New and emerging technologies have become a fundamental tool for human rights defenders to conduct their activities, boost solidarity among movements and reach different audiences. Unfortunately, these positive aspects have been overshadowed by negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights, including increased threats and risks for human rights defenders. While we see the increased negative impacts of new technologies, we do not see that governments are addressing these impacts comprehensively.
Furthermore, States and their law enforcement agencies (often through the help of non-State actors, including business enterprises) often take down or censor the information shared by defenders on social media and other platforms. In other cases, we have seen that businesses are also complicit in attacks and violations against human right defenders.
Conversely, lack of access to the internet and the digital gaps in many countries and regions, or affecting specific groups, limits the potential of digital technologies for activism and movement building, as well as access to information.
The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted in 1998, does not consider these challenges, which have largely arisen with the rapid evolution of technology. In this context, and, as part of activities to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on human rights defenders, a coalition of NGOs launched a consultative initiative to identify the key issues faced by human rights defenders that are insufficiently addressed by the UN Declaration, including on the area of digital and new technologies. These issues are also reflected in the open letter to States on the draft resolution on human rights defenders that will be considered during HRC58.
This side event will be an opportunity to continue discussing the reality and the challenges that human rights defenders face in the context of new and emerging technologies. It will also be an opportunity to hear directly from those who, on a daily basis, work with defenders in the field of digital rights while highlighting their specific protection needs. Finally, the event will also help remind States about the range of obligations in this field that can contribute to inform the consultations on the HRC58 resolution on human rights defenders.
Panelists:
Opening remarks: Permanent Mission of Norway
Speakers:
Carla Vitoria – Association for Progressive Communications
Human rights defender from Kenya regarding the Safaricom case (via video message)
Woman human rights defender from Colombia regarding use of new technologies during peaceful protests
Human rights defender from Myanmar regarding online incitement to violence against Rohingya people
Video montage of civil society priorities for the human rights defender resolution at HRC58
Moderator: Ulises Quero, Programme Manager, Land, Environment and Business & Human Rights (ISHR)
This event is co-sponsored by Access Now, Asian Forum for Human Rights & Development (FORUM-ASIA), Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa HRD Project), Huridocs, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World), International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Peace Brigades International, Privacy International, Protection International, Regional Coalition of WHRDs in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRD MENA Coalition).
The Free Expression Legal Network, a new initiative dedicated to strengthening legal protections for free expression and media freedom, was launched at Webber Wentzel’s Sandton office on 18 February 2025, with more than 50 People in attendance. Developed by the SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef), the Press Council, the Campaign for Free Expression (CFE), and other organisations and legal experts, the network aims to ensure that individuals and organisations facing legal threats can access the support they need.
Among those that this new initiative aims to support are journalists, smaller media outlets, community-based organisations and businesses that lack access to corporate or external legal representation. It aims to ensure co-ordination with several other international efforts of this kind to provide a stronger framework for defending free expression,
The network will focus on several key areas to strengthen legal protections for free expression and media freedom. Media freedom is critical – ensuring that individuals and media organisations can report and impart information freely and hold power to account without fear of legal repercussions. Additionally, the network will support media viability by providing legal guidance to help media outlets navigate financial and operational challenges, ensuring their long-term sustainability. Another critical area is policy advocacy, where the network will assist with legal challenges related to media regulation and press freedom policies, helping to create a more supportive legal environment for journalism. Lastly, the initiative will prioritise small and community media, offering essential legal resources to newsrooms and organisations that often lack adequate legal support, ensuring they have the protection needed to operate effectively.
But this initiative comes at a time of new and sinister threats to freedom of expression more generally. Unchecked and unprecedented powers to platform and platform certain voices and sources of information present pronounces threats to freedom of expression globally. It is intended that this network, enabling resources and expertise, is able to respond innovatively, nimbly and effectively in meeting these dangers.
The keynote address was delivered by Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Judge of the International Criminal Court, and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Drawing from her extensive experience in international human rights law, she provided invaluable insight into the legal challenges surrounding free expression and the role of judicial systems in upholding these rights. Emphasising the power of collective action, she stated, “If you clap with a single hand, nobody yells for you. But if a lot of people form a network clap, they will be heard. So, I can only see success for an initiative like this, I encourage them to go for it here.
Anton Harber, Campaign for Free Expression Director, emphasised the importance of the new body in defending free speech, stating, “This new body will be a vital tool in preventing attacks on free speech and free media, bringing together a range of resources to respond quickly and strongly. It will help ensure that anyone whose free speech is threatened will be properly defended. It will also be proactive – pushing for change to laws that don’t defend free speech or the right to information. In the face of growing threats to free speech, we are building a strong defence“.
Echoing this urgency, Nicole Fritz, Executive Director of Campaign for Free Expression, highlighted the global nature of these challenges, adding, “I think that the threats to free expression are especially intense at this time, not only in our country but in the world generally. It is especially important that those who have their rights to expression violated and threatened are offered expert support and legal assistance in order to counter those threats”.
Dario Milo, a partner at Webber Wentzel and a leading expert in media law, emphasised the importance of this initiative, stating: “The Free Expression Legal Network is a significant step forward in ensuring that journalists, media organisations and other human rights defenders, particularly those with limited resources, have access to the legal guidance they need. At a time when media freedom is under increasing pressure, this initiative will play a crucial role in safeguarding free expression and upholding the public’s right to know.”
For more information on the Free Expression Legal Network and how to get involved, please contact Anton Harber, Director, CFE, anton@harber.co.za
In this interview, OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock shares his vision for 2025 and key priorities in the fight against torture. From the launch of the Global Torture Index to the SOS Defenders platform, he highlights the initiatives that will shape the movement and strengthen global human rights efforts, including the Global Week on Torture—an event not to be missed.
His message for 2025 is clear: “resilience and unity, not despair.”
What is your vision for 2025, and what priorities should we focus on to maximize our impact on human rights?
In my vision, 2025 is the year in which we rise to the challenge and stand up in the anti-torture movement and uphold the absolute prohibition of torture. Today, in an increasingly dangerous world where states are turning away from human rights, fostering division and weakening protections, and some questioning universal norms altogether, the message must be resilience and unity, not despair. It is essential to protect all victims of torture and to defend the universality of human rights, which is under threat.
I am convinced that our SOS Torture Network must serve as an anchor for human rights and universality. As a movement, we stand united—to protect those at risk, to support our fellow human rights defenders under threat, and to ensure that the absolute prohibition of torture remains intact.
What impact do you hope the launch of the Global Torture Index will have?
The Global Index on Torture is the new flagship program of OMCT, with its launch anticipated in June 2025. I think it is the tool we have been lacking for years, and a tool all actors working against torture can benefit from. It combines reliable data with often-overlooked narratives to make the hidden reality of torture visible. This index will allow us to measure its scope, its impact on society, and advocate for political and legal reforms. It will help identify risks and develop effective anti-torture strategies. This index is not only an OMCT tool but a collective resource to support the efforts of network members towards concrete reforms and the prevention of torture.
Why is the Global Week on Torture important and what can people expect?
Four years ago, we held the first ever Global Week Against Torture, and we saw the power and energy that such a week can create. Many of us, especially those of our members working in very complicated dire situation, often feel alone. It offers a unique opportunity to share experiences, best practices and to learn from each other and to stand in solidarity across countries and regions. The Global Week all makes us feel and understand that we are united in a struggle and reflect that the real force of the OMCT is in its SOS Torture Network.
How will the SOS Defenders platform and the SOS Database help serve human rights defenders?
One of the most important achievements in 2024 has been the launch of the SOS Defenders platform. The platform gives a face to more than 400 human rights defenders that are currently imprisoned because they stood up for human rights. We don’t forget them. We want to demonstrate to governments that the detention of these defenders is an attack on democracy and freedom, and we need to make states who support human rights understand that this is the moment to step up in their actions. OMCT, along with its SOS Torture Network must raise the alarm bells and act to protect from torture and ill-treatment in detention.
Israel has now banned another European Union parliamentarian from entering the country, reports Al Jazeera.
The government gave no reasons why Lynn Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament EU-Palestine delegation, was denied entry.
“This utter contempt from Israel is the result of the international community failing to hold them to account,” Boylan, an Irish MP in Brussels, said in a statement.
“Israel is a rogue state, and this disgraceful move shows the level of utter disregard that they have for international law.
“Europe must now hold Israel to account.”
Boylan said she had planned to meet with Palestinian Authority officials, representatives of civil society organisations, and people living under Israeli occupation.
She is a member of the Sinn Fein party in Ireland, which has been among the most vocal countries in criticising the Israeli government over its treatment of Palestinians.
France’s Hassan also refused
Earlier, EU lawmaker Rima Hassan was also refused entry at Ben-Gurion airport and ordered to return to Europe.
“Hassan, who is expected to land from Brussels in the coming hour, consistently works to promote boycotts against Israel in addition to numerous public statements both on social media and in media interviews,” said Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel’s office.
Hassan is a French national of Palestinian origin known for her support of the Palestinian cause and for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, outlined a range of worries about the situation in war-battered Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
“We have constantly called on all parties, including Israel, to respect international humanitarian law,” she said, adding that Europe “cannot hide our concern when it comes to the West Bank”.
ICC raps Merz over warrants
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has declared that states cannot unilaterally “determine soundness” of its rulings
Earlier, it was reported that Germany’s election winner Friedrich Merz was saying he planned to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the country — despite an ICC war crimes warrant issued for his arrest, which Merz claimed did not apply.
The ICC responded by saying states had a legal obligation to enforce its decisions, and any concerns they may have should be addressed with the court in a timely and efficient manner.
“It is not for states to unilaterally determine the soundness of the court’s legal decisions,” said the ICC in a statement.
Israel rejects the jurisdiction of the court and denies war crimes were committed during its devastating war on Gaza.
Germans feel a special responsibility towards Israel because of the legacy of the Holocaust, and Merz has made clear he is a strong ally. But Germany also has a strong tradition of support for international justice for war crimes.
Amnesty slams ‘shameful silence’ Amnesty International and 162 other civil society organisations and trade unions have signed a joint letter calling on the EU to ban trade and business with Israel’s settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.
“Despite EU consensus about the settlements’ illegality and their link to serious abuses, the EU continues to trade and allow business with them,” the letter said.
This contributes to “the serious and systemic human rights and other international law abuses underpinning the settlement enterprise”, it added.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming that states must not recognise, aid or assist the unlawful situation arising from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
The EU’s shameful silence on threats to the ICC gives the firm impression that the EU has prioritized relations with a government implicated in the commission of genocide and war crimes, over support to an institution which is pursuing individual accountability for these crimes.
Healthcare workers are protected under international law yet hundreds were detained during the war. Now, some of Gaza’s most senior doctors have spoken of the violence and abuse they say they faced
Dr Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of performing emergency surgery on a patient with a severe abdominal injury at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza when thesoldiers came for him.
“I asked them what they were doing coming into the operating theatre,” he says.“One of the soldiers pointed at me and said: ‘Are you Dr Issam Abu Ajwa?’ I said: ‘Yes, that’s me.’ And then the beating began.”
At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia
In the summer of 2007, I joined a group of 30 Russian and English students to work on a month-long summer camp at a state orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the Pskov region, south of St Petersburg. We lived in a house nearby, or in tents pitched in the garden. Every day, we walked up to the orphanage to put on developmental activities, sporting events, solve puzzles, play games, stage shows and go on camping trips.
I volunteered at the orphanage, in the village of Belskoye Ustye, for almost a decade, but it was the first visit that made the biggest impression. I had seen nothing like it. My closest reference point was probably workhouses or orphanages from a Charles Dickens novel. I vividly remember the smells – cooked food, unwashed bodies, chlorine and urine – and how the children crowded you, grabbing hands and clothes, pinching, pulling hair, jostling and asking questions. Dressed in an odd collection of what seemed to be adult castoffs, the kids spent most of their waking hours in rooms furnished with just a few scuffed tables and chairs, a bookcase and television. At night, and for long periods during the day, cast-iron metal grilles across corridors were locked, confining the older teenagers to their dormitories at one end. Children vulnerable to self-harm were tied up.
But in a shock move today, FAST members voted alongside Fiame’s faction to register a resounding defeat against Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi’s motion.
The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Papalii Lio Masipua, had granted the opposition’s formal request for a vote of no confidence against Fiame on Friday.
Tuilaepa, who is also the head of the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), confirmed that the Speaker approved the motion in writing and allowed five members from the opposition bench to speak on it.
According to Samoa’s constitutional requirements, the MP who commands the majority of MPs should be elected as Prime Minister or continue as Prime Minister.
‘Another desperate attempt’
However, the Samoan government stated Tuilaepa’s move was “another desperate attempt to stir political drama” ahead of the no-confidence vote.
Political upheaval hit Samoa just three days into 2025 when the chair of the ruling FAST party and Samoa’s Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries La’auli Leuatea Schmidt confirmed he was facing criminal charges.
FAST Party chair Laauli Leuatea Schmidt (left to right), Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, and Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi. Image: RNZ Pacific/123RF/Samoa Government/FAST Party
On January 10, Mata’afa removed La’auli’s ministerial portfolio and subsequently removed three of her Cabinet ministers.
But La’auli remained chair of the FAST Party, and went on to announce the removal of the prime minister and five Cabinet ministers from the ruling party.
This decision was reportedly challenged by the removed members.
Fiame then removed 13 of her associate ministers.
Laauli acknowledged the challenge of holding a vote of no confidence, but refrained from disclosing the party’s position, stating they would wait until Tuesday.
First female prime minister
Fiame is Samoa’s first female prime minister. She had heritage — her father, Fiame Mata’afa Faumuina Mulinu’u, was the country’s first prime minister.
The caretaker HRPP government locked the doors to Parliament in an attempt to stop the then prime minister-elect from being sworn into office following her FAST Party’s one-seat election win.
Two governments claimed a mandate to rule, and the United Nations urged the party leaders to find a solution through discussion.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the country had a new government after it judged the impromptu swearing-in by the newcomer FAST party on May 24 was legitimate under the doctrine of necessity.
It took until July for the incumbent, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, to concede.
Fiame went to school and university in Wellington, New Zealand, but her studies were interrupted in 1977 when she returned to Samoa to help with court cases around the succession of her father’s titles following his death in 1975.
In 1985, she was elected as MP for Lotofaga, the same seat held by her father and then her mother after his death.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Maata Wharehoka has been described as the Parihaka Matriarch, Parihaka leader and arts advocate, “champion of Kahu Whakatere Tupapaku, the tikanga Māori practices, expert in marae arts, raranga (weaving) and karanga”, renowned weaver who revived traditional Māori methods of death and burial, “driving force behind Parihaka’s focus to be a self-sufficient community”, Kaitiaki (or guardian) of Te Niho marae for nearly 30 years.
And I want to add Peace Advocate and Activist. She died aged 74.
At Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre of Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPCS) at Otago University, Ōtepoti Dunedin, we were fortunate that Maata brought her knowledge and her exceptional presence to help us learn some of the lessons from Parihaka about peaceful resistance, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, consultation, hospitality, humility and mana.
One of her first talks was entitled “Why do I wear feathers in my hair and scribbles on my face?” and she explained to us the significance of the raukura or albatross feathers that signify peace to the people of Parihaka.
She used the moko (tattoos) on her mouth, chin and from her ears to her cheeks to teach us the importance of listening first, before you speak.
Maata taught us the use of the beat of the poi to signify the sound of the horses hooves when the pacifist settlement at Parihaka was invaded by the British militia in 1881.
The poi and waiata have served as a “hidden-in-plain-sight” performative image by the people of Parihaka that represents consistent resistance to the oppression.
Maata had been shocked when she first came to the peace centre that we were only able to sing (badly) what she called a “nursery school” waiata. So she gifted a unique waiata to NCPACS to help with our transition to being a more bicultural centre, now named Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa.
Maukaroko ki te whenua, Whakaaro pai ki te tangata katoa Arohanui ki te aoraki Koa, koa, koa ki te aoraki, Pono, whakapono Ki te ao nei Ko rongo, no rongo, na rongo Me rongo, me rongo, me rongo
Translation: Peace to the land Be thoughtful to all Great love to the universe Joy, joy, joy to the universe Truth, truth to the world It is Rongo, from Rongo, by Rongo Peace, peace, peace.
Maata also hosted a number of students from TAOR/NCPACS at Parihaka for both PhD fieldwork and practicum experience, building a link between them and Parihaka that extends to the next generation.
She named her expertise “deathing and birthing” as she taught Māori traditions of preparation for dying and for welcoming the new born. One of the students learnt from Maata about the process where the person who is dying is closely involved in the preparations, including the weaving of the waka kahutere (coffin) from harakeke (flax) for a natural burial.
Maata herself was very much part of the preparations for her own death and would have advised and assisted those who wove her waka kahutere with much love and expertise.
For me, Maata became one of my very best friends. Her generosity, sense of humour, high energy and kindness quite overwhelmed me. We also became close through working and writing together, with Kelli Te Maihāroa (from Waitaha — the South Island iwi with a long peace history) and Maui Solomon (who upholds the Moriori peace tradition).
We collaborated on a series of articles and chapters, and our joint work was presented both locally and at international conferences.
On my many visits to Parihaka I was also warmly welcomed by the Wharehoka family and was able to meet Maata’s mokopuna, all growing up with Māori as their first language and steeped in Māori knowledge and tikanga.
Maata is an irreplaceable person, a true wahine toa, exuberant, outgoing, funny, clever, fiece, talented, indomitable. Maata, we will miss you terribly, but will continue to be guided by your wisdom and ongoing presence in our hearts and our lives.
In the words of Kelli Te Maihāroa “She was an amazing wahine toa, who loved sharing her gifts with the world. Moe Mai Rā e te māreikura o Te Niho Parihaka.’
Dr Heather Devere is chair of Asia Pacific Media Network and former director of research of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa.
Publications:
Kelli Te Maihāroa, Heather Devere, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2022). Exploring Indigenous Peace Traditions Collaboratively. In Te Maihāroa, Ligaliga and Devere (Eds). Decolonising Peace and Conflict Studies through Indigenous Research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Heather Devere, Kelli Te Maihāroa, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2020). Concepts of Friendship and Decolonising Cross-Cultural Peace Research in Aotearoa New Zealand. AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies, 6(1), 53-87 doi:10.5518/AMITY/31.
Heather Devere, Kelli Te Maihāroa, Maui Solomon and Maata Wharehoka (2019). Tides of Endurance: Indigenous Peace Traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand. Ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First National and First Peoples, 3(1), 24-47.
DRC prime minister tells human rights council fighting has left about 450,000 without shetler after camps destroyed
About 7,000 people have died in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels started renewed advances in January, the prime minister has said.
At a high-level meeting of the UN’s human rights council in Geneva on Monday, Judith Suminwa Tuluka also said the war had left about 450,000 people without shelter after the destruction of 90 displacement camps.
French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls’ first two days in New Caledonia have been marred by several clashes with local pro-France, anti-independence movements, who feared he would side with their pro-independence opponents.
However, he remained confident that all stakeholders would eventually come and sit together at the table for negotiations.
Valls arrived in the French Pacific territory on Saturday with a necessary resumption of crucial political talks regarding New Caledonia’s political future high on his agenda, nine months after the deadly May 2024 civil unrest.
His visit comes as tensions have risen in the past few days against a backdrop of verbal escalations and rhetoric, the pro-France camp opposing independence stressing that three referendums had resulted in three rejections of independence in 2018, 2020, and 2021.
But the third referendum in December 2021 was boycotted by a large part of the pro-independence, mainly Kanak community, and they have since disputed the validity of its result (even though it was deemed valid in court rulings).
On Saturday, the first day of his visit to the Greater Nouméa city of Mont-Dore, during a ceremony paying homage to a French gendarme who was killed at the height of the riots last year, Valls and one of the main pro-France leaders, French MP Nicolas Metzdorf, had a heated and public argument.
‘First Nation’ controversy Metzdorf, who was flanked by Sonia Backès, another major pro-France local leader, said Valls had “insulted” the pro-France camp because he had mentioned the indigenous Kanak people as being the “first people” in New Caledonia — equivalent to the notion of “First Nation” people.
Hours before, Valls had just met New Caledonia’s Custom Senate (a traditional gathering of Kanak chiefs) and told them that “nothing can happen in New Caledonia without a profound respect towards [for] the Melanesian people, the Kanak people, and the first people”.
French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls (second from left) meets pro-France supporters as he arrives in New Caledonia on Saturday as French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc looks on. Image: NC la 1ère
Metzdorf told Valls in an exchange that was filmed on the road and later aired on public broadcaster NC la 1ère: “When you say there are first people, you don’t respect us! Your statements are insulting.”
“If there are first peoples, it means there are second peoples and that some are more important than others.”
To which Valls replied: “When you are toying with these kinds of concepts, you are making a mistake.”
Manuel Valls en Nouvelle-Calédonie : échange tendu entre le ministre des Outre-mer et des personnalités non-indépendantistes
Nicolas Metzdorf et Sonia Backès lui reprochent certaines prises de position depuis la reprise des discussions
Every word counts The 1998 Nouméa Accord’s preamble is largely devoted to the recognition of New Caledonia’s indigenous community (autochtone/indigenous).
On several occasions, Valls faced large groups of pro-France supporters with French tricolour flags and banners (some in the Spanish language, a reference to Valls’s Spanish double heritage), asking him to “respect their democratic (referendum) choice”.
Some were also chanting slogans in Spanish (“No pasaran”), or with a Spanish accent.
“I’m asking for just one thing: for respect towards citizens and those representing the government,” an irate Valls told the crowd.
Questions have since been raised from local organisations and members of the general public as to why and how an estimated 500 pro-France supporters had been allowed to gather while the French High Commissioner still maintains a ban on all public gatherings and demonstrations in Nouméa and its greater area.
“We voted three times no. No means no,” some supporters told the visiting minister, asking him not to “let them down”.
“You shouldn’t believe what you’ve been told. Why wouldn’t you remain French?”, Valls told protesters.
“I think the minister must state very clearly that he respects those three referendums and then we’ll find a solution on that basis,” said Backès.
However, both Metzdorf and Backès reaffirmed that they would take part in “negotiations” scheduled to take place this week.
“We are ready to make compromises”, said Backès.
Valls carried on schedule
Minister Valls travelled to Northern parts and outer islands of New Caledonia to pay homage to the victims during previous insurrections in New Caledonia, including French gendarmes and Kanak militants who died on Ouvéa Island (Loyalty group) in the cave massacre in 1988.
During those trips, he also repeatedly advocated for rebuilding New Caledonia and for every stakeholder to “reconcile memories” and sit at the negotiation table “without hatred”.
Valls believes ‘everyone will be at the table’ In an interview with local public broadcaster NC la 1ère yesterday, the French minister said he was confident “everyone will be at the table”.
The first plenary meeting is to be held this afternoon.
It will be devoted to agreeing on a “method”.
“I believe everyone will be there,” he said.
“All groups, political, economic, social, all New Caledonians, I’m convinced, are a majority who wish to keep a strong link within France,” he said.
He also reiterated that following New Caledonia’s Matignon (1988) and Nouméa (1998) peace accords, the French Pacific territory’s envisaged future was to follow a path to “full sovereignty”.
“The Nouméa Accord is the foundation. Undeniably, there have been three referendums. And then there was May 13.
“There is a before and and after [the riots]. My responsibility is to find a way. We have the opportunity of these negotiations, let’s be careful of the words we use,” he said, asking every stakeholder for “restraint”.
“I’ve also seen some pro-independence leaders say that [their] people’s sacrifice and death were necessary to access independence. And this, also, is not on.”
Valls also said the highly sensitive issue of “unfreezing” New Caledonia’s special voters’ roll for local elections (a reform attempt that triggered the May 2024 riots) was “possible”, but it will be part of a wider, comprehensive agreement on the French Pacific entity’s political future.
A mix of ‘fear and hatred’ Apart from the planned political negotiations, Valls also intends to devote significant time to New Caledonia’s dire economic situation, in post-riot circumstances that have not only caused 14 dead, but also several hundred job losses and total damage estimated at some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion).
A first, much-expected economic announcement also came yesterday: Valls said the State-funded unemployment benefits (which were supposed to cease in the coming days) woud now be extended until June 30.
For the hundreds of businesses which were destroyed last year, he said a return to confidence was essential and a prerequisite to any political deal . . . And vice-versa.
“If there’s no political agreement, there won’t be any economic investment.
“This may cause the return of fresh unrest, a form of civil war. I have heard those words coming back, just like I’ve heard the words racism, hatred . . . I can feel hope and at the same time a fear of violence.
“I feel all the ferments of a confrontation,” he said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The fragile Gaza cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was thrown into uncertainty Sunday after the Israeli government announced it would not immediately move forward with what would have been the largest single-day release of Palestinian prisoners since the truce was agreed to in January. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces “are prepared to resume intense…
Marape also called for the nation to rise in consciousness to preserve the values and achievements of their fathers and mothers who fought for independence 50 years ago.
“We want to give a special recognition to the fathers and mothers of our country, a generation and people of our country to be proud to be here today,” he said.
He expressed his pain at seeing the continued cycle of abuse and disrespect towards women and children in the country.
Marape’s message was clear: violence and abuse towards women and children would not be tolerated, and the nation must come together to ensure the safety and well-being of all its citizens.
‘Don’t do it to our sisters’
“These are not two things that we want to take on. For every young boy out there, if you have an issue in society, I don’t mind you taking it upon me. But please don’t do it to the girls in the neighbourhood,” he said.
“Don’t do it to our sisters in the neighbourhood. Don’t do it to our mothers and aunties in the neighbourhood.
“In a time when our nation is facing a 50th anniversary, I call for our nation to rise in a consciousness to preserve what our fathers and mothers did 50 years ago.
“Lawlessness, disrespect for each other, especially women and children amongst us. This is something that I speak at great lengths and speak from the depth of my heart.
“It pains me to see girls, women, and children continue to face a vicious cycle of abuse and total abhorrence, abuse of children, rape,” he said.
“I just thought these are important activities coming up. I want to conclude by asking our country through the media.
“We are in another state of our 50th anniversary year.
‘Let us take responsibility’
“We have many challenges in our country. But all of us, we take responsibility of our country. As government, we are trying our absolute best.
“Citizens, public servants, private sector, all of us have responsibility to our country. Unless you have another country to go and live in, if property is your country in the first instance, I call out to all citizens, take responsibility in your corner of property.
“Privacy alone cannot be able to do everything that you expect it to do.
“I’m not omnipotent. I’m not omniscient. I’m not omnipresent.
“I’m but only one person coordinating at the top level. Call for every citizen of our country.
“As we face our 49th year and as we welcome our 50th of September 16,) we call this on every one of us.”
Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.
Even though a ceasefire started just over a month ago, Israel is still working to make Gaza unlivable. On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office stated that only 30% of the supplies that were supposed to enter the strip in accordance with the ceasefire agreement have been let in. According to the agreement, Israel is supposed to let in 600 trucks of aid per day, including 50 trucks of fuel…
Hamas stages elaborate ceremonies for the release of Israeli captives in Gaza in a bid to signal they are responsible stakeholders by “showing the whole world that they were trying to keep them alive — keep them safe”, an analyst says.
Before the release of captives in yesterday’s seventh round of exchanges, Professor Sami Al-Arian of Istanbul Zaim University said the handover spectacles also doubled as a way for the group to preempt Israeli efforts to frame the narrative.
“They’re showing the whole world the conditions and also that this is going to be done in a very responsible way,” Professor Al-Arian told Al Jazeera.
Five Israeli captives held by Hamas were handed over to the Red Cross (ICRC) at two different locations — Rafah in southern Gaza and Al Nuseirat refugee camp in central City — and returned to Israel in exchange for the release of an expected 602 Palestinian prisoners, including one who had been imprisoned for 40 years and many others who had never been charged.
A sixth Israeli captive was due to be released in Gaza City later without ceremony.
The last handover in this first phase of the three-phase ceasefire will end next Saturday with the return of the remains of four dead captives.
Discussing US President Donald Trump’s plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza — which he has now reframed as a “recommendation”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political manoeuvring, and a recent Arab leaders’ plan for the reconstruction of the besieged enclave, Professor Al-Arian said any Arab initiative would work to Trump’s advantage.
“I think that’s probably [Trump’s] intention, to get the Arabs to move,” he said.
“Because his real intention is to make sure that Hamas will not be in power in Gaza after this is over, he doesn’t want an resumption of the war, this is going to actually divert him from his agenda, domestically and internationally.”
Palestinian sources have confirmed to Al Jazeera that the sixth captive, Hisham al-Sayed, will be handed over to Israeli authorities without ceremony.
Shiri Bibas’s body identified
Meanwhile, in a statement posted on the Bring Bibas Back Instagram account, the Bibas family has now said experts at Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine have positively identified Shiri Bibas’s body.
Hamas delivered another coffin to the Red Cross on Friday reportedly containing the remains of Israeli captive Shiri Bibas, after Israel had accused the group of returning an unidentified person in her place in a mix-up during Thursday’s handover.
The bodies of her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had been identified along with a fourth captive, 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, by forensic experts on Thursday.
Relatives of the Bibas family have rejected attempts to politicise the deaths.
The family’s statement blamed the deaths on the Israeli government, saying it had failed to act in time and was ultimately accountable.
Hamas has claimed the family was killed along with Palestinians in an Israeli bombing attack while being held captive in Gaza.
“There was apparently a mixup, and according to Palestinian groups, that probably happened after the Israeli bombardment of the site in which the captives were held,” reports Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan.
Hamas were investigating and promised a report on the circumstances of the mistake.
Red Cross officials awaiting the handover of two Israeli captives at the first ceremony in Rafah. Image: AJ screenshot APR
From George Orwell to Hannah Arendt and John le Carré, thousands of blacklisted books flooded into Poland during the cold war, as publishers and printers risked their lives for literature
The volume’s glossy dust jacket shows a 1970s computer room, where high priests of the information age, dressed in kipper ties and flares, tap instructions into the terminals of some ancient mainframe. The only words on the front read “Master Operating Station”, “Subsidiary Operating Station” and “Free Standing Display”. Is any publication less appetising than an out-of-date technical manual?
Turn inside, however, and the book reveals a secret. It isn’t a computer manual at all, but a Polish language edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s famous anti-totalitarian novel, which was banned for decades by communist censors in the eastern bloc.
The BBC has removed its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone from iPlayer after it was revealed that its teenage narrator is the son of a Hamas official.
The broadcaster stated that it was conducting “further due diligence” following mounting scrutiny.
The film, which aired on BBC Two last Monday, follows 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri as he describes life in Gaza.
However, it later emerged that his father, Ayman Al-Yazouri, serves as the Hamas Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Gaza.
In a statement yesterday, the BBC defended the documentary’s value but acknowledged concerns.
“There have been continuing questions raised about the programme, and in light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company,” the statement said.
The revelation sparked a backlash from figures including Friday Night Dinner actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, literary agent Neil Blair, and former BBC One boss Danny Cohen, who called it “a shocking failure by the BBC and a major crisis for its reputation”.
On Thursday, the BBC admitted that it had not disclosed the family connection but insisted it followed compliance procedures. It has since added a disclaimer acknowledging Abdullah’s ties to Hamas.
UK’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said that she would discuss the issue with the BBC, particularly regarding its vetting process.
However, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians urged the broadcaster to “stand firm against attempts to prevent firsthand accounts of life in Gaza from reaching audiences”.
Others also defended the importance of the documentary made last year before the sheer scale of devastation by the Israeli military forces was exposed — and many months before the ceasefire came into force on January 19.
‘This documentary humanised Palestinian children’ Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), criticised the BBC’s decision.
“It’s very regrettable that this documentary has been pulled following pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who have largely shown no sympathy for persons in Gaza suffering from massive bombardment, starvation, and disease,” Middle East Eye quoted him as saying.
Doyle also praised the film’s impact, saying, “This documentary humanised Palestinian children in Gaza and gave valuable insights into life in this horrific war zone.”
Journalist Richard Sanders, who has produced multiple documentaries on Gaza, called the controversy a “huge test” for the BBC and condemned its response as a “cowardly decision”.
Earlier this week, 45 Jewish journalists and media figures, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, urged the broadcaster to pull the film, calling Ayman Al-Yazouri a “terrorist leader”.
The controversy underscores wider tensions over media coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, with critics accusing the BBC of a vetting failure, while others argue the documentary sheds crucial light on Palestinian children’s suffering.
Another teenager who appears in the Gaza documentary . . . she has o global online following for her social media videos on cooking and life amid the genocide. Image: BBC screenshot APR
Surgeons who worked in Gaza fear disease, malnutrition and eradication of healthcare will reverberate for decades
British doctors who worked in Gaza during the war have issued dire predictions over the long-term health of Palestinian civillians, warning that large numbers will continue to die.
The prevalence of infectious disease and multiple health problems linked to malnutrition, alongside the destruction of hospitals and killing of medical experts, meant mortality rates among Palestinians in Gaza would remain high after the cessation of Israeli shelling.
One of the leading Middle East’s leading political and media analysts, Marwan Bishara, has accused President Donald Trump of applying a doctrine of ‘strategic coercion” and “economic blackmail” in his approach to the Gaza ceasefire.
Bishara, senior political analyst of the Doha-based Al Jazeera global television network, was responding to the news that Trump has apparently backed off his plan for expelling more than 2 million Palestinians from their Gaza homeland and to redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
He has now been describing it as a “recommendation” that would not be enforced.
“The idea that Trump starts with [about taking over Gaza] is mad. But there is a method to the madness,” Bishara said.
“The method to the madness, you can see it in the context of Trump’s doctrine, if you will – and that is strategic coercion and economic blackmail.
“In fact, he started his administration by inviting [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu to Washington, blessing him with all kinds of support . . . and blackmailing Egypt and Jordan into accepting two million refugees, or else — and then asking them to come up with something else.”
Bishara said he expected the Trump doctrine to be applied elsewhere in the world, such as with his efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
‘This kind of strategic coercion of Arab countries on behalf of the United States and Israel, and economic blackmail — I think we’re going to see it as part of the Trump doctrine throughout the world.
President Trump’s walkback on his “Riviera” plan for Gaza. Video: Al Jazeera
‘Surprised’ over opposition
The US president had said in a radio interview with Fox News that he was “a little bit surprised” that Jordan and Egypt had voiced opposition to his plan to “take over” Gaza and displace Palestinians.
“I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan — I think that’s the plan that really works,” Trump said.
“But I’m not forcing it, I’m just going to sit back and recommend it.
“And then the US would own the site, there’d be no Hamas, and there’d be development and you’d start all over again with a clean plate.”
A former Egyptian deputy foreign affairs minister to the European Union, Gamal Bayoumi, said the “informal” meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, of the leaders of several Arab countries to discuss an Egyptian counterproposal had led to the softening of Trump’s stance.
Speaking from Cairo, Bayoumi said Trump had appeared “inexperienced concerning international law” and the Middle East, saying the US president’s plan “has no logic . . . to ask the Palestinians to leave their own country.”
This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump has declared that the US is going to “take over” the Gaza Strip, that the Palestinians who live there will be “permanently” exiled. Asked whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his scheme, Trump said “no.” But even those corporate media who aren’t actually endorsing this illegal, inhumane plan still can’t seem to find it in themselves to call it what it is: ethnic cleansing.
Media critic, activist and teacher Gregory Shupak has been looking into big media’s systematic refusal to use appropriate language about the human rights crimes unfolding before our eyes in Palestine. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, and he’s author of the book The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books.
Also on the show: There is a deep, if muddled, sense that the US tax system is unfair. The little guy pays too much and rich folks and corporations find loopholes and offshore accounts. And then, on a different page, there’s a story about how “we” as a country just don’t have “enough resources” to allow school kids to eat lunch, because that would mean the dreaded higher taxes! But we will shell out another billion for a fighter plane, and shut up about that.
Media outlets that fail to make meaningful connections—between those clever offshore accounts and the supposed inability to fund school lunch; between cutting funding for the IRS and doubling down on people who use the Earned Income Tax Credit—are certainly not the ones to look to for an understanding of the racial impacts of supposedly neutral tax policy and practices, however demonstrable those impacts may be. We’ll talk about that with Portia Allen-Kyle, interim executive director at Color of Change and author of the report Preying Preparers.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
International governments are set to resume the COP16 biodiversitysummit, where they will agree on key aspects of a flagship global action plan to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
However, Indigenous rights campaign group Survival International has called out the “deeply flawed” basis of the fund underpinning its work. Crucially, this is because the framework could result in the serious violation of Indigenous peoples’ human rights.
COP16 biodiversity summit: systemic failures all round
Between 25 to 27 February, international parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will reconvene for the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Rome.
It follows a first round of November 2024 negotiations in Cali, Colombia. Top of the agenda will be to agree on the implementation and monitoring of the flagship Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).
Countries adopted this at the 2022 COP15 in Canada. In a nutshell, its a global set of goals to curb biodiversity loss. It committed parties to setting national targets to reverse ecological decline. And crucially, as the CBD itself describes:
sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Among the Framework’s key elements are 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030.
So, representatives at COP16 will now negotiate a key aspect of this – the delivery of the fund which finances action on these targets.
Global South countries had argued for a new dedicated fund, separate from existing development aid apparatus. However, Global North countries rejected this in favour of a fund under the existing Global Environment Facility (GEF). The World Bank, UN agencies, and various governments oversee this. The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) is the GEF-led financing mechanism that parties established instead.
By February 2025, governments around the world had committed around $383m to the fund. Canada ($146m), Germany ($98m), the UK ($69m), Denmark ($14.5m), Norway ($14m) and New Zealand ($12m) have contributed the vast majority of this. However, the figure pales in comparison to scale of finance that’s needed.
And already, the GBFF is failing in one vital aspect in particular: respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Red flags on Indigenous rights
Ahead of the Cali talks, campaign group Survival International had raised a significant number of red flags with the fund.
It rebranded the financing mechanism the ‘Grievous Biodiversity Failure Fund’ for its severe lack of protections for Indigenous people.
The choice of the Global Environment Facility to run the GBFF was already deeply unacceptable in terms of Indigenous rights. Crucially, the organisation does not universally require that Indigenous people have the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) over any projects it funds which may affect their lives, lands and rights. Such requirement for consent is only covered by the GEF’s ‘Principles and Guidelines for Engagement with
Indigenous Peoples’ where the recipient country has ratified ILO Convention 1698. This is only the case for 24 countries worldwide (six of which are in Europe). Even then, the GEF stipulates that for its purposes, FPIC can be demonstrated through “(i) the mutually accepted consultation process between the project proponent and affected indigenous communities and (ii) evidence of agreement between the parties as the outcome of the
consultations” (emphasis added).
In other words, in most countries where GEF might fund projects through the GBFF, FPIC would not be required. Even in the few where it applies, the critical concept of consent (i.e, Indigenous people having the right to decline a project that affects them), is downgraded merely to project proponents having to demonstrate that consultation has been carried out.
In short, the fund will not require projects to show that they have consulted with Indigenous groups. It means the fund will invariably finance projects that violate Indigenous communities’ human and territorial rights.
Notably, there are a number of issues which will only make these abuses hugely likely. Crucially, the GBFF facilitates the following:
Biodiversity Credits – a scheme based on the discredited carbon credit model. These pose a serious new threat to Indigenous peoples and their rights.
The 30×30 pledge to put 30% of the world’s land and seas under some protection for biodiversity. This will almost certainly result in evictions of Indigenous peoples from their lands, as has been the case to date through Western-backed colonial fortress conservation projects all over the planet.
The structure and operation of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund is fundamentally flawed. It promotes a top-down approach to conservation projects. What’s needed is a rights-based plan for biodiversity protection.
The UN and WWF: colonial conservation
Now, the group has expanded its research, and found the picture for Indigenous people under the GBFF is even worse than it originally warned.
For a start, the GBFF is already falling woefully short of a key promise on Indigenous inclusion.
The fund states that it is “expected to support the human rights-based” implementation of the KMGBF. And in 2023, the GEF also set an “aspirational target” that it would direct 20% of GBFF disbursements to Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLCs). Of course, this was already a pitiful target to begin with given Indigenous communities safeguard much of the world’s biodiversity.
That is, while they make up less than 5% of the global human population, Indigenous Peoples’ territories hold as much as 80% of the world’s forest biodiversity.
To date, the GBFF is disgracefully failing to live up to this pledge. As Survival’s updated briefing underscores:
Only one of the forty projects so far approved – the very first proposed, by the government of Brazil – will likely be of benefit to Indigenous people and is clearly directed to them. Following a project application template, all the projects make a ‘tick-box’ claim to have an allocation to IPLCs. If true, these would total more than thirty percent of the $201 million for approved projects and concepts (and project preparation grants) to date. But our analysis reveals that only one of the other thirty-nine programmes contains any budgetary provision for work with Indigenous people.
Instead, it depicts a funding landscape where “top-down, colonial conservation”, such as National Parks and reserves, dominate. UN agencies and largely US-based conservation organisations have co-opted the vast majority of the project portfolio so far. This is despite a shameful history of this ‘protected area’ model fomenting violent evictions, and horrific human rights abuses.
For instance, the Canarypreviously found 16 UNESCO World Heritage Site protected areas (PAs) spanning 11 countries with reports of land dispossessions and abuses. Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are vast numbers more PAs where states and organisations have done the same.
One international conservation organisation notorious for said violations is the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Predictably then, one of its projects that the GBFF is financing has a history of doing just that. Specifically, it will fund WWF militarised PAs in Africa with a legacy of dispossession and brutality from so-called eco-guards.
COP16: business-as-usual on biodiversity isn’t going to cut it
So, it’s also with no small amount of irony that it happens to be one the conservation charities massively benefitting from the GBFF. As Survival noted:
In terms of funding, the one project involving Indigenous lands in Brazil represents about 4% ($8 million) of the total so far approved or provisionally committed by the GBFF. This is less than the ‘proposer agency’ fees being paid to mostly UN agencies and international conservation organisations such as WWF simply for submitting proposals. Together, these fees alone come to more than 8% ($17 million) of the total funds currently committed
Overall, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), WWF, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and US-based Conservation International have captured the bulk of the funds. Together, these agencies have taken $138m – more than two-thirds – of the total funding countries have committed so far.
Ultimately, carrying on the same model of colonial conservation that criminalises Indigenous communities in their own lands, while opening ecological areas up to extractive capitalism is doomed to fail.
A 2024 study found that biodiversity rates were declining at a rapid rate inside PAs.
Therefore, continuing this business-as-usual violent fortress model through the GBFF will only spell disaster for the world’s biodiversity. As ever though, its Indigenous people who’ll bear the brunt of the the Global North’s flawed solution to the planetary crisis.
As French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls lands in New Caledonia tomorrow to pursue talks on its political future, the situation on the ground has again gained tension over the past few days.
The local political spectrum is deeply divided between the two main opposing camps, the pro-independence and those wanting New Caledonia to remain part of France.
The rift has already culminated in May 2024 with rioting resulting in 14 deaths, several hundreds injured, thousands of job losses due to the destruction, burning and looting of businesses, and a material cost of over 2 billion euros (NZ$3.7 billion).
Valls hosted talks in Paris with every party represented in New Caledonia’s Congress on February 4-9.
Those talks, held in “bilateral” mode, led to his decision to travel to Nouméa and attempt to bring everyone to the same negotiating table.
It is all about finding an agreement that would allow an exit from the Nouméa Accord and to draw a fresh roadmap for New Caledonia’s political future.
However, in the face of radically different and opposing views, the challenge is huge.
The two main blocs, even though they acknowledged the Paris talks may have been helpful, still hold very clear-cut and antagonistic positions.
Each camp seems to have their own interpretation of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, which has until now defined a roadmap for further autonomy and a gradual transfer of powers.
The main bloc within the pro-independence side, Union Calédonienne (UC), which since last year de facto controls the wider FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front), has been repeatedly placing as its target a new “Kanaky Agreement” to be signed by 24 September 2025 and, from that date, a five-year “transition period” to attain full independence from France.
Within the pro-independence camp, more moderate parties, such as PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), have distanced themselves from a UC-dominated FLNKS, and are favourable to some kind of “independence in association with France”.
On the pro-France side, the two main components, the Les Loyalistes and the Rassemblement-LR, have shown a united front. One of their main arguments is based on the fact that in 2018, 2020 and 2021, three successive referenda on self-determination have resulted in three votes, each of those producing a majority rejecting independence.
However, the third and latest poll in December 2021 was boycotted by most of the pro-independence voters.
The pro-independence parties have since challenged the 2021 poll result, even though it has been ruled by the courts as valid.
Pro-France parties are also advocating for a change in the political system to give each of New Caledonia’s three provinces more powers, a move they described as an “internal federalism” but that critics have decried, saying this amounted to a kind of apartheid.
Talks required since 2022 The bipartisan talks became necessary after the three referendums were held.
The Nouméa Accord stipulated that in the event that three consecutive referendums rejected independence, then all political stakeholders should “meet and examine the situation”.
There have been earlier attempts to bring about those talks, but some components of the pro-independence movement, notably the UC, have consistently declined.
Under a previous government, French Minister for Home Affairs and Overseas territories Gérald Darmanin, after half a dozen inconclusive trips to New Caledonia, tried to push some of the most urgent parts of the political agreement through a constitutional reform process, especially on a change to New Caledonia’s list of eligible registered voters at local elections.
This was supposed to allow citizens who have resided in New Caledonia for at least ten uninterrupted years to finally cast their votes. Until now, the electoral roll has been “frozen” since 2009 — only those residing before 1998 had the right to vote.
Pro-independence parties protested, saying this was a way of “diluting” the indigenous Kanak votes.
The protest — in the name of “Kanak existential identity” — gained momentum and on 13 May 2024 erupted into riots.
Now the sensitive electoral roll issue is back on the agenda, only it will no longer be tackled separately, but will be part of a wider and comprehensive scope of talks regarding New Caledonia’s political future.
Heavy schedule for Valls On Thursday, Valls unveiled his programme for what is scheduled to be a six-day stay in New Caledonia from 22-26 February 2025.
During this time, he will spend a significant amount of time in the capital Nouméa, holding talks with political parties, economic stakeholders and representatives of the civil society and law and order agencies.
He will also travel to rural parts of New Caledonia.
In the capital, two solid days have been earmarked for “negotiations” at the Congress, with the aim of finding the best way to achieve a political agreement, if all parties agree to meet and talk.
On Tuesday, February 25, Valls also intends to pay homage and lay wreaths on independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur’s graves.
They were the leaders of FLNKS and (pro-France) RPCR, who eventually signed the Matignon Accords in 1998 and shook hands after half a decade of quasi civil war, during the previous civil unrest in the second half of the 1980s.
Valls was then a young member of French Prime Minister Michel Rocard (Socialist) who enabled the Matignon agreement.
On several occasions, over the past few days, Valls has stressed the grave situation New Caledonia has been facing since the riots, the “devastated” economy and the need to restore a bipartisan dialogue.
He told public broadcaster NC La Première that since the unrest started had France had provided financial support to sustain New Caledonia’s economy.
‘Fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia’s society’ “But blood has been shed . . . there have been deaths, injuries, there are fractures and deep wounds within New Caledonia’s society,” Valls said.
“And to get out of this, dialogue is needed, to find a compromise . . . to prevent violence from coming back. I still believe those (opposing) positions are reconcilable, even though they’re quite far apart,” he said.
“I’m very much aware of the difficulties . . . but we have to find an agreement, a compromise.”
One clear indication that during his visit to New Caledonia the French minister will be walking on shaky ground came a few days ago.
When, speaking to French national daily Le Monde, he recalled the Nouméa Accord included a wide range of possible perspectives from “a shared sovereignty” to a “full sovereignty”, there was an immediate outcry from the pro-French parties, who steadfastly brandished the three recent referendums opposing independence and urging the minister to respect those “democratic” results.
“Respecting the Nouméa Accord means respecting the choice of New Caledonians”, said Les Loyalistes-Le Rassemblement-LR in a media release.
“Shared sovereignty is the current situation. It’s all in the Nouméa Accord, which itself is enshrined in the French Constitution”, Valls replied.
Over the past six months, several notions have emerged in terms of a political future for New Caledonia.
It all comes down to wording: from independence-association (Cook Islands style), to outright “independence” or “shared sovereignty” (as suggested by French Senate President Gérard Larcher during his visit in October 2024).
A former justice minister under Socialist President François Hollande, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, well-versed in New Caledonian affairs, suggested an innovative wording which, he believed, could bring about some form of consensus — the term “associated state”, could be slightly modified into “associated country” (“country” being one of the ways to describe New Caledonia, also described as a sui generis entity under French Law).
Urvoas said this would make the notion more palatable.
Pro-France meetings indoors On Wednesday evening, in an indoor multi-purpose hall in Nouméa, an estimated 2000 sympathisers of pro-France Rassemblement and Loyalists gathered to hear and support their leaders who had come to explain what was discussed in Paris and reiterate the pro-France bloc’s position.
“We told [Valls] the ‘bilaterals’ are over. Now we want plenary discussions or nothing,” pro-France Virginie Ruffenach told the crowd.
“We will tell him: Manuel, your full sovereignty is No Pasaran! (in Spanish ‘Will not pass’, a reference to Valls’s Spanish heritage),” said Nicolas Metzdorf, who is also one of the two New Caledonian MPs in the French National Assembly, speaking to supporters brandishing blue, white and red French flags.
Metzdorf said he hoped that supporters would show up during the minister’s visit with the same flags “to remind him of three “no” votes in the three referenda.
A ban on all open-air public meetings is still in force in Nouméa and its greater area.
The two-flag driving licence declared illegal. Image: New Caledonia govt
Double flags banned on driving licences Adding to the current tensions, an announcement also came earlier this week regarding a court ruling on another highly sensitive issue — the flag.
The ruling came in an appeal case from the Paris Administrative Court.
It overturned a ruling made in 2023 by the former New Caledonian (pro-independence) territorial government to add the Kanak flag to the local driving licence, next to the French flag.
In its February 14 ruling, the Appeal Court stated that the Kanak flag could not be used on such official documents because “it is not the official flag” of New Caledonia.
The court once again referred to the Nouméa Accord, which said the Kanak flag, even though it was often used alongside the French flag, had not been formally endorsed as New Caledonia’s “identity symbol”.
The tribunal also urged the new government to make the necessary changes and to re-circulate the former one-flag version “without delay”.
Meanwhile, the government is bearing the cost of a fine of 100, 000 French Pacific francs (about US$875) a day, which currently totals over US$43,000 since January 1.
The “identity symbols”, as defined by the Nouméa Accord, also include a motto (the wording ‘Terre de Parole, Terre de Partage’ — Land of Words, Land of Sharing’ was chosen) and even a national anthem.
But despite several attempts since 1998, no agreement has yet been reached on a common flag.
This week, hours after the court ruling, an image is being circulated on social media declaring: “If this flags disturbs you, I’ll help you pack your suitcase” (“Si ce drapeau te dérange, je t’aide à faire tes valises”).
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s announcement this week that the island nation will open a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem has been labelled “an act of aggression” by Palestine.
On Tuesday, the Fiji government revealed that Cabinet had decided to locate its consulate in Jerusalem, which remains at the centre of the Palestine-Israel decades-long conflict.
According to an overwhelming United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES‑10/19 on 21 December 2017 (128-9), Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as capital of Israel is “null and void”.
Previous UN Security Council resolutions demarcated Jerusalem as the capital of the future state of Palestine.
The Fijian government said in a statement: “Necessary risk assessments will be undertaken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence, in consultation with relevant agencies, prior to and during the establishment process.”
Fiji and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1970 and have partnerships in security and peacekeeping, agriculture, and climate change.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Rabuka said he “received a phone call from my friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing his gratitude for Fiji’s decision to open a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem.”
“Even though very brief, we reaffirmed our commitment to strengthening Fiji-Israel ties,” he said.
I commend the Republic of Fiji’s government for its historic decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Thank you, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka @slrabuka, friend of Israel. Thank you Fiji! pic.twitter.com/IxCkjPnhQ6
‘Violating international law’
“With this decision, Fiji becomes the seventh country to violate international law and UN resolutions regarding the city’s legal and political status and the rights of the Palestinian people,” it said in a statement.
The seven countries include Papua New Guinea.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the decision of PM @slrabuka to relocate Fiji’s embassy to occupied #Jerusalem.
This move blatantly violates international law and UN resolutions, and places #Fiji on the wrong side of history. https://t.co/5x1bCECNXO
— Palestine Australia, Aotearoa NZ and Pacific (@PalestineAusNZ) February 19, 2025
“This decision is an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights.
“It places Fiji on the wrong side of history, harms the chances of achieving peace based on the two-state solution, and represents unacceptable support for the occupation and its crimes.”
The statement added that Fiji’s move “blatantly defies UN resolutions at a time when the occupying power is escalating its attacks against Palestinians across all of the Palestinian Territory, attempting to displace them from their homeland.”
The ministry said that it would continue to take political, diplomatic, and legal action against countries that opened or moved their embassies to Jerusalem.
“It will work to hold them accountable for their unjustified actions against the Palestinian people and their rights.”
In September 2024, Fiji was one of seven Pacific Island nations that voted against a United Nations resolution to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
News outlets often preferred euphemisms like “displacing” or “resettling” to the more accurate “ethnic cleansing, as in this CBC headline (2/4/25).
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the US will “take over the Gaza Strip” and “own” it for the “long-term” (AP, 2/5/25), and that its Palestinian inhabitants will be “permanently” exiled (AP, 2/4/25). Subsequently, when reporters asked Trump whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his plan, he said “no” (BBC, 2/10/25).
After Trump’s remarks, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Reuters, 2/5/25) said “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”
Navi Pillay (Politico, 2/9/25), chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that
Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.
Human Rights Watch (2/5/25) said that, if Trump’s plan were implemented, it would “amount to an alarming escalation of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Clarity in the minority
Amnesty International (2/5/25) called Trump’s proposal to forcibly transfer the population of Gaza a flagrant violation of international law”—but the phrase “international law” was usually missing from news reports on the plan.
I used the news media aggregator Factiva to survey coverage of Trump’s remarks from the day that he first made them, February 4 through February 12. In that period, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post combined to run 145 pieces with the words “Gaza” and “Trump.” Of these, 19 contained the term “ethnic cleansing” or a variation on the phrase. In other words, 87% of the articles these outlets published on Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza chose not to call it ethnic cleansing.
A handful of other pieces used language that captures the wanton criminality of Trump’s scheme reasonably well. Three articles used “forced displacement,” or slight deviations from the word, while five others used “expel” and another nine used “expulsion.” Two of the articles said “forced transfer,” or a minor variation of that. In total, therefore, 38 of the 145 articles (26 percent) employ “ethnic cleansing” or the above-mentioned terms to communicate to readers that Trump wants to make Palestinians leave their homes so that the US can take Gaza from them.
Furthermore, the term “international law” appears in only 27 of the 145 articles, which means that 81% failed to point out to readers that what Trump is proposing is a “flagrant violation of international law” (Amnesty International, 2/5/25).
A ‘plan to free Palestinians’
A Wall Street Journal op-ed (2/5/25) hailed “Trump’s Plan to Free Palestinians From Gaza”—in the same sense that the Trail of Tears “freed” the Cherokee from Georgia.
Several commentators in the corporate media endorsed Trump’s racist fever dream, in some cases through circumlocutions and others quite bluntly. Elliot Kaufman (Wall Street Journal, 2/5/25) called Trump’s imperial hallucination a “plan to free Palestinians from Gaza.”
While the Journal’s editorial board (2/5/25) called what Trump wants to do “preposterous,” the authors nonetheless put “ethnic cleansing” in scare quotes, as if that’s not an apt description. The paper asked, “Is his idea so much worse than the status quo that the rest of the world is offering?”
Sadanand Dhume (Wall StreetJournal, 2/12/25) wondered why “If Indians and Pakistanis Can Relocate, Why Can’t Gazans?” To bolster his case, Dhume noted that 2 million people died as a result of the India-Pakistan partition, and cited other shining moments in 20th century history, such as Uganda’s expulsion of Indians in the 1970s. That these authors implicitly or explicitly advocate Trump’s plan for mass, racist violence demonstrates that they see Palestinians as subhuman impediments to US/Israeli designs on Palestine and the region.
Bret Stephens (New York Times, 2/11/25) wrote that
Trump also warned Jordan and Egypt that he would cut off American aid if they refused to accept Gazan refugees, adding that those refugees may not have the right to return to Gaza. The president’s threats are long overdue.
Ethnically cleansing the West Bank
Al Jazeera (2/26/24): “Settler violence is a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory.”
A similar pattern exists in coverage of the West Bank, where evidence of ethnic cleansing is hard to miss, but corporate media appears to be finding ways to do just that.
Legal scholars Alice Panepinto and Triestino Mariniello wrote an article for Al Jazeera (2/26/24) headlined “Settler Violence: Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Plan for the West Bank”:
Supported by the Israeli security forces and aided and abetted by the government, settler violence is a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory in order to establish full sovereignty over it and enable settlement expansion.
The authors noted that, at the time they wrote their article, 16 Palestinian communities in the West Bank had been forcibly transferred since October 7, 2023.
In October 2024, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese found that throughout the Gaza genocide, “Israeli forces and violent settlers” have “escalated patterns of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” In the first 12 months after October 7, Albanese reported, “at least 18 communities were depopulated under the threat of lethal force, effectively enabling the colonization of large tracts” of the West Bank.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (2/10/25) said that Israel’s “latest ethnic cleansing efforts” entail “forcibly uproot[ing] thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank,” accompanied by
the bombing and burning of residential buildings and infrastructure, the cutting off of water, electricity and communications supplies, and a killing policy that has resulted in the deaths of 30 Palestinians…over the course of 19 days.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) (2/10/25), Israeli military operations in Jenin camp, which expanded to Tulkarm, Nur Shams and El Far’a, displaced 40,000 Palestinian refugees between January 21 and February 10.
Unnoteworthy violations
I used Factiva to search New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post coverage and found that, since Panepinto and Mariniello’s analysis was published just under a year ago, the three newspapers have combined to run 693 articles that mention the West Bank. Thirteen of these include some form of the term “ethnic cleansing,” a mere 2%. Nine more articles use “forced displacement,” or a variation on the phrase, 31 use “expel,” 11 use “expulsion” and five use some variety of “forced transfer.”
Thus, 69 of the 693 Times, Journal and Post articles that mention the West Bank use these terms to clearly describe people being violently driven from their homes—just 10%. Many of the articles that address the West Bank are also about Gaza, so the 69 articles using this language don’t necessarily apply it to the West Bank.
Of the 693 Times, Journal and Post pieces that refer to the West Bank, 106 include the term “international law.” Evidently, the authors and editors who worked on 85% of the papers’ articles that discuss the West Bank did not consider it noteworthy that Israel is engaged in egregious violations of international law in the territory.
‘Battling local militants’
The Washington Post (2/2/25) captioned this image of IDF bombing with Israel’s claim that it was “destroying buildings used by Palestinian militants.”
Rather than equip readers to understand the larger picture in which events in the West Bank unfold, much of the coverage treats incidents in the territory discretely. For instance, the Wall Street Journal (1/22/25) published a report on Israel’s late January attacks on the West Bank. In the piece’s 18th paragraph, it cited the Palestinian Authority saying the Israeli operations “displaced families and destroyed civilian properties.” In the 24th paragraph, the article also quoted UNRWA director Roland Friedrich, saying that Jenin had become “nearly uninhabitable,” and that “some 2,000 families have been displaced from the area since mid-December.” Palestinians being driven from their homes are an afterthought for the article’s authors, who do nothing to put this forced displacement in the longer-term context of Israel’s US-backed ethnic cleansing.
A Washington Post report (2/2/25) on Jenin says in its first paragraph that the fighting is occurring “where [Israeli] troops have been battling local militants.” The article then describes Palestinian “homes turned to ash and rubble, cars destroyed and small fires still burning amid the debris.” It cited the Palestinian Health Ministry noting that “at least five people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Jenin area, including a 16-year-old.”
Establishing a “troops vs. militants” frame at the outset of the article suggested that that is the lens through which the death and destruction in Jenin should be understood, rather than one in which a racist colonial enterprise is seeking to ethnically cleanse the Indigenous population resisting the initiative.
The rights of ‘neighbors’
This New York Times piece (2/4/25) acknowledges that Israeli settlements have “steadily eroded the land accessible to Palestinians”—but doesn’t call this process ethnic cleansing.
The New York Times (2/4/25) published an article on Republican bills that would require US government documents to refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” the name that expansionist Zionists prefer. The report discusses how Trump’s return to office “has emboldened supporters of Israeli annexation of the occupied territory.”
The piece notes that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have “settled” the West Bank since Israel occupied it in 1967, and that Palestinians living there have fewer rights than their Israeli “neighbors.” The author points out that “the growing number and size of the settlements have steadily eroded the land accessible to Palestinians.”
Yet the article somehow fails to mention a crucial part of this dynamic, namely Israel violently displacing Palestinians from their West Bank homes. Leaving out that vital information fails means that readers are not a comprehensive account of the ethnic cleansing backdrop against which the Republican bills are playing out.
Recent coverage of Gaza and the West Bank illustrates that, while corporate media occasionally outright call for expelling Palestinians from their land, more often the way these outlets support ethnic cleansing is by declining to call it ethnic cleansing.
The fellows include seven rabbis and one cantor who will travel to the Dominican Republic to meet grassroots activists and later to Washington, D.C. to advocate for U.S. foreign policies that champion human rights in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish organization committed to promoting global human …
15-year-old minor and school student AbdulAziz Husain AlHammadi was arrested by Bahraini authorities on 20 October 2024 from his home without a warrant. During his detention, he endured enforced disappearance, torture, denial of family contact and visits, denial of lawyer access, unfair trial, malnutrition, medical neglect, and deprivation of his right to education. He is currently held in the Juvenile section of the Dry Dock Detention Center, serving a one-year, six-month sentence while awaiting trial for other pending cases.
On 20 October 2024, at 11:50 P.M., AbdulAziz was asleep at home when plainclothes officers wearing police-emblem vests knocked on the door, frightening his mother and ordering her to wake him. They arrested him without presenting an arrest warrant or providing any reason for his arrest. He was then taken to a dark area behind Maqaba Police Station, where officers beat him on the head before transferring him that night to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID), where he was further tortured and interrogated.
The following day, 21 October 2024, authorities issued a summons for him despite already holding him in custody. That day, he was allowed to call his family for the first time, informing them he was being interrogated over an Instagram post. However, the call was cut off before he could reveal his location. He then disappeared for 48 hours. During this time, his mother contacted authorities to find him, but they falsely claimed he was at Dry Dock Detention Center while he was actually being held at the CID, preventing her from locating him.
At the CID, AbdulAziz was interrogated without legal representation or a guardian present, despite being a minor. He was left in a cold, dark room for 48 hours, blindfolded, handcuffed, and seated on a chair. Officers repeatedly struck his head, leaving a visible wound. When his blindfold was removed, an investigator ordered him to keep his eyes down and focus on a tablet displaying photos of individuals, demanding that he identify them. The moment AbdulAziz looked up, the investigator struck him hard on the head and slapped him. Despite repeated beatings and slaps, he could not identify the persons in the images, as he had never seen them before. The physical abuse persisted until he was forced to falsely claim recognition and confess to charges just to stop the beatings. Officers also shouted politically motivated insults at him.
After his interrogation at the CID, AbdulAziz was transferred to Roundabout 17 Police Station on 23 October 2024 and later that same day to the Public Prosecution Office (PPO). During the transfer, he learned that, in addition to charges of 1) inciting hatred against the regime and 2) misusing telecommunications related to the Instagram post, new charges had been added, including 3) assault on military personnel and 4) possession of usable and explosive devices. At the PPO, while his lawyer was present, authorities barred her from speaking with or defending him, claiming he had not personally authorized her—despite her authorization from his mother. There, AbdulAziz denied all charges and refused to sign pre-written confessions, arguing that no evidence, such as fingerprints or photographs, linked him to the accusations. Nevertheless, the prosecutor ordered his detention, and he was transferred to Dry Dock Detention Center.
On 10 December 2024, a court session was held for AbdulAziz regarding the misuse of telecommunication services case, and the court ordered his release. The family’s lawyer informed them of the verdict, stating they would receive a call to pick him up. At 5:00 P.M. that day, AbdulAziz called his mother from the CID, telling her that although he had been granted release, authorities refused to free him due to three other pending cases. He also informed her that he was being transferred to Budaiya Police Station in the Northern Governorate. When his mother arrived, officers initially denied her access to him, but a senior officer eventually allowed the visit, warning her not to cause problems. Seeing her son in a dire state—barefoot, in torn clothes, with bruised wrists from the handcuffs—she broke down in tears, screamed in distress, and collapsed. Shortly after, she was informed he would be transferred to Roundabout 17 Police Station. She objected, arguing that the facility housed adult detainees and insisted he be sent to Dry Dock Detention Center instead. Her demand was met after she briefly left to bring him clothes and shoes.
AbdulAziz was not brought before a judge within 24 hours of his arrest, was denied legal representation during interrogation, and was not given adequate time or facilities to prepare for his defense. His false confessions, extracted under torture, were used as evidence against him. On 13 January 2025, after nearly three months of pre-trial detention, AbdulAziz and two other minors—15-year-old Ali Husain Matrook Abdulla and 17-year-old Abbas Muslim Juma—were convicted of 1) illegal assembly and 2) arson, receiving six-month prison sentences. AbdulAziz was shocked by the verdict, as no evidence linked him to the crime, and the trial relied solely on statements from other minors convicted in the same case. He informed the judge that the alleged illegal gathering on 24 August 2024 took place in his hometown, AlMaqsha; however, it was impossible for him to have participated, as he and his family were residing in Hamad town at the time. Despite this, the court disregarded his evidence and proceeded with the conviction. AbdulAziz appealed the sentence, and an appeal session was scheduled for 3 March 2025. On 11 February 2025, he was convicted of 3) burning tires and sentenced to an additional year in prison, bringing his total sentence to one year and six months. He is also awaiting trial for additional charges, including 4) assault on security forces, 5) possession of usable and explosive devices, and 6) an unknown charge. He is scheduled to stand trial for the assault on security forces charge on 24 February 2025.
Throughout his detention, AbdulAziz was denied family visits. After his sentencing, his family was allowed to visit him for the first time on 26 January 2025. His mother noticed he looked pale and extremely fatigued. When she asked about his condition, he attributed it to severe sleep deprivation caused by intense fear at night and persistent frightening noises, as well as malnutrition due to the poor quality of the food provided. His detention has also caused him to miss an entire school year, as the Dry Dock Detention Center administration deprived him of his right to education. Additionally, he suffers from jaw problems and requires a specific device, but authorities refused to allow his family to provide it. His family filed two complaints with the Ombudsman and the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) regarding the torture he endured during interrogations and his deprivation of education since his arrest, but they have received no response.
AbdulAziz’s warrantless arrest as a minor, enforced disappearance, torture, denial of family contact, visits, denial of legal counsel, unfair trial, malnutrition, medical neglect, and deprivation of education constitute clear violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, all of which Bahrain is a party to.
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) calls on the Bahraini authorities to uphold their human rights obligations by immediately and unconditionally releasing AbdulAziz. ADHRB further urges the government to investigate allegations of arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, denial of family contact and visits, denial of legal counsel, malnutrition, medical negligence, and deprivation of the right to education, ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable and that AbdulAziz is compensated for the violations he endured. At the very least, ADHRB advocates for a fair retrial for AbdulAziz under the Bahraini Restorative Justice Law for Children and in accordance with international legal standards, leading to his release. ADHRB also calls on authorities to allow AbdulAziz to resume his education, provide the necessary support for him to complete his studies, ensure he receives proper medical care—including the device needed for his jaw condition—and improve the quality of his food.
MENA Rights Group leads a coalition of 15 civil society organisations in urging the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council to cease its facilitation of arbitrary extraditions of peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders across Arab League countries and to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law
From left to right: Ahmed Kamel, Abdelrahman al-Qaradawi, Salman al-Khaldy, Hassan al-Rabea, Khalaf al-Romaithi, Sherif Osman
February 17, 2025The undersigned organisations call on the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council (AIMC) to cease its facilitation of arbitrary extraditions of peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders across Arab League countries and to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law.
On Sunday, February 16, 2025, the AIMC held its 42nd annual conference in its headquarters in Tunis. Often misleadingly referred to as “Arab INTERPOL”, the AIMC is an Arab League body tasked with enhancing cooperation among Arab states in the fields of internal security and crime prevention. Through its Department of Criminal Prosecution and Data, the AIMC circulates state-requested warrants to liaison divisions in Member States and facilitates wanted individuals’ extradition.
Although extraditions for “crimes of a political nature” are explicitly prohibited by the AIMC’s legal framework, specifically article 41 of the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, they still occur in practice. Lacking an oversight body to prevent the abuse of its systems, the AIMC has become the perfect tool for Arab League states to request politically motivated extraditions.
Between 2022 and 2025, MENA Rights Group has documented the unlawful extraditions of four individuals: Khalaf al-Romaithi, Hassan al-Rabea, Salman al-Khaldy, and Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi. Currently, one individual is facing an imminent risk of extradition: Ahmed Kamel.
Ahmed Kamel is an Egyptian national currently detained in Saudi Arabia, where he had been living for a decade. In reprisal for peacefully protesting during the Arab Spring in Cairo in 2011 and 2014, Kamel faces imminent extradition to Egypt, where he may be subjected to human rights abuses including torture.
Despite their prohibition, Arab states continue to request and fulfil politically motivated extraditions, weaponising domestic laws which conflate peaceful criticism and human rights activism with terrorism or threats to state security.
Furthermore, the AIMC’s legal framework makes no reference to international human rights standards. More specifically, it fails to mention the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture, which provides that individuals must not be extradited to a country where they would face torture.
UN Special Procedures mandate holders have raised concerns over the AIMC’s operations in a communication addressed to the Arab League, notably raising the impossibility for individuals to access their criminal file and challenge their arrest warrant. However, the UN experts have been provided with no response, and the Council has yet to undertake any reform.
As the AIMC continues to facilitate grave human rights violations across the Arab region, substantial change is required to ensure peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders are not at risk of transnational repression.
The undersigned organisations therefore urge the AIMC to immediately halt its facilitation of politically motivated extraditions, and undertake urgent reforms, in consultation with civil society, to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law.
A New Zealand-based community education provider, Dark Times Academy, has had a US Embassy grant to deliver a course teaching Pacific Islands journalists about disinformation terminated after the new Trump administration took office.
The new US administration requested a list of course participants and to review the programme material amid controversy over a “freeze” on federal aid policies.
The course presentation team refused and the contract was terminated by “mutual agreement” — but the eight-week Pacific workshop is going ahead anyway from next week.
Dark Times Academy’s co-founder Mandy Henk . . . “A Bit Sus”, an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes on disinfiormation for Pacific media. Image: Newsroom
“As far as I can tell, the current foreign policy priorities of the US government seem to involve terrorising the people of Gaza, annexing Canada, invading Greenland, and bullying Panama,” said Dark Times Academy co-founder Mandy Henk.
“We felt confident that a review of our materials would not find them to be aligned with those priorities.”
The course, called “A Bit Sus”, is an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes that teach key professions the skills needed to identify and counter disinformation and misinformation in their particular field.
The classes focus on “prebunking”, lateral reading, and how technology, including generative AI, influences disinformation.
Awarded competitive funds Dark Times Academy was originally awarded the funds to run the programme through a public competitive grant offered by the US Embassy in New Zealand in 2023 under the previous US administration.
The US Embassy grant was focused on strengthening the capacity of Pacific media to identify and counter disinformation. While funded by the US, the course was to be a completely independent programme overseen by Dark Times Academy and its academic consultants.
Co-founder Henk was preparing to deliver the education programme to a group of Pacific Island journalists and media professionals, but received a request from the US Embassy in New Zealand to review the course materials to “ensure they are in line with US foreign policy priorities”.
Henk said she and the other course presenters refused to allow US government officials to review the course material for this purpose.
She said the US Embassy had also requested a “list of registered participants for the online classes,” which Dark Times Academy also declined to provide as compliance would have violated the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.
Henk said the refusal to provide the course materials for review led immediately to further discussions with the US Embassy in New Zealand that ultimately resulted in the termination of the grant “by mutual agreement”.
However, she said Dark Times Academy would still go ahead with running the course for the Pacific Island journalists who had signed up so far, starting on February 26.
Continuing the programme
“The Dark Times Academy team fully intends to continue to bring the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme and other classes to the Pacific region and New Zealand, even without the support of the US government,” Henk said.
“As noted when we first announced this course, the Pacific Islands have experienced accelerated growth in digital connectivity over the past few years thanks to new submarine cable networks and satellite technology.
“Alongside this, the region has also seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities.
“This course will help participants from the media recognise common tactics used by disinformation agents and support them to deploy proven educational and communications techniques.
“By taking a skills-based approach to countering disinformation, our programme can help to spread the techniques needed to mitigate the risks posed by digital technologies,” Henk said.
Especially valuable for journalists
Dark Times Academy co-founder Byron Clark said the course would be especially valuable for journalists in the Pacific region given the recent shifts in global politics and the current state of the planet.
Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron Clark . . . “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa.” Image: APR
“We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa, for example,” said Clark, author of the best-selling book Fear: New Zealand’s Underworld of Hostile Extremists.
“With Pacific Island states bearing the brunt of climate change, as well as being caught between a geopolitical stoush between China and the West, a course like this one is timely.”
Henk said the “A Bit Sus” programme used a “high-touch teaching model” that combined the current best evidence on how to counter disinformation with a “learner-focused pedagogy that combines discussion, activities, and a project”.
Past classes led to the creation of the New Zealand version of the “Euphorigen Investigation” escape room, a board game, and a card game.
These materials remain in use across New Zealand schools and community learning centres.
Palestine has strongly condemned Fiji’s decision to open a Fiji embassy in Jerusalem, calling it a violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry and the Hamas resistance group that governs the besieged enclave of Gaza issued separate statements, urging the Fiji government to reverse its decision.
According to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, the Fijian decision is “an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights”.
The Palestinian group Hamas said in a statement that the decision was “a blatant assault on the rights of our Palestinian people to their land and a clear violation of international law and UN resolutions, which recognise Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory”.
Fiji will become the seventh country to have an embassy in Jerusalem after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, and Paraguay.
Emile Dirks, Noura Aljizawi, Siena Anstis and Ron Deibert wrote in the The Globe and Mail of 10 February 2025 about the problem of transnational repression.
The final report of the public inquiry into foreign interference (the Hogue Commission) offers a measure of reassurance to Canadians; there is no evidence that Canadian MPs worked with foreign states to undermine the 2019 or 2021 federal elections. Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s findings, however, are cold comfort to people at risk. While the commission’s work has ended, distant autocrats continue to target Canadians and Canadian residents with transnational repression, the most coercive form of foreign interference.
Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue Patrick Doyle/Reuters
Through digital harassment, assault and even assassination, authoritarians reach across borders to silence their foes abroad. Victims include activists, human-rights defenders, exiled critics and asylum seekers tied by citizenship or ancestry to repressive states like China, Russia, India or Saudi Arabia. For authoritarians, these people are not citizens, but disloyal subjects to silence.
The danger that transnational repression poses is not new. A 2020 report by the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China demanded the Canadian government address threats against pro-democracy activists, while a 2022 report by the Citizen Lab highlighted the lack of support to victims of digital transnational repression. Prior to the 2024 election, the Biden-Harris administration adopted a whole-of-government approach to ensure government agencies like the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and the FBI worked together to provide recommendations to victims on how to better protect themselves.
Researchers and civil society have long worried that Canadian authorities are overlooking transnational repression as a unique challenge that requires tailored responses. Considering the seriousness of the threat and the stark absence of action by the government, many researchers anticipated the commission’s final report would explore transnational repression as a distinct form of foreign interference. Yet, while Justice Hogue wrote that “it would be challenging to overstate the seriousness of transnational repression,” she ultimately reasoned the issue lay outside her mandate.
This was a mistake. The final report was a missed opportunity to fully explore the corrosive impact of transnational repression on Canadian democracy. A recent report by the Citizen Lab highlights the profound toll transnational repression takes on vulnerable people, especially women, in Canada and beyond. Intimidation, surveillance and physical attacks prevent victims from participating fully in civic life and create a climate of persistent fear.
Transnational repression harms victims in more subtle ways, too. Our research shows that the mere threat of an online or offline attack is enough to frighten many diaspora members into silence. Victims become wary of participating in social media or even using digital devices. They report being afraid to engage with members of their communities, leaving them increasingly isolated. It has an insidious, chilling effect on targeted communities.
Unfortunately, the future looks bleak. Democratic backsliding in the United States threatens to deprive Canada of an ally in the fight and reverse whatever measures U.S. agencies might have taken on the issue. Our research shows that suspicion of law enforcement discourages victims from contacting authorities. Proposed moves by the Trump administration – including halting asylum hearings, ending resettlement programs, and sending “criminal” migrants to Guantanamo Bay – will further erode victims’ confidence in the U.S.’s willingness to protect them.
Big Tech is also worsening the problem. Across social-media platforms, state-backed harassment of vulnerable diaspora members is rife. Elon Musk’s X tolerates and even promotes hate-mongering accounts, while Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will stop using “politically biased” fact-checkers signals a worrying disinterest in robust content moderation. We should expect a tsunami of digital transnational repression targeting vulnerable Canadians now that tech CEOs are loosening the restraints.
Canada cannot rely on outside leadership or corporate actors to tackle this problem. What is needed is a commission on transnational repression. On Jan. 24, the British parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights launched such an inquiry. Once our House of Commons sits again we can follow our British counterparts and resume the Subcommittee on International Human Rights’s work on transnational repression. The new Parliament should launch a multiparty inquiry into the crisis, with a mandate to examine repression outside of federal elections. Crucially, it must earn the trust of victims, something the Hogue Commission lacked. The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong both pulled out of the inquiry, citing the participation of three legislators with alleged links to the Chinese government.
This is not a partisan issue. Whoever wins the next federal election will have a duty to contend with the continuing threat transnational repression poses to Canada. With global authoritarianism on the rise, the problem is only likely to worsen in the years to come.
The signs aren’t good so far, but playing on Trump’s desperation to be seen as a great dealmaker would pay dividends
Kenneth Roth is a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. His book, Righting Wrongs, is published on 25 February
The common wisdom is that Donald Trump’s foreign policy will be a disaster for human rights. Certainly his penchant for embracing autocrats and breaching norms bodes poorly, such as his outrageous proposal to force two million Palestinians out of Gaza – which would be a blatant war crime – or his suggestion that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion. But Trump also likes to cut a deal, as shown by his paradoxically positive role in securing the current (precarious) Gaza ceasefire. If Trump the dealmaker can be nudged in the right direction, he might, against all odds, be brought to play a productive role for human rights.
As executive director of Human Rights Watch, I spent more than three decades devising strategies to pressure or cajole leaders to better respect rights. I have dealt with brutal dictators, self-serving autocrats and misguided democrats. My experience shows that there is always an angle – something the leader cares about – that can be used to steer them in a more rights-respecting direction.
Kenneth Roth is a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. His book, Righting Wrongs, is published on 25 February
Manuel Valls en Nouvelle-Calédonie : échange tendu entre le ministre des Outre-mer et des personnalités non-indépendantistes
Nicolas Metzdorf et Sonia Backès lui reprochent certaines prises de position depuis la reprise des discussions
LIVE updates 
