerous
    Asia is the second most dangerous region for journalists due to the large number of journalists killed in Pakistan (seven) and the protests that rocked Bangladesh (five), says the report.

    “Journalists do not die, they are killed; they are not in prison, regimes lock them up; they do not disappear, they are kidnapped,” said RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “These crimes — often orchestrated by governments and armed groups with total impunity — violate international law and too often go unpunished.

    “We need to get things moving, to remind ourselves as citizens that journalists are dying for us, to keep us informed. We must continue to count, name, condemn, investigate, and ensure that justice is served.

    “Fatalism should never win. Protecting those who inform us is protecting the truth.

    A third of the journalists killed in 2024 were slain by the Israeli armed forces.

    A record 54 journalists were killed, including 31 in conflict zones.

    In 2024, the Gaza Strip accounted for nearly 30 percent of journalists killed on the job, according to RSF’s latest information. They were killed by the Israeli army.

    More than 145 journalists have been killed in Palestine since October 2023, including at least 35 targeted in the line of duty.

    RSF continues to investigate these deaths to identify and condemn the deliberate targeting of media workers, and has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed against journalists.

    RSF condemns Israeli media ‘stranglehold’
    Last month, in a separate report while Israel’s war against Gaza, Lebanon and Syria rages on, RSF said Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi was trying to “reshape” Israel’s media landscape.

    Between a law banning foreign media outlets that were “deemed dangerous”, a bill that would give the government a stranglehold on public television budgets, and the addition of a private pro-Netanyahu channel on terrestrial television exempt from licensing fees, the ultra-conservative minister is augmenting pro-government coverage of the news.

    RSF said it was “alarmed by these unprecedented attacks” against media independence and pluralism — two pillars of democracy — and called on the government to abandon these “reforms”.

    On November 24, two new proposals for measures targeting media critical of the authorities and the war in Gaza and Lebanon were approved by Netanyahu’s government.

    The Ministerial Committee for Legislation validated a proposed law providing for the privatisation of the public broadcaster Kan.

    On the same day, the Council of Ministers unanimously accepted a draft resolution by Communications Minister Shlomo Kahri from November 2023 seeking to cut public aid and revenue from the Government Advertising Agency to the independent and critical liberal newspaper Haaretz.

    ‘Al Jazeera’ ban tightened
    The so-called “Al-Jazeera law”, as it has been dubbed by the Israeli press, has been tightened.

    This exceptional measure was adopted in April 2024 for a four-month period and renewed in July.

    On November 20, Israeli MPs voted to extend the law’s duration to six months, and increased the law’s main provision — a broadcasting ban on any foreign media outlet deemed detrimental to national security by the security services — from 45 days to 60.

    “The free press in a country that describes itself as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ will be undermined,” said RSF’s editorial director Anne Bocandé.

    RSF called on Israel’s political authorities, starting with Minister Shlomo Karhi and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, to “act responsibly” and abandon these proposed reforms.

    Inside Israel, journalists critical of the government and the war have been facing pressure and intimidation for more than a year.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • UN overwhelmingly backs immediate Gaza ceasefire – but 3 Pacific nations vote against

    Asia Pacific Report

    The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against are Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.

    The assembly passed a resolution yesterday demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.

    Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were joined by Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

    The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czechia, Hungary and Paraguay.

    Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.

    In a separate vote, 159 UNGA members voted in favour of a resolution affirming the body’s “full support” for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

    UNRWA has been the target of diplomatic and financial attacks by Israel and its backers — which have baselessly accused the lifesaving organisation of being a “terrorist group” — and literal attacks by Israeli forces, who have killed more than 250 of the agency’s personnel.

    Nine UNGA members opposed the measure — including Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga — while 11 others abstained. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, while General Assembly resolutions are not, and are also not subject to vetoes.

    The US has six times vetoed Security Council resolutions in favour of a ceasefire in the past 14 months.

    The UN votes yesterday took place amid sustained Israeli attacks on Gaza including a strike on a home sheltering forcibly displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah that killed at least 33 people, including children, local medical officials said.

    This followed earlier Israeli attacks, including the Monday night bombing of the al-Kahlout family home in Beit Hanoun that killed or wounded dozens of Palestinians and reportedly wiped the family from the civil registry.

    “We are witnessing a massive loss of life,” said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, reports Common Dreams.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji government accused over human rights violations, free speech curb

    By Apenisa Waqairadovu in Suva

    Fiji’s coalition government has come under scrutiny over allegations of human rights violations.

    Speaking at the commemoration of International Human Rights Day in Suva on Tuesday, the chair of the Coalition of NGOs, Shamima Ali, claimed that — like the previous FijiFirst administration — the coalition government has demonstrated a “lack of commitment to human rights”.

    Addressing more than 400 activists at the event, the Minister for Women, Children, and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised by civil society organisations, assuring them that Sitiveni Rabuka’s government was committed to listening and addressing these issues.


    Ali criticises Fiji government over human rights         Video: FBC News

    The "Human rights for all" theme
    The “Human rights for all” theme at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march in downtown Suva. Image: FBC News

    Shamima Ali claimed that freedom of expression was still being suppressed and the coalition had failed to address this.

    “We are also concerned that there continue to be government restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly through the arbitrary application of the Public Order Amendment Act, which should have been changed by now — two years into the new government that we all looked forward to,” she said.

    A "Girls wanna have fundamental human rights"
    A “Girls wanna have fundamental human rights” placard at the World Human Rights Day march in Suva. Image: FBC News

    Ali alleged that serious decisions in government were made unfairly, and women in leadership continued to be “undermined”.

    “Nepotism and cronyism remain rife with each successive government, with party supporters being given positions with no regard for merit, diversity, and representation,” she said.

    “Misogyny against certain women leaders is rampant, with wild sexism and online bullying.”

    An "Our rights, our future now" placard at Fiji's Human Rights Day rally.
    An “Our rights, our future now” placard at Fiji’s Human Rights Day rally. Image: FBC News

    Responding, Minister Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised and called for dialogue to bring about the change needed.

    “I can sit here and be told everything that we are doing wrong in government,” Tabuya said.

    “I can take it, but I cannot assure that others in government will take it the same way as well. So I encourage you, with the kind of partnerships, to begin with dialogue and to build together because government cannot do it alone.”

    A "Stop fossil fuel production, consumption and distribution" placard at Fiji's World Human Rights Day march
    A “Stop fossil fuel production, consumption and distribution” placard at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march . . . climate crisis is a major human rights issue in the Pacific. Image: FBC News

    The minister stressed that to address the many human rights violation concerns that had been raised, the government needed support from civil society organisations, traditional leaders, faith-based leaders, and a cross-sector approach to face these issues.

    Republished from FBC News with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific police chiefs open Australian base for regional rapid deployment force

    By Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews

    Pacific police chiefs have formally opened the headquarters and training center for a new stand-by, mutual assistance force in Australia to support countries during civil unrest, natural disasters and major events.

    The Pacific Policing Initiative was declared operational just 17 months after chiefs agreed in 2023 on the need to create a multinational unit, with US$270 million (A$400 million) in funding from Australia.

    The PPI comes as Australia and its allies are locked in a geostrategic contest for influence in the region with China, including over security and policing.

    Riots in Solomon Islands and violence in Papua New Guinea, the region’s increased exposure to climate change impacts, escalating transnational crime and securing a higher standing internationally for the Pacific’s forces were key drivers.

    PNG police commissioner David Manning (center) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (2nd right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]
    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning (centre) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (second right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster

    At a flag-raising ceremony in Brisbane on Tuesday, Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning hailed the PPI’s funding as an “unprecedented investment” in the region.

    “The PPI provides a clear, effective, and agile mechanism to which we can support our Pacific family in times of need to uphold the law and maintain order in security,” said Manning, who chairs the PPI design steering committee.

    He said issues in deploying foreign police throughout the region still needed to be resolved but the 22 member nations and territories were “close to completing the guiding legal framework around Pacific Island countries to be able to tap into this.”

    The constitutional difficulties of deploying foreign police are well known to Manning after PNG’s highest court ruled two decades ago that a deployment of Australian Federal Police there was illegal.

    “That incident alone has taught us many lessons,” he said, adding changes had been made to the Constitution and relevant legislation to receive assistance and also to deploy to other countries lawfully.

    Manning said no deployments of the Pacific Support Group had currently been requested by Pacific nations.

    Impetus for the PPI was a secretive policing and security deal Beijing signed with Solomon Islands in 2022 that caused alarm in Washington and Canberra.

    Several other Pacific nations — including Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati — also have policing arrangements with China to provide training and equipment. On Monday, Vanuatu received police boats and vehicles valued at US$4 million from Beijing.

    “I wouldn’t say it locks China out, all I’m saying is that we now have an opportunity to determine what is best for the Pacific,” Manning said.

    “Our countries in the Pacific have different approaches in terms of their relationship with China. I’m not brave enough to speak on their behalf, but as for us, it is purely policing.”

    Samoan Police Minister Lefau Harry Schuster on Tuesday also announced his country would be hosting the PPI’s third “center of excellence”, specialising in forensics, alongside ones in PNG and Fiji.

    He said the PPI will use the Samoan Police Academy built by China and opened in June.

    “We wanted it to be used not just for Samoa, but to open up for use by the region,” Schuster said in Brisbane.

    Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said the PPI “symbolises our commitment as part of the Pacific region” and enhances the Pacific’s standing internationally.

    “Asia represents Australia and the Pacific at the moment at Interpol,” he said. “We want to show leadership in the region and we want a bit more status and recognition from Interpol.”

    Kershaw said “crime in our region is becoming more complex”, including large seizures of drug shipments.

    “The fact is that we’re able to work together in a seamless way and combat, say, transnational, serious and organized crime as a serious threat in our region.”

    “At the same time, we’ve all got domestic issues and I think we’re learning faster and better about how to deal with domestic issues and international issues at the same time.”

    Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]
    Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster

    Asked about tackling community policing of issues like gender-based violence, he said it was all part of the “complex” mix.

    The Australian and Samoan facilities complete the three arms of the PPI consisting of the Pacific Support Group, three regional training centers and the co-ordination hub in Brisbane.

    The Pinkenba centre in Brisbane will provide training — including public order management, investigations, close personal protection — and has accommodation for 140 people.

    Training began in July, with 30 officers from 11 nations who were deployed to Samoa to help with security during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October, the largest event the country has ever hosted.

    Schuster expressed surprise about how quickly the PPI was established and thanked Australia and the region for their support.

    “This is one initiative I’m very happy that we didn’t quite do it the Pacific way. [The] Pacific way takes time, a long time, we talk and talk and talk,” he joked.

    “So I look forward to an approach like this in the future, so that we do things first and then open it later.”

    This article is republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.