Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticising the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave.
“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said today via the US social media company X.
Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.
She criticised Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza on August 10, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.
“I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.
Zink also emphasised that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel’s propaganda” had not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide.
“I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.
“I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.
I can’t in good conscience continue to work for Reuters given their betrayal of journalists in Gaza and culpability in the assassination of 245 our colleagues. pic.twitter.com/WO6tjHqDIU
‘Double tap’ strike
Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel’s Monday attack on the al-Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what’s known as a ‘double tap’ strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”
Zink underlined that Western media was directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill of Drop Down News, who said major outlets — from The New York Times to Reuters — had served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitising war crimes, dehumanising victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.
She said Western media outlets, by “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.
The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.
Israel has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its war on the enclave.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s surprise announcement yesterday that he will call for a parliamentary confidence vote in his government is set to further complicate protracted talks in New Caledonia on the French territory’s political future.
The announcement comes as French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls has extended his stay in New Caledonia, where he has supervised a “drafting committee” to translate a “Bougival Accord” signed in July to set the path for major political reforms for New Caledonia.
In a surprise and “risky” announcement yesterday, Bayrou said a confidence vote in his government would take place on September 8.
He said this was in direct relation to his budget, which contains planned sweeping cuts of around 44 billion euros (NZ$87.6 billion) to tackle the “danger” of France plunging further into “over-indebtedness”.
“Yes it’s risky, but it’s even riskier not to do anything,” he told a press conference.
According to article 49.1 of the French Constitution, if a majority of parties votes in defiance, then Bayou and his minority government automatically fall.
Reacting to the announcement, parties ranging from far right, far left to the Greens have already indicated they would express defiance towards Bayrou and his cabinet.
‘End of the government’
Far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party chief Jordan Bardella said Bayrou, by calling for the vote, had effectively announced “the end of his government”.
Radical left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) also said the vote would mark the end of the government.
This will place the Socialist MPs, whose votes could make the difference, in a crucial position.
Socialist party spokesman MP Arthur Delaporte, deplored Bayrou for remaining “deaf to the demands of the French” and appeared to remain “quite stubborn”.
“I don’t see how we could vote the confidence,” Delaporte told reporters.
To further compound the situation in France, a national “block everything” strike has been called on September 12, with the active support and backing from the far left parties and a number of trade unions.
Valls is still in New Caledonia, after he extended his stay twice and is now set to fly back to Paris later today.
Bid for FLNKS talks
The extension was an attempt to resume talks with the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which has attended none of the three sessions of the “drafting committee” on August 21, 23 and 35.
French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls . . . at New Caledonia’s drafting committee meeting launched at the French High Commission. Image: Photo: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie/RNZ Pacific
Talks within the committee were reported to be not only legal (with the help of a team of French high officials, including constitutionalists, but also highly political.
Valls announced a last-ditch session today with FLNKS before he flies back to Paris.
All of the other parties, both pro-independence and pro-France, took part in the committee sessions, which is now believed to have produced a Constitutional reform Bill that was to be tabled at both France’s Parliament chambers (the National Assembly and the Senate) and later before a special meeting of both houses (a “Congress”).
The Constitutional Bill would cover a large spectrum of issues, including the creation, for the first time in France, of a “State of New Caledonia”, as well as a dual France/New Caledonia citizenship.
Two other documents, an organic law and a fundamental law (a de facto constitution) are also being prepared for New Caledonia.
The Bougival deal signed on July 12 near Paris was initially agreed to by all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented at the local Parliament, the Congress.
Rejected ‘in block’
But it was later denounced and rejected “in block” by the FLNKS.
Valls has consistently stressed that his door “remains open” to the FLNKS.
Several local parties across the political chessboard (including the Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble) have already expressed doubts as to whether the implementation of the Bougival deal could carry any value if they had taken place without the FLNKS.
In the face of urgent initial plans to have New Caledonia’s texts urgently tabled before French Parliament, Bayrou’s confidence challenge is highly likely to further complicate New Caledonia’s political negotiations.
The plan was to have the freshly-produced text scrutinised by the French State Council, then approved by the French Cabinet on September 17.
Before the end of 2025, it would then be tabled before the French National Assembly, then the Senate, then the French special Congress sitting.
And before 28 February 2026, the same text would finally be put to the vote by way of a referendum for the people of New Caledonia.
Pro-France leader and former French cabinet member Sonia Backès however told local media she remained confident that even if the Bayrou government fell on September 8, “there would still be a continuity”.
“But if this was to be followed by a dissolution of Parliament (and snap elections), then, very clearly, this would impact on the whole (New Caledonian) process,” she said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fire engulfed the Marshall Islands Nitijela (Parliament building) just after midnight on last night with firefighters risking their lives as they battled the blaze early today in a bid to save the complex.
“Sometime around midnight or shortly after this morning, the Parliament building in Majuro caught fire, started burning,” RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in the Marshall Islands Giff Johnson said.
“The fire department here is pretty nonexistent, except for an airport fire fighting team, which was called in, but they weren’t able to get there for over an hour.”
Marshall Islands firefighters try to contain the fire. Image: Chewy Lin Photo & Film/Chewy Lin/RNZ Pacific
Johnson said the building was completely engulfed by the time the fire truck arrived on site.
He said the Parliament chamber and offices, the library and all the archives, “have been all destroyed”.
“Everything’s wiped out. All the records are gone,” he said.
“A lot of the structure, which is concrete, is still standing, but it’s now noontime (Tuesday, NZT), and it’s still smoking. Firefighters are still on site, trying to quell it.
‘Alternative plans’
“The building is no longer usable, and already, alternative plans are being talked about, about where they’re going to hold Parliament, because Parliament is actually in session right now.
“Fortunately, the fire started late overnight so no indication that anybody was harmed.”
Johnson said the Marshall Islands did not have much capacity in firefighting and fire inspection processes, making it difficult to determine the cause of the fire.
He said a lot of entities in the Marshall Islands did not have back-ups and it would take people weeks to figure out what they had lost and what they could access.
“From purely a records point of view, and just getting their system back up and running, it’s going to be a while because everything has been digitised at the Parliament, and it’s a really complicated situation.”
Nitjela up in flames. Image: Chewy Lin Photo & Film/Chewy Lin
The Marshall Islands Cabinet was holding an emergency meeting and was expected to make a statement later today.
A media studies analyst has condemned the latest deadly attack by Israel on journalists in Gaza and challenged Western media over the carnage, asking “where is the outrage” and international solidarity?
Four journalists were reported to have been assassinated among 20 people killed in the air strike on the al-Nasser Medical Centre in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
The others killed were first responders and medical staff, said the Gaza Health Ministry.
Dr Mohamad Elmasry, media studies professor at Qatar’s Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera in an interview he was “at a loss for words” over the latest attack.
“Israel has been at war with journalism and journalists from the very beginning of the war,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera. “They’re not hiding it. They’re very open about this.
“But the question that I have is, where are the international journalists?
‘Where is Western media?’
“Where is The New York Times? Where is CNN? Where are the major mainstream Western news outlets?
“Because when Charlie Hebdo [a French satirical magazine based in Paris] journalists were killed in 2015, that caused global outrage for months.
“It was a major story in every single Western news outlet. And I applauded journalists for coming to the aid of their colleagues. But now, where is the outrage?”
The Gaza Media Office said the death toll of Palestinian journalists in Gaza had risen to 246 and identified latest casualties as:
Hossam al-Masri – photojournalist with Reuters news agency
Mohammed Salama – photojournalist with Al Jazeera
Mariam Abu Daqa – journalist with several media outlets including The Independent Arabic and US news agency Associated Press
Moaz Abu Taha – journalist with NBC network
In a statement when announcing that the death toll from the al-Nasser hospital attack had risen to 20, the Gaza Health Ministry said:
“The [Israeli] occupation forces’ targeting of the hospital today and the killing of medical personnel, journalists, and civil defence personnel is a continuation of the systematic destruction of the health system and the continuation of genocide.
“It is a message of defiance to the entire world and to all values of humanity and justice.”
‘Killed in line of duty’
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, posted on X after the Israeli strikes killed the journalists and members of Gaza’s civil defence:
“Rescuers killed in line of duty. Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented,” she wrote.
“I beg states: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage?
“Break the blockade. Impose an arms embargo. Impose sanctions.”
Her remarks came after she shared a video appearing to show a second Israeli air strike during a live broadcast on Al-Ghad TV — just minutes after the first attack on al-Nasser hospital.
Albanese later gave an interview, renewing her call for sanctions on Israel.
BREAKINGRescuers killed in line of duty.
Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented. I beg STATES: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage? Break the blockade Impose an Arms Embargo Impose Sanctions. https://t.co/FgMvIyYem0
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) August 25, 2025
One of Al Jazeera’s reporters described working with hospitals as a base.
Deprived of electricity, internet
Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza, said: “I’m one of the Palestinian journalists reporting from hospitals.
“We are in a two-year war where we have been deprived of electricity and internet, so Palestinian journalists are using these services at hospitals to continue reporting.
“We are also following news of wounded Palestinians, funerals, and malnutrition cases, as these are always transferred to hospitals.
“That is why Palestinian journalists are making hospitals their base and end up being attacked.”
The Australian author of The Palestine Laboratory, Antony Loewenstein, being interviewed by Al Jazeera from Sydney. Image: AJ screenshot APR
A day after the August 8 press conference, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi flagged alleged irregularities in the voter list of Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency, he addressed a Vote Adhikar Rally in Karnataka, where he claimed that 1 crore new votes had ‘magically’ appeared in Maharashtra in the four to five months between the assembly elections in April-May-June 2024 and the Lok Sabha elections in November 2024.
“First, the Lok Sabha elections happen, and then the Vidhan Sabha elections happen. Our alliance won the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. Four months later, the BJP won the Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra. It was a surprising result. When we enquired, we found that 1 crore new voters voted in the Vidhan Sabha. 1 crore new people who did not vote in the Lok Sabha magically appeared to vote in the Vidhan Sabha… Votes for our alliance did not go down. Whatever we got in the Vidhan Sabha, we got the same in the Lok Sabha. And all the increased votes went to the BJP…”, said Gandhi.
This was not the only time Gandhi claimed that 1 crore voters had been added between the two elections in Maharashtra. On August 17, 2025, during the launch of the Voter Adhikar Yatra by the INDIA bloc in Sasaram, Bihar, the Leader of Opposition put forth the same figure of 1 crore.
“During the Lok Sabha elections, our alliance won. After four months, in the same state, the BJP’s alliance swept the elections. Upon enquiry, we found that after the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission magically added 1 crore new voters. Between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, there is a difference of 1 crore voters…We did not lose votes. Whatever votes we got in the Lok Sabha, we got in the Vidhan Sabha. BJP got all the new votes and they won the election…”, said Gandhi during his speech.
“Between the Lok Sabha election which the INDIA alliance won and the Vidhan Sabha election, the voting population of Himachal Pradesh was added to the voting roll of Maharashtra. Meaning the entire population of Himachal Pradesh was added to the voter rolls of Maharashtra. Please understand what I am saying. In Lok Sabha… the difference between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha was the population of Himachal Pradesh. The entire population… Almost 70 lakh new voters suddenly arrived between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha…”
Fact Check
To cross-check the claims of vote surge by Rahul Gandhi, we looked for the relevant data on the Election Commission website.
According to the Maharashtra Lok Sabha Election Results 2024 handbook released by the chief electoral officer (CEO) for the state, the total number of votes polled in Lok Sabha elections held in April-May-June 2024 was 5,71,79,131, i.e., a little over 5.7 crore.
Again, as per the Voter Turnout (VTR) data available on the CEO Maharashtra’s website, the total number of votes polled in the assembly election in Maharashtra held in November 2024 was 6,40,88,195, i.e., a little over 6.4 crore.
The difference between these two, i.e., the total votes polled in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and the assembly elections held five months later, is 69,09,064, or a little over 69 Lakh, and not 1 crore as Rahul Gandhi claimed. (See table below)
We also looked at the number of votes polled by the two rival political groups in the state — the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — in the two elections.
In the April-May Lok Sabha polls, the NDA amassed 2,43,45,345 votes, i.e., a little over 2.4 crore. This is the sum total of votes polled by the BJP (1,49,13,914), the Shiv Sena (73,77,674) and the NCP (20,53,757).
Five months down the line, the NDA received 3,11,07,146, i.e., a little over 3.1 crore votes in the Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP’s tally being 1,72,93,650, the Shiv Sena’s 79,96,930 and the NCP receiving 58,16,566 votes.
So, the difference, or the jump in NDA’s votes stood at 67,61,801, or a little below 68 Lakh, which is near about the same as the jump in total votes polled (69,09,064).
Let’s now look at how the MVA fared in these two polls. In the Lok Sabha polls, MVA amassed 2,50,15,819 or a little over 2.5 crore votes. This is the sum total of votes polled by the Indian National Congress (9641856), the Shiv Sena-UBT (9522797) and the NCP-SP (5851166).
In the state polls in November, the MVA’s vote tally came down by 32,74,088 to 2,17,41,731 or a little below 2.2 crore votes, with the INC amassing 80,20,921, the Shiv Sena-UBT 64,33,013 and the NCP-SP 72,87,797 votes.
To conclude, our analysis based on Election Commission data proves Rahul Gandhi wrong on at least three counts — one, between Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Maharashtra in 2024, there was a 69 Lakh increase in voter turnout and not 1 crore.
Secondly, Gandhi’s assertion that the ‘1 crore new votes’ all went to the BJP, too, is inaccurate. One can surmise that by BJP, the Congress leader actually meant the NDA. The difference between total votes polled by the NDA in the two elections held five months apart was approximately 68 Lakh.
Thirdly, the MVA’s vote count was not the same in the two polls, as Rahul Gandhi claimed. There was a 33 Lakh decrease in their votes from Lok Sabha to assembly, which is by no means a negligible number.
As far as the remarks by the LoP in the House on February 3 are concerned, if by “70 lakh new voters” Gandhi meant the addition in votes polled or voter turnout, his data is very close to the actual figure. However, if he was talking about the increase in number of voters on the electoral role, the figure cited by him is not supported by EC data. According to the poll panel, 40,81,229 i.e., approximately 41 Lakh new voters were added to the Maharashtra electoral roll in the five months from Lok Sabha polls to assembly polls in the state in 2024.
If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia- and in New Zealand.
The Australian’s headline writers and columnists, for example, would be apoplectic. Prime Minister Albanese, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and Foreign Minister Penny Wong would issue the strongest possible warnings to those countries about consequences.
But, of course, that’s not happening because instead it is the US that is seeking to put the lives and well-being of the ICC’s staff in danger, the reasons the ICC has rightly issued arrest warrants against undoubted war criminals and genocide enablers such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, purely a slavish appendage of the worst US president on record, Donald Trump, announced sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the ICC.
Rubio issued a statement calling the ICC “a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare” against the US and Israel. A statement that, no doubt, war criminals around the world will be applauding.
These are not the first attacks on the ICC.
In February this year, Trump issued an order that said the US “will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC’s transgressions, some of which may include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the US of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members, as their entry into our nation would be detrimental to the interests of the US”.
The ICC was established in 2002 to administer the Rome Statute, the international law that governs war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and other crimes.
Leading atrocity nations
Australia is a signatory, but the US and Israel have not signed up in the case of the former, and failed to ratify in the case of the latter, because they are, of course, leading nations when it comes to committing atrocities overseas and — in the case of Israel — within its own borders, through what many scholars say is a policy of apartheid inflicted on Arab Israelis.
So, despite the relatively muted interest in Australia today at the latest outrage against the international order by the corrupt thugs in the Trump Administration, what should the Albanese government do?
Trump’s shielding of Netanyahu and his advisers from criminal proceedings through sanctions and threats to members of the court is akin to both aiding and abetting crimes under the Rome Statute and clearly threatening judges, prosecutors and court officials.
This means Australia should make it very clear, in very public terms, that this nation will not stand for conduct by a so-called ally, which is clearly running a protection racket.
Australia has long joined with the US and other allies in imposing sanctions on regimes around the world.
When it comes to Washington, those days are over.
Sarah Dehm of UTS and Jessica Whyte of the University of New South Wales, writing in The Conversation in December last year, referenced Trump and Rubio’s thuggery towards the ICC among other sanctions outrages, and observed correctly that “Australian sanctions law and decision-making be reoriented towards recognising core principles of international law, including the right of all people to self-determination”.
A ‘trigger mechanism’
Dehm and Whyte argued this “could be done through ‘a trigger mechanism’ that automatically implements sanctions in accordance with decisions of the International Court of Justice concerning serious violations and abuses of human rights”.
What the Albanese government could do immediately is make it abundantly clear that any person subject to an ICC arrest warrant would be detained if they set foot in Australia. This would obviously include Netanyahu and Gallant.
And further, that Australia stands to contribute to protection for any ICC personnel.
Not only that, but given the Rome Statute is incorporated into domestic law in Australia via the Commonwealth Criminal Code, a warning should be given by Attorney-General Rowland that any person suspected of breaches of the Rome Statute could be prosecuted under Australian law if they visit this country.
What Australia could also do is make it mandatory, rather than discretionary, for the attorney-general to issue an arrest warrant if Netanyahu and others subject to ICC warrants came to this country.
As Oxford international law scholar, Australian Dane Luo, has observed, while Foreign Minister Wong has said in relation to the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants that “Australia will act consistently with our obligations under international law and our approach will be informed by international law, not by politics”, this should not be taken as an indication that Rowland would have them arrested.
The Trump administration must be told clearly Australia will not harbour international criminals. And while we are at it, tell Washington we are imposing economic, cultural, educational and other sanctions on Israel.
Greg Barns SC is a former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance. This article was first published byPearls and Irritations : John Menadue’s public poiicy journal.
Although seven political parties have officially registered to contest Samoa’s general election this Friday, three have been politically visible through their campaign activities and are likely to share among them the biggest slice of the Parliament’s 51 seats.
The question on everyone’s lips is: which one of them will win enough seats to form the next government without the assistance of possible coalition partners?
The three main political parties are the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party and Sāmoa United Party (SUP), under the leadership of Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi (Tuila’epa), La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polata’ivao Schmidt (La’auli) and Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa (Fiamē) respectively.
La’auli and Fiamē were both long-serving members of the HRPP until their defection from that party when Tuila’epa was prime minister to form the FAST party before the last general election in April 2021.
Fiamē and La’auli became the leader and president of the FAST party respectively while Tuila’epa continued his parliamentary career as the leader of the opposition following the election.
A falling-out between La’auli and Fiamē in January 2025 resulted in the break-up of the FAST into two factions with Fiamē and the 14 ministers of cabinet of her caretaker government establishing the SUP following the official dissolution of Parliament on June 3.
La’auli, now leader of the FAST party, has retained the support of the remaining 19 FAST members of Parliament.
First to publicise manifesto
HRPP was the first political party to publicise its campaign manifesto, launched on June 23. Its promises include:
a $500 cash grant per year for every family member;
tax cuts; expansion of hospital services;
a new bridge between Upolu and Savai’i Islands;
disability benefit enhancements;
a $1000 one-off payment at the time of birth to help families cover essential costs for newborn babies;
an additional $1,000 one-off payment upon completion of infant vaccinations (Hexa-B and MMR-2) at 15 months; and
zero-rating of Value Added Goods and Services Tax (VAGST) on essential food items.
The FAST party’s manifesto, launched on July 12, reflects a strong focus on social welfare and economic revitalisation. It promises:
free public hospital services;
monthly allowances for pregnant women and young children;
cash top-ups for families earning under $20,000 per annum;
an increase in the retirement age from 55 to 65;
VAGST exemptions on essential goods;
development of a $1.5 billion carbon credit market;
establishment of a national stock exchange; injection of $300 million into Sāmoa Airways; and
the expansion of renewable energy and district development funding.
FAST’s signature campaign promise in the last general election was giving each electoral constituency one million tala for them to use however they wanted. That amount will increase to two million tala this time around.
Officially registered on 30 May 2025 and launched on June 5, the SUP launched its campaign manifesto on July 15. It promises:
free education and hospital care;
disability allowances and increased Accident Compensation Act payouts;
land restitution to villages;
pension increases; and
expanded services for outer islands that were not reached during Fiame’s premiership — all with a focus on restoring public trust in government.
‘People first’ party
SUP is promoting itself as a people-first party focused on continuity and ongoing reform.
The three main parties are following the practice established by the FAST party in the last general elections in 2021 where all party election candidates and their supporters tour the island group to meet with constituencies and publicise their manifestos.
As part of this process, the HRPP has been branding various FAST claims from last general election as disinformation.
It had been claimed, for example, that the HRPP was moving to cede ownership of Samoan customary land to Chinese people, that the HRPP presided over a huge government deficit and that, as Prime Minister, Tuila’epa was using public funds to send his children overseas on government scholarships.
At the HRPP rallies, Tuila’epa did not mince words in labelling La’auli a persistent liar, asserting that La’auli had been involved in several questionable and unauthorised dealings during the three-year life of the last FAST government, and that La’auli alone was responsible for the break-up of the FAST party when he refused to step down from cabinet following the Ministry of Police’s lawsuit against him in relation to the death of a young man on the eve of FAST general election victory in 2021.
Fiamē, equally, blames La’auli for the unsuccessful completion of the FAST government’s parliamentary term when he refused to step down from cabinet following the Ministry of Police’s lawsuit against him.
Convened caucus meeting
After refusing to step down, La’auli convened a FAST party caucus meeting at which a resolution was passed to terminate the party membership of Fiamē and four other ministers of her cabinet. The split between Fiamē and La’auli culminated in the defeat of Fiamē’s budget and the abrupt dissolution of Parliament.
HRPP said at their rallies that, should they win government, they would pass a law to prohibit roadshows as they do not want “outsiders” influencing constituencies’ voting preferences.
Furthermore, these road shows are costly in terms of resources and time, and are socially divisive.
Instead, they prefer the traditional method of choosing members of Parliament where political parties restrict themselves to compiling manifestos, leaving constituencies to choose their own preferred representatives in Parliament.
Given that the HRPP was the first political party to publicise its manifesto, they probably have a valid point in suggesting that other political parties, in particular the FAST party and SUP, have not come up with original ideas and have instead replicated or added to what the HRPP has taken some time to put together in its manifesto.
Given the political visibility achieved by the HRPP, FAST and SUP through their campaign road shows and their full use of the media, it is to be expected that collectively they will win the most seats.
Furthermore, owing to the FAST party’s turbulent history, HRPP is probably the front-runner, followed by FAST, then SUP. It is unlikely that the smaller parties will win any seats; likewise the independents.
Enough seats main question
The main question is whether HRPP will have enough seats to form a new government in its own right. Coalition government does not seem to work in Samoa’s political landscape.
The SNDP/CDP coalition in the 1985-1988 government and the last FAST quasi-coalition government of 2021-2025 (FAST depended on the support of an independent as well as pre-election alliances with other parties to form government) all saw governments fail to deliver on their election manifestos and provide needed public services.
Perhaps a larger question is how the three parties might fund their extravagant campaign promises.
The HRPP leadership is confident it will be able to deliver on the main promises in its manifesto — compiled and costed by the HRPP Campaign Committee, consisting of former Government ministries and corporations CEOs (Finance, Custom and Inland Revenue, National Provident Fund, Electoral Commissioner, President of the Land and Titles) and a former senior employee of the Attorney-General’s Office — within 100 days of assuming government.
The other two main parties, FAST and SUP, are equally confident.
The public will have to wait and see whether the campaign promises of their preferred party will be realised. Right now, they are more interested in whether their preferred party will get across the line.
Dr Asofou So’o was the founding professor of Samoan studies at the National University of Samoa from 2004 before being appointed as vice-chancellor and president of the university from 2009 to 2019. He is currently working as a consultant. This article was first published by ANU’s Development Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
More than 200,000 people took the streets across Australia on Saturday in a national day of action demanding that the Labor government sanctions Israel and stops the two-way arms trade.
It comes after 300,000 people marched, in driving rain, across Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3 to demand the same.
Palestine solidarity groups across the country are coordinating their plans as Israel’s illegal deliberate starvation policy is delivering its expected results.
Protests were organised in more than 40 cities and towns– a first in nearly two years since the genocidal war began.
At least 50,000 rallied on Gadigal Country/Sydney, 10,000 in Nipaluna/Hobart, 50,000 in Magan-djin/Brisbane, 100,000 in Naarm/Melbourne, 10,000 in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, 15,000 in Boorloo/Perth, 600 in the Blue Mountains, 500 in Bathurst, 5000 in Muloobinba/Newcastle, 1600 in Gimuy/Cairns and 700 in Djilang/Geelong.
West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor has vowed not to be silenced despite years of threats, harassment and even a bomb attack on his home.
The 51-year-old founder and editor-in-chief of Jubi, West Papua’s leading media outlet, was in Fiji this week, where he spoke exclusively to The Fiji Times about his fight to expose human rights abuses.
“Despite them bombing my home and office with molotov bombs, I am still doing journalism today because my people are hurting — and I won’t stop,” Mambor said.
A newly established “drafting committee” held its inaugural meeting in Nouméa this week, aiming to translate the Bougival agreement — signed by New Caledonian political parties in Paris last month — into a legal and constitutional form.
However, the first sitting of the committee on Thursday took place without one of the main pro-independence parties, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), which chose to stay out of the talks.
Visiting French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls, who was in New Caledonia until the weekend, met a delegation of the FLNKS on Wednesday for more than two hours to try and convince them to participate.
The FLNKS earlier announced a “block rejection” of the deal signed in Bougival because it regarded the text as “incompatible” with the party’s objectives and a “lure” in terms of self-determination and full sovereignty.
The deal outlines a roadmap for New Caledonia’s political future.
It is a compromise blueprint signed by New Caledonia’s parties from across the political spectrum and provides a vision for a “State” of New Caledonia, a dual French-New Caledonian citizenship, as well as a short-term transfer of such powers as foreign affairs from France to New Caledonia.
Even though FLNKS delegates initially signed the document in Bougival on July 12, their party later denounced the agreement and said its negotiators had no mandate to do so.
On Wednesday, as part of a round-up of talks with most political parties represented at the New Caledonian Congress, Valls held a separate meeting with a new delegation from FLNKS officials in Nouméa, in a last-ditch bid to convince them to take part in the “drafting committee” session.
The draft document for a “State of New Caledonia”. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie
‘Serene but firm’, says FLNKS The FLNKS described the talks with Valls as “serene but firm”.
The FLNKS is demanding a “Kanaky Agreement” to be concluded before 24 September 2025 and a fully effective sovereignty process to be achieved before the next French Presidential elections in April 2027.
It also wants the provincial elections, initially scheduled to take place no later than November 30, to be maintained at this date, instead of being postponed once again to mid-2026 under the Bougival prescriptions.
But they were nowhere to be seen on Thursday, when the drafting group was installed.
Valls also spoke to New Caledonia’s chiefly (customary) Senate to dispel any misconception that the Bougival deal would be a setback in terms of recognition of the Indigenous Kanak identity and place in New Caledonia.
He said the Bougival pact was a “historic opportunity” for them to seize “because there is no other credible alternative”.
Indigenous recognition
The minister stressed that. even though this Indigenous recognition may be perceived as less emphatic in the Bougival document, the same text also clearly stipulated that all previous agreements and accords, including the 1998 Nouméa Accord which devoted significant chapters to the Kanak issue and recognition, were still fully in force.
And that if needed, amendments could still be made to the Bougival text to make this even more explicit.
The chiefs were present at the opening session of the committee on Thursday.
So was a delegation of mayors of New Caledonia, who expressed deep concerns about New Caledonia’s current situation, 15 months after the riots that broke out in New Caledonia mid-May 2024, causing 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in material damages and thousands of jobless due to the destruction of hundreds of businesses.
New Caledonia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have dropped by 10 to 15 percent over the past 15 months.
As part of the post-riot ongoing trauma, New Caledonia is currently facing an acute shortage in the medical sector personnel — many of them have left following security issues related to the riots, gravely affecting the provision of essential and emergency services both in the capital Nouméa and in rural areas.
Participants at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie
Who turned up? Apart from the absent FLNKS, two other significant components of the pro-independence movement, former FLNKS moderate members Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance (UNI), consisting of PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) were also part of the new drafting committee participants.
UNI leaders said earlier they had signed the Bougival document because they believe even though it does not provide a short-term independence for New Caledonia, this could be gradually achieved in the middle run.
PALIKA and UPM, in a de facto split, distanced themselves from the FLNKS in August 2024 and have since abstained from taking part in the FLNKS political bureau.
On the side of those who wish New Caledonia to remain part of France (pro-France), all of its representative parties, who also signed the Bougival document, were present at the inaugural session of the drafting committee.
This includes Les Loyalistes, Le Rassemblement-LR, Calédonie Ensemble and Wallisian-based “kingmaker” party Eveil Océanien.
After the first session on Thursday, pro-France politicians described the talks as “constructive” on everyone’s part.
New Caledonia’s drafting committee launched at the French High Commission in Nouméa. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie
‘My door remains wide open’ But there are also concerns as to whether such sessions (the next one is scheduled for Saturday) can viably and credibly carry on without the FLNKS taking part.
“We just can’t force this or try to achieve things without consensus,” Eveil Océanien leader Milakulo Tukumuli told local media on Thursday.
Since Valls arrived in New Caledonia (on his fifth trip since he took office late 2024) this week, he has mentioned the FLNKS issue, saying his door remained “wide open”.
“I am well aware of the FLNKS position. But we have to keep going”, he told the drafting committee on Thursday.
The “drafting” work set in motion will have to focus in formulating, with the help of a team of French officials (legalists and constitutionalists), a series of documents which all trickle down from the Bougival general agreement so as to translate it in relevant and appropriate terms.
Pro-France leaders Sonia Backès and Nicolas Metzdorf at New Caledonia’s drafting committee launch. Image: Haut-commissariat de la République en Nouvelle-Calédonie
Some of the most urgent steps to be taken include formalising the postponement of the provincial elections to mid-2026, in the form of an “organic law”.
Among other things, the “organic law” is supposed to define the way that key powers should be transferred from France to New Caledonia, including following a vote by the local Congress with a required majority of 36 MPs (over two thirds), the rules on the exercise of the power of foreign affairs “while respecting France’s international commitments and fundamental interests”
Tabled in French Parliament
The text would be tabled to the French Parliament for approval, first before the Senate’s Law Committee on 17 September 2025 and then for debate on 23 September 2025. It would also need to follow a similar process before the other Parliament chamber, the National Assembly, before it can be finally endorsed by December 2025.
And before that, the French State Council is also supposed to rule on the conformity of the Constitutional Amendment Bill and whether it can be tabled before a Cabinet meeting on 17 September 2025.
Another crucial text to be drafted is a Constitutional amendment Bill that would modify the description of New Caledonia, wherever it occurs in the French Constitution (mostly in its Title XIII), into the “State of New Caledonia”.
The modification would translate the concepts described in the Bougival Agreement but would not cancel any previous contents from the 1998 Nouméa Accord, especially in relation to its Preamble in terms of “founding principles related to the Kanak identity and (New Caledonia’s) economic and social development”.
In the same spirit, every paragraph of the Nouméa Accord which does not contradict the Bougival text would remain fully valid.
The new Constitutional amendment project is also making provisions for a referendum to be held in New Caledonia no later than 28 February 2026, when the local population will be asked to endorse the Bougival text.
Another relevant instrument to be formulated is the “Fundamental Law” for New Caledonia, to be later endorsed by New Caledonia’s local Congress.
The “Fundamental Law”, a de facto Constitution, is supposed to focus on such notions and definitions as New Caledonia “identity signs” (flag, anthem, motto), a “charter of New Caledonia values, as well as the rules of eligibility to acquire New Caledonia’s nationality and a “Code of Citizenship”.
Valls said he was aware the time frame for all these texts was “constrained”, but that it was a matter of “urgency”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Two New Zealand Palestinians, Rana Hamida and Youssef Sammour, left Auckland today to join the massive new Global Sumud Flotilla determined to break Israel’s starvation blockade of the besieged enclave. Here, two journalists report on the Asia-Pacific stake in the initiative.
Ellie Aben in Manila and Sheany Yasuko Lai in Jakarta
Asia-Pacific activists are preparing to set sail with the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international fleet from 44 countries aiming to reach Gaza by sea to break Israel’s blockade of food and medical aid.
They have banded together under the Sumud Nusantara initiative, a coalition of activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan, to join the global flotilla movement that will begin launching convoys from August 31.
Sumud Nusantara is part of the GSF, a coordinated, nonviolent fleet comprising mostly small vessels carrying humanitarian aid, which will first leave Spanish ports for the Gaza Strip, followed by more convoys from Tunisia and other countries in early September.
The international coalition is set to become the largest coordinated civilian maritime mission ever undertaken to Gaza.
“This movement comes at a very crucial time, as we know how things are in Gaza with the lack of food entering the strip that they are not only suffering from the impacts of war but also from starvation,” Indonesian journalist Nurhadis said ahead of his trip.
“Israel is using starvation as a weapon to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza. This is why we continue to state that what Israel is doing is genocide.”
Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians and injured over 157,000 more.
Gaza famine declared
As Tel Aviv continued to systematically obstruct food and aid from entering the enclave, a UN-backed global hunger monitor — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — declared famine in Gaza on Friday, estimating that more than 514,000 people are suffering from it.
Nurhadis is part of a group of activists from across Indonesia joining the GSF, which aims to “break Israel’s illegal blockade and draw attention to international complicity in the face of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“We continue to try through this Global Sumud Flotilla action, hoping that the entire world, whether it’s governments or the people and other members of society, will pressure Israel to open its blockade in Palestine,” he said.
“This is just beyond the threshold of humanity. Israel is not treating Palestinians in Gaza as human beings and the world must not keep silent. This is what we are trying to highlight with this global convoy.”
The GSF is a people-powered movement that aims to help end the genocide in Gaza, said Rifa Berliana Arifin, Indonesia country director for the Sumud Nusantara initiative and executive committee member of the Jakarta-based Aqsa Working Group.
“Indonesia is participating because this is a huge movement. A movement that aspires to resolve and end the blockade through non-traditional means.
“We’ve seen how ineffective diplomatic, political approaches have been, because the genocide in Gaza has yet to end.
‘People power’ movement
“This people-power movement is aimed at putting an end to that,” Arifin said.
“This is a non-violent mission . . . Even though they are headed to Gaza, they are boarding boats that have no weapons . . . They are simply bringing themselves . . . for the world to see.”
As the Sumud Nusantara initiative is led by Malaysia, activists were gathering this weekend in Kuala Lumpur, where a ceremonial send-off for the regional convoy is scheduled to take place on Sunday, led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
One of them is Philippine activist Drieza Lininding, leader of civil society group Moro Consensus Group, who is hoping that the Global Sumud Flotilla will inspire others in the Catholic-majority nation to show their support for Palestine.
“We are appealing to all our Filipino brothers and sisters, Muslims or Christians, to support the Palestinian cause because this issue is not only about religion, but also about humanity. Gaza has now become the moral compass of the world,” he said.
“Everybody is seeing the genocide and the starvation happening in Gaza, and you don’t need to be a Muslim to side with the Palestinians.
“It is very clear: if you want to be on the right side of history, support all programmes and activities to free Palestine . . . It is very important that as Filipinos we show our solidarity.”
So here we are, 2025, and Israel has finally achieved what no terrorist group, no hostile neighbour, no antisemitic tyrant ever could: it has become the most dangerous country on earth — for its own people.
Not because of rockets or boycotts, but because its government has decided that the only way to secure the future is to annihilate everyone else’s.
The Zionist project — once sold as a miraculous refuge for a persecuted people — now stands revealed as a 70‑year experiment in ethnic cleansing, wrapped in biblical entitlement and armed with American money.
The current phase? Bulldozers in the West Bank, tanks in Gaza, and a prime minister whose personal survival depends on keeping his citizens permanently terrified and morally anesthetised.
Netanyahu and his coalition of zealots have at last clarified Israel’s mission statement: kill or expel two million Palestinians, and call it “security.”
Reduce Gaza to rubble, herd the survivors into tents, and then — here’s the punchline — offer them “resettlement packages” in Libya or South Sudan, as though genocide could be rebranded as humanitarian outsourcing.
And the world? Still dithering over whether to call this behaviour “problematic.” As if sanctions and isolation are reserved only for the unlucky states without lobbyists in Washington or friends in European parliaments.
Israel is begging to be treated as a pariah, but we keep dressing it up as a partner.
The most awkward truth of all: Jews in the diaspora now face a choice. Condemn this grotesque betrayal of Jewish history, or keep defending the indefensible until Israel itself becomes the nightmare prophecy it was meant to escape.
Richard David Hames is an American philosopher-activist, strategic adviser, entrepreneur and mentor and he publishes The Hames Report on Substack.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
A video of a waterlogged tarmac at an airport with ground crew crowded around the wheels of an airplane as several aircraft remain stranded in the background is being circulated on social media as a visual of the flooded Mumbai airport.
Maharashtra witnessed heavy torrential rain over the past few days, with the total death toll crossing 27, according to a Deccan Herald report. Several regions of Mumbai have been inundated, bringing daily activities to a standstill.
Claiming that operations at Mumbai airport were disrupted, news outlet Republic shared the video on X on August 19. The caption read: “#MumbaiRains | Over 250 flights delayed at Mumbai Airport as heavy rains flooded runways.” The post was later deleted; an archived version can be accessed here.
X user Priya Sinha (@iPriyaSinha), an anchor affiliated with the news channel Bharat 24, also shared the same video on August 19 but later deleted it. (Archive)
Alt News did reverse-image searches of some key frames from the viral video, which led us to an X post by Times Now from December 4, 2023, featuring the same clip. Going by the caption, the video showed the Chennai airport ravaged by Cyclone Michaung, which hit India’s southern states in December 2023.
This made it clear that the video was not recent and had been online for at least two years.
While investigating we also noticed a yellow signboard at the beginning of the video, which contains what seemed like GPS coordinates of the place (written in degrees, minutes, and seconds) — 12° 59 ‘5.9 ” N 80° 9’ 47.686” E.
On feeding these coordinates on Google Maps, the location showed up as Chennai, Tamil Nadu, not Mumbai, Maharashtra. The location was marked in the vicinity of ‘MAA’ on Google Maps, which is the airport code for Chennai International Airport.
Thus, claims suggesting that the video shows the waterlogged condition of Mumbai airport after the recent heavy rains there are false and misleading. The video actually shows the flooded Chennai International Airport after Cyclone Michaung in December 2023.
Three media spokespeople addressed the 98th week of New Zealand solidarity rallies for Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland today, criticising the quality of news reporting about the world’s biggest genocide crisis this century.
Speakers at other locations around the country also condemned what they said was biased media coverage.
The critics said they were affirming their humanity in solidarity with the people of Palestine as the United Nations this week officially declared a man-made famine in Gaza because of Israel’s weaponisation of starvation against the besieged enclave with 2 million population.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 22 months of conflict – mostly women and children.
One of the major criticisms was that the New Zealand media has consistently framed the series of massacres as a “war” between Israel and Hamas instead of a military land grab based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The first speaker, Mick Hall, a former news agency journalist who is currently an independent political columnist, said the way news media had covered these crimes had “undoubtedly affected public opinion”.
“As Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza devolved into a full-blown genocide, our media continued to frame Israel’s attack on Gaza as a war against Hamas, while they uncritically recorded Western leaders’ claims that Israel was exercising a ‘right of self-defence’,” he said.
NZ media lacking context
New Zealand news outlets continued to “present an ahistorical account of what has transpired since October 7, shorn of context, ignoring Israel’s history of occupation, of colonial violence against the Palestinian people”.
“An implicit understanding that violence and ethnic cleansing forms part of the organisational DNA of Zionism should have shaped how news stories were framed and presented over the past 22 months.
Independent journalist Mick Hall speaking at today’s rally . . . newsrooms “failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.”
“Instead, newsroom leaders took their lead from our politicians, from the foreign policy positions from those in Washington and other aligned centres of power.”
Hall said newsrooms had not taken a “neutral position” — “nor are they attempting to keep us informed in any meaningful sense”.
“They failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.
“By wilfully declining to adjudicate between contested claims of Israel and its victims, they failed to meet the informational needs of democratic citizenship in a most profound way.
“They lowered the standard of news, instead of upholding it, as they so sanctimoniously tell us.”
Evans slams media ‘apologists’
Award-winning New Zealand cartoonist Malcolm Evans congratulated the crowd of about 300 protesters for “being on the right side of history”.
“As we remember more than 240 journalists, camera and media people, murdered, assassinated, by Zionist Israel — who they were and the principles they stood for we should not forget our own media,” he said.
Cartoonist and commentator Malcolm Evans . . . “It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
“The media which, contrary to the principles they claim to stand for, tried to tell us Zionist Israeli genocide was justified.”
“Whatever your understanding of the conflict in Palestine, which has brought you here today and for these past many months, it won’t have come first from the mainstream media.
“It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.
“The reporters whose witness to Zionist Israel’s war crimes sparked your outrage were not from the ranks of Western media apologists.”
Describing the mainstream media as “pimps for propaganda”, Evans said that in any “decent world” he would not be standing there — instead the New Zealand journalists organisation would be, “expressing solidarity with their murdered Middle Eastern colleagues”.
Palestinian journalists owed debt
David Robie, author and editor of Asia Pacific Report, said the world owed a huge debt to the Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
“Although global media freedom groups have conflicting death toll numbers, it is generally accepted that more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed — many of them deliberately targeted by the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], even killing their families as well.”
Journalist and author Dr David Robie . . . condemned New Zealand media for republishing some of the Israeli “counter-narratives” without question. Image: Del Abcede/APR
Dr Robie stressed that the Palestinian journalist death toll had eclipsed that of the combined media deaths of the American Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, Yugoslavia Wars, Afghan War, and the ongoing Ukraine War.
“The Palestinian death toll of journalists is greater than the combined death toll of all these other wars,” he said. “This is shocking and shameful.”
He pointed out that when Palestinian reporter Anas al-Sharif was assassinated on August 10, his entire television crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City — “eliminating the witnesses, that’s what Israel does”.
Six journalists died that day in an air strike, four of them from Al Jazeera, which is banned in Israel.
Dr Robie also referred to “disturbing reports” about the existence of an IDF military unit — the so-called “legitimisation cell” — tasked with smearing and targeting journalists in Gaza with fake information.
He condemned the New Zealand media for republishing some of these “counter-narratives” without question.
“This is shameful because news editors know that they are dealing with an Israeli government with a history of lying and disinformation; a government that is on trial with the International Court of Justice for ‘plausible genocide’; and a prime minister wanted on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.
“Why would you treat this government as a credible source without scrutiny?”
Mock media cemetery
The protest included a mock pavement cemetery with about 20 “bodies” of murdered journalists and blue “press” protective vests, and placards declaring “Killing journalists is killing the truth”, “Genocide: Zionism’s final solution” and “Zionism shames Jewish tradition”.
The demonstrators marched around Te Komititanga Square, pausing at strategic moments as Palestinians read out the names of the hundreds of killed Gazan journalists to pay tribute to their courage and sacrifice.
Author and journalist Saige England . . . “The truth is of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon.” Image: Claire Coveney/APR
In Ōtautahi Christchurch today, one of the speakers at the Palestine solidarity rally there was author and journalist Saige England, who called on journalists to “speak the truth on Gaza”.
“The truth of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon — slow starvation, mutilation by hunger,” she said.
“The truth is a statement by Israel that journalists are ‘the enemy’. Israel says journalists are the enemy, what does that tell you?
“Why? Because it has carried out invasions, apartheid and genocide for decades.”
Some of the mock bodies today representing the slaughtered Gazan journalists with Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif in the forefront. Image: APR
Protesters in their thousands have been taking to the streets in Aotearoa New Zealand demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine and against genocide for the past 97 weeks.
Yet rarely have the protests across the motu made headlines — or even the news for that matter — unlike the larger demonstrations in many countries around the world.
At times the New Zealand news media themselves have been the target over what is often claimed to be “biased reportage lacking context”. Yet even protests against media, especially public broadcasters, on their doorstep have been ignored.
Reporters have not even engaged, let alone reported the protests.
Last weekend, this abruptly changed with two television crews on hand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland days after six Palestinian journalists — four Al Jazeera correspondents and cameramen, including the celebrated Anas al-Shifa, plus two other reporters were assassinated by the Israeli military in targeted killings.
With the Gaza Media Office confirming a death toll of almost 270 journalists since October 2023 — more than the combined killings of journalists in both World Wars, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Afghan wars — a growing awareness of the war was hitting home.
After silence about the killing of journalists for the past 22 months, New Zealand this week signed a joint statement by 27 nations for the Media Freedom Coalition belatedly calling on Israel to open up access to foreign media and to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding catastrophe”.
Sydney Harbour Bridge factor
Another factor in renewed media interest has probably been the massive March for Humanity on Sydney Harbour Bridge with about 300,000 people taking part on August 3.
One independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza – last year for two months and again this year – is unimpressed with the reportage.
Why? Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.
“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.
“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”
As a 26-year-old photojournalist, Cole has packed in a lot of experience in his early career, having worked two years for World Vision, meeting South Sudanese refugees in Uganda who had fled civil war. He shared their stories in Aotearoa.
“New Zealand must move beyond empty statements on Gaza” . . . says Cole Martin. Image: The Spinoff screenshot
‘Struggle of the oppressed’
This taught him to put “the struggle of the oppressed and marginalised” at the heart of his storytelling.
Cole studied for a screen and television degree at NZ Broadcasting School, which led to employment with the news team at Whakaata Māori, then a video journalist role with the Otago Daily Times.
He first visited Palestine in early 2019, “seeing the occupation and injustice with my own eyes”. After the struggle re-entered the news cycle in October 2023, he recognised that as a journalist with first-hand contextual knowledge and connections on the ground he was in a unique position to ensure Palestinian voices were heard.
Cole spent two months in the West Bank last year and then gained a grant to study Arabic “which allowed me to return longer-term as New Zealand’s only journalist on the ground”.
“Yes, there are competing narratives,’ he admits, “but the reality on the ground is that if you engage with this in good faith and truth, one of those narratives has a lot more legitimacy than the other.”
Martin says that New Zealand media have failed to recognise this reality through a “mix of ignorance and bias”.
“They haven’t been fair and honest, but they think they have,” he says.
Hesitancy to engage
He argues that the hesitancy to engage with the Palestinian media, Palestinian journalists and Palestinian sources on the ground “springs from the idea that to be Palestinian you are inherently biased”.
“In the same way that being Māori means you are biased,” he says.
“Your world view shapes your experiences. If you are living under a system of occupation and domination, or seeing that first hand, it would be wrong and immoral to talk about it in a way that is misleading, the same way that I cannot water down what I am reporting from here.
“It’s the reality of what I see here, I am not going to water it down with a sort of ‘bothsideism’.”
Martin says the media in New Zealand tend to cover the tragic war which has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians so far — most of them women and children — “like we would cover an everyday story of Miss Jones fetching a cat from the tree.”
“This war is treated as a one-off event without putting it in the context of 76 years of occupation and domination by Israel and without actually challenging some of these narratives, without providing the context of why, and centring it on the violations of international law.”
It is a very serious failure and not just in the way things have been reported, but in the way editors source stories given the heavy dependency in New Zealand media on international media that themselves have been persistently and strongly criticised for institutional bias — such as the BBC, CNN, The New York Times and the Associated Press news agency, which all operate from news bureaux inside Israel.
“Firsthand view of peacemaking challenge in the ‘Holy Land’.” Image: Asia Pacific Report screenshot
‘No independent journalism’
“I have heard from editors that I have reached out to who have basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to publish any independent or freelance work because we depend on syndicated sources like BBC, CNN and Associated Press’.
“Which means that they are publishing news that doesn’t have a relevant New Zealand connection. Usually this is what local media need, a NZ connection, yet they will publish work from the BBC, CNN and Associated Press that has no relevance to New Zealand, or doesn’t highlight what is relevant to NZ so far as our government in action.
“And I think that is our big failure, our media has not held our government to account by asking the questions that need to be asked, in spite of the fact that those questions are easily accessed.”
Expanding on this, Martin suggests talking to people in the community that are taking part in the large protests weekly, consistently.
“Why are they doing this? Why are they giving so much of their time to protest against what Israel is doing, highlighting these justices? And yet the media has failed to engage with them in good faith,” he says.
“The media has demonised them in many ways and they kind of create gestures like what Stuff have done, like asking them to write in their opinions.
“Maybe it is well intentioned, maybe it isn’t. It opens the space to kind of more ‘equal platforming’ of very unequal narratives.
“Like we give the same airtime to the spokespeople of an army that is carrying out genocide as we are giving to the people who are facing the genocide.”
Robert Fisk on media balance and the Middle East. Video: Pacific Media Centre
’50/50 journalism’
The late journalist Robert Fisk, the Beirut-based expert on the Middle East writing for The Independent and the prolific author of many books including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, described this phenomena as “50/50 journalism” and warned how damaging it could be.
Among many examples he gave in a 2008 visit to New Zealand, Fisk said journalists should not give “equal time” to the SS guards at the concentration camp, they should be talking to the survivors. Journalists ought to be objective and unbiased — “on the side of those who suffer”.
“They always publish Israel says, ‘dee-dah-de-dah’. That’s not reporting, reporting is finding out what is actually going on on the ground. That’s what BBC and CNN do. Report what they say, not what’s going on. I think they are very limited in terms of how they report the structural stuff,” says Martin.
“CNN, BBC and Associated Press have their place for getting immediate, urgent news out, but I am quite frustrated as the only New Zealand journalist based in the occupied West Bank or on the ground here.
“How little interest media have shown in pieces from here. Even with a full piece, free of charge, they will still find excuses not to publish, which is hard to push back on as a freelancer because ultimately it is their choice, they are the editors.
“I cannot demand that they publish my work, but it begs the question if I was a New Zealand journalist on the ground reporting from Ukraine, there would be a very different response in their eagerness to publish, or platform, what I am sharing.
“Particularly as a video and photojournalist, it is very frustrating because everything I write about is documented, I am showing it.
NZ journalist documents Palestinian life in the West Bank. Image: NZH screenshot
‘Showing with photos’
“It’s not stuff that is hearsay. I am showing them with all these photos and yet still they are reluctant to publish my work. And I think that translates into reluctance to publish anything with a Palestinian perspective. They think it is very complex and difficult to get in touch with Palestinians.
“They don’t know whether they can really trust their voices. The reality is, of course they can trust their voices. Palestinian journalists are the only journalists able to get into Gaza [and on the West Bank on the ground here].
“If people have a problem with that, if Israel has a problem with that, then they should let the international press in.”
Pointing the finger at the failure of Middle East coverage isn’t easy, Martin says. But one factor is that the generations who make the editorial decisions have a “biased view”.
“Journalists who have been here have not been independent, they have been taken here, accompanied by soldiers, on a tailored tour. This is instead of going off the tourist trail, off the media trail, seeing the realities that communities are facing here, engaging in good faith with Palestinian communities here, seeing the structural violence, drawing the connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank — and not just the Israeli sources,” Martin says.
“And listening to the human rights organisations, the academics and the experts, and the humanitarian organisations who are all saying that this is a genocide, structural violence . . . the media still fails to frame it in that way.
‘Complete failure’
“It still fails to provide adequate context that this is very structural, very institutional — and it’s wrong.
“It’s a complete failure and it is very frustrating to be here as a journalist on the ground trying to do a good job, trying to redeem this failure in journalism.”
“Having the cover on the ground here and yet there is no interest. Editors have come back to me and said, ‘we can’t publish this piece because the subject matter is “too controversial”. It’s unbelievable that we are explicitly ignoring stories that are relevant because it is ‘controversial’. It’s just an utter failure of journalism.
“As the Fourth Estate, they have utterly failed to hold the government to account for inaction. They are not asking the right questions.
“I have had other editors who have said, ‘Oh, we’re relying on syndicated sources’. That’s our position. Or, we don’t have enough money.
That’s true, New Zealand media has a funding shortage, and journalists have been let go.
“But the truth is if they really want the story, they would find the funding.
Reach out to Palestinians
“If they actually cared, they would reach out to the journalists on the ground, reach out to the Palestinians. The reality is that they don’t care enough to be actually doing those things.
“I think that there is a shift, that they are beginning to respond more and more. But they are well behind the game, they have been complicit in anti-Arab narratives, and giving a platform to genocidal narratives from the Israeli government and government leaders without questioning, without challenging and without holding our government to account.
“The New Zealand government has been very pro-Israel, driven to side with America.
“They need to do better urgently, before somebody takes them to the International Criminal Court for complicity.”
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
As Israel expands its relationships with Pacific Island nations, an activist is criticising the region for its “dreadful response” to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rooted in the 1948 Nakba and decades of seized land and expelled indigenous people, escalated after Hamas’ attacks on 7 October 2023.
Since then, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials.
John Minto, co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). says the Pacific has failed to show adequate support to Palestine and should be “ashamed”.
In an interview with William Terite on Radio 531pi Pacific Mornings, Minto said the Pacific was one of the few areas in the world where support for the Palestinians was diminishing.
“I think this is a real tragedy,” he said.
“They are coming under pressure from the US and from Israel to try and bolster support for Israel at the United Nations. For this part of the world, that’s something we should be ashamed of.”
Minto said several island countries, including Fiji, Nauru, Palau, and Tonga, had refused to recognise Palestinian statehood. But bigger Pacific nations like Papua New Guinea — and Fiji — had recently established an embassy in Jerusalem.
Fiji and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1970 and have developed partnerships in security, peacekeeping, agriculture, and climate change.
Watch John Minto’s full interview
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced its commitment to diplomacy in the Pacific.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel will lead a delegation to the Pacific to discuss strengthening Israel-Pacific relations.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 6 September 2023. Image: Israeli Prime Minister’s Office
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced its commitment to diplomacy in the Pacific.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel will lead a delegation to the Pacific to discuss strengthening Israel-Pacific relations.
The Pacific region has been one of Israel’s strategic development partners, through numerous projects and training programmes led by MASHAV, Israel’s International Development Agency,” the statement read.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (left) and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu met in 2023. Image: Fiji Government
“This forthcoming visit, and the broader diplomatic effort accompanying it, reflects Israel’s profound appreciation for the Pacific Island states and underscores Israel’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with them.”
Minto highlighted the irony in the support for Israel from small Pacific nations, given their reliance on principles of international law in view of their own vulnerability.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of things that happen behind closed doors that should be happening out in the public,” he told Terite.
“The people of Sāmoa, Tonga, Fiji should be involved in developing their foreign policy. I think if they were, then we would have much stronger support for Palestine.”
Republished from Pacific Media Network (PMN) with permission.
At least three instances of Hindutva groups barging into gatherings and accusing those congregating of religious conversions have emerged so far in August. Videos from each of these instances — in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, Raipur, Chhattisgarh and Balasore, Odisha — show pro-Right activists taking matters into their own hands, with little regard for law and thrceatening and harassing citizens.
These instances come after two Catholic nuns from Kerala and a man from Chhattisgarh were arrested in Durg, Chhattisgarh, last month, over allegations by members of the Bajrang Dal that they were coercing three tribal women into conversion and taking them to different parts of the country against their will. Videos even showed a woman associated with Durga Vahini, the women’s equivalent of Bajrang Dal, checking their documents and questioning them in police presence. The three tribal women and their families later clarified that they were already Christians and were travelling with the nuns willingly. The women also alleged that members of Hindutva groups linked to the Vishva Hindu Parishad slapped and touched them inappropriately. The nuns — Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary — and the man, Sukhman Mandavi, who was a cousin of one of the three women, were granted bail on August 2 after spending nearly a week in judicial custody.
Alt News documents the three cases in this report, which follow a similar narrative to what happened in Durg.
1. Sehore, Madhya Pradesh
On August 17, Instagram user @royal_kanha_dhangar posted a video showing men entering a house and recording those inside. The video also showed a Bible there. The post was in collaboration with the account of Bajrang Dal Sehore and had the watermark ‘Bajrang Dal Sehore’. The caption accompanying the video said, “…On Sunday, acting on information of a religious conversion racket in Sehore, police raided a house in Housing Board Colony. The information was first given to the police by Bajrang Dal workers… In this conversion racket, a police officer named Ahirwar was also involved…Those present at the spot, during questioning, expressed support for Christianity…”
In the background of the video, the official track of the Bajrang Dal by YouTube channel Vyshakh Achappa played on.
Alt News managed to locate a longer version of the above video without the added background music on Facebook, posted by a user named Jai Rai. In the video, which is over seven minutes long, the person recording it states that the house shown in the clip hosts prayer meetings where religious conversions happen every Sunday.
On entering the said house, the person recording says, “There is a whole system installed (referring to an audio player), there is ‘Kitaab-e-maqsad’ and Bible here”. The titles of two holy books appear at the 1:11-minute mark of the video. These are ‘Kitaab-e-mukhhas’, the Urdu name for the Holy Bible, and ‘Sampurn Adhyayan Bible’ or the complete study Bible. He then asks the man standing at the podium his name, why so many people were gathered there, which god they were praying to and if they were all Christians.
सीहोर नगर के हाउसिंग बोर्ड कॉलोनी में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला
बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ताओ द्वारा कार्यवाही
The man says his name is Jabbar Khan and the house belongs to him. He adds that those gathered were praying to god and had been meeting for two years. He adds that everyone present belonged to different religions and no one preached any particular religion; they gathered to talk about ‘Parmatma’ (God).
The person recording the video then asks individuals present there, including minors, their names and why they were listening to Khan reciting the Bible. He also asks if they converted to Christianity. None of the attendees indicated they were coerced.
At the 4:16-minute mark, one of the activists who barged in threatens one of the attendees, Biren Ahirwar, saying, “Chappal utaar ke maarunga” (Will hit you with my shoe).
Around the 6:36-minute mark, the situation becomes heated, and Biren Ahirwar gets into a verbal confrontation with the Bajrang Dal members outside the house. One of the activists tells Ahirwar, “Bheek mein saari cheez Hindu ke naam le liya, SC/ST ke naam, aur yahan tu maa ch*** raha hain” (You took everything as charity in the name of Hinduism and SC/ST, and here you are messing around [expletive]). Towards the end of the video, Bajrang Dal members are seen threatening the women and men inside.
We then found another video on Facebook showing police officials at the scene. As they escort Jabbar Khan out, one of the Bajrang Dal members calls him ‘Katua’ (a derogatory term for Muslim men) and says that he conducts religious conversions. The others also repeat that the people there were caught converting people and point out that Biren Ahirwar is a police official.
सीहोर में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला आया सामने, घर में चल रहा धर्मांतरण का खेल, पुलिस पहुंची मौके पर, थाने पहुंचा मामला, बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ता हुए जमा, कार्यवाही की उठी मांग
#sehore #ashta #ichavar #MadhyaPradesh #dharmantaran #babakhabrilal
Alt News reached out to a senior police officer at Sehore police station, who rubbished claims of religious conversion. “All those who were present in that room still hold their birth names; they have not converted to any other religion. They organise a prayer meet there every Sunday, and no one has complained about any forceful conversion. One of our police constables was also present in that room. We have registered the application from the complainants, and further investigation is being carried out. No one has been detained or arrested so far,” the police officer said.
2. Raipur, Chhattisgarh
According to a video shared by news outlet Maktoob on August 15, a group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed into the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur and claimed religious conversions were taking place there. “They vandalised the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion,” the caption read. In the video, some policemen are seen standing between a mob of men in saffron shirts and bandanas and another group of people. The mob also sloganeers for Bajrang Dal in the clip.
A group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, claiming religious conversions were happening. They vandalized the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search in Hindi, which led us to a YouTube video by Zee Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh from August 10. In the video, the anchor speaks to one of the Bajrang Dal activists at the site, who claims they received information that women were being given Rs 200 per day to hold prayer meetings, which caused locals to be angry. “If not conducting religious conversions, then what else can they be doing in a closed room?” he asks.
At the 11:01-minute mark of the video report, a minor girl tells the channel that the house, where religious conversions were allegedly happening, would play loud music even when the neighbours would urge them not to owing to kids’ exams. She adds that she and a few others were allegedly approached by some women who said, “You will get money if you join us, get rid of Hinduism”. Others chimed in that these people were brainwashing children.
The report said that police have detained the women who were allegedly involved in religious conversions.
Christian Women Accuse Bajrang Dal of Harassment
Another video, from the same area and the same day, taken from a different angle, is circulating on social media. Here, Bajrang Dal members are seen making obscene gestures. A video by Mirror Chhattisgarh shows a journalist interviewing the Christian women, who claim they were sexually harassed by Bajrang Dal members. Before the women are interviewed, the channel plays a clip from the day of the incident, where a man from the Hindutva mob makes obscene gestures at the women. Another man is also seen making lewd hand gestures despite police presence.
During the interview, the women alleged that Bajrang Dal members pulled their clothes and touched their breasts. They claimed that the Hindutva activists also asked them, “Would you come with me for Rs 200-300?” (implying sex work). Another woman said that when she gave them her name, they called her “Chamar” (a scheduled caste) and “neech log” (lower caste). She added that the men gave them rape threats and allegedly remarked, “We will (re-)create Manipur” (a reference to the sexual assault and rape of two Kuki women by a mob of Meitei men in May 2023).
One of the women told the news outlet that they went to the Sarswati Nagar police station to complain and asked the police to register an FIR against the Bajrang Dal for harassment, but the police allegedly refused to do so.
‘No Arrests’: Police
Alt News reached out to Daulat Ram Porte, Raipur Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), who confirmed that no arrests have been made in the matter. However, when we asked him if any religious conversion was being conducted there, he declined to comment and said the matter was being investigated. He also refused to comment on whether an FIR had been registered in the matter based on complaints by either party.
It should be noted that, just a few weeks before this incident, also in Chhattisgarh, Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary were arrested after Bajrang Dal members alleged that the nuns were involved in forceful conversions.
3. Balasore, Odisha
On August 6, a group of nuns and priests travelling in a car through Gangadhar village in Odisha’s Balasore district were stopped by 70 individuals. The latter alleged that the priests and nuns were involved in forced religious conversions.
A video of the incident was shared on X by Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia). The caption says that the nuns and priests were brutally assaulted. In the clip, a man in a torn shirt is seen at the 00:46-minute mark; he is the same person seen in the car, travelling with the priests and nuns. The police are also present at the scene.
Jaleshwar, Balasore, OD | 6 AUG’25
CATHOLIC NUNS AND PRIESTS returning from Requiem Mass ambushed by 70 Bajrang Dal goons — brutally assaulted, Bibles thrown, phones stolen, all on baseless ‘conversion’ claims. Police escorted the victims… attackers walked free. @hrw@USCIRFpic.twitter.com/092UohkZAD
— Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia) August 8, 2025
According to a report by the news agency Press Trust of India from August 8, the police officials said that some ‘locals’ had stopped the group of priests and nuns, who were later ‘rescued’ by the police. The report reiterated that the group suspected them of carrying out forceful religious conversions, but individuals ‘were not harmed in any manner’.
A report by India Today, from August 6, gave more details. According to this, two Catholic priests, a catechist (Bible teacher) and two nuns were returning from a memorial service under the Jaleswar parish in Balasore district. Among the priests, Father Lijo, the parish priest of St. Thomas Church in Jaleswar, was also present. The individuals had attended a Requiem Mass (a form of the Roman Catholic Mass used in funeral rites) and a fellowship meal in the area and were returning around 9 pm when they were stopped by a large mob who allegedly harassed, abused and assaulted them. The catechist, who was driving a motorcycle ahead of the car that carried the rest, was the first to be intercepted — he was allegedly dragged from his vehicle and beaten, followed by the priests and the nun, who were also manhandled. The report also said that while this unfolded, the villagers tried to step in and stop the attack and explain that they were there for a memorial service; however, the mob continued to accuse the priests and nuns of forced religious conversions.
Some of the nuns and priests in this case, too, were from Kerala. The incident prompted a strong statement from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. On August 8, he posted on X that Christian priests and nuns were assaulted by ‘Sangh Parivaar goons’ (referring to far-Right Hindutva groups Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh and the VHP).
Reports of an assault on Keralite Catholic priests & nuns by Sangh Parivar goons in Jaleswar, Odisha, on false charges of religious conversion, reflect the ongoing communal witch-hunt against Christians in the country, exemplified by the arrest of nuns in Chhattisgarh weeks ago.…
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has alleged that apart from being assaulted and harassed by the mob, Father Lijo’s phone was taken away and the catechist’s motorcycle was damaged.
Alt News reached out to Dibakar Parichha, the public relations officer of Odisha Bishops’ Regional Council (OBRC), the Odisha wing of CBCI, who said that the mob that attacked the Christian priests and nuns included people from other villages. However, he said he was not sure if the group was specifically affiliated with any particular group. Parichha added that it is believed some members of Bajrang Dal were present there since that is the most radical group, which often causes hindrance for minorities.
While giving a run-down of the happenings of August 6, he said, “While Father Lijo, along with the catechist, nuns and another priest, were going to the location of the memorial service in Jaleswar church for someone who died, they noticed some people gathering in the area; however, nobody approached them on their way to the church. Later in the evening, while they were coming back, the mob, which was quite large, about 70-80 people, attacked them. They brutally beat up the catechist and attacked the car, which included Father Lijo, two nuns and another priest, snatched their mobile phones”.
He added that there has been a rise in attacks against the Christian communities in India, while also citing the recent case of the arrest of Sisters Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis in Chhattisgarh. Parichha mentioned that they have filed a complaint, and the police have accepted the FIR, but they have little hope that the police will take any action against the attackers.
Police Version
According to a report by TV9 Bharatvansh, after the police arrived, they took details of all those involved in the attack and let them go.
We reached out to Basta sub-divisional officer, Manas Deo, who said he was not aware of any such incident. “There hasn’t been a single complaint about any such case; it is hearsay”. When we told him that the CBCI said it filed a complaint, he said no complaints had been filed. He did say, however, that some priests and nuns had come to the area but that there was no conversion angle. He added that there was no violence or physical confrontation.
Alt News also reached out to the Basta PS inspector-in-charge Ranjit Sahu, who reiterated that there was no conversion angle. He said that he was not aware if the catechist, nuns and priests had faced any physical assault from the mob.
A Rise In Attacks Against Christians
The three incidents — in Sehore, Raipur and Balasore — point to a recurring pattern of increasing hostilities against Christian minorities and Hindutva groups taking it upon themselves to threaten and harass them. The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC), in its 2024 annual report released in March, documented a sharp rise in attacks against Christian minorities. Out of more than 840 reported cases, the commission verified 640. This is up from 601 cases in 2023 and nearly four times the number recorded in 2014, when 147 incidents were reported.
At least three instances of Hindutva groups barging into gatherings and accusing those congregating of religious conversions have emerged so far in August. Videos from each of these instances — in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, Raipur, Chhattisgarh and Balasore, Odisha — show pro-Right activists taking matters into their own hands, with little regard for law and thrceatening and harassing citizens.
These instances come after two Catholic nuns from Kerala and a man from Chhattisgarh were arrested in Durg, Chhattisgarh, last month, over allegations by members of the Bajrang Dal that they were coercing three tribal women into conversion and taking them to different parts of the country against their will. Videos even showed a woman associated with Durga Vahini, the women’s equivalent of Bajrang Dal, checking their documents and questioning them in police presence. The three tribal women and their families later clarified that they were already Christians and were travelling with the nuns willingly. The women also alleged that members of Hindutva groups linked to the Vishva Hindu Parishad slapped and touched them inappropriately. The nuns — Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary — and the man, Sukhman Mandavi, who was a cousin of one of the three women, were granted bail on August 2 after spending nearly a week in judicial custody.
Alt News documents the three cases in this report, which follow a similar narrative to what happened in Durg.
1. Sehore, Madhya Pradesh
On August 17, Instagram user @royal_kanha_dhangar posted a video showing men entering a house and recording those inside. The video also showed a Bible there. The post was in collaboration with the account of Bajrang Dal Sehore and had the watermark ‘Bajrang Dal Sehore’. The caption accompanying the video said, “…On Sunday, acting on information of a religious conversion racket in Sehore, police raided a house in Housing Board Colony. The information was first given to the police by Bajrang Dal workers… In this conversion racket, a police officer named Ahirwar was also involved…Those present at the spot, during questioning, expressed support for Christianity…”
In the background of the video, the official track of the Bajrang Dal by YouTube channel Vyshakh Achappa played on.
Alt News managed to locate a longer version of the above video without the added background music on Facebook, posted by a user named Jai Rai. In the video, which is over seven minutes long, the person recording it states that the house shown in the clip hosts prayer meetings where religious conversions happen every Sunday.
On entering the said house, the person recording says, “There is a whole system installed (referring to an audio player), there is ‘Kitaab-e-maqsad’ and Bible here”. The titles of two holy books appear at the 1:11-minute mark of the video. These are ‘Kitaab-e-mukhhas’, the Urdu name for the Holy Bible, and ‘Sampurn Adhyayan Bible’ or the complete study Bible. He then asks the man standing at the podium his name, why so many people were gathered there, which god they were praying to and if they were all Christians.
सीहोर नगर के हाउसिंग बोर्ड कॉलोनी में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला
बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ताओ द्वारा कार्यवाही
The man says his name is Jabbar Khan and the house belongs to him. He adds that those gathered were praying to god and had been meeting for two years. He adds that everyone present belonged to different religions and no one preached any particular religion; they gathered to talk about ‘Parmatma’ (God).
The person recording the video then asks individuals present there, including minors, their names and why they were listening to Khan reciting the Bible. He also asks if they converted to Christianity. None of the attendees indicated they were coerced.
At the 4:16-minute mark, one of the activists who barged in threatens one of the attendees, Biren Ahirwar, saying, “Chappal utaar ke maarunga” (Will hit you with my shoe).
Around the 6:36-minute mark, the situation becomes heated, and Biren Ahirwar gets into a verbal confrontation with the Bajrang Dal members outside the house. One of the activists tells Ahirwar, “Bheek mein saari cheez Hindu ke naam le liya, SC/ST ke naam, aur yahan tu maa ch*** raha hain” (You took everything as charity in the name of Hinduism and SC/ST, and here you are messing around [expletive]). Towards the end of the video, Bajrang Dal members are seen threatening the women and men inside.
We then found another video on Facebook showing police officials at the scene. As they escort Jabbar Khan out, one of the Bajrang Dal members calls him ‘Katua’ (a derogatory term for Muslim men) and says that he conducts religious conversions. The others also repeat that the people there were caught converting people and point out that Biren Ahirwar is a police official.
सीहोर में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला आया सामने, घर में चल रहा धर्मांतरण का खेल, पुलिस पहुंची मौके पर, थाने पहुंचा मामला, बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ता हुए जमा, कार्यवाही की उठी मांग
#sehore #ashta #ichavar #MadhyaPradesh #dharmantaran #babakhabrilal
Alt News reached out to a senior police officer at Sehore police station, who rubbished claims of religious conversion. “All those who were present in that room still hold their birth names; they have not converted to any other religion. They organise a prayer meet there every Sunday, and no one has complained about any forceful conversion. One of our police constables was also present in that room. We have registered the application from the complainants, and further investigation is being carried out. No one has been detained or arrested so far,” the police officer said.
2. Raipur, Chhattisgarh
According to a video shared by news outlet Maktoob on August 15, a group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed into the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur and claimed religious conversions were taking place there. “They vandalised the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion,” the caption read. In the video, some policemen are seen standing between a mob of men in saffron shirts and bandanas and another group of people. The mob also sloganeers for Bajrang Dal in the clip.
A group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, claiming religious conversions were happening. They vandalized the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search in Hindi, which led us to a YouTube video by Zee Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh from August 10. In the video, the anchor speaks to one of the Bajrang Dal activists at the site, who claims they received information that women were being given Rs 200 per day to hold prayer meetings, which caused locals to be angry. “If not conducting religious conversions, then what else can they be doing in a closed room?” he asks.
At the 11:01-minute mark of the video report, a minor girl tells the channel that the house, where religious conversions were allegedly happening, would play loud music even when the neighbours would urge them not to owing to kids’ exams. She adds that she and a few others were allegedly approached by some women who said, “You will get money if you join us, get rid of Hinduism”. Others chimed in that these people were brainwashing children.
The report said that police have detained the women who were allegedly involved in religious conversions.
Christian Women Accuse Bajrang Dal of Harassment
Another video, from the same area and the same day, taken from a different angle, is circulating on social media. Here, Bajrang Dal members are seen making obscene gestures. A video by Mirror Chhattisgarh shows a journalist interviewing the Christian women, who claim they were sexually harassed by Bajrang Dal members. Before the women are interviewed, the channel plays a clip from the day of the incident, where a man from the Hindutva mob makes obscene gestures at the women. Another man is also seen making lewd hand gestures despite police presence.
During the interview, the women alleged that Bajrang Dal members pulled their clothes and touched their breasts. They claimed that the Hindutva activists also asked them, “Would you come with me for Rs 200-300?” (implying sex work). Another woman said that when she gave them her name, they called her “Chamar” (a scheduled caste) and “neech log” (lower caste). She added that the men gave them rape threats and allegedly remarked, “We will (re-)create Manipur” (a reference to the sexual assault and rape of two Kuki women by a mob of Meitei men in May 2023).
One of the women told the news outlet that they went to the Sarswati Nagar police station to complain and asked the police to register an FIR against the Bajrang Dal for harassment, but the police allegedly refused to do so.
‘No Arrests’: Police
Alt News reached out to Daulat Ram Porte, Raipur Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), who confirmed that no arrests have been made in the matter. However, when we asked him if any religious conversion was being conducted there, he declined to comment and said the matter was being investigated. He also refused to comment on whether an FIR had been registered in the matter based on complaints by either party.
It should be noted that, just a few weeks before this incident, also in Chhattisgarh, Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary were arrested after Bajrang Dal members alleged that the nuns were involved in forceful conversions.
3. Balasore, Odisha
On August 6, a group of nuns and priests travelling in a car through Gangadhar village in Odisha’s Balasore district were stopped by 70 individuals. The latter alleged that the priests and nuns were involved in forced religious conversions.
A video of the incident was shared on X by Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia). The caption says that the nuns and priests were brutally assaulted. In the clip, a man in a torn shirt is seen at the 00:46-minute mark; he is the same person seen in the car, travelling with the priests and nuns. The police are also present at the scene.
Jaleshwar, Balasore, OD | 6 AUG’25
CATHOLIC NUNS AND PRIESTS returning from Requiem Mass ambushed by 70 Bajrang Dal goons — brutally assaulted, Bibles thrown, phones stolen, all on baseless ‘conversion’ claims. Police escorted the victims… attackers walked free. @hrw@USCIRFpic.twitter.com/092UohkZAD
— Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia) August 8, 2025
According to a report by the news agency Press Trust of India from August 8, the police officials said that some ‘locals’ had stopped the group of priests and nuns, who were later ‘rescued’ by the police. The report reiterated that the group suspected them of carrying out forceful religious conversions, but individuals ‘were not harmed in any manner’.
A report by India Today, from August 6, gave more details. According to this, two Catholic priests, a catechist (Bible teacher) and two nuns were returning from a memorial service under the Jaleswar parish in Balasore district. Among the priests, Father Lijo, the parish priest of St. Thomas Church in Jaleswar, was also present. The individuals had attended a Requiem Mass (a form of the Roman Catholic Mass used in funeral rites) and a fellowship meal in the area and were returning around 9 pm when they were stopped by a large mob who allegedly harassed, abused and assaulted them. The catechist, who was driving a motorcycle ahead of the car that carried the rest, was the first to be intercepted — he was allegedly dragged from his vehicle and beaten, followed by the priests and the nun, who were also manhandled. The report also said that while this unfolded, the villagers tried to step in and stop the attack and explain that they were there for a memorial service; however, the mob continued to accuse the priests and nuns of forced religious conversions.
Some of the nuns and priests in this case, too, were from Kerala. The incident prompted a strong statement from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. On August 8, he posted on X that Christian priests and nuns were assaulted by ‘Sangh Parivaar goons’ (referring to far-Right Hindutva groups Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh and the VHP).
Reports of an assault on Keralite Catholic priests & nuns by Sangh Parivar goons in Jaleswar, Odisha, on false charges of religious conversion, reflect the ongoing communal witch-hunt against Christians in the country, exemplified by the arrest of nuns in Chhattisgarh weeks ago.…
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has alleged that apart from being assaulted and harassed by the mob, Father Lijo’s phone was taken away and the catechist’s motorcycle was damaged.
Alt News reached out to Dibakar Parichha, the public relations officer of Odisha Bishops’ Regional Council (OBRC), the Odisha wing of CBCI, who said that the mob that attacked the Christian priests and nuns included people from other villages. However, he said he was not sure if the group was specifically affiliated with any particular group. Parichha added that it is believed some members of Bajrang Dal were present there since that is the most radical group, which often causes hindrance for minorities.
While giving a run-down of the happenings of August 6, he said, “While Father Lijo, along with the catechist, nuns and another priest, were going to the location of the memorial service in Jaleswar church for someone who died, they noticed some people gathering in the area; however, nobody approached them on their way to the church. Later in the evening, while they were coming back, the mob, which was quite large, about 70-80 people, attacked them. They brutally beat up the catechist and attacked the car, which included Father Lijo, two nuns and another priest, snatched their mobile phones”.
He added that there has been a rise in attacks against the Christian communities in India, while also citing the recent case of the arrest of Sisters Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis in Chhattisgarh. Parichha mentioned that they have filed a complaint, and the police have accepted the FIR, but they have little hope that the police will take any action against the attackers.
Police Version
According to a report by TV9 Bharatvansh, after the police arrived, they took details of all those involved in the attack and let them go.
We reached out to Basta sub-divisional officer, Manas Deo, who said he was not aware of any such incident. “There hasn’t been a single complaint about any such case; it is hearsay”. When we told him that the CBCI said it filed a complaint, he said no complaints had been filed. He did say, however, that some priests and nuns had come to the area but that there was no conversion angle. He added that there was no violence or physical confrontation.
Alt News also reached out to the Basta PS inspector-in-charge Ranjit Sahu, who reiterated that there was no conversion angle. He said that he was not aware if the catechist, nuns and priests had faced any physical assault from the mob.
A Rise In Attacks Against Christians
The three incidents — in Sehore, Raipur and Balasore — point to a recurring pattern of increasing hostilities against Christian minorities and Hindutva groups taking it upon themselves to threaten and harass them. The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC), in its 2024 annual report released in March, documented a sharp rise in attacks against Christian minorities. Out of more than 840 reported cases, the commission verified 640. This is up from 601 cases in 2023 and nearly four times the number recorded in 2014, when 147 incidents were reported.
At least three instances of Hindutva groups barging into gatherings and accusing those congregating of religious conversions have emerged so far in August. Videos from each of these instances — in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, Raipur, Chhattisgarh and Balasore, Odisha — show pro-Right activists taking matters into their own hands, with little regard for law and thrceatening and harassing citizens.
These instances come after two Catholic nuns from Kerala and a man from Chhattisgarh were arrested in Durg, Chhattisgarh, last month, over allegations by members of the Bajrang Dal that they were coercing three tribal women into conversion and taking them to different parts of the country against their will. Videos even showed a woman associated with Durga Vahini, the women’s equivalent of Bajrang Dal, checking their documents and questioning them in police presence. The three tribal women and their families later clarified that they were already Christians and were travelling with the nuns willingly. The women also alleged that members of Hindutva groups linked to the Vishva Hindu Parishad slapped and touched them inappropriately. The nuns — Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary — and the man, Sukhman Mandavi, who was a cousin of one of the three women, were granted bail on August 2 after spending nearly a week in judicial custody.
Alt News documents the three cases in this report, which follow a similar narrative to what happened in Durg.
1. Sehore, Madhya Pradesh
On August 17, Instagram user @royal_kanha_dhangar posted a video showing men entering a house and recording those inside. The video also showed a Bible there. The post was in collaboration with the account of Bajrang Dal Sehore and had the watermark ‘Bajrang Dal Sehore’. The caption accompanying the video said, “…On Sunday, acting on information of a religious conversion racket in Sehore, police raided a house in Housing Board Colony. The information was first given to the police by Bajrang Dal workers… In this conversion racket, a police officer named Ahirwar was also involved…Those present at the spot, during questioning, expressed support for Christianity…”
In the background of the video, the official track of the Bajrang Dal by YouTube channel Vyshakh Achappa played on.
Alt News managed to locate a longer version of the above video without the added background music on Facebook, posted by a user named Jai Rai. In the video, which is over seven minutes long, the person recording it states that the house shown in the clip hosts prayer meetings where religious conversions happen every Sunday.
On entering the said house, the person recording says, “There is a whole system installed (referring to an audio player), there is ‘Kitaab-e-maqsad’ and Bible here”. The titles of two holy books appear at the 1:11-minute mark of the video. These are ‘Kitaab-e-mukhhas’, the Urdu name for the Holy Bible, and ‘Sampurn Adhyayan Bible’ or the complete study Bible. He then asks the man standing at the podium his name, why so many people were gathered there, which god they were praying to and if they were all Christians.
सीहोर नगर के हाउसिंग बोर्ड कॉलोनी में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला
बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ताओ द्वारा कार्यवाही
The man says his name is Jabbar Khan and the house belongs to him. He adds that those gathered were praying to god and had been meeting for two years. He adds that everyone present belonged to different religions and no one preached any particular religion; they gathered to talk about ‘Parmatma’ (God).
The person recording the video then asks individuals present there, including minors, their names and why they were listening to Khan reciting the Bible. He also asks if they converted to Christianity. None of the attendees indicated they were coerced.
At the 4:16-minute mark, one of the activists who barged in threatens one of the attendees, Biren Ahirwar, saying, “Chappal utaar ke maarunga” (Will hit you with my shoe).
Around the 6:36-minute mark, the situation becomes heated, and Biren Ahirwar gets into a verbal confrontation with the Bajrang Dal members outside the house. One of the activists tells Ahirwar, “Bheek mein saari cheez Hindu ke naam le liya, SC/ST ke naam, aur yahan tu maa ch*** raha hain” (You took everything as charity in the name of Hinduism and SC/ST, and here you are messing around [expletive]). Towards the end of the video, Bajrang Dal members are seen threatening the women and men inside.
We then found another video on Facebook showing police officials at the scene. As they escort Jabbar Khan out, one of the Bajrang Dal members calls him ‘Katua’ (a derogatory term for Muslim men) and says that he conducts religious conversions. The others also repeat that the people there were caught converting people and point out that Biren Ahirwar is a police official.
सीहोर में धर्मांतरण का बड़ा मामला आया सामने, घर में चल रहा धर्मांतरण का खेल, पुलिस पहुंची मौके पर, थाने पहुंचा मामला, बजरंग दल के कार्यकर्ता हुए जमा, कार्यवाही की उठी मांग
#sehore #ashta #ichavar #MadhyaPradesh #dharmantaran #babakhabrilal
Alt News reached out to a senior police officer at Sehore police station, who rubbished claims of religious conversion. “All those who were present in that room still hold their birth names; they have not converted to any other religion. They organise a prayer meet there every Sunday, and no one has complained about any forceful conversion. One of our police constables was also present in that room. We have registered the application from the complainants, and further investigation is being carried out. No one has been detained or arrested so far,” the police officer said.
2. Raipur, Chhattisgarh
According to a video shared by news outlet Maktoob on August 15, a group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed into the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur and claimed religious conversions were taking place there. “They vandalised the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion,” the caption read. In the video, some policemen are seen standing between a mob of men in saffron shirts and bandanas and another group of people. The mob also sloganeers for Bajrang Dal in the clip.
A group of VHP-Bajrang Dal members stormed the Jehovah Nissi Church in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, claiming religious conversions were happening. They vandalized the church, attacked Christians who resisted, and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa while demanding action against those accused of conversion.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search in Hindi, which led us to a YouTube video by Zee Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh from August 10. In the video, the anchor speaks to one of the Bajrang Dal activists at the site, who claims they received information that women were being given Rs 200 per day to hold prayer meetings, which caused locals to be angry. “If not conducting religious conversions, then what else can they be doing in a closed room?” he asks.
At the 11:01-minute mark of the video report, a minor girl tells the channel that the house, where religious conversions were allegedly happening, would play loud music even when the neighbours would urge them not to owing to kids’ exams. She adds that she and a few others were allegedly approached by some women who said, “You will get money if you join us, get rid of Hinduism”. Others chimed in that these people were brainwashing children.
The report said that police have detained the women who were allegedly involved in religious conversions.
Christian Women Accuse Bajrang Dal of Harassment
Another video, from the same area and the same day, taken from a different angle, is circulating on social media. Here, Bajrang Dal members are seen making obscene gestures. A video by Mirror Chhattisgarh shows a journalist interviewing the Christian women, who claim they were sexually harassed by Bajrang Dal members. Before the women are interviewed, the channel plays a clip from the day of the incident, where a man from the Hindutva mob makes obscene gestures at the women. Another man is also seen making lewd hand gestures despite police presence.
During the interview, the women alleged that Bajrang Dal members pulled their clothes and touched their breasts. They claimed that the Hindutva activists also asked them, “Would you come with me for Rs 200-300?” (implying sex work). Another woman said that when she gave them her name, they called her “Chamar” (a scheduled caste) and “neech log” (lower caste). She added that the men gave them rape threats and allegedly remarked, “We will (re-)create Manipur” (a reference to the sexual assault and rape of two Kuki women by a mob of Meitei men in May 2023).
One of the women told the news outlet that they went to the Sarswati Nagar police station to complain and asked the police to register an FIR against the Bajrang Dal for harassment, but the police allegedly refused to do so.
‘No Arrests’: Police
Alt News reached out to Daulat Ram Porte, Raipur Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), who confirmed that no arrests have been made in the matter. However, when we asked him if any religious conversion was being conducted there, he declined to comment and said the matter was being investigated. He also refused to comment on whether an FIR had been registered in the matter based on complaints by either party.
It should be noted that, just a few weeks before this incident, also in Chhattisgarh, Sisters Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary were arrested after Bajrang Dal members alleged that the nuns were involved in forceful conversions.
3. Balasore, Odisha
On August 6, a group of nuns and priests travelling in a car through Gangadhar village in Odisha’s Balasore district were stopped by 70 individuals. The latter alleged that the priests and nuns were involved in forced religious conversions.
A video of the incident was shared on X by Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia). The caption says that the nuns and priests were brutally assaulted. In the clip, a man in a torn shirt is seen at the 00:46-minute mark; he is the same person seen in the car, travelling with the priests and nuns. The police are also present at the scene.
Jaleshwar, Balasore, OD | 6 AUG’25
CATHOLIC NUNS AND PRIESTS returning from Requiem Mass ambushed by 70 Bajrang Dal goons — brutally assaulted, Bibles thrown, phones stolen, all on baseless ‘conversion’ claims. Police escorted the victims… attackers walked free. @hrw@USCIRFpic.twitter.com/092UohkZAD
— Anti Christian Tracker Watch – ACT India (@ACTWatchIndia) August 8, 2025
According to a report by the news agency Press Trust of India from August 8, the police officials said that some ‘locals’ had stopped the group of priests and nuns, who were later ‘rescued’ by the police. The report reiterated that the group suspected them of carrying out forceful religious conversions, but individuals ‘were not harmed in any manner’.
A report by India Today, from August 6, gave more details. According to this, two Catholic priests, a catechist (Bible teacher) and two nuns were returning from a memorial service under the Jaleswar parish in Balasore district. Among the priests, Father Lijo, the parish priest of St. Thomas Church in Jaleswar, was also present. The individuals had attended a Requiem Mass (a form of the Roman Catholic Mass used in funeral rites) and a fellowship meal in the area and were returning around 9 pm when they were stopped by a large mob who allegedly harassed, abused and assaulted them. The catechist, who was driving a motorcycle ahead of the car that carried the rest, was the first to be intercepted — he was allegedly dragged from his vehicle and beaten, followed by the priests and the nun, who were also manhandled. The report also said that while this unfolded, the villagers tried to step in and stop the attack and explain that they were there for a memorial service; however, the mob continued to accuse the priests and nuns of forced religious conversions.
Some of the nuns and priests in this case, too, were from Kerala. The incident prompted a strong statement from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. On August 8, he posted on X that Christian priests and nuns were assaulted by ‘Sangh Parivaar goons’ (referring to far-Right Hindutva groups Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh and the VHP).
Reports of an assault on Keralite Catholic priests & nuns by Sangh Parivar goons in Jaleswar, Odisha, on false charges of religious conversion, reflect the ongoing communal witch-hunt against Christians in the country, exemplified by the arrest of nuns in Chhattisgarh weeks ago.…
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has alleged that apart from being assaulted and harassed by the mob, Father Lijo’s phone was taken away and the catechist’s motorcycle was damaged.
Alt News reached out to Dibakar Parichha, the public relations officer of Odisha Bishops’ Regional Council (OBRC), the Odisha wing of CBCI, who said that the mob that attacked the Christian priests and nuns included people from other villages. However, he said he was not sure if the group was specifically affiliated with any particular group. Parichha added that it is believed some members of Bajrang Dal were present there since that is the most radical group, which often causes hindrance for minorities.
While giving a run-down of the happenings of August 6, he said, “While Father Lijo, along with the catechist, nuns and another priest, were going to the location of the memorial service in Jaleswar church for someone who died, they noticed some people gathering in the area; however, nobody approached them on their way to the church. Later in the evening, while they were coming back, the mob, which was quite large, about 70-80 people, attacked them. They brutally beat up the catechist and attacked the car, which included Father Lijo, two nuns and another priest, snatched their mobile phones”.
He added that there has been a rise in attacks against the Christian communities in India, while also citing the recent case of the arrest of Sisters Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis in Chhattisgarh. Parichha mentioned that they have filed a complaint, and the police have accepted the FIR, but they have little hope that the police will take any action against the attackers.
Police Version
According to a report by TV9 Bharatvansh, after the police arrived, they took details of all those involved in the attack and let them go.
We reached out to Basta sub-divisional officer, Manas Deo, who said he was not aware of any such incident. “There hasn’t been a single complaint about any such case; it is hearsay”. When we told him that the CBCI said it filed a complaint, he said no complaints had been filed. He did say, however, that some priests and nuns had come to the area but that there was no conversion angle. He added that there was no violence or physical confrontation.
Alt News also reached out to the Basta PS inspector-in-charge Ranjit Sahu, who reiterated that there was no conversion angle. He said that he was not aware if the catechist, nuns and priests had faced any physical assault from the mob.
A Rise In Attacks Against Christians
The three incidents — in Sehore, Raipur and Balasore — point to a recurring pattern of increasing hostilities against Christian minorities and Hindutva groups taking it upon themselves to threaten and harass them. The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC), in its 2024 annual report released in March, documented a sharp rise in attacks against Christian minorities. Out of more than 840 reported cases, the commission verified 640. This is up from 601 cases in 2023 and nearly four times the number recorded in 2014, when 147 incidents were reported.
Exiled West Papuan media are calling for Fiji — in a reflection of Melanesian solidarity — to hold the greater Pacific region to account and stand against Indonesia’s ongoing media blackout in addition to its human rights abuses.
The leaders in their field which include two Papuans from Indonesia’s occupied provinces have visited the Pacific country to forge media partnerships, university collaboration and joint advocacy for West Papua self-determination.
They were speaking after the screening of a new documentary film, Pepera 1969: A Democratic Integration, was screened at The University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
The documentary is based on the controversial plebiscite 56 years ago when 1025 handpicked Papuan electors, which were directly chosen by the Indonesian military out of its 800,000 citizens, were claimed to have voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control of Western New Guinea.
Victor Mambor — a co-founder of Jubi Media Papua — in West Papua; Yuliana Lantipo, one of its senior journalists and editor; and Dandhy Laksono, a Jakarta-based investigative filmmaker; shared their personal experiences of reporting from inside arguably the most heavily militarised and censored region in the Pacific.
“We are here to build bridges with our brothers and sisters in the Pacific,” Mambor told the USP media audience.
Their story of the Papuan territory comes after Dutch colonialists who had seized Western New Guinea, handed control of the East Indies back to the Indonesians in 1949 before The Netherlands eventually withdrew from Papuan territory in 1963.
‘Fraudulent’ UN vote
The unrepresentative plebiscite which followed a fraudulent United Nations-supervised “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 allowed the Indonesian Parliament to grant its legitimacy to reign sovereignty over the West Papuans.
That Indonesian authority has been heavily questioned and criticised over extinguishing independence movements and possible negotiations between both sides.
Indonesia has silenced Papuan voices in the formerly-named Irian Jaya province through control and restrictions of the media.
Mambor described the continued targeting of his Jubi Media staff, including attacks on its office and vehicles, as part of an escalating crackdown under Indonesia’s current President Prabowo Subianto, who took office less than 12 months ago.
“If you report on deforestation [of West Papua] or our culture, maybe it’s allowed,” he said.
“But if you report on human rights or the [Indonesian] military, there is no tolerance.”
An Indonesian MP, Oleh Soleh, warned publicly this month that the state would push for a “new wave of repression” targeting West Papuan activists while also calling the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) – the West Papuan territory’s peak independence movement – as a “political criminal group”.
‘Don’t just listen to Jakarta’
“Don’t just listen to what Jakarta says,” Mambor said.
“Speak to Papuans, listen to our stories, raise our voices.
“We want to bring West Papua back to the Pacific — not just geographically, but politically, culturally, and emotionally.”
Press freedom in West Papua has become most dire more over the past 25 years, West Papuan journalists have said.
Foreign journalists are barred entry into the territory and internet access for locals is often restricted, especially during periods of civil unrest.
Indigenous reporters also risk arrest and/or violence for filing politically sensitive stories.
Most trusted media
Founded in 2001 by West Papuan civil society, Jubi Media Papua’s English-language publication, the West Papua Daily, has become arguably the most trusted, independent source of news in the territory that has survived over its fearless approach to journalism.
“Our journalists are constantly intimidated,” Mambor said, “yet we continue to report the truth”.
The word Jubi in one of the most popular Indigenous Papuan languages means to speak the truth.
Mambor explained that the West Papua Daily remained a pillar of a vocal media movement to represent the wishes of the West Papuan people.
The stories published are without journalists’ bylines (names on articles) out of fear against retribution from the Indonesian military.
“We created a special section just to tell Pacific stories — to remind our people that we are not alone, and to reconnect West Papua with our Pacific identity,” Mambor said.
Lantipo spoke about the daily trauma faced by the Papuan communities which are caught in between the Indonesian military and the West Papua national liberation army who act on behalf of the ULMWP to defend its ancestral homeland.
‘Reports of killings, displacement’
“Every day, we receive reports: killings, displacement, families fleeing villages, children out of school, no access to healthcare,” Lantipo said.
“Women and children are the most affected.”
The journalists attending the seminar urged the Fijian, Melanesian and Pacific people to push for a greater awareness of the West Papuan conflict and its current situation, and to challenge dominant narratives propagated by the Indonesian government.
Laksono, who is ethnically Indonesian but entrenched in ongoing Papuan independence struggles, has long worked to expose injustices in the region.
“There is no hope from the Asian side,” Laksono said.
“That’s why we are here, to reach out to the Pacific.
“We need new audiences, new support, and new understanding.”
Arrested over tweets
Laksono was once arrested in September 2019 for publishing tweets about the violence from government forces against West Papua pro-independence activists.
Despite the personal risks, the “enemy of the state” remains committed to highlighting the stories of the West Papuan people.
“Much of Indonesia has been indoctrinated through school textbooks and [its] media into believing a false history,” he said.
“Our film tries to change that by offering the truth, especially about the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969, which was neither free nor a genuine act of self-determination.”
Andrew Mathieson writes for the National Indigenous Times.
Melanesian supporters for West Papuan self-determination at The University of the South Pacific. Image: USP/NIT
A joint statement by the Media Freedom Coalition — signed by 27 countries, including New Zealand — urged Israel to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war. Access to conflict zones is vital to carrying out this role effectively,” the statement said.
“We oppose all attempts to restrict press freedom and block entry to journalists during conflicts.
“We also strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists and media workers, especially the extremely high number of fatalities, arrests and detentions.
“We call on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem — local and foreign alike — can conduct their work freely and safely.
“Deliberate targeting of journalists is unacceptable. International humanitarian law offers protection to civilian journalists during armed conflict. We call for all attacks against media workers to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted in compliance with national and international law.”
It reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire, and the unconditional release of remaining hostages, unhindered flow of humanitarian aid.
The statement also called for “a path towards a two-state solution, long-term peace and security”.
Other countries to sign the statement included: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
The Media Freedom Coalition is a partnership of countries that advocates for media freedom around the world. New Zealand joined the coalition in March 2021.
New Zealand was not among the signatories of this statement, which was signed by the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom and 22 of its international partners — including Australia and Canada.
The statement called on Israel to reverse its decision.
“The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” it said.
“Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich says this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. This brings no benefits to the Israeli people.
“Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace.
“The government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan.”
The statement said “unilateral action” by the Israeli government undermined collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East.
“The Israeli government must stop settlement construction in line with UNSC Resolution 2334 and remove their restrictions on the finances of the Palestinian Authority.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
“Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.
Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.
Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.
Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.
Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.
Hosted by Dr Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.
The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.
What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?
Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025 Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia
Speak Up Kōrerotia . . . human rights at Plains FM Image: Screenshot
Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.
Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warriorwas launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.
The Speak Up Kōrerotia panel in today’s show, “Anti-Nuclear Advocacy in 2025”, Dr Kate Dewes (from left), Sally Carlton, Dr David Robie, Dr Karly Burch and Susan Bouterey. Image: Screenshot
New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.
Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.
The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.
Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.
Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads (from right), Secretary-General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf
Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.
Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.
Deportation policies
However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.
In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.
The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.
Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf
When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.
“The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.
“I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.
“So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”
Pacific nation difficulties
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.
In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.
These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.
New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.
Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.
“I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.
“I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”
This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The advocacy and protest group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand’s “deliberate distraction” over sanctions against Israel and has vowed more protests against Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ “failed policy” on Gaza.
After the huge turnout of thousands in Palestine solidarity rallies across more than 20 locations in New Zealand last weekend, PSNA has announced it is joining an International Day of Action on September 6.
Rallies next weekend will have a focus on Israel’s targeted killing of journalists in Gaza.
PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement there was “an incredible show of marches and rallies throughout Aotearoa New Zealand for sanctions against Israel during the past weekend.”.
“But with [Foreign Minister] Peters obstinately running the Foreign Ministry, the government will ignore all expressions of public support for Palestinian rights.
“We’ll be back with even more people on the streets on the 6th.”
Shocking images
Minto said that number would have risen significantly in the past few weeks as people were seeing the shocking images of Israel’s widespread use of starvation as a weapon of war, especially against the children of Gaza.
“Around the world, governments are starting to respond to their people demanding sanctions on Israel to end the genocide.
A family rugged up against the rain and cold expressing their disappointment with New Zealand’s “weak” policy over the Gaza genocide last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“Yet, Winston Peters is most reluctant to even criticise Israel, let alone take any action.”
Minto said actions were vital otherwise Israel took no notice.
“We’ve seen Israel’s arrogant impunity in increasingly violent action and showing off its military capacity and intentions,” he said.
“Not a peep from our ministers over anything.
“Just on the Occupied West Bank, there are settlers freely shooting and lynching Palestinians.
New illegal settlement plans
“Israel’s Parliament has just voted to annex the West Bank, as plans are also announced for [an illegal] new settlement strategically designed to sever it irreparably into two parts.
“In Gaza, Israeli troops are reinvading Gaza City to ethnically cleanse a million people to the south and Israeli aircraft are still terror bombing a famine-devastated community.”
“That would mean an invasion of all of its neighbours and the extinction of at least Lebanon and Jordan, which in Israeli government eyes have no right to exist.”
The New Zealand government thought that it was “responding appropriately” by going through a process of considering recognition of a Palestinian state.
“That can only be seen as a deliberate distraction from a focus on sanctions,” Minto said.
“Back in 1947, New Zealand voted in the UN for a Palestinian state in part of Palestine.
“Recognition is token now, and it was token then, because the world stood aside and let Israel conquer all of Palestine, expel most of its people and impose an apartheid regime on those who managed to stay.”
Minto said the global movement in support of Palestinian rights would not be distracted.
Comprehensive sanctions were the only way to force an end to Israel’s genocide.
Australia slams Israeli PM
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Australia has hit back at Netanyahu after the Israeli leader branded the country’s prime minister “weak”, with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people.
In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.
Burke’s comments came after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media, claiming he would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
Speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
It’s now more than a week since Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced his government had begun to formally consider New Zealand’s position on the recognition of a Palestinian state.
That leaves two weeks until the UN General Assembly convenes on September 9, where it is expected several key allies will change position and recognise Palestinian statehood.
Already in a minority of UN member states which don’t recognise a Palestinian state, New Zealand risks becoming more of an outlier if and when Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom make good on their recent pledges.
Luxon has said the decision is “complex”, but opposition parties certainly don’t see it that way. Labour leader Chris Hipkins says it’s “the right thing to do”, and Greens co-leader Chloë Swarbrick has called on government MPs to “grow a spine” (for which she was controversially ejected from the debating chamber).
Former Labour prime minister Helen Clark has also criticised the government for trailing behind its allies, and for appearing to put trade relations with the United States ahead of taking a moral stand over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Certainly, those critics — including the many around the country who marched last weekend — are correct in implying New Zealand has missed several opportunities to show independent leadership on the issue.
The distraction factor While it has been open to New Zealand to recognise it as a state since Palestine declared its independence in 1988, there was an opportunity available in May last year when the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian governments took the step.
That month, New Zealand also joined 142 other states calling on the Security Council to admit Palestine as a full member of the UN. But in a subsequent statement, New Zealand said its vote should not be implied as recognising Palestinian statehood, a position I called “a kind of muddled, awkward fence-sitting”.
It is still not too late, however, for New Zealand to take a lead. In particular, the government could make a more straightforward statement on Palestinian statehood than its close allies.
The statements from Australia, Canada and the UK are filled with caveats, conditions and contingencies. None are straightforward expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law.
As such, they present political and legal problems New Zealand could avoid.
Politically, this late wave of recognition by other countries risks becoming a distraction from the immediate starvation crisis in Gaza. As the independent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese have noted, these considered and careful diplomatic responses distract from the brutal truth on the ground.
This was also Chloë Swarbrick’s point during the snap debate in Parliament last week. Her private members bill, she noted, offers a more concrete alternative, by imposing sanctions and a trade embargo on Israel. (At present, it seems unlikely the government would support this.)
Beyond traditional allies Legally, the proposed recognitions of statehood are far from ideal because they place conditions on that recognition, including how a Palestinian state should be governed.
The UK has made recognition conditional on Israel not agreeing to a ceasefire and continuing to block humanitarian aid into Gaza. That is extremely problematic, given recognition could presumably be withdrawn if Israel agreed to those demands.
Such statements are not exercises in genuine solidarity with Palestinian self-determination, which is defined in UN Resolution 1514 (1960) as the right of peoples “to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.
Having taken more time to consider its position, New Zealand could now articulate a more genuine statement of recognition that fulfils the legal obligation to respect and promote self-determination under international law.
A starting point would be to look beyond the small group of “traditional allies” to countries such as Ireland that have already formally recognised the State of Palestine. Importantly, Ireland acknowledged Palestinian “peaceful self-determination” (along with Israel’s), but did not express any other conditions or caveats.
New Zealand could also show leadership by joining with that wider group of allies to shape the coming General Assembly debate. The aim would be to shift the language from conditional recognition of Palestine toward a politically and legally more tenable position.
That would also sit comfortably with the country’s track record in other areas of international diplomacy — most notably the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, where New Zealand has also taken a different approach to its traditional allies.
French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls is once again in New Caledonia for a four-day visit aimed at maintaining dialogue, despite a strong rejection from a significant part of the pro-independence camp.
He touched down at the Nouméa-La Tontouta Airport last night on his fourth trip to New Caledonia since he took office in late 2024.
For the past eight months, he has made significant headway by managing to get all political parties to sit together again around the same table and discuss an inclusive, consensual way forward for the French Pacific territory, where deadly riots have erupted in May 2024, causing 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in material damage.
On July 12, during a meeting in Bougival (west of Paris), some 19 delegates from parties across the political spectrum signed a 13-page document, the Bougival Accord, sketching what is supposed to pave the way for New Caledonia’s political future.
The document, labelled a “project” and described as “historic”, envisages the creation of a “State” of New Caledonia, a dual New Caledonia-French citizenship and the transfer of key powers such as foreign affairs from France to New Caledonia.
The document also envisions a wide range of political reforms, more powers for each of the three provinces and enlarging the controversial list of eligible citizens allowed to vote at the crucial local provincial elections.
When they signed the text in mid-July, all parties (represented by 18 politicians) at the time pledged to go along the new lines and defend the contents, based on the notion of a “bet on trust”.
But since the deal was signed at the 11th hour in Bougival, after a solid 10 days of tense negotiations, one of the main components of the pro-independence camp, the FLNKS, has pronounced a “block rejection” of the deal.
FLNKS said their delegates and negotiators (five politicians), even though they had signed the document, had no mandate to do so because it was incompatible with the pro-independence movement’s aims and struggle.
Signatures on the last page of New Caledonia’s new agreement. Image: Philippe Dunoyer/RNZ Pacific
FLNKS rejection of Bougival The FLNKS and its majority component, Union Calédonienne, said that from now on, while maintaining dialogue with France, they would refuse to talk further about the Bougival text or any related subject.
They also claim they are the only pro-independence legitimate representative of the indigenous Kanak people.
They maintain they will only accept their own timetable of negotiation, with France only (no longer including the pro-France parties) in “bilateral” mode to conclude before 24 September 2025.
French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls . . . not giving up on the Bougival project and his door remains open. Image: Outre-mer la Première
Later on, the negotiations for a final independence should conclude before the next French Presidential elections (April-May 2027) with the transfer of all remaining powers back to New Caledonia.
The FLNKS also demands that any further talks with France should take place in New Caledonia and under the supervision of its President.
It warns against any move to try and force the implementation of the Bougival text, including planned reforms of the conditions of voter eligibility for local elections (since 2007, the local “special” electoral roll has been restricted to people living in New Caledonia before 1998).
During his four-day visit this week (20-24 August), Valls said he would focus on pursuing talks, sometimes in bilateral mode with FLNKS.
The minister, reacting to FLNKS’s move to reject the Accord, said several times since that he did not intend to give up and that his door remained open.
‘Explain and convince’ He would also meet “as many New Caledonians as possible” to “explain and convince”.
Apart from party officials, Valls also plans to meet New Caledonia’s “Customary (chiefly) Senate”, the mayors of New Caledonia, the presidents of New Caledonia’s three provinces and representatives of the economic and civil society.
The May-July 2024 riots have strongly impacted on New Caledonia’s standard of living, with thousands of jobless people because of the destruction of hundreds of businesses.
Health sector in crisis Valls also intends to devote a large part of his visit to meetings with public and private health workers, who also remain significantly affected by an acute shortage of staff, both in the capital Nouméa and rural areas.
Tomorrow, Valls plans to implement one of the later stages of the Bougival signing — the inaugural session of a “drafting committee”, aimed at agreeing on how necessary documents for the implementation of the Bougival commitments should be formulated.
These include working on writing a “fundamental law” for New Caledonia (a de facto constitution) and constitutional documents to make necessary amendments to the French Constitution.
Elections again postponed to June 2026 Steps to defer once again the provincial elections from November 2025 to May-June 2026 were also recently taken in Paris, at the Senate, Valls said earlier this week.
A Bill has been tabled for debates in the Senate on 23 September 2025. In keeping with the Bougival commitments and timeline, it proposes a new deadline for provincial elections: no later than 28 June 2026.
But FLNKS now demands that those elections be maintained for this year.
On a tightrope again This week’s visit is perceived as particularly sensitive: as Valls’s trip is regarded as focusing on saving his Bougival deal, he is also walking on a tightrope.
On one side, he wants to maintain contact and an “open-door” policy with the hard-line group of the FLNKS, even though they have now denounced his Bougival deal.
On the other side, he has to pursue talks with all the other parties who have, since July 12, kept their word and upheld the document.
If Valls was perceived to concede more ground to the FLNKS, following its recent claims and rejections, parts of the pro-Bougival leaders who have signed and kept their word and commitment could well, in turn, denounce some kind of betrayal, thus jeopardising the precarious equilibrium.
The “pro-Bougival” signatories held numerous public meetings with their respective militant bases to explain the agreement and the “Bougival spirit”, as well as the reasons for why they had signed.
This not only includes pro-France parties who oppose independence, but also two moderate pro-independence parties, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), formed into a “UNI” platform (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance), who have, since August 2024, distanced themselves from the FLNKS.
At the same time, FLNKS took into its fold a whole new group of smaller parties, unions and pressure groups (including the Union Calédonienne-created CCAT –a field action coordination group dedicated to organising political campaigns on the ground) and has since taken a more radical turn.
Simultaneously, Christian Téin, head of CCAT, was also elected FLNKS president in absentia, while serving a pre-trial jail term in mainland France.
His pre-trial judicial control conditions were loosened in June 2025 by a panel of three judges, but he is still not allowed to return to New Caledonia.
One of the moderate UNI leaders, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé (PALIKA) told his supporters and local media last week that he believed through the Bougival way, it would remain possible for New Caledonia to eventually achieve full sovereignty, but not immediately.
Ruffenach: No intention to ‘undo’ Bougival Several pro-France components have also reacted to the FLNKS rejection by saying they did not intend to “undo” the Bougival text, simply because it was the result of months of negotiations and concessions to reach a balance between opposing aspirations from the pro-independence and pro-France camps.
“Let’s be reasonable. Let’s get real. Let’s come back to reality. Has this country ever built itself without compromise?,” pro-France Le Rassemblement-LR party leader Virginie Ruffenach told Radio Rythme Bleu yesterday.
“We have made this effort at Bougival, to find a middle way which is installing concord between those two aspirations. We have made steps, the pro-independence have made steps. And this is what allowed this agreement to be struck with its signatures”.
She said the FLNKS, in its “new” version, was “held hostage by . . . radicalism”.
“Violence will not take the future of New Caledonia and we will not give into this violence”.
She said all parties should now take their responsibilities and live up to their commitment, instead of applying an “empty chair” policy.
No credible alternative: Valls Earlier this week, Valls repeated that he did not wish to “force” the agreement but that, in his view, “there is no credible alternative. The Bougival agreement is an extraordinary and historic opportunity”.
“I will not fall into the trap of words that hurt and lead to confrontation. I won’t give in to threats of violence or blockades,” he wrote on social networks.
Last night, as Valls was already on his way to the Pacific, FLNKS political bureau and its president, Christian Téin, criticised the “rapport de force” seemingly established by France.
He also deplored that, in the view of numerous reactions following the FLNKS rejection of the Bougival text, his political group was now being “stigmatised”.
Ahead of the French minister’s visit, the FLNKS has launched a “peaceful” campaign revolving around the slogan “No to Bougival”.
The FLNKS is scheduled to meet Valls today.
The inaugural session of the “drafting committee” is supposed to take place the following day on Thursday.
He is scheduled to leave New Caledonia on Saturday.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
I unequivocally support Irish author Sally Rooney with all my heart and soul. The author risks imprisonment for donating funds from her books and the TV series based on Normal People to a Palestinian group.
Once again the United Kingdom tells Palestinians who they should support. Go figure.
In her opinion piece in The Irish Times last Saturday she said that:
“Activists who disrupt the flow of weapons to a genocidal regime may violate petty criminal statutes, but they uphold a far greater law and a more profound human imperative: to protect a people and culture from annihilation.”
Whenever the people resist or rebel they are deemed terrorists. That has been the case for indigenous people around the world from indigenous Americans to Indians in India to Aborigine and Māori, the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh.
I went from being a “born-again” starry-eyed kibbutznik who believed in Zionism to a journalist who researched the facts and the hidden truths.
Those facts are revolting. Settler colonialism is revolting. Stealing homes is theft.
I kept in touch with some of my US-based Zionist kibbutznik mates. When I asked them to stop calling Palestinians animals, when I asked them not to say they had tails, when I asked them to stop the de-humanisation — the same de-humanisation that happened during the Nazi regime, they dumped me.
Zionism based on a myth
Jews who support genocide are antisemitic. They are also selfish and greedy. Zionists are the bully kids at school who take other kids toys and don’t want to share. They don’t play fair.
The notion of Zionism is based on a myth of the superiority of one group over another. It is religious nutterism and it is racism.
Empire is greed. Capitalism is greed. Settler colonialism involves extermination for those who resist giving up their land. Would you or I accept someone taking our homes, forcing us to leave our uneaten dinner on the table? Would you or I accept our kids being stolen, put in jail, raped, tortured.
Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine Action and rejects the UK law banning this, and she argues that nation states have a duty not only to punish but also to prevent the commission of this “incomparably horrifying crime of genocide”. Image: Irish Times screenshot APR
The country was weird when I visited in 1982. It had just invaded Lebanon. Later that year it committed a genocide.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The horrific slaughter prompted outrage and condemnation around the world, with the UN General Assembly condemning it as “an act of genocide”.
I had been primed for sunshine and olives, but the country gave me a chill. The toymaker I worked with was a socialist and he told me I should feel sorry for the Palestinians.
It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets. But you need to defend yourself when you steal.
Paranoia from guilt
Paranoia is a consequence of a persecutor who fails to recognise their guilt. It happens when you steal. The paranoia happens when you close doors. When you don’t welcome the other — whose home you stole.
In 2014, soldiers of the IDF — a mercenary macho army — were charged with raping their own colleagues. Now footage of the rape of Palestinian men are celebrated on national television in Israel in front of live audiences. Any decent person would be disgusted by this.
The army under this Zionist madness has committed — and continues to commit — the crimes it lied about Palestinians committing. And yes, the big fat liar has even admitted its own lies. The bully in the playground really doesn’t care now, it does not have to persuade the world it is right, because it is supported, it has the power.
This isn’t the warped Wild West where puritans invented the scalping of women and children — the sins of colonisers are many — this is happening now. We can stand for the might of racism or we can stand against racist policies and regimes. We can stand against apartheid and genocide.
Indigenous people must have the right to live in their homeland. Casting them onto designated land then invading that land is wrong.
When Israelis are kidnapped they are called hostages. When Palestinians are kidnapped they are called prisoners. It’s racist. It’s cruel. It’s revolting that anyone would support this travesty.
Far far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed that day (and we know now that some of those Israelis were killed by their own army, Israel has admitted it lied over and again about the murder of babies and rapes).
Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England . . . “It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets.” Image: Saige England
Mercenary macho army
So who does murder and rape? The IDF. The proud mercenary macho army.
Once upon a time, a Palestinian kid who threw a stone got a bullet between the eyes. Now they get a bullet for carrying water, for going back to the homeground that has been bombed to smithereens. Snipers enjoy taking them down.
Drones operated by human beings who have no conscience follow children, follow journalists, follow nurses, follow someone in a wheelchair, and blow them to dust.
This is a game for the IDF. I’m sure some feel bad about it but they have to go along with it because they lose privileges if they do not. This sick army run by a sick state includes soldiers who hold dual US and Israeli citizenship.
Earlier this year I met a couple of IDF soldiers on holidays from genocide, breezily ordering their lattes in a local cafe. I tried to engage with them, to garner some sense of compassion but they used “them” and “they” to talk about Palestinians.
They lumped all Palestinians into a de-humanised mass worth killing. They blamed indigenous people who lived under a regime of apartheid and who are now being exterminated, for the genocide.
The woman was even worse than the man. She loathed me the minute she saw my badge supporting the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aoteara. Hate spat from her eyes.
Madness.
De-brainwashing
I saw that the only prospect for them to change might be a de-brainwashing programme. Show them the real facts they were never given, show them real Palestinians instead of figments of their imagination.
It occurred to me that it really was very tempting to take them home and offer them a different narrative. I asked them if they would listen, and they said no. If I had forced them to come with me I would have been, you know, a hostage-taker.
Israel is evidence that the victim can become the persecutor when they scapegoat indigenous people as the villain, when they hound them for crime of a holocaust they did not commit.
And I get it, a little. My Irish and French Huguenot ancestors were persecuted. I have to face the sad horrid fact that those persecuted people took other people’s land in New Zealand. The victims became the persecutor.
Oh they can say they did not know but they did know. They just did not look too hard at the dispossession of indigenous people.
I wrote my book The Seasonwife at the ripe young age of 63 to reveal some of the suppressed truths about colonisation and about the greed of Empire — a system where the rich exploit the poor to help themselves. I will continue to write novels about suppressed truths.
And I call down my Jewish ancestors who hid their Jewishness to avoid persecution. I have experienced antisemitism.
Experienced cancelling
But I have experienced cancelling, not by my publisher I hasten to add, but I know agencies and publishers in my country who tell authors to shut up about this genocide, who call those who speak up anti-semitic.
I have been cancelled by Zionist authors. I don’t have a publisher like that but I know those who do, I know agencies who pressure authors to be silent.
I call on other authors to follow Rooney’s example and for pity’s sake stop referencing Hamas. Learn the truth.
Benjamin Netanyahu refused to deal with any other Palestinian representative. Palestinians have the right to choose their own representatives but they were denied that right.
What is a terrorist army? The IDF which has created killing field after killing field. Not just this genocide, but the genocide in Lebanon in 1982.
I have been protesting against the massacre of Palestinians since 2014 and I wish I had been more vocal earlier. I wish I had left the country when the Phalangists were killed. I did go back and report from the West Bank but I feel now, that I did not do enough. I was pressured — as Western writers are — to support the wrongdoer, the persecutor, not the victim.
I will never do that again.
Change with learning
I do believe that with learning we can change, we can work towards a different, fairer system — a system based on fairness not exploitation.
I stand alongside indigenous people everywhere.
So I say again, that I support Sally Rooney and any author who has the guts to stand up to the pressure of oppressive regimes that deny the rights of people to resist oppression.
I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop. I believe they will be granted the right to return to their land. It is not anyone else’s right to grant that, really, the right of return for those who were forced out, and their descendants, is long overdue.
And their forced exile is recent. Biblical myths don’t stack up. Far too often they are stacked to make other people fall down.
Perhaps if we had all stood up more than 100,000 Palestinians would still be alive, a third of those children, would still be running around, their voices like bells instead of death calls.
I support Palestinians with all my heart and soul.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
Journalists like Anas al-Sharif who report the truth in Gaza to the world and are targeted by Israel deserve protection, not just sympathy.
COMMENTARY:By Sara Qudah
During the past 22 months in Gaza, the pattern has become unbearable yet tragically predictable: A journalist reports about civilians; killed or starved, shares footage of a hospital corridor, shelters bombed out, schools and homes destroyed, and then they are silenced.
Killed.
At the Committee to Protect Journalists we documented that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists, with an unprecedented number of those killed by Israel reporting from Gaza while covering Israel’s military operations.
That trend did not end; it continued instead in 2025, making this war by far the deadliest for the press in history.
When a journalist is killed in a besieged war city, the loss is no longer personal. It is institutional, it is the loss of eyes and ears on the ground: a loss of verification, context, and witness.
Journalists are the ones who turn statistics into stories. They give names to numbers and faces to headlines. They make distant realities real for the rest of the world, and provide windows into the truth and doors into other worlds.
That is why the killing of Anas al-Sharif last week reverberates so loudly, not just as a tragic loss of one life, but as a silencing of many stories that will now never be told.
Not just reporting Anas al-Sharif was not just reporting from Gaza, he was filling a vital void. When international journalists couldn’t access the Strip, his work for Al Jazeera helped the world understand what was happening.
On August 10, 2025, an airstrike hit a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where journalists had gathered. Al-Sharif and several of his colleagues were killed.
The strike — its method, its targets, and its aftermath – wasn’t isolated. It fits a pattern CPJ and other press freedom organisations have tracked for months: in Gaza, journalists are facing not just the incidental risks of war, but repeated, targeted threats.
And so far, there has been no accountability.
The Israeli military framed its action differently: officials alleged that al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas and that the attack was aimed at a legitimate threat. But so far, the evidence presented publicly failed to meet the test of independent witnesses; no public evidence has met the basic standard of independent verification.
UN experts and press freedom groups have called for transparent investigations, warning of the danger in labelling journalists as combatants without clear, verifiable proof.
In the turmoil of war, there’s a dangerous tendency to accept official narratives too quickly, too uncritically. That’s exactly how truth gets lost.
Immediate chilling effect
The repercussions of silencing reporters in a besieged territory are far-reaching. There is the immediate chilling effect: journalists who stay risk death; those who leave — if they even can — leave behind untold stories.
Second, when local journalists are killed, international media have no choice but to rely increasingly on official statements or third-party briefings for coverage, many with obvious biases and blind spots.
And third, the families of victims and the communities they represented are denied both justice and memory.
Al-Sharif’s camera recorded funerals and destroyed homes, bore witness to lives cut short. His death leaves those images without a voice, pointing now only into silence.
We also need to name the power dynamics at play. When an enormously powerful state with overwhelming military capability acts inside a densely populated area, the vast majority of casualties will be civilians — those who cannot leave — and local reporters, who cannot shelter.
This is not a neutral law of physics; it is the to-be-anticipated result of how this war waged in a space where journalists will not be able to go into shelter.
We have repeatedly documented that journalists killed in this war are Palestinian — not international correspondents. The most vulnerable witnesses, those most essential to documenting it, are also the most vulnerable to being killed.
So what should the international community and the world leaders do beyond offering condolences?
Demand independent investigation
For starters, they must demand an immediate, independent investigation. Not just routine military reviews, but real accountability — gathering evidence, preserving witness testimony, and treating each death with the seriousness it deserves.
Accountability cannot be a diplomatic nicety; it must be a forensic process with witnesses and evidence.
Additionally, journalists must be protected as civilians. That’s not optional. Under international law, reporters who aren’t taking part in the fighting are civilians — period.
That is an obligation not a choice. And when safety isn’t possible, we must get them out. Evacuate them. Save their lives. And in doing so, allow others in — international reporters who can continue telling the story.
We are past the time for neutrality. The use of language like “conflict”, “collateral damage”, or “civilian casualties” cannot be used to deflect responsibility, especially when the victims are people whose only “crime” was documenting human suffering.
When the world loses journalists like Anas al-Sharif, it loses more than just one voice. We lose a crucial balance of power and access to truth; it fails to maintain the ability to understand what’s happening on the ground. And future generations lose the memory — the record — of what took place here.
Stand up for facts
The international press community, human rights organisations, and diplomatic actors need to stand up. Not just for investigations, but for facts. Families in Gaza deserve more than empty statements. They deserve the truth about who was killed, and why. So does every person reading this from afar.
And the journalists still risking everything to report from inside Gaza deserve more than sympathy. They deserve protection.
The killing of journalists — like those from Al Jazeera — isn’t just devastating on a human level. It’s a direct attack on journalism itself. When a state can murder reporters without consequence, it sends a message to the entire world: telling the truth might cost you your life.
I write this as someone who believes that journalism is, above all, a moral act. It’s about bearing witness. It’s about insisting that lives under siege are still lives that matter, still worth seeing.
Silencing a journalist doesn’t just stop a story — it erases a lifetime of effort to bring others into view.
The murder of al-Sharif isn’t just another tragedy. It’s an assault on truth itself, in a place where truth is desperately needed. If we let this keep happening, we’re not just losing lives — we’re losing the last honest witnesses in a world ruled by force.
And that’s something we can’t afford to give up.
Sara Qudah is the regional director for Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sara on LinkedIn: Sara Qudah
Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort on India’s 79th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unusual declaration while discussing his government’s achievements in all sectors, from space to semiconductors, and in the strategic Operation Sindoor. He warned that there was a conspiracy to change India’s demography and that strong action would be taken against ‘ghuspethiye’ or infiltrators plotting against the nation. Without mentioning any community, the Prime Minister said, “These infiltrators are snatching away the livelihoods of our youth. These infiltrators are targeting our sisters and daughters… These infiltrators are misleading innocent tribals and seizing their lands. The nation will not endure this.”
A high-powered Demography Mission will work towards addressing the important challenge of demographic changes, especially in border areas. pic.twitter.com/aSdh07AZxL
The PM’s rhetoric comes at a time when minority groups in India, including Muslims, Bengali-speaking migrants, Christian priests and nuns and tribes in the Northeast, already bear the brunt of majoritarian muscle-flexing on a daily basis. Alt News has already documented several cases falsely peddled as ‘Love Jihad’ and instances where vigilantes have taken it upon themselves to protect cows or Sanatan Dharma. At such a time, the PM’s call to action directed at ‘infiltrators’, on a day of significant national importance, could end up legitimizing such attacks.
Rise in Attacks Against Minorities
Take the case of 21-year-old Suleiman Rahim Khan. Just four days before Modi’s speech, he was beaten to death allegedly by members of a Hindutva group in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district on January 11, after being seen with a Hindu woman from the same village. His family was also assaulted by the perpetrators. The victim’s family alleged that some of the perpetrators also work as gau rakshaks or self-styled cow vigilantes.
A little over two weeks ago, two Catholic nuns from Kerala, Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary, and a tribal man named Sukhman Mandavi, were arrested at Chhattisgarh’s Durg railway station on charges of religious conversion and human trafficking, while they were taking three tribal women to Agra for work. The police action was triggered after a platform ticket examiner called Bajrang Dal members, who confronted the group and accused them of conversion and trafficking. In a viral video, a Bajrang Dal leader, Jyoti Sharma, was seen grilling the nuns and examining documents in the presence of police. The families of the women confirmed they were already Christians, disputing conversion allegations. Videos and statements from the women showed they travelled willingly for jobs, contradicting Bajrang Dal claims that they were being forced or trafficked. The women alleged in a counter-complaint that Bajrang Dal activists harassed and assaulted them and coerced them into making false statements.
On July 31, in West Bengal’s Durgapur district, self-styled cow vigilantes led by BJP youth leader Parijat Ganguly, assaulted, tied up, and paraded several Muslim men in Durgapur, West Bengal, accusing them of smuggling cattle. The attack, close to a police station, was widely documented in videos showing the victims being beaten, tied, and forced to chant religious slogans while the mob “rescued” cattle from their truck.
On July 10, West Bengal Leader of Opposition and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari urged people of the state to ‘not go to Kashmir and Muslim majority areas’, citing safety concerns after the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam. He suggested visiting other states, such as Himachal Pradesh or Uttarakhand.
Alt News, in collaboration with Bellingcat, also investigated a network of five cow vigilante groups that operate across Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and informally work together to carry out violence against truck drivers. These groups of gau rakshaks or “cow protectors” seem to carry out charitable work such as operating ambulances for cows, feeding stray animals and distributing food to people during the day. But in the dark of the night, they chase, shoot at and beat up truck drivers they claim were “smuggling” cows for slaughter. Some of the leaders of these vigilante groups also said they were working closely with the local police.
In late May, four Muslim men in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, were violently assaulted by a mob linked to Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), accused of transporting cow meat. Graphic videos showed the victims badly beaten and stripped. However, lab reports later confirmed they were carrying buffalo meat, not banned cow meat. Despite this, the assailants filed a police complaint against the victims, besides allegedly demanding Rs 50,000 from the meat suppliers, looting them, and setting their vehicle on fire.
Last year, ahead of Christmas, vigilantes from Bajrang Dal and VHP disrupted Christmas celebrations in schools across India, especially in Gujarat, in what seemed like a concerted effort. Videos showed these groups removing decorations, halting festivities, and forcing schools to prioritise Hindu cultural values, including chanting slogans and reciting hymns. Several schools confirmed these disruptions, often citing fear of repercussions and directives from higher authorities, while VHP Gujarat denied official involvement and distanced itself from linked social media accounts.
These are just a few of the many instances where Right-wing activists took it upon themselves to protect their faith and community from the ‘other’. One could argue that the Prime Minister focused on the issue of infiltrators and illegal immigrants — a concern the current government has consistently prioritised — and not Muslims. But it is important to highlight that in the past few months, Bengali-speaking migrants from West Bengal, particularly Muslims, have disproportionately borne the brunt of a concerted effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Initiated by law enforcement agencies in several BJP-ruled states and Union territories, this ‘drive’ swiftly filtered down to fringe elements who, lacking technical knowledge of the Bengali language and its dialects, took it upon themselves to harass and assault vulnerable communities.
Interestingly, this is not the first time the Prime Minister has used the word ‘ghuspethiye‘ in his speech.
Modi’s History With Remarks on ‘Ghuspethiye’
While addressing a rally in Banswara, Rajasthan, on April 21, 2024, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, Modi used the term ‘ghuspethiyon’ to target Muslims. During his address, Modi accused the Congress party of taking away people’s gold and ‘mangalsutras’.
“When they (Congress) were in power, they said Muslims had the right to the state’s properties. This means they would collect these properties and give them to those who produce more children… They will give it to the ghuspethiyo. Do you want to give away your hard-earned money to the intruders? This is what the Congress manifesto says — we will measure the amount of gold your mothers and daughters own and distribute their wealth,” he had said. He crudely used the phrase ‘those who produce more children’ to refer to Muslims.
Banswara was not an isolated instance of such rhetoric. On May 11, 2024, Modi delivered another speech in Chatra, Jharkhand, explicitly targeting Muslims. “The Congress supported the infiltrators, and as a result, the infiltrators have occupied the lands of Dalits and Adivasis”, he was heard saying while delivering an openly communal speech.
He further employed similar divisive language during speeches in multiple West Bengal constituencies. Addressing people in Mathurapur on May 29, 2024, he said: “…today these infiltrators are snatching the opportunities meant for the youth of Bengal. They are taking up your land and properties…”.
In Jhargram on May 20, he said, “They (Trinamool Congress) are accommodating ghuspethiyon (infiltrators) here, near the borders the population of the people of Bengal is reducing… TMC and Congress are trying to make it legal for infiltrators to take up space”.
Then in Medinipur on May 19, he claimed, “TMC refers to people from other states as outsiders but they find illegal ghuspethi (infiltrators) to be their own…” He also used the same rhetoric in Dumka, Jharkhand, on May 28 and Ghazipur on May 25.
When seen in context, the Prime Minister’s use of the same term in his Independence Day speech could serve as a clarion call to fringe groups targeting vulnerable communities. Worse, it almost gives them license to do so.
Demography Mission
Modi not only stoked fears of infiltrators grabbing land and targeting women, but also claimed that such outsiders were redefining the country’s demography. To counter this, he said his government would launch a ‘high-powered demography mission’.
He did not cite any data or study to back his claims and provided few details about what this demographic mission would entail. The announcement of the mission is interesting, considering the decennial Census has been delayed by four years now. Also, experts, over the years, have countered claims of Hindus being outnumbered by other communities on several occasions. They say that growth and fertility rates across communities are on a decline, and arguments that the country is facing major demographic shift stand on shaky ground and are nothing but a political tool.
But Modi’s speech made clear the BJP’s motives ahead of elections in Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu — that there would be some crackdown against those who are unable to furnish proof of their identities. The special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar has already been dubbed a crude form of a citizenship exercise.
As Opposition leaders already highlighted, the Prime Minister’s speech on Independence Day reeked of political narrative. His hat-tip to the BJP’s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, on completing 100 years, lauding the Hindutva organisation for being, possibly, the “world’s biggest NGO” made it amply clear.
Why the recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia is an important development. Meanwhile, New Zealand still dithers. This article unpacks the hypocrisy in the debate.
ANALYSIS:By Paul Heywood-Smith
The recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia, leading, it is hoped, to full UN member state status, is an important development.
What has followed is a remarkable demonstration of ignorance and/or submission to the Zionist lobby.
Rewarding Hamas Let us consider aspects of the response. One aspect is that recognising Palestine is rewarding the resistance organisation Hamas.
There are a number of issues involved here. The first issue is that Hamas is branded as a “terrorist organisation”. So much is said, apparently, by eight nations compared to the overwhelming majority of UN recognised states which do not so regard it.
That was Hamas’s objective when it fought the election against Fatah in 2006.
As an aside, it now results in the lie that it is ridiculous that the Albanese government would recognise Palestine as part of a two-state solution when Hamas rejects a two-state solution. This is just yet another attempt to demonise Hamas.
Hamas leaders have repeatedly said they would accept a two-state solution. It has only recently done so again.
On 23 July last, when Hamas responded to a US draft ceasefire framework the Hamas official, Basem Naim, affirmed Hamas’s publicly stated pledge that it would give up power in Gaza and support a two-state solution on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine.
These are the very borders stipulated by international law — see hereunder.
The Palestinians constituting Hamas are residents of an illegally occupied territory. International law affords to them the right to resist: Geneva Conventions I-IV, 1949.
The hypocrisy associated with the demonisation of Hamas is massive. Much is made of hostages having been taken on 7 October 2023 — a war crime according to international law. Those militants who took the hostages might be forgiven for thinking that it was minimal compared with the seven years of non-compliance with Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2334 calling for the end of occupation and removal of settlements.
The events of October 7 are, in any event, shrouded in doubt. This follows from Israel’s suppression of evidence concerning what happened. What we do know is that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases on October 7.
In addition, the Hannibal Directive justified IDF slaughter of Israelis potentially being taken as hostages. It is also accepted that allegations of rape and beheading of babies by Hamas militants were false. The disinformation put out by Israel, and Israel’s refusal to allow journalists on site, or to interview participants, make it impossible to form any clear or credible understanding of what happened on October 7.
It is accepted that Hamas militants attacked three Israeli military bases, no doubt with the intention that those bases should withdraw from their positions relative to Gazan territory. Such action can be understood as consistent with an occupied citizenry resisting such illegal occupation.
Compounding the uncertainty over October 7 is the continuing conjecture, leakage, of information suggesting that the IDF had advance warning of the proposed Hamas attack but chose, for other purposes, to take no action. These uncertainties are never adverted to by our press which repeatedly attributes responsibility for all Israeli deaths on the day to the actions of Hamas militants, which actions are presented as an “abomination, barbarity”. Refer generally to P&I, November 5, 2023 (Stuart Rees) Expose and dismiss the domination Israeli narrative; P&I, January 4, 2024 Israeli general killed Israelis on 7 October and then lied about it.
The third issue, the major hypocrisy, is that Hamas is being rewarded. Consider the position of Israel. Israel is, and has been, illegally occupying Palestinian territory since 1967. This is undisputed according to international law as articulated in the following instruments:
1967 – SCR 242;
2004 – the ICJ decision concerning The Wall;
Dec. 2016 – SCR 2334, not vetoed by Obama, recognising the illegal occupation and calling for its end; and
2024 – the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ of 19 July.
Israel has done nothing to comply with any of these instruments. It is set on a programme of gradual acquisition.
The result is that now there are illegal settlements all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When Israel is told: the West Bank and East Jerusalem are to be part of a Palestinian state, it will scream, “But large parts are occupied by Jewish Israelis!” These are “facts on the ground”.
Supporters of Israel ignore the fact that occupation by settlers occurred in the full knowledge that international law branded such occupation as illegal. If the settlements are considered as a “done deal”, that would be rewarding knowingly illegal conduct — some might say, Israeli terrorism.
So that there can be no doubt about the import of the position it is appropriate to specify the critical parts of SCR 2334:
The Security Council
Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
Underlines that it will not recognise any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-State solution;.
Following the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 19, the UN General Assembly in adopting the same set 17 September 2025 as the deadline for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory.
Negotiated settlement And when Israel now says, “Recognition now is going to prevent a negotiated settlement”, it is ignoring the fact that in the six, 12, 20 months, two, three, four years until such negotiated settlement occurs, many more settlements would have been commenced, which of course, are more “facts on the ground”.
Then we have the response of the Coalition, which demonstrates how irrelevant the Opposition is in today’s Australia. That response is that the recognition will inhibit a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians.
The Coalition, however, says nothing about the fact that the Israeli government has repeatedly stated that there will never be a Palestinian State. Indeed, Israel has legislated to that effect and is moreover periodically purporting to annex Palestinian land.
So how does the Coalition believe that a negotiated settlement will come about? Well, one way, over which Israel may have no say, is for Palestine to become a full member State of the UN. One UN member state cannot occupy the land of another.
Failure of our press to ask any question of pro-Israel interviewees about the end of occupation is a disgrace.
Next challenge Now for the next challenge — to bring about the end of occupation. Israel will not accede readily. Sanctions must be the first step. Such sanctions must be immediate, concrete and crippling.
They must result in the immediate suspension of trade. That can be the first step.
Watch this space.
Paul Heywood-Smith is an Adelaide SC (senior counsel) of some 20 years. He was the initial chairperson of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, an incorporated association registered in South Australia in 2004. He is the author of The Case for Palestine, The Perspective of an Australian Observer (Wakefield Press, 2014). This article was first published by Pearls & Irritations and is republished with permission.
BREAKING
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