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Category: Crime

  • Why we need protection from brutality of some thuggish NZ police

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    A New Zealand policeman pushed over an elderly man who was doing nothing but waving a Palestinian flag at a solidarity rally in Ōtautahi yesterday.

    Yes the man employed to protect the public committed a violent assault. Not a wee shove, a great big push that caused the man to fall the ground – onto hard tarmac.

    It comes on top of a woman being fatally shot this week by police and her partner being shot and injured. In that case a knife was involved but it’s kind of like paper-scissors-rock, is it not?

    Police wear protective clothing and where are the tasers?

    In other, different, situations I know for a fact that some of our police are violent against peaceful people.

    I have experienced their brutality directly while filming their brutality. Like the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) they see journalists who film their offensive actions as the enemy.They used pepper spray against me illegally to stop me filming their perversity.

    But look, it’s a hard job so they need how-not-to-be-thugs training.

    Pre-trained as thugs
    Some young men are already pre-trained to be thugs and they seem to be out at the front. They feel great in this mostly white gang.

    I have witnessed police haul people off the pavement, beat them up, and then arrest the victims of their assaults “for assault”.

    False accusations to protect themselves? Twisting the narrative completely to hide their own violence?

    False arrests when they themselves should face arrest.

    I think we’ve had enough.

    Some of the boys in blue really really need to grow up.

    They need training that teaches them that manning or womaning up (some women cops play the thug game too) doesn’t mean training to be a wanker white supremacist.

    Self awareness
    Good training means teaching police to be self aware, aware of thoughts and feelings, not just learning cognitive behavioural tools but applying them.

    They are in the community to protect the community. They should not see people who are supporting human rights or kids attending a party as their opposition, their enemy.

    These thug police need to unlearn their thuggery and learn instead, how to relate to the people. They are not defending themselves against the public. They must not view people — real human beings — as their enemy.

    The thug cops are adept at dehumanising others. They need to learn to see people as individuals and this includes people attending group functions like parties or protests or club activities. People have human rights.

    This includes the right to be respected and treated with dignity.

    The perpetrators of violent crime are — far too often — the police. I’ve seen it happen with no provocation time and again. Too many times to count.

    They don the black gloves and black sunnies and wear bullet proof vests and feel what?How do they feel when they gear up? Threatened or threatening?

    Public protection
    Questions need to be asked.

    The public needs protection from some — not all — of our police.

    And the legal system, the justice system — (I’m trying not use an ironic tone here) needs to be applied to violent crimes, including the police crims who assault members of the public.

    I worry for unseen victims too. I worry for their wives and children because if they assault with no provocation on the street what do they do at home?

    Do people who behave like street devils turn into angels at home?

    Investigations must be held about why our police are assaulting bystanders and peaceful protesters.

    Tragedy investigation
    I guess there wll be an investigation into the bullets against knife tragedy. But we need other investigations too.

    I know the footage of what happened to our innocent elderly protester will be posted on social media.


    New footage emerges of policeman pushing partygoer (2021 1News video)

    In the meantime, here’s other footage above of Christchurch police doing what they are in danger of doing best.

    This footage is four years ago but this alarming, aggressive behaviour continues as demonstrated yesterday by a cop shoving to the ground an unarmed, unprotected, elderly man waving a Palestinian flag whom they then — so wrongly — charged with assault!

    Saige England is an Aotearoa New Zealand journalist, author, and poet, member of the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This commentary was first published on her social media.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Luxon ‘get a spine’ chants as big rallies call for NZ to recognise Palestine state

    Asia Pacific Report

    “Grow a spine for Palestine!” was a frequent theme among about 5000 people protesting in the heart of New Zealand’s largest city today as the protesters demanded that the coalition government should recognise the state of Palestine and stop supporting impunity for Israel.

    More than 62,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza in the past 22 months and the country’s military have doubled down on their attacks on residential areas in the besieged enclave.

    Several speakers, including opposition parliamentarians, spoke at the rally, strongly condemning Israel for its genocidal policies and crimes against humanity.

    Many children took part in the rally at Te Komititanga Square and the return march up Queen Street in spite of the bitterly wet and cold weather. Many of them carried placards and Palestinian flags like their parents.

    One young boy carried a placard declaring “Just a kid standing in front of his PM asking him to grow a heart and a spine”. The heart was illustrated as a Palestinian flag.

    Other placards included slogans such as “Wanted MPs with a spine” and “Grow a spine for Palestine”, and “They try to bury us forgetting we are seeds” with the resistance watermelon symbol.

    Many placards demanded sanctions and condemned Israel, saying “Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them — sanction Israel now”, “NZ government: Your silence is complicity with Israeli genocide” and “Free Palestine now”.

    Disillusionment with leaders
    One poster expressed disillusionment with both the coalition government and opposition Labour Party leaders, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins, denouncing “apologists for genocide”.

    Another poster challenged both Hipkins and Luxon over “what values” they stood for. It said:

    “Our ‘leaders’ have refused to call for a ceasefire even after 10,000+ innocent civilians have been brutally murdered in their own homes, including 4000+ CHILDREN all under the name of “Kiwi values”.

    “They, like a lot of other world politicians, are apologists for genocide.”

    A "Palestine forever" banner at the head of the Auckland march
    A “Palestine forever” banner at the head of the Auckland march today as it prepares to walk up Queen Street. Image: APR

    Frustration has been growing among the public with the government’s reluctance to declare support for Palestinian statehood after 96 consecutive weeks of protests organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and other groups, not just in the largest city of Auckland and the capital Wellington, but also in Christchurch and in at least 20 other towns and communities across the motu.

    The “spine” theme in chants and posters followed just days after Parliament suspended Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick following a fiery speech about Gaza when she said government MPs should grow a spine and sanction Israel for its atrocities.

    She had refused to apologise to the House and supporters at the rally today gave her rousing cheers in support of her defiance.

    ‘We need your help’
    Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told the crowd: “We need you to help her put the pressure on so that we can fight together in that place [Parliament] for our people to free, free Palestine; from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

    “Return our dignity Aotearoa. Stand up for what is right. There is only one side to support in genocide, only one side. And Te Pati Māori will only work with those.”

    When Swarbrick spoke to the crowd, she repeated her goal to find six government MPs “with a spine” to support her bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes”.

    She also said the Palestinian people were being “starved and slaughtered by Israel” in Gaza, adding that their breath was being “stolen from them” by the IDF (Israeli “Defence” Force).

    “It is our duty, all human beings with breath left in our lungs, with the freedom to chant and to move and to demand action from our politicians, to do all that we can to fight for liberation for all peoples,” she said.

    Other politicians speaking were Orini Kaipara, the Te Pati Māori candidate for the Tāmaki Mākaurau byelection, and Kerrin Leoni, mayoral candidate for Tamaki.

    Targeted assassinations
    Earlier, the targeted assassinations of six journalists by the Israeli military last Sunday — taking the toll to 272 — was condemned by independent journalist and Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie. He also criticised the NZ media silence.

    Noting that New Zealand journalists had not condemned the killings or held a vigil as the Media Alliance (MEAA) had done in Australia, he cited an Al Jazeera journalist, Hind Khoudary, whose message to the world was:

    “We are being hunted and killed in Gaza while you watch in silence. For two years, your fellow journalists here have been slaughtered.

    What did you do? Nothing.”

    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick (left) and Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick (left) and Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer at today’s rally in Te Komitanga Square, Auckland. Image: APR

    A recent poll on whether New Zealanders want sanctions to be imposed on Israel, showed that of those who gave an opinion, 60 percent favoured sanctions.

    The PSNA commissioned survey by Talbot Mills in July with 1216 respondents gave a similar result to one commissioned by Justice for Palestine a year ago.

    Popular support for sanctions
    PSNA co-chair John Minto said the numbers showed strong popular support for sanctions. The 60 percent overall rose to 68 percent for the 18–29 year category.

    “The government is well out of step with public opinion and ignores this message at its peril.  There is popular support for sanctions against Israel,” he said.

    “People see that Israel is committing the worst atrocities of the 21st century with impunity. It is starving a whole population.

    “It has destroyed just about every building in Gaza. It is assassinating journalists. It holds 7000 Palestinian hostages in its jails without charge.  Its goal of occupying all of Gaza and ethnically cleansing its people into the Sudan desert, is all public knowledge.”

    Minto said Israel’s “depraved Prime Minister” who was wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICJ) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, had boasting that if Israel was really committing genocide, “it could have killed everyone in Gaza in a single afternoon”.

    “The poll shows New Zealand First supporters are most opposed to sanctions against Israel (59 percent of those who gave an opinion were opposed) so it’s little surprise Winston Peters is dragging the chain.”

    "Just a kid" with his message to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
    “Just a kid” with his blunt message to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Image: APR

  • ‘Stop killing journalists’ in Gaza plea by media alliance advocates

    Pacific Media Watch

    Union members of Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) have made a video honouring the 242 Palestinian journalists and media workers killed by the Israeli military since October 2023 — many of them targeted.

    The death toll has been reported by the Gaza Media Office since the latest killing of six media workers last Sunday, four of them from the Qatar-based global television channel Al Jazeera.

    This figure is higher than the 180 deaths recorded by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and other media freedom agencies.

    “While international media remains locked out of Gaza, Palestinian journalists work under fire, starvation and sickness to report the reality on the ground,” says the MEAA.

    “Targeting journalists is a war crime.

    “As colleagues, we remember them.”

    In this video, MEAA members say the names of many Gazan journalists who have been killed by the Israeli military.

    • Music in the MEAA “Stop Killing Journalists” video is composed by Connor D’Netto and performed by Jayson Gillham. The video is edited by Jack Fisher and (A)manda Parkinson for MEAA and was released on YouTube yesterday.


    Stop Killing Journalists              Video: MEAA


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Why is President Trump deploying troops in Washington DC crime levels have dropped?


    This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The West is in panic as Israel’s plan for ‘full control’ of Gaza heralds a new Nakba

    Netanyahu’s mass ethnic cleansing strategy pulls the rug out from under the West’s cherished pretext for supporting Israeli criminality: the fabled two-state solution.

    ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

    If you thought Western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed.

    As ever, events have moved on — even if the extreme hunger and malnourishment of the two million people of Gaza have not abated.

    Western leaders are now expressing “outrage”, as the media call it, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to “take full control” of Gaza and “occupy” it.

    At some point in the future, Israel is apparently ready to hand the enclave over to outside forces unconnected to the Palestinian people.

    The Israeli cabinet agreed last Friday on the first step: a takeover of Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are huddled in the ruins, being starved to death. The city will be encircled, systematically depopulated and destroyed, with survivors presumably herded southwards to a “humanitarian city” — Israel’s new term for a concentration camp — where they will be penned up, awaiting death or expulsion.

    At the weekend, foreign ministers from the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia and other Western nations issued a joint statement decrying the move, warning it would “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians”.

    Germany, Israel’s most fervent backer in Europe and its second-biggest arms supplier, is apparently so dismayed that it has vowed to “suspend” — that is, delay — weapons shipments that have helped Israel to murder and maim hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the past 22 months.

    Netanyahu is not likely to be too perturbed. Doubtless, Washington will step in and pick up any slack for its main client state in the oil-rich Middle East.

    Meanwhile, Netanyahu has once again shifted the West’s all-too-belated focus on the indisputable proof of Israel’s ongoing genocidal actions — evidenced by Gaza’s skeletal children — to an entirely different story.

    Now, the front pages are all about the Israeli prime minister’s strategy in launching another “ground operation”, how much pushback he is getting from his military commanders, what the implications will be for the Israelis still held captive in the enclave, whether the Israeli army is now overstretched, and whether Hamas can ever be “defeated” and the enclave “demilitarised”.

    We are returning once again to logistical analyses of the genocide — analyses whose premises ignore the genocide itself. Might that not be integral to Netanyahu’s strategy?

    Life and death
    It ought to be shocking that Germany has been provoked into stopping its arming of Israel — assuming it follows through — not because of months of images of Gaza’s skin-and-bones children that echo those from Auschwitz, but only because Israel has declared that it wants to “take control” of Gaza.

    It should be noted, of course, that Israel never stopped controlling Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories — in contravention of the fundamentals of international law, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled last year. Israel has had absolute control over the lives and deaths of Gaza’s people every day — bar one — since its occupation of the tiny coastal enclave many decades ago.

    On 7 October 2023, thousands of Palestinian fighters briefly broke out of the besieged prison camp they and their families had endured after Israel momentarily dropped its guard.

    Gaza has long been a prison that the Israeli military illegally controlled by land, sea and air, determining who could enter and leave. It kept Gaza’s economy throttled, and put the enclave’s population “on a diet” that saw rocketing malnourishment among its children long before the current starvation campaign.

    Trapped behind a highly militarised fence since the early 1990s, unable to access their own coastal waters, and with Israeli drones constantly surveilling them and raining down death from the air, the people of Gaza viewed it more as a modernised concentration camp.

    But Germany and the rest of the West were fine supporting all that. They have continued selling Israel arms, providing it with special trading status, and offering diplomatic cover.

    Only as Israel carries through to a logical conclusion its settler-colonial agenda of replacing the native Palestinian people with Jews, is it apparently time for the West to vent its rhetorical “outrage”.

    Two-state trickery
    Why the pushback now? In part, it is because Netanyahu is pulling the rug out from under their cherished, decades-long pretext for supporting Israel’s ever-greater criminality: the fabled two-state solution.

    Israel conspired in that trickery with the signing of the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s.

    The goal was never the realisation of a two-state solution. Rather, Oslo created a “diplomatic horizon” for “final status issues” — which, like the physical horizon, always remained equally distant, however much ostensible movement there was on the ground.

    Lisa Nandy, Britain’s Culture Secretary, peddled precisely this same deceit last week as she extolled the virtues of the two-state solution. She told Sky News: “Our message to the Palestinian people is very, very clear: There is hope on the horizon.”

    Every Palestinian understood her real message, which could be paraphrased as: “We’ve lied to you about a Palestinian state for decades, and we’ve allowed a genocide to unfold before the world’s eyes for the past two years. But hey, trust us this time. We’re on your side.”

    In truth, the promise of Palestinian statehood was always treated by the West as little more than a threat — and one directed at Palestinian leaders. Palestinian officials must be more obedient, quieter. They had to first prove their willingness to police Israel’s occupation on Israel’s behalf by repressing their own people.

    Hamas, of course, failed that test in Gaza. But Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank, bent over backwards to reassure his examiners, casting as “sacred” his lightly armed security forces’ so-called “cooperation” with Israel. In reality, they are there to do its dirty work.

    Nonetheless, despite the PA’s endless good behaviour, Israel has continued to expel ordinary Palestinians from their land, then steal that land — which was supposed to form the basis of a Palestinian state — and hand it over to extremist Jewish settlers backed by the Israeli army.

    Former US President Barack Obama briefly and feebly tried to halt what the West misleadingly calls Jewish “settlement expansion” — in reality, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians — but rolled over at the first sign of intransigence from Netanyahu.

    Israel has stepped up the process of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank even more aggressively over the past two years, while global attention has been on Gaza — with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz warning this week that settlers have been given “free rein”.

    A small window into the impunity granted to settlers as they wage their campaign of violence to depopulate Palestinian communities was highlighted at the weekend, when B’Tselem released footage of a Palestinian activist, Awdah Hathaleen, inadvertently filming his own killing.

    Extremist settler Yinon Levi was released on grounds of self-defence, even though the video shows him singling out Hathaleen from afar, taking aim and shooting.

    Alibi gone
    It is noticeable that, having stopped making reference to Palestinian statehood for many years, Western leaders have revived their interest only now — as Israel is making a two-state solution unrealisable.

    That was graphically illustrated by footage broadcast this month by ITV. Shot from an aid plane, it showed the wholesale destruction of Gaza — its homes, schools, hospitals, universities, bakeries, shops, mosques and churches gone.


    Apocalyptic scenes in Gaza               Video: ITV News

    Gaza is in ruins. Its reconstruction will take decades. Occupied East Jerusalem and its holy sites were long ago seized and Judaised by Israel, with Western assent.

    Suddenly, Western capitals are noticing that the last remnants of the proposed Palestinian state are about to be swallowed whole by Israel, too. Germany recently warned Israel that it must not take “any further steps toward annexing the West Bank”.

    US President Donald Trump is on his own path. But this is the moment when other major Western powers — led by France, Britain and Canada — have started threatening to recognise a Palestinian state, even as the possibility of such a state has been obliterated by Israel.

    Australia announced it would join them this week after its foreign minister, a few days earlier, said the quiet part out loud, warning: “There is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise if the international community don’t move to create that pathway to a two-state solution.”

    That is something they dare not countenance, because with it goes their alibi for supporting all these years the apartheid state of Israel, now deep into the final stages of a genocide in Gaza.

    That was why British Prime Minister Keir Starmer desperately switched tack recently. Instead of dangling recognition of Palestinian statehood as a carrot encouraging Palestinians to be more obedient — British policy for decades — he wielded it as a threat, and a largely hollow one, against Israel.

    He would recognise a Palestinian state if Israel refused to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza and proceeded with the West Bank’s annexation. In other words, Starmer backed recognising a state of Palestine – after Israel has gone ahead with its complete erasure.

    Extracting concessions
    Still, France and Britain’s recognition threat is not simply too late. It serves two other purposes.

    Firstly, it provides a new alibi for inaction. There are plenty of far more effective ways for the West to halt Israel’s genocide. Western capitals could embargo arms sales, stop intelligence sharing, impose economic sanctions, sever ties with Israeli institutions, expel Israeli ambassadors, and downgrade diplomatic relations. They are choosing to do none of those things.

    And secondly, recognition is designed to extract from the Palestinians “concessions” that will make them even more vulnerable to Israeli violence.

    According to France’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot: “Recognising a State of Palestine today means standing with the Palestinians who have chosen non-violence, who have renounced terrorism, and are prepared to recognise Israel.”

    In other words, in the West’s view, the “good Palestinians” are those who recognise and lay down before the state committing genocide against them.

    Western leaders have long envisioned a Palestinian state only on condition that it is demilitarised. Recognition this time is premised on Hamas agreeing to disarm and its departure from Gaza, leaving Abbas to take on the enclave and presumably continue the “sacred” mission of “cooperating” with a genocidal Israeli army.

    As part of the price for recognition, all 22 members of the Arab League publicly condemned Hamas and demanded its removal from Gaza.

    Boot on Gaza’s neck
    How does all of this fit with Netanyahu’s “ground offensive”? Israel isn’t “taking over” Gaza, as he claims. Its boot has been on the enclave’s neck for decades.

    While Western capitals contemplate a two-state solution, Israel is preparing a final mass ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza.

    Starmer’s government, for one, knew this was coming. Flight data shows that the UK has been constantly operating surveillance missions over Gaza on Israel’s behalf from the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri on Cyprus. Downing Street has been following the enclave’s erasure step by step.

    Netanyahu’s plan is to encircle, besiege and bomb the last remaining populated areas in northern and central Gaza, and drive Palestinians towards a giant holding pen — misnamed a “humanitarian city” — alongside the enclave’s short border with Egypt. Israel will then probably employ the same contractors it has been using elsewhere in Gaza to go street to street to bulldoze or blow up any surviving buildings.

    The next stage, given the trajectory of the last two years, is not difficult to predict. Locked up in their dystopian “humanitarian city”, the people of Gaza will continue to be starved and bombed whenever Israel claims it has identified a Hamas fighter in their midst, until Egypt or other Arab states can be persuaded to take them in, as a further “humanitarian” gesture.

    Then, the only matter to be settled will be what happens to the real estate: build some version of Trump’s gleaming “Riviera” scheme, or construct another tawdry patchwork of Jewish settlements of the kind envisioned by Netanyahu’s openly fascist allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

    There is a well-established template to be drawn on, one that was used in 1948 during Israel’s violent creation. Palestinians were driven from their cities and villages, in what was then called Palestine, across the borders into neighbouring states. The new state of Israel, backed by Western powers, then set about methodically destroying every home in those hundreds of villages.

    Over subsequent years, they were landscaped either with forests or exclusive Jewish communities, often engaged in farming, to make Palestinian return impossible and stifle any memory of Israel’s crimes. Generations of Western politicians, intellectuals and cultural figures have celebrated all of this.

    Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Austrian President Heinz Fischer are among those who went to Israel in their youth to work on these farming communities. Most came back as emissaries for a Jewish state built on the ruins of a Palestinian homeland.

    An emptied Gaza can be similarly re-landscaped. But it is much harder to imagine that this time the world will forget or forgive the crimes committed by Israel — or those who enabled them.

    Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published Middle East Eye and republished from the author’s blog with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘If I die, I die steadfast … I bear witness … for the path of freedom for my people’ – Anas’ last testament

    Anas al-Sharif, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, last Sunday has triggered protests around the world, including journalists in Israel. He left behind a powerful farewell message — his final testament to his people, his family, and the world.

    Palestine Chronicle staff

    Palestinian journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea were killed last Sunday in an Israeli bombardment that struck a journalists’ tent near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.

    Cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal also died in the attack, which was carried out by an Israeli drone. The Israeli army admitted targeting al-Sharif shortly after the strike.

    Al-Sharif, 28, from Jabaliya refugee camp, was an award-winning journalist who became a leading global voice from Gaza during the war. He inspired thousands.

    Protest and vigils have been held around the world from South Africa’s Cape Town to Manila in the Philippines and London in the UK to honour al-Sharif and his colleagues in condemnation of this targeted murder.

    Less than two weeks ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists had warned that his life was in “acute” danger due to repeated threats from an Israeli military spokesperson.

    Before his death, al-Sharif prepared a farewell message to be shared if he was killed. His family and colleagues posted it to his social media accounts after the news of his death.

    Below is the full English translation of that message.

    Anas al-Sharif’s final message
    “This is my will and my final message.

    “If my words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.

    “First, peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings.

    “God knows I gave all I had — strength and effort — to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys of Jabaliya refugee camp. My hope was to live long enough to return with my family and loved ones to our original town, Asqalan (al-Majdal), now under occupation.

    “But God’s will came first, and His decree is final.

    “I have lived pain in all its details and tasted loss many times. Yet I never stopped telling the truth as it is, without falsification or distortion — so that God may bear witness over those who stayed silent, accepted our killing, and did nothing to stop the massacre our people have endured for more than a year and a half.

    “I entrust you with Palestine — the jewel of the Muslim crown and the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people and children, whose pure bodies have been crushed under Israeli bombs and missiles.


    Australian journalists protest over the killings.      Video: MEAA

    “Do not let chains silence you or borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.

    “I entrust you with my family: my beloved daughter Sham; my dear son Salah; my mother, whose prayers were my fortress; and my steadfast wife Bayan (Umm Salah), who carried the responsibility in my absence with strength and faith. Stand by them after God.

    “If I die, I die steadfast in my principles. I bear witness that I am content with God’s decree, certain of our meeting, and convinced that what is with God is better and everlasting.

    “O God, accept me among the martyrs, forgive me my sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people. Forgive me if I fell short, and pray for me with mercy, for I have kept my pledge and never changed.

    “Do not forget Gaza… and do not forget me in your prayers.”

    Anas Jamal al-Sharif

    April 6, 2025

    Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and his son Salah
    Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and his son Salah. Image: via social media

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel has ‘deliberate strategy’ of killing Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif, warns UN expert

    Democracy Now!


    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

    Global condemnation is mounting over Israel’s assassination of one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, the Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues at the network and another freelance journalist.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for an independent investigation after the five Al Jazeera journalists were killed in a targeted Israeli strike outside Al-Shifa Hospital in a tent clearly marked in Gaza City. European Union officials and international press freedom groups have also denounced the assassinations.

    The sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khalidi, was also killed in the same strike. Minutes before the strike, al-Sharif posted to X, “If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

    On Monday, crowds of mourners gathered for a funeral procession for al-Sharif and his colleagues, marching from Al-Shifa to Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in central Gaza, carrying the journalists’ bodies wrapped in white sheets.

    A dark blue flak press jacket and a Palestinian flag were placed on al-Sharif’s remains. People embraced as they decried Israel’s relentless targeting of journalists in Gaza.

    Meanwhile, at rallies and vigils worldwide, people are demanding accountability for the attack on journalists, including in Tunisia, Belfast, Dublin, Berlin, London, Oslo, Stockholm and Washington, DC.

    For more, we go to Geneva, Switzerland, where we’re joined by Irene Khan, UN special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. She served as secretary-general of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009.

    Irene Khan, welcome back to Democracy Now! In late July, you publicly denounced Israel’s threats against Anas al-Sharif. Can you talk about what you understood at that time, and then this young 28-year-old reporter’s response to your press statement?

    IRENE KHAN: Yes, well, Anas actually contacted me, and Al Jazeera contacted me to tell me of this impending threat on his head. They had seen it before. He’s not the first one, as you know.

    There are some — anything between 26 to 30 journalists — who have been targeted in this campaign of assassination. And Anas wanted me to go public, he wanted others to go public, to stop what Israel was doing.

    But at the same time, he thanked me for my support, and then he said nothing would stop him from speaking the truth. And in a way, he signed his own death warrant by that, because, as you know, he and the others, Al Jazeera’s entire team in northern Gaza, were killed, murdered, just as Israel ramps up its military action on the city, Gaza City.

    So, there is a clear pattern here of killing journalists to clear the path, to silence voices, to stop the international, global opinion from being informed of the genocide in Gaza.


    Assassination: Israel’s killing of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif   Video: Democracy Now!

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Irene Khan, the number of journalists — so, more than 200 have been killed in Gaza. That’s more than all the journalists killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War combined.

    Your sense of the Israeli impunity here in being able to basically kill the corps of journalists that are still able to report from Gaza?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, you also have to take into account that Israel has refused to give access to international media. So these are all local Gazan journalists who are putting their lives on the line to keep the world informed. Many of them — you named some 200 — many of them, of course, have been killed in the intensity of the battle. Many of them have been killed while asleep in their own apartments. But these cases, the cases of Anas now, and his colleagues, and a number of other cases of targeted killing, is really murder.

    It is not killing in the context of war. It is a deliberate strategy to stop independent voices reporting. So it’s as much a threat to independent journalism as it is to the journalists themselves, as well as a blatant attempt by the Israelis to stop the world witnessing what they are doing.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And these killings also came as the Israeli government announced they’re unleashing a new operation in the area of Gaza. Who will be left to document this operation now?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. And that is why Anas got in touch with me, because he realised what was happening. You know, from his message on LinkedIn and from his message that he has sent to me and to others, it was very, very clear.

    He has been there on the ground since October 2023. He could see the pattern. He could see what was happening. He knew they were coming for him.

    And that is why it is incumbent on all of us now not to just condemn, but actually to act, before independent media is totally obliterated from Gaza.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, I want to ask what you’re calling for, and the significance of Netanyahu holding this news conference on Sunday and saying — he has now said that the Israeli military can bring in journalists, but they’re most concerned about protecting their safety.

    A few hours later is when Israel assassinated these six journalists. Now, it is the first time, NPR reports, since October 2023 that Israel so quickly took responsibility for their assassination.

    You know, compare it to Shireen Abu Akleh, May 11, 2022, when Israel said it was not clear, and then, you know, so many studies were done, but it became very clear. Talk about what you are calling for at this point.

    IRENE KHAN: It’s not actually an admission of taking responsibility, because there is no accountability in it. It’s actually a brazen attempt to show the world that the Israeli army can work as it wishes, regardless of international humanitarian law that protects journalists as civilians.

    Now, what I’m calling for is, of course, independent investigation, truly independent investigation. But I’m also calling for protection of journalists on the ground and for access to international journalists.

    Israel always covers these assassinations and murders with allegations and smear campaigns — the journalists are simply agents of Hamas or members of Hamas — and that kind of gives Israel a veil of impunity.

    It’s important for international journalists to be on the ground so they can actually investigate and expose this false story and the string of assassinations that Israel is carrying out.

    And I think we need to remember the message that Israel’s action is sending to the rest of the world, because there are other spots, other conflict areas, where also others are learning that you need to be just brazen and go ahead and kill journalists, and you can get away with it.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, we’re speaking to you in Geneva, Switzerland — Geneva, the Geneva Conventions. Can you talk about how the conventions specifically protect journalists?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, the convention gives journalists civilian status, which means that, like all other civilians, they should not be targeted during the war.

    The problem is the journalists are not just civilians. They are the kind of civilians that have to go to the frontline and not run away somewhere else. You know, they are not like women and children, who can move and seek shelter elsewhere.

    They have to be where the fighting is. And that exposes them. They are much more like humanitarian workers. And journalists need to be recognised as humanitarian workers. There needs to be — I believe there needs to be additional protection given to them, because it shows how vulnerable they are, on the one hand, to attacks, and, on the other hand, how important their work is to the rest of the world, to any peace process, to any attempt to have accountability and justice for the victims.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last month, the union representing reporters at the French press agency AFP warned that the agency staff were in danger of starving to death, and they issued an open letter condemning what Israel was doing in terms of denying food, not just to the population in general, but also to journalists, as well.

    Your response?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. These journalists are local journalists, as I said, so they have faced all the problems that the population is facing. They’ve had their own families killed. They have to hunt for food, even as they hunt for news.

    So, they have been put in a terrible situation. And that’s why Israel has to open the gates, not under military protection, but allow journalists independently to come and investigate. It has to stop the starvation, the blockade. It has to allow humanitarian assistance to come in. And it has to agree to a ceasefire and, of course, stop the genocide.

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with the words of Anas al-Sharif himself. Anticipating his own murder by Israeli forces, he wrote a preprepared message that was posted on his X account after his death. Al Jazeera read part of his message on air.

    AL JAZEERA REPORTER: “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice, I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification, so that God may bear witness against those who stayed silent and accepted our killing.”

    He ends, “Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”

    AMY GOODMAN: The words of Anas al-Sharif, posted after he was killed by the Israeli military along with five other journalists. Five of them were with Al Jazeera.

    Irene Khan, I want to thank you so much for being with us, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, speaking to us from Geneva, Switzerland. To see our interview with the managing editor of Al Jazeera, go to democracynow.org.

    Democracy Now! is produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Nicole Salazar, Sara Nasser, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Safwat Nazzal. Our executive director is Julie Crosby.

    I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!

    The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel deliberately obstructing aid, says former PM Helen Clark

    By Niva Chittock, RNZ News WorldWatch presenter/producer

    Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark says she has witnessed Israel deliberately obstructing life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    Together with former Irish president Mary Robinson, Clark visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian territory this week.

    The two former world leaders are part of The Elders, an independent, non-government organisation of global leaders working together for peace, justice, human rights and sustainability.

    The group has regularly spoken out about the situation in Gaza since Israel announced war on Hamas in October 2023.


    Their joint statement said they saw evidence of food and medical aid being denied entry to Gaza, “causing mass starvation to spread”.

    “What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza, there is an unfolding genocide,” the statement said.

    “The deliberate destruction of health facilities in Gaza means children facing acute malnutrition cannot be treated effectively.”

    At least 36 Palestinian children starved to death last month, they said.

    Israel has repeatedly denied famine and genocide were happening in Gaza.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that if his army had a policy of starvation “no one would be alive two years into the war”.

    Figures disputed
    Israel also disputed the figures provided by authorities in the Palestinian territory, but had not provided its own.

    No shelter materials had entered Gaza since March this year, the statement said, leaving families already displaced multiple times without protection.

    Former Irish President Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark visiting the Rafah border crossing.
    Former Irish president Mary Robinson and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark have visited the Rafah border crossing. Image: The Elders/RNZ

    “Many new mothers are unable to feed themselves or their new-born babies adequately, and the health system is collapsing,” Clark said.

    “All of this threatens the very survival of an entire generation,” she said.

    ‘Truth matters’
    “The uncomfortable truth is that many states are prioritising their own economic and security interests, even as the world is reeling from the images of Gazan children starving to death,” Robinson said.

    “Political leaders have the power and the legal obligation to apply measures to pressure this Israeli government to end its atrocity crimes.”

    “This is all the more urgent in light of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Gaza City takeover plan. President Trump has the leverage to compel a change of course. He must use it now,” she said.

    Hamas authorities said Israeli air attacks had increased in recent days as the Israel Defence Force (IDF) prepared to take over Gaza City, home to some one million Palestinians.

    Netanyahu had defended his plan, saying the best option to defeat Hamas was to take the city by force.

    The plan has been heavily criticised by Israelis, Palestinians, international organisations and other countries.

    Israel has repeatedly denied famine and genocide were happening in Gaza.
    Israel has repeatedly denied famine and genocide were happening in Gaza. Image: The Elders/RNZ

    ‘Re-engage’ ceasefire talks
    Robinson and Clark urged Hamas and Israel to re-engage in ceasefire talks and immediately release Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinian prisoners, and for Israel to immediately open all border crossings into Gaza.

    They also called for states to suspend existing and future trade agreements with Israel, as well as the transfer of arms and weapons to Israel, urging the world to follow the lead of Germany and Norway.

    Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund divested from Israeli firms linked to violations of international law this week, while Germany’s chancellor suspended exports of arms to Israel.

    “We call for recognition of the State of Palestine by at least 20 more states by September, including G7 members, EU member states and others,” their joint statement said.

    Australia was the latest to announce it would made the decree at a UN General Assembly next month if its conditions were met, following in the footsteps of Canada, France and the UK.

    At least 20 countries had on Wednesday called for aid to urgently be released into Gaza, saying suffering in the Palestinian territory had reached “unimaginable” levels.

    New Zealand was not among them, and had not yet made any pledge to recognise a Palestinian state, but the government said it was a matter of “when not if” it would.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime

    Pacific Media Watch

    Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has condemned the continued targeted killing of media workers in Gaza and the baseless smearing of working journalists as “terrorists”, following the deaths of five Al Jazeera staff over the weekend.

    Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and assistant Moamen Aliwa were killed on Sunday when Israel bombed a tent housing journalists in Gaza City, near Al-Shifa Hospital.

    Shockingly, the Israeli military confirmed the targeted killing on social media, with a post to X accompanied by a target emoji.

    The latest deaths come after Israel had conducted a long smear campaign of unsubstantiated allegations against Al Sharif and other journalists, labelling them “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists”, which the International Federation of Journalists has condemned.

    As Al Jazeera has said, this was a “dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of journalists in the field”.

    “Tragically, these warnings have now come to fruition,” the MEAA said in a statement.

    “The targeting of journalists is a blatant attack on press freedom, and it is also a war crime.

    “It must stop.”

    Call for ‘unfettered coverage’
    MEAA also said the Israeli ban preventing the world’s media from accessing the region and providing unfettered coverage of the worsening humanitarian crisis must stop.

    The silencing of Palestinian journalists via a rising death toll that the Gaza Media Office puts at 242 must also stop, the union said.

    “In his final words, Al-Sharif said he never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is — without distortion or falsification,” said MEAA

    “His reports brought to the world the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli government on the civilians in Gaza.

    “He asked the world to not forget Gaza and to not forget him.”

    MEAA said it stood up against attacks on press freedom around the world.

    • Pacific Media Watch says there has been no equivalent condemnation by New Zealand journalists, who have mostly remained silent during the 22 months of Israel’s war on Gaza.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RSF calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting after targeted Israeli strike kills six media professionals

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Israeli military’s “disgraceful tactic” to cover up war crimes in the wake of the killing of six journalists in Gaza on Sunday.

    It has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to stop the massacre of journalists, RSF said in a statement.

    The August 10 Israeli strike killed six media professionals in Gaza, five of whom currently work or formerly worked for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera and one freelance journalist.

    The strike, which has been claimed by the Israeli army, targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it accused, without providing solid evidence, of “terrorist affiliation”.

    RSF said the military had repeatedly used this tactic against journalists to cover up war crimes, while the army has already killed more than 200 media professionals.

    “RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist,” said RSF’s  director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed.

    “The Israeli army has killed more than 200 journalists since the start of the war. This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately.

    “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity.

    “RSF calls on the UN Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage.”

    Targeted strike on tent
    The Israeli army killed Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent housing a group of journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

    The strike, claimed by Israeli authorities, also killed five other media professionals, including four working or having worked for Al Jazeera — correspondent Mohammed Qraiqea, video reporter Ibrahim al-Thaher, Mohamed Nofal, assistant cameraman and driver that day, and Moamen Aliwa, a freelance journalist who worked with Al Jazeera — as well as another freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi, creator of a YouTube news channel.

    The attack also wounded freelance reporters Mohammed Sobh, Mohammed Qita, and Ahmed al-Harazine.

    This attack, claimed by the Israeli army, replicates a tactic previously used against Al Jazeera journalists. On 31 July 2024, the Israeli army killed reporters Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi in a targeted strike, following a smear campaign against the former, who, like Anas al-Sharif, was accused of “terrorist affiliation”.

    Hamza al-Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya and Hossam Shabat, who also worked for the Qatari media outlet, are among the victims of this method denounced by RSF.

    As early as October 2024, RSF warned of an imminent attack on Anas al-Sharif following accusations by the Israeli army.

    The international community, led by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ignored these warnings.

    Under Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in armed conflict, the UN Security Council has a duty to convene urgently in response to this latest extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

    Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting investigations into what it describes as war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists in Gaza.

    The New Zealand-based Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump to Send National Guard Troops Into D.C. and the Military “If It’s Needed”

    President Trump announced Monday that the federal government would be taking over Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, flooding the city’s streets with National Guard troops and sending in the military “if it’s needed” — while looking to do the same in other major U.S. cities. “I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever

    Shanti Maheshwari in a bridal dress; her husband Ashok Kumar is behind the bars IMAGE/voicepk.net VIDEO/voicepk.net/Youtube
    From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013. IMAGE/Inter Press Service (IPS)

    Shanti Maheshwari was a 19-year-old woman living in Karachi’s working class neighborhood of Lyari who got married to Ashok Kumar Mohan on June 16, 2025, after a two-year engagement. But for two days after her wedding, she was brutally, repeatedly, and unnaturally raped by her husband. Shanti was gruesomely wounded, and started to bleed internally.

    Her in-laws took Shanti to a health clinic but the doctor released her, and so they brought her home.

    On June 30, witnessing Shanti’s seriously deteriorating health, her family brought her back from her in-law’s house. Her parents came to know from Shanti that on June 17 and 18, she was a victim of “unnatural sexual acts,” i.e., sodomy.

    The assault complaint filed by Shanti’s brother Sayon with police stated that her husband “inserted a metal pipe” and then his “hand and arm” in her anus, and bit her breasts and neck. Her husband threatened Shanti with death if she revealed to anyone what he did to her.

    Najma Maheshwari, a social activist from Shanti’s locality, described the violence to which she was subjected to Zofeen Ebrahim of IPS (Inter Press Service):

    “Her insides were torn, she was bleeding profusely from her anus and writhing in pain. Hospital visitors urged us to move the gurney outside, complaining the stench was unbearable.

    “While cleaning her, medics removed worms from her gut—her injuries were that severe. I’ve seen much in my work, but never such horror or pain,”

    Najma (center), Sonya (head covered), and their brother (Najma’s right) were sitting on the pavement outside the trauma center where Shanti was fighting for her life. IMAGE/Seema Maheshwari

    (The violence done to Shanti brings to mind a similar case in 2012, a gruesome gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi, often known as the “rape capital” of India. Amid huge protests, she was flown to Singapore for treatment, but could not be saved. As is customary for these type of victims, she was not identified by her own name but by courageous and noble names as: “Nirbhaya,” “Amanat,” “Damini,” and so on.)

    Shanti’s relative Sonia, who had arranged Shanti’s marriage, was surprised that despite her bleeding, the doctors released her from Anklesaria hospital where she had been taken.

    In South Asia, doctors are usually treated like God by most people. Why didn’t Dr. Rauf, Shanti’s doctor, care for the patient’s failing health? It’s not difficult to guess. The answer lies in three obvious reasons: Shanti was poor, Shanti was a woman, Shanti belonged to a minority — her Hindu name gave away her religion. These three factors might have caused the doctor to ignore Shanti’s critical condition. Of course, not wanting to get entangled in a medico-legal case could have been a factor, too, as there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Sayon and Najma took Shanti to the government-run Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Trauma Centre.

    Shanti was brought to the trauma center in “comatose” state, and placed on a ventilator. Her continual passing of stool worsened her wounds. The extreme violence inflicted on Shanti was verified by Karachi’s chief police surgeon Dr Summaiya Sayed who concurred that there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Mournfully, Najma remembers, “the last thing she asked for was a sip of water. Then she closed her eyes and never opened them again.” That was on 23 July.

    A Pakistani group Aurat March (Women’s March) issued a statement in the wake of Shanti’s painful and tragic death:

    “Shanti, a 20-year-old woman, has passed away today after 20 days of being in coma, and after 36 days of being brutally raped by her husband, Ashok Kumar.” “We had earlier posted about this case — about the horrible ordeal that Shanti went through, and the complicity of Ashok’s family, Anklesaria Hospital and Dr. Rauf, that has now resulted in her death.”

    In the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan tops the list with 85% of married women undergoing sexual or physical violence by their husbands, compared to India’s 29% and Bangladesh’s 53%.

    Globally renowned social activist and classical dancer Sheema Kermani of Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) Cultural Action Group joined with other women’s groups and civil society in protest. She said possibly Shanti would have survived if the doctor had treated her properly.

    In these kinds of horrible cases, celebrities come forward to express shock and show sympathy to the victims and her family or to condole the death. Some are genuine and others do it to enhance their fame. This time, actress singer Ayesha Omar was the only celebrity who mourned Shanti:

    “I’m sorry we failed you, Shanti. May justice be served.”

    “Praying that this misogynistic society can heal and transform for the better one day.”

    The Section 376-B of the Pakistan Penal Code considers rape a crime but it is not very clear on marital rape. Advocate of the High Court Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel points out: “A dedicated clause was proposed for inclusion in the Anti-Rape Act but was ultimately dropped due to complications around the issue.”

    She further noted: “Marital rape is usually not even considered rape because most people believe it is a woman’s obligation not to say ‘no’ to her husband,” she explained. “This mindset results in most cases going unreported.”

    To stop cases of marital rape, Muhib suggested: “Legal recognition would be a vital step in changing social norms and ensuring accountability.”

    However, laws are often made in social vacuum, and remain ineffective and even with strong laws on file protecting women, do not really protect women, because enforcement of these laws remains weak.

    Sexual and Reproductive Health education, along with mental health and emotional wellness programs are critical to change the fate of the Shantis of Pakistan.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    To fill this gap, she and a group of like-minded doctors at the Association for Mothers and Newborns (AMAN)*—the implementation arm of Pakistan’s National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health—developed Bakhabar Noujawan (Informed Youth), an online SRH program endorsed by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, launched in 2023.

    “We’re trying to introduce it in colleges, but convincing faculty is an uphill battle—they first need to grasp the course’s importance,” she said.

    Covering over two dozen culturally sensitive topics—from premarital counselling, child and cousin marriage, domestic violence, STIs, to teenage pregnancy—the programme doesn’t shy away from tough conversations. “We’re now developing a module on marital rape,” says Ahsan, head of AMAN. “The first draft is nearly complete.”

    Alongside SRH education, Sayed emphasized the need for mental health and emotional wellness programs.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    IPSNews

    Why did Ashok Kumar committed such heinous acts? Only a thorough psychological evaluation could throw some light on this terrible act. Delving into his motivations and intentions, could present a case history, when communicated to a wider audience, may prevent this somewhat in the future. Everyone knows, no such thing is going to happen, sadly.

    Shanti

    shanti, a word of Sanskrit origin, means silence, peace, …
    Shanti wasn’t at peace; her anatomy was torn due to sexual violence
    Shanti didn’t remain silent; she told her personal trauma to her parents
    Shanti’s milieu was poor; so the doctor’s conscience remained silent
    Shanti’s gender was female; so the patriarchy remained at peace
    Shanti, a teenager, was forced to lethal silence and finally … achieved shanti… deadly peace…

    The post Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Another Gaza injustice. Israel targets Anas in Al Jazeera media crew of 5

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    Another truth-teller targeted and killed in Gaza. I wish the journalists — some of whom I taught to master the skills of journalism, would look at this travesty and call it what it is: a genocide.

    I wish they would remember that journalists have a code of ethics, I wish they would remember to serve the people and not despotic governments.

    Good journalists are truth seekers and truth tellers.

    Like this man, Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, targeted, murdered for revealing the truth that tens of thousands of children, women, and men are regarded as the enemy by a country that wants to take their land and expand.

    His Al Jazeera crew of five were wiped out yesterday.

    In 1982, I asked an Israeli what he thought of the (then) invasion into Lebanon. He replled that if the government in Tel Aviv had its way and some Israelis were not against invasion, the army would have invaded Turkey. Look at what has happened now.

    Massacre after massacre
    Far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed on that day. Palestinians have faced massacre after massacre ever since the Nakba in 1948.

    They experience apartheid, they experience exile, they are not allowed to call Palestine their homeland, but it is their homeland.

    Britain swooped into that country and appropriated a religious myth that dated back thousands of years, but being anti anti semitism means ensuring that people are comfortable in their own land, it does not mean booting one people out to make a home for yourself.

    Settler colonisation continues to perpetuate the worst injustice. It just dealt another blow. Starving children and a good man, a truth teller, killed in cold blood.

    Saige England is an Aotearoa New Zealand journalist, author, and poet, member of the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This commentary was first published on England’s social media.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ condemns Israeli killing of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif and video crew of four

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has made a statement today that it is appalled to learn of the killing of an Al Jazeera media crew of five, including journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa by Israeli forces in Gaza.

    The journalists were killed in an attack on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during a targeted Israeli bombardment, according to Al Jazeera which has described the killings as “murders”.

    In a statement announcing the killing of Al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”.

    Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.

    “Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

    “Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”

    Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since the start of the war and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas without providing evidence.

    Reported on starvation
    Most recently, Al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza.

    In a July 24 video, Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defence Forces spokesperson, accused Al-Sharif of having been a member of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and working during the war “for the most criminal and offensive channel”, apparently referring to Al Jazeera Arabic.

    Al-Sharif told CPJ in July: “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction — it is a real-life threat.”

    He said: “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world.

    “They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

    The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif.

    Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, 2023, CPJ has documented 186 journalists having been killed. At least 178 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.

    However, other sources and media freedom groups put the death toll even higher. Al Jazeera reports the death toll as “more than 200” and the Gaza Media Office has documented 142 journalists.

    UNESCO awarded its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel backing Gaza ‘gangs’ to create unlivable chaos, says academic

    Asia Pacific Report

    While the Israeli government claims it is backing “clans” in Gaza to counter the resistance movement Hamas, the groups it supports more closely resemble criminal gangs, says a British-based security specialist.

    Dr Rob Geist Pinfold, international security lecturer at King’s College London, says: “These are criminal gangs. Many were in prison before October 7 for drug offences, not for being political dissidents.

    “They rob Palestinians on the streets. They feed off and contribute to the chaos and disorder,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “Many of these people, like Yasser Abu Shabab, are outcasts from their clans. Israel has basically chosen the least popular people in Gaza to arm and equip.

    “It’s not trying to create a viable political alternative to Hamas, it’s identifying people who thrive off chaos and encouraging them to further that chaos.”

    Dr Pinfold said Israel appeared to be intentionally sowing chaos in Gaza to make the territory “unlivable”.

    “It used to look like this chaos in Gaza was the product of Israel not having a day-after plan,” he said. “But I think it is now evident that this chaos is . . .  part of the day-after plan, which is a grander strategy to make Gaza unlivable in the long term.”

    Arming criminal gangs
    To accomplish this, Israel is arming the criminal gangs that “thrive off chaos” and funnelling the little aid coming in through the dysfunctional and violence-ridden GHF [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] system.

    From Israel’s perspective, “I actually think this is working very well”, he said, “because its undeclared aims are to create chaos and ensure Gaza becomes unlivable”.

    “Unfortunately, so far, that is proving to be a very successful strategy.”

    Earlier this week it was announced that the death toll had topped 60,430 people (not including the tens of thousands buried under the rubble, or missing and believed dead). This number of dead included more than 18,000 children.

    Also, 148,722 wounded were wounded.

    Already there have been 162 deaths from starvation in Gaza, 92 of them children and the predictions are dire.

    Also, more than 1300 Palestinians have been killed near the GHF aid depots.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Bloodshed at GHF-run Gaza aid sites ‘a great sin’, says former top UN official

    Asia Pacific Report

    A former senior UN aid official has condemned the bloodshed at the notorious US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid food depots, describing the distribition system as having turned into a “catastrophe”.

    The number of aid seekers killed continues to climb daily beyond 1000.

    Martin Griffiths, director of Mediation Group International and the former Under Secretary General of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office, said: “I think when many of us saw the first plans of the GHF to launch this operation in Gaza, we were immediately appalled by the way they were proposing to manage it.”

    “It was clearly militarised. They’d have their own security contractors,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “They’d have [Israeli military] camps placed right beside them. We know now that they are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military].

    “All of this is a crime. All of this is a deep betrayal of humanitarian values.

    “But what I at least did not sufficiently anticipate was the killing and was the absolutely critical result of this operation, this sole humanitarian operation allowed by Israel in Gaza,” Griffiths added.

    “The 1000 killed are an incredible statistic. I had no idea it would go that high and it’s going on daily. It’s not stopping.

    “I think it’s a catastrophe more than a disappointment,” he said. “I think it’s a great sin. I think it’s a great crime.”

    Aid analyst Martin Griffiths
    Humanitarian aid advocate Martin Griffiths . . . We know now that [GHF] are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military]. All of this is a crime.” Image: Wikipedia
    Commenting about US envoy Steve Witkoff and US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s planned visit to GHF-run aid distribution sites in Gaza, he said this was “likely to be choreographed”.

    However, he acknowledged it was still an “important form of witness”.

    “I’m glad that they’re going,” Griffiths said.

    “Maybe they will see things that are unexpected. I can’t imagine because we’ve seen so much. But I don’t see it leading to a major change.

    “If I was one of the two million Gazans starving to death, this is a day I would like to go to an aid distribution point,” Griffiths added.

    “There’s slightly less risk probably than any other day.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel waging ‘horror show’ starvation campaign in Gaza, says UN chief

    Democracy Now!

    This is Democracy Now!. I’m Amy Goodman.

    More than 100 humanitarian groups are demanding action to end Israel’s siege of Gaza, warning mass starvation is spreading across the Palestinian territory.

    The NGOs, including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, warn, “illnesses like acute watery diarrhea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up, and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration.”

    Their warning came as the Palestinian Ministry of Health said the number of starvation-related deaths has climbed to at least 111 people.

    This is Ghada al-Fayoumi, a displaced Palestinian mother of seven in Gaza City.

    GHADA AL-FAYOUMI: “[translated] My children wake up sick every day. What do I do? I get saline solution for them. What can I do?

    “There’s no food, no bread, no drinks, no rice, no sugar, no cooking oil, no bulgur, nothing. There is no kind of any food available to us at all.”

    AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of antiwar protesters marched on Tuesday in Tel Aviv outside Israel’s military headquarters, demanding an end to Israel’s assault and a lifting of the Gaza siege. This is Israeli peace activist Alon-Lee Green with the group Standing Together.

    ALON-LEE GREEN: “We are marching now in Tel Aviv, holding bags of flour and the pictures of these children that have been starved to death by our government and our army.

    “We demand to stop the starvation in Gaza. We demand to stop the annihilation of Gaza. We demand to stop the daily killing of children and innocent people in Gaza.

    “This cannot go on. We are Israelis, and this does not serve us. This only serves the Messianic people that lead us.”

    AMY GOODMAN: This comes as the World Health Organisation has released a video showing the Israeli military attacking WHO facilities in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. A WHO spokesperson condemned the attack, called for the immediate release of a staff member abducted by Israeli forces.

    TARIK JAŠAREVIĆ: “Male staff and family members were handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot and screened at gunpoint.

    “Two WHO staff and two family members were detained.”

    AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, health officials in Gaza say Israeli attacks over the past day killed more than 70 people, including five more people seeking food at militarised aid sites. Amid growing outrage worldwide, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday the situation in Gaza right now is a “horror show”.

    UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: “We need look no further than the horror show in Gaza, with a level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times.

    “Malnourishment is soaring. Starvation is knocking on every door.”

    AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Michael Fakhri, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He is a professor of law at University of Oregon, where he leads the Food Resiliency Project.


    Israel waging ‘fastest starvation campaign’ in modern history    Video: Democracy Now!

    Dr Michael Fakhri, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can respond to what’s happening right now, the images of dying infants starving to death, the numbers now at over 100, people dropping in the streets, reporters saying they can’t go on?

    Agence France-Presse’s union talked about they have had reporters killed in conflict, they have had reporters disappeared, injured, but they have not had this situation before with their reporters starving to death.

    DR MICHAEL FAKHRI: Amy, the word “horror” — I mean, we’re running out of words of what to say. And the reason it’s horrific is it was preventable. We saw this coming. We’ve seen this coming for 20 months.

    Israel announced its starvation campaign back in October 2023. And then again, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced on March 1 that nothing was to enter Gaza. And that’s what happened for 78 days. No food, no water, no fuel, no medicine entered Gaza.

    And then they built these militarised aid sites that are used to humiliate, weaken and kill the Palestinians. So, what makes this horrific is it has been preventable, it was predictable. And again, this is the fastest famine we’ve seen, the fastest starvation campaign we’ve seen in modern history.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what needs to be done at this point and the responsibility of the occupying power? Israel is occupying Gaza right now. What it means to have to protect the population it occupies?

    DR FAKHRI: The International Court of Justice outlined Israel’s duties in its decisions over the last year. So, what Israel has an obligation to do is, first, end its illegal occupation immediately. This came from the court itself.

    Second, it must allow humanitarian relief to enter with no restrictions. And this hasn’t been happening. So, usually, we would turn to the Security Council to authorise peacekeepers or something similar to assist.

    But predictably, again, the United States keeps vetoing anything to do with a ceasefire. When the Security Council is in a deadlock because of a veto, the General Assembly, the UN General Assembly, has the authority to call for peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys to enter into Gaza and to end Israel’s starvation campaign against the Palestinian people.

    AMY GOODMAN: People actually protested outside the house of UN Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday. People protested all over the world yesterday against the Palestinians being starved and bombed to death. Those in front of the UN Secretary-General’s house said they don’t dispute that he has raised this issue almost every day, but they say he can do more.

    Finally, Michael Fakhri, what does the UN need to do — the US, Israel, the world?

    DR FAKHRI: So, as I mentioned, first and foremost, they can authorise peacekeepers to enter to stop the starvation. But, second, they need to create consequences.

    The world has a duty to prevent this starvation. The world has a duty to prevent and end this genocide. And as a result, then, what the world can do is impose sanctions.

    And again, this is supported by the International Court of Justice. The world needs to impose wide-scale sanctions against the state of Israel to force it to end the starvation and genocide of civilians, of Palestinian civilians in Gaza today.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, speaking to us from Eugene, Oregon.

    Republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gaza: Empty rhetoric from New Zealand and other Western countries

    In a joint statement, more than two dozen Western countries, including New Zealand, have called for an immediate end to the war on Gaza. But the statement is merely empty rhetoric that declines to take any concrete action against Israel, and which Israel will duly ignore. 

    AGAINST THE CURRENT: By Steven Cowan

    The New Zealand government has joined 27 other countries calling for an “immediate end” to the war in Gaza. The joint statement says  “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”.

    It goes on to say that the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.

    But many of the countries that have signed this statement stand condemned for actively enabling Israel to pursue its genocidal assault on Gaza. Countries like Britain, Canada and Australia, continue to supply Israel with arms, have continued to trade with Israel, and have turned a blind eye to the atrocities and war crimes Israel continues to commit in Gaza.

    It’s more than ironic that while Western countries like Britain and New Zealand are calling for an end to the war in Gaza, they continue to be hostile toward the anti-war protest movements in their own countries.

    The British government recently classified the protest group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” group.

    In New Zealand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, has denounced pro-Palestine protesters as “left wing fascists” and “communist, fascist and anti-democratic losers”. He has pushed back against the growing demands that the New Zealand government take direct action against Israel, including the cutting of all diplomatic ties.

    The New Zealand government, which contains a number of Zionists within its cabinet, including Act leader David Seymour and co-leader Brooke van Velden, will be more than comfortable with a statement that proposes to do nothing.

    ‘Statement lacks leadership’
    Its call for an end to the war is empty rhetoric, and which Israel will duly ignore — as it has ignored other calls for its genocidal war to end.  As Amnesty International has said, ‘the statement lacks any resolve, leadership, or action to help end the genocide in Gaza.’

    "This is cruelty - this is not a war," says this young girl's placard
    “This is cruelty – this is not a war,” says this young girl’s placard quoting the late Pope Francis in an Auckland march last Saturday . . . this featured in an earlier report. Image: Asia Pacific Report

    New Zealand has declined to join The Hague Group alliance of countries that recently met in Colombia.

    It announced six immediate steps it would be taking against Israel. But since The Hague Group has already been attacked by the United States, it’s never been likely that New Zealand would join it.

    The National-led coalition government has surrendered New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in favour of supporting the interests of a declining American Empire.

    Republished from Steven Cowan’s blog Against The Current with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ and allies condemn ‘inhumane’, ‘horrifying’ killings in Gaza and ‘drip feeding’ of aid

    RNZ News

    New Zealand has joined 24 other countries in calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and criticising what they call the inhumane killing of Palestinians.

    The countries — including Britain, France, Canada and Australia plus the European Union — also condemed the Israeli government’s aid delivery model in Gaza as “dangerous”.

    “We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.”

    They said it was “horrifying” that more than 800 civilians had been killed while seeking aid, the majority at food distribution sites run by a US- and Israeli-backed foundation.

    “We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life saving work safely and effectively,” it said.

    Winston Peters
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters . . . “The tipping point was some time ago . . . it’s gotten to the stage where we’ve just lost our patience.” Image: RN/Mark Papalii

    “Proposals to remove the Palestinian population into a ‘humanitarian city’ are completely unacceptable. Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law.”

    The statement said the countries were “prepared to take further action” to support an immediate ceasefire.

    Reuters reported Israel’s foreign ministry said the statement was “disconnected from reality” and it would send the wrong message to Hamas.

    “The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognise Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation,” the Israeli statement said.

    Having NZ voice heard
    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report, New Zealand had chosen to be part of the statement as a way to have its voice heard on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza.

    “The tipping point was some time ago . . .  it’s gotten to the stage where we’ve just lost our patience . . . ”

    Peters said he wanted to see what the response to the condemnation was.

    “The conflict in the Middle East goes on and on . . .  It’s gone from a situation where it was excusable, due to the October 7 conflict, to inexcusable as innocent people are being swept into it,” he said.

    “I do think there has to be change. It must happen now.”

    The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

    Israel’s subsequent air and ground war in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians — including at least 17,400 children, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of more than 2 million and spreading a hunger crisis.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PSNA calls on NZ to urgently condemn Israeli weaponisation of starvation

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on the New Zealand government to immediately condemn Israel’s weaponisation of starvation and demand an end to the siege of Gaza.

    It has also called for a permanent ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access to the besieged enclave.

    “All political parties and elected officials must break their silence and act with urgency to prevent further loss of life,” said PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal in a statement.

    The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 18 people have died of hunger in a 24 hour period due to the blockade as aid officials report a catastrophic situation in the enclave.

    “Hospitals and emergency clinics in Gaza are overwhelmed. Unprecedented numbers of Palestinians, children, women, and the elderly, are collapsing from hunger and exhaustion,” said Nazzal.

    “Medical professionals warn that hundreds face imminent death, their bodies unable to survive the severe famine conditions created by Israel’s ongoing siege and deliberate starvation tactics.

    “This is not a natural disaster. This is the result of a man-made blockade, a deliberate policy of collective punishment, and it constitutes a grave violation of international law.”

    This was an urgent last-minute appeal, Nazzal said.

    “The people of Aotearoa must stand up and speak out. Protest. Write. Donate. Mobilise.

    “The media need to stop turning away, to report on the famine and the mass suffering of civilians in Gaza with the urgency and humanity it demands.”

    “As New Zealanders, we have a proud tradition of standing against injustice and apartheid.

    “Now is the time to uphold that legacy — not with words, but with action.

    “Gaza is starving. We cannot delay. We must not look away.”

    "This is cruelty - this is not a war," says this young girl's placard quoting the Pope
    “This is cruelty – this is not a war,” says this young New Zealand girl’s placard in Auckland quoting the late Pope Francis. Image: APR


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ICE deportation action lands Marshallese, Micronesians in Guantánamo ‘terror’ base

    By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal/RNZ Pacific correspondent

    United States immigration and deportation enforcement continues to ramp up, impacting on Marshallese and Micronesians in new and unprecedented ways.

    The Trump administration’s directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and deport massive numbers of potentially illegal aliens, including those with convictions from decades past, is seeing Marshallese and Micronesians swept up by ICE.

    The latest unprecedented development is Marshallese and Micronesians being removed from the United States to the offshore detention facility at the US Navy base in Guantánamo Bay — a facility set up to jail terrorists suspected of involvement in the 9/11 airplane attacks in the US in 2001.

    Marshall Islands Ambassador to the US Charles Paul this week confirmed a media report that one Marshallese was currently incarcerated at Guantánamo, which is also known as “GTMO”.

    The same report from nationnews.com said 72 detainees from 26 countries had been sent to GTMO last week, including from the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

    A statement issued by the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE operations, concerning detention of foreigners with criminal records at GTMO said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was using “every tool available to get criminal illegal aliens off our streets and out of our country.”

    But the action was criticised by a Marshallese advocate for citizens from the Compact countries in the US.

    ‘Legal, ethical concerns’
    “As a Compact of Free Association (COFA) advocate and ordinary indigenous citizen of the Marshallese Islands, I strongly condemn the detention of COFA migrants — including citizens from the Republic of the Marshall Islands — at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay,” Benson Gideon said in a social media post this week.

    “This action raises urgent legal, constitutional, and ethical concerns that must be addressed without delay.”

    Since seeing the news about detention of a Marshallese in this US facility used to hold suspected terrorists, Ambassador Paul said he had “been in touch with ICE to repatriate one Marshallese being detained.”

    Paul said he was “awaiting all the documents pertaining to the criminal charges, but we were informed that the individual has several felony and misdemeanor convictions. We are working closely with ICE to expedite this process.”

    Gideon said bluntly the detention of the Marshallese was a breach of Compact treaty obligations.

    “The COFA agreement guarantees fair treatment. Military detention undermines this commitment,” he said.

    Gideon listed the strong Marshallese links with the US — service in high numbers in the US military, hosting of the Kwajalein missile range, US military control of Marshall Islands ocean and air space — as examples of Marshallese contributions to the US.

    ‘Treated as criminals’
    “Despite these sacrifices, our people are being treated as criminals and confined in a facility historically associated with terrorism suspects,” he said.

    “I call on the US Embassy in Majuro to publicly address this injustice and work with federal agencies to ensure COFA Marshallese residents are treated with dignity and fairness.

    “If we are good enough to host your missile ranges, fight in your military, and support your defence strategy, then we are good enough to be protected — not punished. Let justice, transparency, and respect prevail.”

    There were 72 immigration detainees at Guantánamo Bay, 58 of them classified as high-risk and 14 in the low-risk category, reported nationnews.com.

    The report added that the criminal records of the detainees include convictions for homicide; sexual offences, including against children; child pornography; assault with a weapon; kidnapping; drug smuggling; and robbery.

    Civil rights advocates have called the detention of immigration detainees at Guantanamo Bay punitive and unlawful, arguing in an active lawsuit that federal law does not allow the government to hold those awaiting deportation outside of US territory.

    In other US immigration and deportation developments:

    • The delivery last month by US military aircraft of 18 Marshallese deported from the US and escorted by armed ICE agents is another example of the ramped-up deportation focus of the Trump administration. Since the early 2000s more than 300 Marshall Islanders have been deported from the US. Prior to the Trump administration, past deportations were managed by US Marshals escorting deportees individually on commercial flights.
    • According to Marshall Islands authorities, there have not been any deportations since the June 10 military flight to Majuro, suggesting that group deportations may be the way the Trump administration handles further deportations.
    • Individual travellers flying into Honolulu whose passports note place of birth as Kiribati are reportedly now being refused entry. This reportedly happened to a Marshallese passport holder late last month who had previously travel
    • led in and out of the US without issue.

    Most Marshallese passport holders enjoy visa-free travel to the US, though there are different levels of access to the US based on if citizenship was gained through naturalisation or a passport sales programme in the 1980s and 1990s.

    US Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Laura Stone said, however, that “the visa-free travel rules have not changed.”

    She said she could not speak to any individual traveller’s situation without adequate information to evaluate the situation.

    She pointed out that citizenship “acquired through naturalisation, marriage, investment, adoption” have different rules. Stone urged all travellers to examine the rules carefully and determine their eligibility for visa-free travel.

    “If they have a question, we would be happy to answer their enquiry at ConsMajuro@state.gov,” she added.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 12 countries agree to confront Israel collectively over Gaza after Bogotá summit

    ANALYSIS: By Mick Hall

    Collective measures to confront Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people have been agreed by 12 nations after an emergency summit of the Hague Group in Bogotá, Colombia.

    A joint statement today announced the six measures, which it said were geared to holding Israel to account for its crimes in Palestine and would operate within the states’ domestic legal and legislative frameworks.

    Nearly two dozen other nations in attendance at the summit are now pondering whether to sign up to the measures before a September deadline set by the Hague Group.

    New Zealand and Australia stayed away from the summit.

    The measures include preventing the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel and dual-use items to Israel and preventing the transit, docking or servicing of vessels if there is a risk of vessels carrying such items. No vessel under the flag of the countries would be allowed to carry this equipment.

    The countries would also “commence an urgent review of all public contracts, in order to prevent public institutions and public funds, where applicable, from supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory, to ensure that our nationals, and companies and entities under our jurisdiction, as well as our authorities, do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

    The countries will prosecute “the most serious crimes under international law through robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, in compliance with our obligation to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes”.

    They agreed to support universal jurisdiction mandates, “as and where applicable in our legal constitutional frameworks and judiciaries, to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes in the Occupied Palestine Territory”.

    This will mean IDF soldiers and others accused of war crimes in Palestine would face arrest and could go through domestic judicial processes in these countries, or referrals to the ICC.

    The statement said the measures constituted a collective commitment to defend the foundational principles of international law.

    It also called on the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to commission an immediate investigation of the health and nutritional needs of the population of Gaza, devise a plan to meet those needs on a continuing and sustained basis, and report on these matters before the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

    Following repeated total blockades of Gaza since October 7, 2023, Gazans have been dying of starvation as they continue to be bombed and repeatedly displaced and their means of life destroyed.

    The official death toll stands at nearly 59,000, mostly women and children, although some estimates put that number at over 200,000.

    The joint statement recognised Israel as a threat to regional peace and the system of international law and called on all United Nations member states to enforce their obligations under the UN charter.

    It condemned “unilateral attacks and threats against United Nations mandate holders, as well as key institutions of the human rights architecture and international justice” and committed to build “on the legacy of global solidarity movements that have dismantled apartheid and other oppressive systems, setting a model for future co-ordinated responses to international law violations”.

    Countries face wrath of US
    Ministers, high-ranking officials and envoys from 30 nations attended the two-day event, from July 15-16, called to come up with the measures. It is now hoped some of those attendees will sign up to the statement by September.

    For countries like Ireland, which sent a delegation, signing up would have profound implications. The Irish government has been heavily criticised by its own citizens for continuing to allow Shannon Airport as a transit point for military equipment from the United States to be sent to Israel.

    It would also face the prospect of severe reprisals by the US, as would others thinking of adding their names to the collective statement. The US is now expected to consult with nations that attended and warn them of the consequences of signing up.

    The summit had been billed by the UN Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, as “the most significant political development of the last 20 months”.

    Albanese had told attendees that “for too long, international law has been treated as optional — applied selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the powerful”.

    “This double standard has eroded the very foundations of the legal order. That era must end,” she said.

    Co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa, the Hague group was established by nine nations in late January at The Hague in the Netherlands to hold Israel to account for its crimes and push for Palestinian self-determination.

    Colombia last year ended diplomatic relations with Israel, while South Africa in late December 2023 filed an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide, which was joined by nearly two dozen countries.

    The ICJ has determined a plausible genocide is taking place and issued orders for Israel to protect Palestinians and take measures to stop genocide taking place, a call ignored by the Zionist state.

    Representatives from the countries arrived in Bogota this week in defiance of the United States, which last week sanctioned Albanese for attempts to have US and Israeli political officials and business leaders prosecuted by the ICC over Gaza.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it an illegitimate “campaign of political and economic warfare”.

    It followed the sanctioning of four ICC judges after arrest warrants were issued in November last year for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

    Ahead of the Bogota meeting, the US State Department accused The Hague Group of multilateral attempts to “weaponise international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas” and warned the US would “aggressively defend” its interests.

    Signs of division in the West
    Most of those attending came from nations in the Global South, but not all.

    Founding Hague Group members Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa attended the Summit. Joining them were Algeria, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Djibouti, Indonesia, Iraq, Republic of Ireland, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

    However, in a sign of increasing division in the West, NATO members Spain, Portugal, Norway, Slovenia and Turkey also attended.

    Inside the summit, former US State Department official Annelle Sheline, who resigned in March over Gaza, defended the right of those attending “to uphold their obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.

    “This is not the weaponisation of international law. This is the application of international law,” she told delegates.

    The US and Israel deny accusations that genocide is taking place in Gaza, while Western media have collectively refused to adjudicate the claims or frame stories around Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the strip, despite ample evidence by the UN and genocide experts.

    Since 7 October 2023, US allies have offered diplomatic cover for Israel by repeating it had “a right to defend itself” and was engaged in a legitimate defensive “war against Hamas”.

    Israel now plans to corral starving Gazans into a concentration camp in the south of the strip, with many analysts expecting the IDF to exterminate anyone found outside its boundaries, while preparing to push those inside across the border into Egypt.

    Asia Pacific and EU allies shun Bogota summit
    Addressing attendees at the summit yesterday, Albanese criticised the EU for its neo-colonialism and support for Israel, criticisms that can be extended to US allies in the Asia Pacific region.

    Independent journalist Abby Martin reported Albanese as saying: “Europe and its institutions are guided more by colonial mindset than principle, acting as vessels to US Empire even as it drags us from war to war, misery to misery.

    “The Hague Group is a new moral centre in world politics. Millions are hoping for leadership that can birth a new global order, rooted in justice, humanity and collective liberation. It’s not just about Palestine. This is about all of us.”

    The Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was asked why Foreign Minister Penny Wong did not take up an invite to attend the Hague Group meeting. In a statement to Mick Hall in Context, a spokesperson said she had been unable to attend, but did not explain why.

    She said Australia was a “resolute defender of international law” and added: “Australia has consistently been part of international calls that all parties must abide by international humanitarian law. Not enough has been done to protect civilians and aid workers.

    “We have called on Israel to respond substantively to the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    “We have also called on Israel to comply with the binding orders of the ICJ, including to enable the unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale.”

    When asked why New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters had failed to take up the invitation or send any of his officials, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) spokesperson simply refused to comment.

    She said MFAT media advisors would only engage with “recognised news media outlets”.

    Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, as well as a number of his ministers, have been referred to the ICC by domestic legal teams, accused of complicity in the genocide.

    Evidence against Albanese was accepted into the ICC’s wider investigation of crimes in Gaza in October last year, while Luxon’s referral earlier this month is being assessed by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

    Delegates told humanity at stake
    Delegates heard several impassioned addresses from speakers on what was at stake during the two-day event in Bogota.

    Palestinian-American trauma surgeon, Dr Thaer Ahmad, told the gathering that Palestinians seeking food were being met with bullets, describing aid distribution facilities set up by the US contractor-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as “slaughterhouses”. More than 800 starving Gazans have been killed at the GHF aid points so far.

    “People know they could die but cannot sit idly by and watch their families starve,” he said.

    “The bullets fired by GHF mercenaries are just one part of the weaponisation of aid, where Palestinians are ghettoised into areas where somebody in military fatigues decides if you are worthy of food or not.”

    Palestinian diplomat Riyad Mansour had urged the summit attendees to take decisive action to not only save the Palestinian people, but redeem humanity.

    “Instead of outrage at the crimes we know are taking place, we find those who defend, normalise, and even celebrate them,” he said.

    “The core values we believed humanity agreed were universal are shattered, blown to pieces like the tens of thousands of starved, murdered and injured civilians in Palestine.

    “The mind and heart cannot fathom or process the immense pain and horror that has taken hold of the lives of an entire people. We must not fail — not just for Palestine’s sake — but for humanity’s sake.”

    At the beginning of the summit, Colombian Deputy Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir told summit delegates the Palestinian genocide threatened the entire international system.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro wrote in The Guardian last week: “We can either stand firm in defence of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict, or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics.”

    Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers, as well as Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, met in Brussels at the same time as the Bogota summit, to discuss Middle East co-operation, but also possible options for action against Israel.

    At the EU–Southern Neighbourhood Ministerial Meeting, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas put forward potential actions after Israel was found to have breached the EU economic cooperation deal with the bloc on human rights grounds. As expected, no sanctions, restricted trade or suspension of the co-operation deal were agreed.

    The EU has been one of Israel’s most strident backers in its campaign against Gaza, with EU members Germany and France in particular supplying weapons, as well as political support.

    The UK government has continued to supply arms and operate spy planes over Gaza over the past 21 months, launched from bases in Cyprus, while its military has issued D-Notices to censor media reports that its special forces have been operating inside the occupied territories.

    Mick Hall is an independent Irish-New Zealand journalist, formerly of RNZ and AAP, based in New Zealand since 2009. He writes primarily on politics, corporate power and international affairs. This article is republished from his substack Mick Hall in Context with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • David Robie: New Zealand must do more for Pacific and confront nuclear powers

    By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific Waves presenter/producer, and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/bulletin editor

    The New Zealand government needs to do more for its Pacific Island neighbours and stand up to nuclear powers, a distinguished journalist, media educator and author says.

    Professor David Robie, a recipient of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), released the latest edition of his book Eyes of Fire: The last voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior (Little Island Press), which highlights the nuclear legacies of the United States and France.

    Dr Robie, who has worked in Pacific journalism and academia for more than 50 years, recounts the crew’s experiences aboard the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, before it was bombed in Auckland Harbour.

    At the time, New Zealand stood up to nuclear powers, he said.

    “It was pretty callous [of] the US and French authorities to think they could just carry on nuclear tests in the Pacific, far away from the metropolitan countries, out of the range of most media, and just do what they like,” Dr Robie told RNZ Pacific. “It is shocking, really.”

    The bombed Rainbow Warrior next morning
    The bombed Rainbow Warrior next morning . . . as photographed by protest photojournalist John Miller. Image: Frontispiece in Eyes of Fire © John Miller

    Speaking to Pacific Waves, Dr Robie said that Aotearoa had “forgotten” how to stand up for the region.

    “The real issue in the Pacific is about climate crisis and climate justice. And we’re being pushed this way and that by the US [and] by the French. The French want to make a stake in their Indo-Pacific policies as well,” he said.

    ‘We need to stand up’
    “We need to stand up for smaller Pacific countries.”

    Dr Robie believes that New Zealand is failing with its diplomacy in the region.

    Rongelap Islanders on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior travelling to their new home on Mejatto Island in 1985
    Rongelap Islanders on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior travelling to their new home on Mejatto Island in 1985 — less than two months before the bombing. Image: ©1985 David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.

    However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.

    The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.

    “New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”

    The New Zealand government commits almost 60 percent of its development funding to the region.

    Pacific ‘increasingly contested’
    The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.

    “New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”

    They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.

    “We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific Governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.

    The cover of the latest edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior
    The cover of the latest edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Little Island Press

    However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”

    Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.

    “We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.

    “And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.

    “Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.

    ‘Look at history’
    France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.

    Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

    From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.

    The 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, the largest nuclear weapon ever exploded by the United States, left a legacy of fallout and radiation contamination that continues to this day.
    The 1 March 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, the largest nuclear weapon ever exploded by the United States, left a legacy of fallout and radiation contamination that continues to this day. Image: Marshall Islands Journal

    In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

    However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.

    “It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australian bid to criminalise Palestine support creates ‘hierarchy of racism’, says PSNA

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on the New Zealand government to not follow Australia’s policy moves which would effectively criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement.

    The Australian government has announced plans to implement recommendations from its anti-semitism envoy which PSNA says creates a “hierarchy of racism” with anti-semitism at the top, while Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism hardly feature.

    At least some of the appalling anti-semitic attacks in Sydney have been bogus, said the PSNA in a statement.

    Co-chair John Minto said PSNA had no tolerance for anti-semitism in Aotearoa New Zealand, or anywhere else.

    “But equally there should be no place for any other kind of racism, such as Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Our government must speak out against all forms of discrimination and support all communities when racism rears its ugly head,” he said.

    “Let’s not forget the murderous attacks on the Christchurch mosques.”

    Minto said the Australian measures would “inevitably” be used to criminalise the Palestinian solidarity movement across the country.

    Trump ‘demonising’ support
    “We see it happening in the US, to attack and demonise support for Palestinian human rights by the Trump administration.  We see it orchestrated in the UK to shut down any speech which Prime Minister Starmer and the Israeli government don’t like.”

    The PSNA statement said that it agreed with the Jewish Council of Australia which has warned the Australian government adopting these measures could result in

    “undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas.”

    Minto said the free speech restrictions in the US, UK and Australia had nothing to do with what people usually understand as anti-semitism.

    “The drive comes from the Israeli government.  They see making anti-semitism charges as the most effective means of preventing anyone publicly pointing to the genocide its armed forces are perpetrating in Gaza,” he said.

    “The definition of anti-semitism, usually inserted into codes of ethics or legislation, is from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.  The IHRA definition includes 11 examples.  Seven of the examples are about criticising Israel.”

    “It’s quite clear the Israeli campaign is to distract the community from Israel’s horrendous war crimes, such as the round-the-clock mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and deflect calls for sanctions against Israel.

    “Already we can see in both the UK and US, that people have been arrested for saying things about Israel which would not have been declared illegal if they’d said it about other countries, including their own.”

    Worrying signs
    Minto said there were already worrying signs that the New Zealand government, media and police were “falling into the trap”.

    “Just over the past few weeks, there has been an unusually wide-ranging mainstream media focus on anti-semitism,” Minto said citing:

    However, New Zealand politicians and media had been silent about:

    • An attack which knocked a young Palestinian woman to the ground when she was using a microphone to speak during an Auckland march
    • An attack where a Palestine supporter was kicked and knocked to the pavement outside the Israeli embassy in Wellington.  The accused was wearing an Israeli flag.  He was not held in custody and the Post newspaper has reported neither the arrest nor the resulting charge (this case is due in court July 15)
    • An attack on a Palestine solidarity marshal in Christchurch who was punched in the face, in front of police, but no action taken.
    • An attack in Christchurch when a Destiny Church member kicked a solidarity marshal in the chest (no action taken by police)
    • Anti-Palestinian racist attacks on the home of a Palestine solidarity activist in New Plymouth.  One supporter has had their front fence spraypainted twice with pro-Israel graffiti and their car tyres slashed twice (4 tyres in total) and had vile defamatory material circulated in their neighbourhood. (Police say they cannot help)
    • The frequent condemnation of anti-semitism by the previous Chief Human Rights Commissioner, but his refusal to condemn the deep-seated anti-Palestinian racism of the New Zealand Jewish Council and Israel Institute of New Zealand.
    • The refusal of the Human Rights Commission to publicly correct false statements it published in The Post newspaper which claimed anti-semitism was increasing, when in fact the evidence it was using was that the rate of incidents had declined.

    ‘Silence on mass killings’
    Minto said that in each of the cases above there would have been far more attention from politicians, the police and the media had the victims been Israeli supporters.

    “Meanwhile, both our government and the New Zealand Jewish Council have refused to condemn Israel’s blatant war crimes.  There is silence on the mass killing, mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.

    “The Jewish Council and our government stand together and refuse to hold Israel’s racist apartheid regime to account in just about any way.

    “This refusal to condemn what genocide scholars, including several Israeli genocide academics, have labelled as a ‘text-book case of genocide’, brings shame on both the New Zealand Jewish Council and the New Zealand government.”

    “Adding to the clear perception of appalling bias on the part of our government, both the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs have met with New Zealand Jewish Council spokespeople over the war in Gaza.

    “But both have refused to meet with representatives of Palestinian New Zealanders, or the huge number of Jewish supporters of the Palestine solidarity movement.”

    Minto said New Zealand must “stand up and be counted against genocide” wherever it appeared and no matter who the victims were.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israeli settlers shoot, beat to death 2 Palestinians in latest lynchings

    BEARING WITNESS: By Cole Martin in occupied West Bank

    Two young Palestinians were shot and beaten to death on their land, and 30 injured, by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

    A large group of settlers attacked the rural Palestinian village of Sinjil, in the Ramallah governorate, beating Sayfollah “Saif” Mussalet, 20, who died from his wounds after the mob blocked medical access for several hours.

    The body of Muhammad Shalabi, 23, was recovered that evening — having reportedly bled to death while ambulances and rescuers were blocked by Israeli military as settlers roamed the Palestinian farmland for hours.

    Both young men are from the neighbouring Mazra’a Sharqiya billate, and Saif was an American citizen visiting loved ones and friends over summer. His family released a statement calling his death an “unimaginable nightmare and an injustice that no family should ever have to face”.

    They said he was a “beloved member of his community . . . a brother and a son [and] a kind, hard-working, and deeply-respected young man.”

    Saif built a widely-loved business in Tampa, Florida, and was known for his generosity, ambition, and connection to his Palestinian heritage.

    Following news of his death an overwhelming number of locals gathered at his store to share their grief and anger.

    Frequent atrocities
    Such lynchings have become a frequent atrocity across the West Bank, as settler gangs are repeatedly emboldened by the Israeli government, police, and military who protect and often facilitate violence against Palestinian communities.

    Two settlers were reportedly detained following the attacks, but released again within hours.

    Between 2005-2020, 91 percent of Palestinian cases filed with police were closed without indictment, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem, and settlers undergo trial with full legal rights and higher lenience in Israeli civil courts.

    By contrast, Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts, established in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention and largely considered corrupt for maintaining a 95 percent conviction rate (Military Court Watch).

    Additionally, more than 3600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli captivity without charge or trial, with all detainees facing an increase in documented physical, psychological, and sexual abuse — including children.

    A funeral was held for the young men on Sunday in Mazra’a Sharqiya village, with thousands in attendance. The killings continue a systemic pattern which alongside military incursions, has seen 153 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025 (OCHA).

    UN resolution
    A UN resolution last September reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, demanding a total and unconditional withdrawal within a year.

    Ten months on, settler attacks have escalated in frequency and severity, settlement expansion has rapidly increased, and numerous Palestinian villages have been forcibly displaced after months of sustained violence.

    Communities across the West Bank are facing erasure, and as the death toll climbs pressure continues to grow for the New Zealand government to enforce stronger political sanctions, including the entire opposition uniting behind the Green Party’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill.

    Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

    Mourners pay their respects to the two young Palestinians killed by illegal settlers
    Mourners pay their respects to the two young Palestinians killed by illegal settlers. Image: Cole Martin


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mexican investigative crime reporters receive death threats

    Mexico City, July 10, 2025—Mexican authorities must immediately and credibly investigate death threats against two crime reporters, Óscar Balderas and Luis Chaparro, and take all appropriate steps to guarantee their safety and that of other reporters covering organized crime, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. 

    Balderas, a well-known investigative journalist, reported on July 4 on X that he had received a threatening call from un unidentified individual using an unknown number. In the call, that person used profanity and said that Balderas should “tone it down” or he would “face the consequences.” The caller did not specify a particular story Balderas had written.

    The next day, Balderas received a message via WhatsApp, again from an unknown number, in which the sender repeated that the journalist should “keep quiet,” while also referring to Balderas’ friend and fellow reporter Luis Chaparro, issuing the same threat to him. Chaparro told CPJ that he had not personally received threats, but that Balderas had notified him of the message and the phone call.

    The threats came just weeks after unidentified assailants killed two journalists in Mexico.

    “The brazen threats against Óscar Balderas and Luis Chaparro are part of an ongoing campaign to terrorize any journalist who provides in-depth reporting on organized crime in Mexico,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “These threats can only happen in a context of festering impunity for the country’s press, something Mexican authorities continue to fail address.”

    Both Balderas and Chaparro are experienced investigative reporters. Balderas hosts and contributes to several news shows on nationally syndicated radio and television channels, including La Saga, Milenio, ADN40, and MVS Noticias. Chaparro, formerly based in the northern city of Ciudad Juárez but now in the United States, hosts online news show Pie de Nota.

    Balderas told CPJ that he has been in constant contact with the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which is overseen by the interior ministry, about the threats. Neither journalist has filed a report with the police.

    An official for the Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via WhatsApp.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Storm clouds are gathering’: 40 years on from the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior

    From the prologue of the 40th anniversary edition of David Robie’s seminal book on the Rainbow Warrior’s last voyage, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark (1999-2008) writes about what the bombing on 10 July 1985 means today.

    By Helen Clark

    The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985 and the death of a voyager on board, Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific.

    It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through. I was in Zimbabwe on my way to join the New Zealand delegation to the United Nations World Conference on Women in Nairobi. In Harare I met for the first time New Zealand Anglican priest Father Michael Lapsley who, in that same city in 1990, was severely disabled by a parcel bomb delivered by the intelligence service of the apartheid regime in South Africa. These two bombings, of the Rainbow Warrior and of Michael, have been sad reminders to me of the price so many have paid for their commitment to peace and justice.

    It was also very poignant for me to meet Fernando’s daughter, Marelle, in Auckland in 2005. Her family suffered a loss which no family should have to bear. In August 1985, I was at the meeting of the Labour Party caucus when it was made known that the police had identified a woman in their custody as a French intelligence officer. Then in September, French prime minister Laurent Fabius confirmed that French secret agents had indeed sunk the Rainbow Warrior. The following year, a UN-mediated agreement saw the convicted agents leave New Zealand and a formal apology, a small amount of compensation, and undertakings on trade given by France — the latter after New Zealand perishable goods had been damaged in port in France.

    Both 1985 and 1986 were momentous years for New Zealand’s assertion of its nuclear-free positioning which was seen as provocative by its nuclear-armed allies. On 4 February 1985, the United States was advised that its naval vessel, the Buchanan, could not enter a New Zealand port because it was nuclear weapons-capable and the US “neither confirm nor deny” policy meant that New Zealand could not establish whether it was nuclear weapons-armed or not.

    In Manila in July 1986, a meeting between prime minister David Lange and US Secretary of State George Schultz confirmed that neither New Zealand nor the US were prepared to change their positions and that New Zealand’s engagement in ANZUS was at an end. Secretary Schultz famously said that “We part company as friends, but we part company as far as the alliance is concerned”.

    New Zealand passed its Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act in 1987. Since that time, until now, the country has on a largely bipartisan basis maintained its nuclear-free policy as a fundamental tenet of its independent foreign policy. But storm clouds are gathering.

    Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those. There has been much speculation about a potential Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement which would see others in the region become partners in the development of advanced weaponry. This is occurring in the context of rising tensions between the United States and China.

    Many of us share the view that New Zealand should be a voice for deescalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific and the development of more lethal weaponry.

    Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior
    Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior . . . publication 10 July 2025. Image: David Robie/Little Island Press

    Nuclear war is an existential threat to humanity. Far from receding, the threat of use of nuclear weapons is ever present. The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now sits at 89 seconds to midnight. It references the Ukraine theatre where the use of nuclear weapons has been floated by Russia. The arms control architecture for Europe is unravelling, leaving the continent much less secure. India and Pakistan both have nuclear arsenals. The Middle East is a tinder box with the failure of the Iran nuclear deal and with Israel widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capacity. An outright military conflict between China and the United States would be one between two nuclear powers with serious ramifications for East Asia, South-East Asia, the Pacific, and far beyond.

    August 2025 marks the eightieth anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A survivors’ group, Nihon Hidankyo, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. They bear tragic witness to the horror of the use of nuclear weapons. The world must heed their voice now and at all times.

    In the current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament. New Zealanders were clear — we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.

    The multilateral system is now in crisis — across all its dimensions. The UN Security Council is paralysed by great power tensions. The United States is unlikely to pay its dues to the UN under the Trump presidency, and others are unlikely to fill the substantial gap which that leaves. Its humanitarian, development, health, human rights, political and peacekeeping, scientific and cultural arms all face fiscal crises.

    This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.

    Movement back towards an out-of-date alliance, from which New Zealand disengaged four decades ago, and its current tentacles, offers no safe harbour — on the contrary, these destabilise the region within which we live and the wide trading relationships we have. May this new edition of David Robie’s Eyes of Fire remind us of our nuclear-free journey and its relevance as a lode star in these current challenging times.

    • The 40th anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior by David Robie ($50, Little Island Press) can be purchased from Little Island Press. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rainbow Warrior bombing by French secret agents remembered 40 years on

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News

    Forty years ago today, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship  Rainbow Warrior in an attempt to stop the environmental organisation’s protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in Mā’ohi Nui.

    People gathered on board Rainbow Warrior III to remember photographer Fernando Pereira, who was killed in the attack, and to honour the legacy of those who stood up to nuclear testing in the Pacific.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before the bombing was Operation Exodus, a humanitarian mission to the Marshall Islands. There, Greenpeace helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing.

    The dawn ceremony was hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and attended by more than 150 people. Speeches were followed by the laying of a wreath and a moment of silence.

    Fernando Pereira
    Photographer Fernando Pereira and a woman from Rongelap on the day the Rainbow Warrior arrived in Rongelap Atoll in May 1985. Image: David Robie/Eyes of Fire

    Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou), the chair of the Greenpeace Aotearoa board, said it was a day to remember for the harm caused by the French state against the people of Mā’ohi Nui.

    Warmenhoven worked for 20 years in iwi research and is a grassroots, Ruatoria-based community leader who works to integrate mātauranga Māori with science to address climate change in Te Tai Rāwhiti.

    She encouraged Māori to stand united with Greenpeace.

    “Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, a Greenpeace Aotearoa, ko te whawhai i ngā mahi tūkino a rātou, te kāwanatanga, ngā rangatōpū, me ngā tāngata whai rawa, e patu ana i a mātou, te iwi Māori, ngā iwi o te ao, me ō mātou mātua, a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku,” e ai ki a Warmenhoven.

    Tui Warmenhoven and Dr Russel Norman
    Tui Warmenhoven and Dr Russel Norman in front of Rainbow Warrior III on 10 July 2025. Image:Te Ao Māori News

    A defining moment in Aotearoa’s nuclear-free stand
    “The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a defining moment for Greenpeace in its willingness to fight for a nuclear-free world,” said Dr Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    He noted it was also a defining moment for Aotearoa in the country’s stand against the United States and France, who conducted nuclear tests in the region.

    Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman
    Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman speaking at the ceremony on board Rainbow Warrior III today. Image: Te Ao Māpri News

    In 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act officially declared the country a nuclear-free zone.

    This move angered the United States, especially due to the ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships entering New Zealand ports.

    Because the US followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, it saw the ban as breaching the ANZUS Treaty and suspended its security commitments to New Zealand.

    The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before it was bombed was Operation Exodus, during which the crew helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958.

    The evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto in 1985
    The evacuation of Rongelap Islanders to Mejatto by the Rainbow Warrior crew in May 1985. Image: Greenpeace/Fernando Pereira

    The legacy of Operation Exodus
    Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.

    For decades, it denied the long-term health impacts, even as cancer rates rose and children were born with severe deformities.

    Despite repeated pleas from the people of Rongelap to be evacuated, the US government failed to act until Greenpeace stepped in to help.

    “The United States government effectively used them as guinea pigs for nuclear testing and radiation to see what would happen to people, which is obviously outrageous and disgusting,” Dr Norman said.

    He said it was important not to see Pacific peoples as victims, as they were powerful campaigners who played a leading role in ending nuclear testing in the region.

    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior in April 2025.
    Marshallese women greet the Rainbow Warrior as it arrived in the capital Majuro in March 2025. Image: Bianca Vitale/Greenpeace

    Between March and April this year, Rainbow Warrior III returned to the Marshall Islands to conduct independent research into the radiation levels across the islands to see whether it’s safe for the people of Rongelap to return.

    What advice do you give to this generation about nuclear issues?
    “Kia kotahi ai koutou ki te whai i ngā mahi uaua i mua i a mātou ki te whawhai i a rātou mā, e mahi tūkino ana ki tō mātou ao, ki tō mātou kōkā a Papatūānuku, ki tō mātou taiao,” hei tā Tui Warmenhoven.

    A reminder to stay united in the difficult world ahead in the fight against threats to the environment.

    Warmenhoven also encouraged Māori to support Greenpeace Aotearoa.

    Tui Warmenhoven and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior, Ali Schmidt
    Tui Warmenhoven and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior, Ali Schmidt, placed a wreath in the water at the stern of the ship in memory of Fernando Pereira. Image: Greenpeace

    Dr Norman believed the younger generations should be inspired to activism by the bravery of those from the Pacific and Greenpeace who campaigned for a nuclear-free world 40 years ago.

    “They were willing to take very significant risks, they sailed their boats into the nuclear test zone to stop those nuclear tests, they were arrested by the French, beaten up by French commandos,” he said.

    Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Dawn service held 40 years on from Rainbow Warrior bombing

    TVNZ 1News

    The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has sailed into Auckland to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

    Greenpeace’s vessel, which had been protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific, sank after French government agents planted explosives on its hull, killing Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

    Today, 40 years on from the events on July 10 1985, a dawn ceremony was held in Auckland.

    Author Margaret Mills was a cook on board the ship at the time, and has written about her experience in a book entitled Anecdotage.

    Author Margaret Mills tells TVNZ Breakfast about the night of the Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years ago
    Author Margaret Mills tells TVNZ Breakfast about the night of the Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years ago. Image: TVNZ

    The 95-year-old told TVNZ Breakfast the experience on board “changed her life”.

    “I was sound asleep, and I heard this sort of bang and turned the light on, but it wouldn’t go on.

    She said when she left her cabin, a crew member told her “we’ve been bombed”.

    ‘I laughed at him’
    “I laughed at him, I said ‘we don’t get bombs in New Zealand, that’s ridiculous’.”

    She said they were taken to the police station after a “big boom when the second bomb came through”.

    “I realised immediately, I was part of a historical event,” she said.

    TVNZ reporter Corazon Miller talks to Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman and journalist David Robie after the Rainbow Warrior memorial dawn service today
    TVNZ reporter Corazon Miller talks to Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman (centre) and journalist David Robie after the Rainbow Warrior memorial dawn service today. Image: TVNZ

    Journalist David Robie. who travelled on the Rainbow Warrior and wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior published today, told Breakfast it was a “really shocking, shocking night”.

    “We were so overwhelmed by the grief and absolute shock of what had happened. But for me, there was no doubt it was France behind this.”

    “But we were absolutely flabbergasted that a country could do this.”

    He said it was a “very emotional moment” and was hard to believe it had been 40 years since that time.

    ‘Momentous occasion’
    “It stands out in my life as being the most momentous occasion as a journalist covering that whole event.”

    Executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa Russel Norman said the legacy of the ship was about “people who really stood up for something important”.

    “I mean, ending nuclear testing in the Pacific, imagine if they were still exploding bombs in the Pacific. We would have to live with that.

    “And those people back then they stood up and beat the French government to end nuclear testing.

    “It’s pretty inspirational.”

    He said the group were still campaigning on some key environmental issues today.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Death by Fungi: Cashing in on Erin Patterson

    She has become a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth, and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria, Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder. Date: July 29, 2023, in the town of Leongatha. Her weapon in executing her plot of Sophoclean extravagance: death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) served in a beef Wellington. Her targets: in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Of the four, only Ian survived the culinary killings – barely. Prudently, estranged husband Simon chose not to attend.

    News outlets thought it useful to produce graphics about this Australian’s terminating exploits. CNN produced one with voyeuristic relish, making it appear much like a Midsomer Murders episode. Details aplenty are provided, including the gruesome end for the victims. “Gail and Heather died on August 4 [2023] from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5 after he failed to respond to a liver transplant.”  Fortunately, Ian Wilkinson survived, but the rumour-mongering hack journalist can barely take it, almost regretful of that fact: “after almost two months of intensive treatment”, he was discharged.

    Having an opinion on this case has become standard fare, amassing on a turd heap of supposition, second guessing and wonder. The range is positively Chaucerian in its village variety. The former court official interviewed about the killer’s guilty mind and poisoning stratagems, stating the obvious and dulling. The criminologist, keen on career advancement and pseudo-psychology, attempted to gain insight into Patterson’s mind, commenting on her apparent ordinariness.

    One example of the latter is to be found in The Conversation, where we are told by Xanthe Mallett with platitudinous and forced certainty how Patterson, speaking days after the incident, “presented as your typical, average woman of 50.” If attempting to kill four people using fungi is a symptom of average, female ordinariness of a certain age, we all best start making our own meals. But Mallett thinks it is precisely that sense of the ordinary that led to a public obsession, a mania with crime and motivation. “The juxtaposition between the normality of a family lunch (and the sheer vanilla-ness of the accused) and the seriousness of the situation sent the media into overdrive.”

    This is certainly not the view of Dr. Chris Webster, who answered the Leongatha Hospital doorbell when Patterson first presented.  Realising her link to the other four victims suffering symptoms of fungal poisoning, Webster explained that death cap mushrooms were suspected. Asking Patterson where she got them, she replied with one word: “Woolworths.” This was enough for the doctor to presume guilt, an attitude which certainly gave one of Australia’s most ruthless supermarket chains a graceful pardon. “She was evil and very smart to have planned it all and carried out but didn’t quite dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.”

    The marketer, thrilled with branding and promotion, suggests how Patterson Inc. can become an ongoing concern of merchandise, plays, and scripts. (Think of a shirt sporting the following: “I ate beef Wellington and survived”.) The ABC did not waste much time commissioning Toxic, a show created by Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres, aided by ABC podcaster Rachel Brown. Ayres hams it up by saying that, “True stories ask storytellers to probe the complexities of human behaviour. What really lies beneath the headlines? It’s both a challenge and a responsibility to go beyond the surface – to reveal, not just to sensationalise.” Given that this project is a child of frothy publicity born from sensationalism and hysteria, the comment is almost touching.

    The media prompts and updates, mischaracterising Patterson as “The Mushroom Murderer”, leave the impression that she really did like killing fungi. But an absolute monster must be found, and the press hounds duly found it. Papers like the Herald Sun preferred the old Rupert Murdoch tactic: till the soil to surface level to find requisite dirt. According to a grimy bit of reporting from that most distinguished of Melbourne rags, “the callous murderer, whose maiden name was Scutter before marrying Simon Patterson in 2007, was secretly dubbed ‘Scutter the Nutter’ among her training group.” The Australian was in a didactic mood, unhappy that the judge did not make it even more obvious that a crime, committed by a woman involving poison and “not a gun or a knife”, was equally grave.

    To complete the matter was an aggrieved home cook, Nagi Maehashi, who also rode the wave of publicity by expressing sadness that her recipe had become a lethal weapon. (Presumably, Maehashi did not have lethal mushrooms in her original recipe, but precision slides in publicity.)  Overcome with false modesty in this glare of publicity, Maehashi did not wish to take interviews, but felt her misused work deserved a statement.  “It is, of course, upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” she moaned on Instagram. Those familiar with Maehashi will note her tendency to megalomania in the kitchen, especially given recipes that have been created long before she turned to knife and spatula.

    The ones forgotten will be those victims who died excruciatingly before their loved ones in a richly sadistic exercise. At the end of it all, the entire ensemble of babblers, hucksters, and chancers so utterly obsessed with what took place in Leongatha should thank Patterson. Her murders have excited, enthralled, and given people purpose. She will start conversations, fill pockets, extend careers, and, if we are to believe some recent reporting, make meals for her fellow inmates in prison.

    The post Death by Fungi: Cashing in on Erin Patterson first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.