Restrictions on journalists covering an upcoming summit of Commonwealth nations in Samoa are “ridiculous” and at odds with a government that purportedly values democracy, says the Pacific island country’s media association.
The Samoa Observer newspaper in an editorial also condemned the government’s attempt to limit coverage of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), calling it a “slap across the face of press freedom, democracy and freedom of speech”.
The Commonwealth association, whose 56 members range from the world’s most populous nation India to Tuvalu in the South Pacific (population 14,000), covers some 2.7 billion people.
The summit in the Samoan capital Apia in October will be one of the biggest events ever held in Polynesian nation.
“I find the committee’s stance ridiculous,” Lagi Keresoma, president of the Journalist Association of Samoa (JAWS) told BenarNews. “We have written to the prime minister who is the head of the CHOGM task force regarding these restrictions.
“We are also trying to get a copy of the Commonwealth guidelines the committee chairperson said the decision is based on.”
The restrictions were very disappointing for a government that claimed to believe in democracy, transparency and accountability, Keresoma told online news portal Talamua.
Alarmed over stringent rules
On Wednesday, local journalists who attended a press briefing by Lefaoalii Unutoa Auelua-Fonoti, co-chair of the CHOGM media sub-committee and CEO for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, were alarmed to hear of the stringent media rules.
The guidelines, endorsed by cabinet, prevent photographers and videographers taking pictures, put restrictions on journalists covering side events unless accredited to a specific pool, and stop reporters from approaching delegates for interviews, Samoan media reported.
Two state-owned media outlets, in partnership with New Zealand-based company MMG Communications, have been awarded exclusive rights to cover the event in film and video, according to the Samoa Observer. All other media, including foreign press, will have to request access to pooled photos and footage.
The Samoa Observer said the restrictions were incongruous with international practices and set a dangerous precedent for future events.
“It is a farce and an attempt by a dysfunctional government unit to gag local and overseas media,” the newspaper editorial said.
“We are not living under a dictatorship, neither are the media organisations coming to cover the event.”
CHOGM did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the media guidelines.
Unstable Pacific media freedom
The incident highlights the unstable state of press freedom in some Pacific island countries. Fiji in 2023 repealed a draconian media law that mandated prison sentences for content deemed against the national interest, while Papua New Guinea’s government has been considering proposals for greater control over the media.
Last month, Papua New Guinea’s media council condemned the exclusion of a BenarNews journalist during a visit by Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto as “concerning” and “shameful.”
Samoa’s ranking in Reporters Without Borders’ global press freedom index slipped to 22nd this year out of 180 countries, from 19th in 2022. But it is the only Pacific island nation in the top 25.
The restrictions at CHOGM were not an accurate reflection of the country’s solid ranking, the Samoa Observer editorial said.
State-controlled or influenced media has a prominent role in many Pacific island countries, partly due to small populations and cultural norms that emphasize deference to authority and tradition.
Some Pacific island nations, such as Tuvalu and Nauru, have only government media because they have the populations of a small town. In others, such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Fiji, private media has established a greater role despite episodes of government hostility.
The Samoan government’s attempt to control the media for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is a slap across the face of press freedom, democracy and freedom of speech.
It is a farce and an attempt by a dysfunctional government unit to gag local and overseas media.
No international forum of such importance does this. The United Nations, the Pacific Islands Forum or other CHOGMs never had to deal with such dictatorial policies for journalism. What is the sub-committee thinking?
We are not living under a dictatorship, neither are the media organisations coming to cover the event. The message to media organisations like the BBC, ABC, AFP and others is you will only publish and broadcast what we tell you to.
To the people who came up with these policies, what were you thinking? This goes to show the inexperience of the press secretariat and the media sub-committee. It would have been good if you had involved experienced journalists who have covered international events.
There is never a restriction on media to cover side events, there is never a restriction for photographers and cameramen to take pictures, and there are never restrictions for media to approach delegates for interviews or what content they can get their hands on.
In any international forum, the state or the organisation’s media uploads their content, interviews, pictures and videos and makes it accessible for all to use. It is at the discretion of the media to choose to use it. In most cases, the media come with their issues and angles. To say that this will be dictated, makes it sound like this is not Samoa but China.
Next thing, the sub-committee will announce prison terms for not following the policies set by them. The CHOGM is the biggest international event Samoa has ever hosted and this decision is going to cause an international nightmare. The media in Samoa is furious because this is choking media freedom.
The hiring of a New Zealand company will not solve the matter. They can help the government as they have done sporting bodies for the Pacific Games but who are you to dictate to the media what to publish and what to report?
Each of the heads of delegations will be followed by the media from their country including their state media. All these people will not be allowed at the closing and opening ceremony. ABC, Nine News and other Australian media will follow Anthony Albanese, RNZ, New Zealand Herald, and Stuff will be behind Christopher Luxon and the British media with the King.
This is surely not a move proposed by the Commonwealth Secretariat. If anyone at the press secretariat or any of the state-owned media has covered international events like the COP, CHOGM, UN meetings or even the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting, you will know that this is not how things work. To even recommend that overseas and local media work together to cover the event is absurd.
Imagine the press secretariat journalist following Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa is told at an international event, no stay away from the events she goes to because we will tell where you are allowed to go. That also begs the question, will state media from other countries be treated differently from media who are independent?
Each media outlet has its priorities. They will cover what is relevant to their audience.
Media are given access and the option to choose whichever side event they would want to be part of. Does this also mean that the itinerary or schedule of events will also be not made public?
The prime minister needs to intervene as quickly as possible before this situation escalates into an international incident. Stifling the media is never a good thing and trying to control them is even worse. Let us hope that this is not the legacy of this government. The one that managed to control media from 54 countries. It would be an achievement marked on the international stage.
This year, Samoa jumped into the top 20 in the latest press freedom index released by the global group Reporters Without Borders out of 180 countries and territories assessed.
It is one of only two Pacific nations in the top 20 of the index with New Zealand the other state and ahead of Samoa in 13th position. The other Pacific states below Aotearoa and Samoa include Australia (27), Tonga (44), Papua New Guinea (59), and Fiji (89).
This is not a reflection of that.
To justify this action by saying it is being done for security reasons either shows that you expect journalists to kill delegates with their questions or the lack of security arrangements surrounding the event. Is this an attempt to hide the inadequacies of the preparation from the eyes of the world?
The sub-committee even said this was done to safeguard information that cannot be released. If you have covered an event like this before, you would know how it works. The least you could have done was consult with the Commonwealth media team or Rwanda, the previous hosts. The media know which meetings are public.
The CHOGM is not a private event. It concerns governments from 54 nations and a government is its people. Do not be responsible for breaking the communication between governments and their people. Do not be the people to go down in history as the ones who killed media freedom at CHOGM, because that is what has happened here.
If this is allowed to happen for CHOGM, a dangerous precedence will be set for future local events.
The Samoa Observer editorial on 12 September 2024. Republished with permission.
Document detailing ‘deterioration’ under Kais Saied will fuel concerns about bloc’s migration deal with his country
The EU fears its credibility is at stake as it seeks to weigh growing concerns about the crushing of dissent in Tunisia while preserving a controversial migration deal with the north African country, according to a leaked document.
An internal report drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service (EEAS), seen by the Guardian, details “a clear deterioration of the political climate and a shrinking civic space” under the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, who has suspended parliament and concentrated power in his hands since starting his term of office in 2019.
By Jack Marley, environment and energy editor, The Conversation UK
How old is the climate crisis?
I was born in 1994, when the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere was measured at 360 parts per million; today it is close to 420. Furnaces, engines and former forests emitted 23 billion tonnes of this planet-warming gas in 1994; today they spew more than 37 billion tonnes. With some exceptions (economic downturns, the pandemic), humanity has released more CO₂ into the atmosphere each year than the one before for at least two centuries.
Earth is not only hotter as a result of all this additional greenhouse gas, it is also getting hotter at a faster and faster rate. Where did it all begin? Figuring that out can tell us who or what is responsible – and what a possible solution looks like.
One way to answer the question at the start of this newsletter is to identify when people first noticed that the planet was warming. This happened during the mid-20th century. Tragically, it did so among scientists whose funders preferred that the world remain ignorant.
The 1970s: a critical decade
Courtesy: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
One company intimately involved with the emerging science of climate change was Exxon (now ExxonMobil). Scientists working for this oil and gas giant were modelling Earth’s climate in the 1970s to understand how the increasing carbon content of the atmosphere would affect temperatures – and Exxon’s future as a business.
According to a study published in 2017 that involved scouring the company’s internal documents, Exxon scientists acknowledged back then that climate change was real and overwhelmingly caused by burning the same fossil fuels Exxon sold.
“Yet over 80% of Exxon’s editorial-style paid advertisements over the same period specifically focused on uncertainty and doubt, the study found,” says Katharine Hayhoe, professor and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University.
Exxon knew better – a lot better. An investigation published last year showed that forecasts of the future climate made by Exxon scientists in the 1970s were remarkably accurate. The company knew where the world was headed by continuing to burn coal, oil and gas and instead endeavoured to cover it up.
The fossil fuel industry not only delayed a coordinated response to climate change, allowing it to grow into an existential threat to life on Earth. It also warped our understanding of who is responsible says Marcelle McManus, a professor of energy and environmental engineering at the University of Bath.
Take a concept like the carbon footprint. This calculates how much CO₂ is emitted in the process of making, using and disposing of something – cars, electrons, buildings. Such an analytical tool is useful, McManus says, but its most heavily promoted application has been in measuring the impact of individuals.
How differently history might have unfolded if the fossil fuel industry hadn’t obscured what was happening to the climate for several decades. John Grant, a sustainability expert at Sheffield Hallam University, argues that the crisis could have been solved by now – and the enormous potential of renewable energy realised much sooner.
Instead, a selection of companies, chiefly concerned with maximising profit, were allowed to decide the fate of all Earth’s inhabitants. Perverse as that may seem, our economic system enables this by leaving the means of producing the things people need (like energy) in private hands.
From Amsterdam to the world
Courtesy: Oxfam
One of the first entities we might recognise as a private business (with shares that could be bought and sold on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange) was the Dutch East India Company. Granted a monopoly over trading activities in Asia by the Dutch state in 1602, the Dutch East India Company violently dispossessed the Bandanese people of Indonesia to gain control of the trade in nutmeg, a valuable spice.
Amitav Ghosh, an author of 20 historical fiction and non-fiction books on colonialism and other topics, locates in this story the seeds of the climate crisis.
“Colonialism, genocide and structures of organised violence were the foundations on which industrial modernity was built,” he writes. By making such destruction economically rational, capitalism encouraged activities that gradually degraded Earth’s living systems, say Julia Taylor and Imraan Valodia, climate and inequality researchers familiar with Ghosh’s work.
For a sense of how this legacy still frustrates efforts to solve climate change, look no further than the international negotiations convened by the United Nations.
The COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt was the fifth to be held in Africa. One debate at COP27 asked whether African countries had the right to exploit their natural gas reserves, as many richer countries had already done. Those same “developed countries”, in UN parlance, may owe their wealth to past plunder in Africa. And despite promises to the contrary, few countries are meeting their pledges to finance renewable energy in Africa.
“Calls to cease all gas exploration in Africa that fail to account for where historical responsibility for climate change lies and the need to close the current finance gap are the most audacious kind of climate imperialism,” say Chukwumerije Okereke and Youba Sokona, environment and development experts at the University of Bristol and UCL respectively.
“On this basis, it is argued that developed countries are enacting a renewed form of colonialism – what some might call climate colonialism.”
Two open letters on the genocidal Israeli war against Palestinian sent to The Press for publication that have been ignored in the continued Aotearoa New Zealand media silence over 11 months of atrocities.
Both letters have been sent to the Christchurch morning daily newspaper by the co-presenter of the Plains FM radio programme Earthwise, Lois Griffiths.
The first letter, had been “sent . . . in time for it to be published on 29 August 2024. the anniversary of the Palestinian political cartoonist Naji al-Ali‘s murder”, Griffiths said.
A protest boat aimed at breaking the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza, Handala, is named after a cartoon boy created by the cartoonist.
On board the Handala, currently in the Mediterranean ready to break the siege with humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, are two New Zealand-Palestinian crew, Rana Hamida and Youssef Sammour.
Yet even this fact doesn’t make the letter newsworthy enough for publication.
Griffiths sent Naji al-Ali’s cartoon figure Handala with the letter to The Press. The open letter:
Dear Editor,
The situation in Gaza is so very very disturbing . . . those poor people . . . those poor men, women and CHILDREN.
How many readers are aware that 2 New Zealanders are on a boat that hopes to take aid to Gaza. Maybe the brave actions of those 2 Kiwis, joined by other international volunteers, of trying to break the siege of Gaza, will rally the rest of the world to finally stop looking away.
Handala, the cartoon character . . . a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Image: Naji al-Ali
They are on a very special boat, a boat with a name chosen to fit the occasion, the Handala.
Handala is the name chosen by the Palestinian political cartoonist Naji al-Ali, for a cartoon refugee boy who stands with his back to the reader, in the corner of his political cartoons.
Handala witnesses the suffering inflicted on his people.
We have a book of al-Ali’s drawings, A Child in Palestine.
Naji al-Ali was well-loved by the Palestinians for using his skills to share, with the world, stories of what the people had to endure.
On 29 August 1987, the cartoonist died after being shot in London by an unknown assailant.
Yet the memory of Naji al-Ali survives.
The memory of Handala survives. He represents the Palestinian children. And the boat named Handala is sailing for the children of Gaza.
Yours Lois Griffiths
South Africa then, why not Israel now?
In the other letter sent to The Press a week ago, Lois Griffiths, in time for the opening of the UN General Assembly on September 8, she urged the New Zealand government to call for the suspension of Israel.
Not published, yet another example of New Zealand mainstream newspapers’ blind responses and hypocrisy over community views on the Gaza genocide?
Dear Editor,
Tuesday of this week, 08 September, is the date for the opening of UNGA, the UN General Assembly.
In 1974, South Africa was suspended from the UN General Assembly after being successfully charged by the ICJ, International Court of Justice, of apartheid. This move isolated South Africa and was very effective in leading to the collapse of the apartheid regime.
Now, the democratic regime of South Africa has taken a case to the ICJ [International Criminal Court] charging Israel with genocide. In an interim judgment, the ICJ has broadly supported South Africa’s case.
The situation in Gaza is so vile now: the bombing, the targeting of residences, schools and hospitals, the lack of protection from disease, the huge numbers of bodies lying under rubble. And now, violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank is on the increase.
Where is humanity? What does it mean to be human?
A step that would certainly help to slow down the genocide, would be for Israel to be suspended from the UN General Assembly.
Please New Zealand. Call for the suspension of Israel from the UNGA.
NOW!!
Yours, Lois Griffiths
Palestinian resistance artwork on the humanitarian boat Handala . . . hoping to break the Gaza blockade. Image: Screenshot PushPull
Organisers of international summit hope to create pressure to reverse laws including a ban on women speaking in public
More than 130 Afghan women have gathered in Albania at an All Afghan Women summit, in an attempt to develop a united voice representing the women and girls of Afghanistan in the fight against the ongoing assault on human rights by the Taliban.
Some women who attempted to reach the summit from inside Afghanistan were prevented from travelling, pulled off flights in Pakistan or stopped at borders. Other women have travelled from countries including Iran, Canada, the UK and the US where they are living as refugees.
The Victorian Greens have demanded an independent inquiry into Australian police tactics and alleged excessive use of force today against antiwar protesters at the Land Forces expo in Melbourne.
State Greens leader Ellen Sandell said her party had lodged a formal protest to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).
“We have seen police throw flash grenades into crowds of protesters, use pepper spray indiscriminately, and whip people with horse whip,” she also said in a X post.
“These are military-style tactics used by police against protesters who are trying to have their say, as is their democratic right.”
Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people as officers were pelted with rocks, manure and tomatoes in what has been described as Melbourne’s biggest police operation in two decades, reports Al Jazeera.
The Victorian Greens and I have demanded an independent inquiry into Victoria Police tactics and excessive use of force at the Land Forces protests in Melbourne today. pic.twitter.com/p8iLU073S0
The Land Forces expo protest. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot
The pro-Palestine protesters, also demanding a change in Canberra’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, clashed with the police outside the arms fair.
Thousands picketed the Land Forces 2024 military weapons exposition. Australia has seen numerous protests against the country’s arms industry’s involvement in the war over the past 11 months.
Protesting for ‘those killed’ in Gaza
“We’re protesting to stand up for all those who have been killed by the type of weapons [in Gaza] on display at the convention,” said Jasmine Duff from organiser Students for Palestine in a statement.
About 1800 police officers have been deployed at the Melbourne Convention Centre hosting the three-day weapons exhibition. Up to 25,000 people had previously been expected to turn up at the protest.
Two dozen people were reported as requiring medical treatment, said a Victoria state police spokesperson in a statement.
Demonstrators also lit fires in the street and disrupted traffic and public transport, while missiles were thrown at police horses.
However, no serious injuries were reported, according to police.
Deputy Greens leader backs protesters
In a speech to the Senate, the deputy federal leader of the Greens, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, offered her solidarity to “the thousands protesting in Melbourne today to say no to the business of war”.
Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi . . . [Australia’s] Labor government is complicit in genocide”. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot“[The governing] Labor tries to distract and deflect, but there is no deflection. So long as we have defence contracts with Israeli weapons companies, the Labor government is complicit in genocide, so long as you refuse to impose sanctions on Israel, this Labor government is complicit in genocide, and there are no excuses for inaction,” she said.
“The UK has suspended some arms sales to Israel. Canada today is halting more arms sales to Israel.
“What will it take for [Australia’s] Labor government to take action against the apartheid state of Israel?”
Police used stun grenades and pepper spray and arrested 39 people at today’s Land Forces expo in Melbourne, Victoria. Image: V_Palestine20
With similar Israel divestment motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown Councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney. Wendy Bacon reports on what went wrong.
INVESTIGATION: By Wendy Bacon
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank is tearing apart local councils in Australia, on top of the angst reverberating around state and federal politics.
Inner West Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne has doubled down on his attack on pro-Palestinian activists at the council’s last election meeting before Australia’s local government elections on September 14.
‘Byrne’s attack echoes an astro-turfing campaign supported by rightwing and pro-Israel groups targeting the Greens in inner city electorates.’
READ MORE: Other articles by Wendy Bacon
With Labor narrowly controlling the council by one vote, the election loomed large over the meeting. It also coincided with a campaign backed by rightwing pro-Israeli groups to eliminate Greens from several inner Sydney councils.
In August, Labor councillors voted down a motion for an audit of whether any Inner West Council (IWC) investments or contracts benefit companies involved in the weapons industry or profit from human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The motion that was defeated had also called for an insertion of a general “human rights” provision in council’s investment policy.
With similar motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney.
It could have been a first step towards the Inner West Council joining the worldwide BDS (boycotts, disinvestments and economic sanctions) campaign to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law.
MWM sources attest that the ructions at Inner West Council are mirrored elsewhere in local government. This from Randwick in Sydney’s East:
Randwick Council: MWM source
Global to grassroots
Last week, Portland Council in Maine became the fifth United States city to join the campaign this year, while the City of Ixelles in Belgium announced that it had suspended its twinning agreement with the Regional Council of Megiddo in Israel.
When the Inner West motion failed, some Palestinian rights campaigners booed and shouted “shame” at Labor councillors as they sat silently in the chamber. The meeting, which had nearly reached its time limit of five hours, was then adjourned.
Byrne’s alternative motion was debated at last week’s meeting. It restates council’s existing policy and Federal Labor’s current stance that calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.
This alternative motion was passed by Labor councillors, with the Greens and two Independents voting against it. Both Independent Councillor Pauline Lockie and Greens Councillor Liz Atkins argued that they were opposing the motion because it did not do or change anything.
The Mayor spent most of his speaking time attacking those involved with protesting at the August meeting. He described their behaviour as “unacceptable, undemocratic and disrespectful”. There is no doubt that the behaviour at the meeting breached the rules of meeting behaviour at some times.
But then Byrne made a much more shocking and unexpected allegation. He said that the “worst element” of the behaviour was that “local Inner West citizens who happened to have a Jewish sounding name, when their names were read out by me because they’d registered . . . to speak, I think all of them were booed and hissed just because their names happened to sound Jewish.”
News Corp propaganda This claim is deeply disturbing. If true, such behaviour would definitely be anti-semitic and racist. But the question is: did such behaviour actually happen? Or does this allegation feed into Byrne’s misleading narrative that had fuelled false News Corporation reports that protesters stormed the meeting?
In fact, the protesters had been invited to the meeting by the Mayor.
This reporter was present throughout the meeting and did not observe anything similar to what the Mayor alleged had happened.
Later in the meeting, the Mayor repeated the allegation that the “booing and hissing of people” based “on the fact that they had a Jewish sounding name constituted anti-semitism”.
Retiring Independent Councillor Pauline Locker intervened: “Sorry, point of order, That isn’t actually what happened. . . . It wasn’t based on their Jewish name.”
But Bryne insisted, “That’s not a point of order — that is what happened. It is what the record shows occurred as does the media reportage.”
Other councillors also distanced themselves from Byrne’s allegation. Independent Councillor John Stamolis also said that although he could not judge how the Mayor or other Labor councillors felt on the evening, he could not agree with Byrne’s description or that it described what other councillors or members of the public experienced on the evening.
Greens Councillor Liz Atkins said that there were different perceptions of what happened on the night. Her perception was that the “booing and hissing” was in relation to support for the substance of the Greens motion for an audit of investments rather than an attack on people who spoke against it.
She also said that credit should be given to pro- Palestinian activists who themselves encouraged people to listen quietly.
Fake antisemitism claims Your reporter asked Rosanna Barbero, who also was present throughout the meeting, what she observed. Barbero was the recipient of this year’s Multicultural NSW Human Rights Medal, recognising her lasting and meaningful contribution to human rights in NSW.
She is also a member of the Inner West Multicultural Network that has helped council develop an anti-racism strategy.
“I did not witness any racist comments,” said Barbero.
Barbero confirmed that she was present throughout the meeting and said: “I did not witness any racist comments. The meeting was recorded so the evidence of that is easy to verify.”
So this reporter, in a story for City Hub, took her advice and went to the evidence in the webcast, which provides a public record of what occurred. The soundtrack is clear. A listener can pick up when comments are made by audience members but not necessarily the content of them.
Bryne has alleged speakers against the motion were booed when their “Jewish sounding’ names were announced. Our analysis shows none of the five were booed or abused in any way when their names were announced.
There was, in fact, silence.
Five speakers identified themselves as Jewish. Four spoke against the motion, and one in favour.
Two of the five were heard in complete silence, one with some small applause at the end.
One woman who spoke in favour of the motion and whose grandparents were in the Holocaust was applauded and cheered at the end of her speech.
One man was interrupted by several comments from the gallery when he said the motion was based on “propaganda and disinformation” and would lead to a lack of social cohesion. He related experiences of anti-semitism when he was at school in the Inner West 14 years ago.
At the conclusion of his speech, there were some boos.
One man who had not successfully registered was added to the speakers list by the Mayor. Some people in the public gallery objected to this decision. The Mayor adjourned the meeting for three minutes and the speaker was then heard in silence.
The speakers in favour of the motion, most of whom had Palestinian backgrounds and relatives who had suffered expulsion from their homelands, concentrated on the war crimes against Palestinians and the importance of BDS motions. There were no personal attacks on speakers against the motion.
In response to a Jewish speaker who had argued that the solution was peace initiatives, one Palestinian speaker said that he wanted “liberation”, not “peace”.
Weaponising accusations of anti-semitism to shut down debate Independent Inner West Councillor Pauline Lockie warned other councillors this week about the need to be careful about weaponising accusations of race and anti-semitism to shut down debates. Like Barbero, Lockie has played a leadership role in developing anti-racism strategies for the Inner West.
There are three serious concerns about Byrne’s allegations. The first concern is that they are not verified by the public record. This raises questions about the Mayor’s judgement and credibility.
The second is that making unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism for the tactical purposes of winning a political argument demeans the seriousness and tragedy of anti-semitism.
Thirdly, there is a concern that spreading unsubstantiated allegations of anti-semitism could cause harm by spreading fear and anxiety in the Jewish community.
Controversial Christian minister The most provocative speaker on the evening was not one of those who identified themselves as Jewish. It was Reverend Mark Leach, who introduced himself as an Anglican minister from Balmain. When he said that no one could reasonably apply the word “genocide” to what was occurring in Gaza, several people called out his comments.
Given the ICJ finding that a plausible genocide is occurring in Gaza, this was not surprising.
Darcy Byrne then stopped the meeting and gave Reverend Leach a small amount of further time to speak. Later in his speech, Reverend Leach described the motion itself as “deeply racist” because it held Israel accountable above all other states.
Boos for Leach In fact, the motion would have added a general human rights provision to the investment policy which would have applied to any country. Reverend Leach was booed at the conclusion of his speech.
One speaker later said that she could not understand how this Christian minister would not accept that the word “genocide” could be used. This was not an anti-semitic or racist comment.
Throughout the debate, Byrne avoided the issue that the motion only called for an audit.
He also used his position of chair to directly question councillors. The following exchange occurred with Councillor Liz Atkins:
Mayor: Councilor Atkins, can I put to you a question? I have received advice that councillor officers are unaware of any investment from council that is complicit in the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. Are you aware of any?
Atkins: No. That’s why the motion asked for an audit of our investments and procurements.
Mayor: I’ll put one further question to you. The organisers of the protest outside the chamber and the subsequent overrunning of the council chamber asserted in their promotion of the event that the council was complicit in genocide. Is that your view?
Atkins: I don’t know. Until we do an audit, Mayor . . . Can I just take exception with the point of view that they “overran” the meeting? You invited them all in, and not one of them tried to get past a simple rope barrier.
Byrne says it’s immoral to support a one-party state During the debate, Byrne surprisingly described support for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestinians as “immoral”. He described support for “one state” as meaning you either supported the wiping out of the Palestinians or the Israelis.
In fact, there is a long history of citizens, scholars and other commentators who have argued that one secular state of equal citizens is the only viable solution.
Many, including the Australian government, do not agree. Nevertheless, the award-winning journalist and expert on the Middle East, Antony Loewenstein, argued that position in The Sydney Morning Herald in November 2023.
Mayor in tune with Better Council Inc campaign All of this debate is happening in the context of the hotly contested election campaign. The Mayor is understandably preoccupied with the impending poll. Rather than debating the issues, he finished the debate by launching an attack on the Greens, which sounded more like an election speech than a speech in reply in support of his motion.
Byrne said: “Some councillors are unwilling to condemn what was overt anti-Semitism”.
This is a heavy accusation. All councillors are strongly opposed to anti-semitism. The record does not show any overt anti-semitism.
Byrne went on: “But the more troubling thing is that there’s a large number of candidates running at this election who, if elected, will be making foreign affairs and this particular issue one of the central concerns of this council.
“This will result in a distraction with services going backwards and rates going up.”
In fact, the record shows that the Greens are just as focused on local issues as any other councillors. Even at last week’s meeting, Councillor Liz Atkins brought forward a motion about controversial moves to install a temporary cafe at Camperdown Park that would privatise public space and for which there had been no consultation.
Labor v Greens Byrne’s message pitting concern about broader issues against local concerns is in tune with the messaging of a recently formed group called Better Council Inc. that is targeting the Greens throughout the Inner West and in Randwick and Waverley.
Placards saying “Put the Greens last”, “Keep the Greens Garbage out of Council” featuring a number of Greens candidates have gone up across Sydney. Some claim that the Greens are fixated on Gaza and ignore local issues.
Better Inc.’s material is authorised by Sophie Calland. She is a recently graduated computer engineer who told the Daily Telegraph that “she was a Labor member and that Better Council involves people from across the political aisle — even some former Greens.”
She described the group as a “grassroots group of young professionals” who wanted local government officials to focus on local issues.
“We believe local councils should concentrate on essential community services like waste management, local infrastructure, and the environment. That’s what councils are there for — looking after the needs of their immediate communities.”
On Saturday, Randwick Greens Councillor Kym Chapple was at a pre-poll booth at which a Better Council Inc. campaigner was handing out material specifically recommending that voters put her last.
Chapple tweeted that the Better councilwoman didn’t actually know that she was a councillor or any of the local issues in which she had been involved.
“That does not look like a local grassroots campaign. It’s an attempt to intimidate people who support a free Palestine. Anyway, it feels gross to have someone say to put you last because they care about the environment and local issues when that’s literally what you have done for three years.”
She then tweeted a long list of her local campaign successes.
Never Again is Now astroturf campaign
In fact, the actual work of distributing the leaflets is being done by a group spearheaded by none other than Reverend Mark Leach, who spoke at the Inner West Council meeting. Leach is one of the coordinators of the pro-Israel right-wing Christian group Never Again is Now.
The group is organising rallies around Australia to campaign against anti-semitism.
Reverend Mark Leach works closely with his daughter Freya Leach, who stood for the Liberal Party for the seat of Balmain in the 2023 state election and is associated with the rightwing Menzies Institute. Mark Leach describes himself as “working to renew the mind and heart of our culture against the backdrop of the radical left, Jihadist Islam and rising authoritarianism.
Leach’s own Twitter account shows that he embraces a range of rightwing causes. He is anti-trans, supports anti-immigration campaigners in the UK and has posted a jolly video of himself with Warren Mundine at a pro-Israeli rally in Melbourne.
Mundine was a No campaign spokesperson for the rightwing group Advance Australia during the Voice referendum.
Leach supports the Christian Lobby and is very critical of Christians who are campaigning for peace.
Anti-semitism exists. The problem is that Reverend Leach’s version of anti-semitism is what international law and human rights bodies regard as protesting against genocidal war crimes.
For #NeverAgainisNow, these atrocities are excusable for a state that is pursuing its right of “self-defence”. And if you don’t agree with that, don’t be surprised if you find yourself branded as not just “anti-semitic” but also a bullying extremist.
As of one week before the local government election, the Never Again is Now was holding a Zoom meeting to organise 400 volunteers to get 50,000 leaflets into the hands of voters at next Saturday’s local election.
This may well be just a dress rehearsal for a much bigger effort at the Federal election, where Advance Australia has announced it is planning to target the Greens.
Wendy Baconis an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies. Republished from Michael West Media with the author’s permission.
With similar Israel divestment motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown Councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney. Wendy Bacon reports on what went wrong.
INVESTIGATION: By Wendy Bacon
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank is tearing apart local councils in Australia, on top of the angst reverberating around state and federal politics.
Inner West Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne has doubled down on his attack on pro-Palestinian activists at the council’s last election meeting before Australia’s local government elections on September 14.
‘Byrne’s attack echoes an astro-turfing campaign supported by rightwing and pro-Israel groups targeting the Greens in inner city electorates.’
READ MORE: Other articles by Wendy Bacon
With Labor narrowly controlling the council by one vote, the election loomed large over the meeting. It also coincided with a campaign backed by rightwing pro-Israeli groups to eliminate Greens from several inner Sydney councils.
In August, Labor councillors voted down a motion for an audit of whether any Inner West Council (IWC) investments or contracts benefit companies involved in the weapons industry or profit from human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The motion that was defeated had also called for an insertion of a general “human rights” provision in council’s investment policy.
With similar motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney.
It could have been a first step towards the Inner West Council joining the worldwide BDS (boycotts, disinvestments and economic sanctions) campaign to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law.
MWM sources attest that the ructions at Inner West Council are mirrored elsewhere in local government. This from Randwick in Sydney’s East:
Randwick Council: MWM source
Global to grassroots
Last week, Portland Council in Maine became the fifth United States city to join the campaign this year, while the City of Ixelles in Belgium announced that it had suspended its twinning agreement with the Regional Council of Megiddo in Israel.
When the Inner West motion failed, some Palestinian rights campaigners booed and shouted “shame” at Labor councillors as they sat silently in the chamber. The meeting, which had nearly reached its time limit of five hours, was then adjourned.
Byrne’s alternative motion was debated at last week’s meeting. It restates council’s existing policy and Federal Labor’s current stance that calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.
This alternative motion was passed by Labor councillors, with the Greens and two Independents voting against it. Both Independent Councillor Pauline Lockie and Greens Councillor Liz Atkins argued that they were opposing the motion because it did not do or change anything.
The Mayor spent most of his speaking time attacking those involved with protesting at the August meeting. He described their behaviour as “unacceptable, undemocratic and disrespectful”. There is no doubt that the behaviour at the meeting breached the rules of meeting behaviour at some times.
But then Byrne made a much more shocking and unexpected allegation. He said that the “worst element” of the behaviour was that “local Inner West citizens who happened to have a Jewish sounding name, when their names were read out by me because they’d registered . . . to speak, I think all of them were booed and hissed just because their names happened to sound Jewish.”
News Corp propaganda This claim is deeply disturbing. If true, such behaviour would definitely be anti-semitic and racist. But the question is: did such behaviour actually happen? Or does this allegation feed into Byrne’s misleading narrative that had fuelled false News Corporation reports that protesters stormed the meeting?
In fact, the protesters had been invited to the meeting by the Mayor.
This reporter was present throughout the meeting and did not observe anything similar to what the Mayor alleged had happened.
Later in the meeting, the Mayor repeated the allegation that the “booing and hissing of people” based “on the fact that they had a Jewish sounding name constituted anti-semitism”.
Retiring Independent Councillor Pauline Locker intervened: “Sorry, point of order, That isn’t actually what happened. . . . It wasn’t based on their Jewish name.”
But Bryne insisted, “That’s not a point of order — that is what happened. It is what the record shows occurred as does the media reportage.”
Other councillors also distanced themselves from Byrne’s allegation. Independent Councillor John Stamolis also said that although he could not judge how the Mayor or other Labor councillors felt on the evening, he could not agree with Byrne’s description or that it described what other councillors or members of the public experienced on the evening.
Greens Councillor Liz Atkins said that there were different perceptions of what happened on the night. Her perception was that the “booing and hissing” was in relation to support for the substance of the Greens motion for an audit of investments rather than an attack on people who spoke against it.
She also said that credit should be given to pro- Palestinian activists who themselves encouraged people to listen quietly.
Fake antisemitism claims Your reporter asked Rosanna Barbero, who also was present throughout the meeting, what she observed. Barbero was the recipient of this year’s Multicultural NSW Human Rights Medal, recognising her lasting and meaningful contribution to human rights in NSW.
She is also a member of the Inner West Multicultural Network that has helped council develop an anti-racism strategy.
“I did not witness any racist comments,” said Barbero.
Barbero confirmed that she was present throughout the meeting and said: “I did not witness any racist comments. The meeting was recorded so the evidence of that is easy to verify.”
So this reporter, in a story for City Hub, took her advice and went to the evidence in the webcast, which provides a public record of what occurred. The soundtrack is clear. A listener can pick up when comments are made by audience members but not necessarily the content of them.
Bryne has alleged speakers against the motion were booed when their “Jewish sounding’ names were announced. Our analysis shows none of the five were booed or abused in any way when their names were announced.
There was, in fact, silence.
Five speakers identified themselves as Jewish. Four spoke against the motion, and one in favour.
Two of the five were heard in complete silence, one with some small applause at the end.
One woman who spoke in favour of the motion and whose grandparents were in the Holocaust was applauded and cheered at the end of her speech.
One man was interrupted by several comments from the gallery when he said the motion was based on “propaganda and disinformation” and would lead to a lack of social cohesion. He related experiences of anti-semitism when he was at school in the Inner West 14 years ago.
At the conclusion of his speech, there were some boos.
One man who had not successfully registered was added to the speakers list by the Mayor. Some people in the public gallery objected to this decision. The Mayor adjourned the meeting for three minutes and the speaker was then heard in silence.
The speakers in favour of the motion, most of whom had Palestinian backgrounds and relatives who had suffered expulsion from their homelands, concentrated on the war crimes against Palestinians and the importance of BDS motions. There were no personal attacks on speakers against the motion.
In response to a Jewish speaker who had argued that the solution was peace initiatives, one Palestinian speaker said that he wanted “liberation”, not “peace”.
Weaponising accusations of anti-semitism to shut down debate Independent Inner West Councillor Pauline Lockie warned other councillors this week about the need to be careful about weaponising accusations of race and anti-semitism to shut down debates. Like Barbero, Lockie has played a leadership role in developing anti-racism strategies for the Inner West.
There are three serious concerns about Byrne’s allegations. The first concern is that they are not verified by the public record. This raises questions about the Mayor’s judgement and credibility.
The second is that making unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism for the tactical purposes of winning a political argument demeans the seriousness and tragedy of anti-semitism.
Thirdly, there is a concern that spreading unsubstantiated allegations of anti-semitism could cause harm by spreading fear and anxiety in the Jewish community.
Controversial Christian minister The most provocative speaker on the evening was not one of those who identified themselves as Jewish. It was Reverend Mark Leach, who introduced himself as an Anglican minister from Balmain. When he said that no one could reasonably apply the word “genocide” to what was occurring in Gaza, several people called out his comments.
Given the ICJ finding that a plausible genocide is occurring in Gaza, this was not surprising.
Darcy Byrne then stopped the meeting and gave Reverend Leach a small amount of further time to speak. Later in his speech, Reverend Leach described the motion itself as “deeply racist” because it held Israel accountable above all other states.
Boos for Leach In fact, the motion would have added a general human rights provision to the investment policy which would have applied to any country. Reverend Leach was booed at the conclusion of his speech.
One speaker later said that she could not understand how this Christian minister would not accept that the word “genocide” could be used. This was not an anti-semitic or racist comment.
Throughout the debate, Byrne avoided the issue that the motion only called for an audit.
He also used his position of chair to directly question councillors. The following exchange occurred with Councillor Liz Atkins:
Mayor: Councilor Atkins, can I put to you a question? I have received advice that councillor officers are unaware of any investment from council that is complicit in the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. Are you aware of any?
Atkins: No. That’s why the motion asked for an audit of our investments and procurements.
Mayor: I’ll put one further question to you. The organisers of the protest outside the chamber and the subsequent overrunning of the council chamber asserted in their promotion of the event that the council was complicit in genocide. Is that your view?
Atkins: I don’t know. Until we do an audit, Mayor . . . Can I just take exception with the point of view that they “overran” the meeting? You invited them all in, and not one of them tried to get past a simple rope barrier.
Byrne says it’s immoral to support a one-party state During the debate, Byrne surprisingly described support for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestinians as “immoral”. He described support for “one state” as meaning you either supported the wiping out of the Palestinians or the Israelis.
In fact, there is a long history of citizens, scholars and other commentators who have argued that one secular state of equal citizens is the only viable solution.
Many, including the Australian government, do not agree. Nevertheless, the award-winning journalist and expert on the Middle East, Antony Loewenstein, argued that position in The Sydney Morning Herald in November 2023.
Mayor in tune with Better Council Inc campaign All of this debate is happening in the context of the hotly contested election campaign. The Mayor is understandably preoccupied with the impending poll. Rather than debating the issues, he finished the debate by launching an attack on the Greens, which sounded more like an election speech than a speech in reply in support of his motion.
Byrne said: “Some councillors are unwilling to condemn what was overt anti-Semitism”.
This is a heavy accusation. All councillors are strongly opposed to anti-semitism. The record does not show any overt anti-semitism.
Byrne went on: “But the more troubling thing is that there’s a large number of candidates running at this election who, if elected, will be making foreign affairs and this particular issue one of the central concerns of this council.
“This will result in a distraction with services going backwards and rates going up.”
In fact, the record shows that the Greens are just as focused on local issues as any other councillors. Even at last week’s meeting, Councillor Liz Atkins brought forward a motion about controversial moves to install a temporary cafe at Camperdown Park that would privatise public space and for which there had been no consultation.
Labor v Greens Byrne’s message pitting concern about broader issues against local concerns is in tune with the messaging of a recently formed group called Better Council Inc. that is targeting the Greens throughout the Inner West and in Randwick and Waverley.
Placards saying “Put the Greens last”, “Keep the Greens Garbage out of Council” featuring a number of Greens candidates have gone up across Sydney. Some claim that the Greens are fixated on Gaza and ignore local issues.
Better Inc.’s material is authorised by Sophie Calland. She is a recently graduated computer engineer who told the Daily Telegraph that “she was a Labor member and that Better Council involves people from across the political aisle — even some former Greens.”
She described the group as a “grassroots group of young professionals” who wanted local government officials to focus on local issues.
“We believe local councils should concentrate on essential community services like waste management, local infrastructure, and the environment. That’s what councils are there for — looking after the needs of their immediate communities.”
On Saturday, Randwick Greens Councillor Kym Chapple was at a pre-poll booth at which a Better Council Inc. campaigner was handing out material specifically recommending that voters put her last.
Chapple tweeted that the Better councilwoman didn’t actually know that she was a councillor or any of the local issues in which she had been involved.
“That does not look like a local grassroots campaign. It’s an attempt to intimidate people who support a free Palestine. Anyway, it feels gross to have someone say to put you last because they care about the environment and local issues when that’s literally what you have done for three years.”
She then tweeted a long list of her local campaign successes.
Never Again is Now astroturf campaign
In fact, the actual work of distributing the leaflets is being done by a group spearheaded by none other than Reverend Mark Leach, who spoke at the Inner West Council meeting. Leach is one of the coordinators of the pro-Israel right-wing Christian group Never Again is Now.
The group is organising rallies around Australia to campaign against anti-semitism.
Reverend Mark Leach works closely with his daughter Freya Leach, who stood for the Liberal Party for the seat of Balmain in the 2023 state election and is associated with the rightwing Menzies Institute. Mark Leach describes himself as “working to renew the mind and heart of our culture against the backdrop of the radical left, Jihadist Islam and rising authoritarianism.
Leach’s own Twitter account shows that he embraces a range of rightwing causes. He is anti-trans, supports anti-immigration campaigners in the UK and has posted a jolly video of himself with Warren Mundine at a pro-Israeli rally in Melbourne.
Mundine was a No campaign spokesperson for the rightwing group Advance Australia during the Voice referendum.
Leach supports the Christian Lobby and is very critical of Christians who are campaigning for peace.
Anti-semitism exists. The problem is that Reverend Leach’s version of anti-semitism is what international law and human rights bodies regard as protesting against genocidal war crimes.
For #NeverAgainisNow, these atrocities are excusable for a state that is pursuing its right of “self-defence”. And if you don’t agree with that, don’t be surprised if you find yourself branded as not just “anti-semitic” but also a bullying extremist.
As of one week before the local government election, the Never Again is Now was holding a Zoom meeting to organise 400 volunteers to get 50,000 leaflets into the hands of voters at next Saturday’s local election.
This may well be just a dress rehearsal for a much bigger effort at the Federal election, where Advance Australia has announced it is planning to target the Greens.
Wendy Baconis an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies. Republished from Michael West Media with the author’s permission.
This week, Craig Murray – journalist and human rights activist – announced he had left the UK amidst the arrests of several high profile journalists who have been reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Craig Murray leaves UK
As Jonathan Cook pointed out on X, once upon a time this would have been a breaking news story:
If I recall rightly, in the old days, when I was a young journalist, this would have been considered quite a news story:
Former British ambassador flees UK for fear of arrest over political views.
But maybe my memory is fading, and this was always seen as quite normal. https://t.co/1e6oXdj5o2
A wave of arrests and intimidation of journalists in the UK has resulted in at least one independent writer, a former UK ambassador no less, to flee the country.
Craig Murray is also the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. During his time in the role, he exposed the human rights violations in the country by the at-the-time administration. Last year, British police detained Murray under counter-terrorism laws for declaring his support for Palestine whilst condemning Israel’s actions.
In the last few weeks, British police have also arrested two high profile British journalists. They detained both Sarah Wilkinson and Richard Medhurstunder Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This is all pretty funny when you consider the controversy over free speech in Rwanda:
A former British ambassador who made remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fled the UK in fear of arrest. This reminds the debate in the UK over the transfer of immigrants to Rwanda and their safety and free speech in Rwanda!
First, Richard Medhurst, an independent journalist, was detained at Heathrow airport for 24 hours – which he believes was for his reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Then, as the Canary previously reported on 29 August counter-terror police also arrested Sarah Wilkinson over content she posted online. Whilst they have now released her on bail, the conditions are that she uses no electronic devices. Both of these are clear breaches of journalistic freedom:
Isn’t it ironic that people have to leave “one of the oldest and most important democracies” in the world in fear of being arrested for protesting and disagreeing with the government? Couldn’t make this up even if I tried very, very hard.
Absolutely astonishing that a former UK AMBASSADOR should ever need to leave Britain for fear of being re-arrested WHEN HE HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG EXCEPT TELL THE TRUTH!
People need to wake up to what’s happening, quick smart! C21st #FASCISM is fundamentally the same as WW2.
— Jaraparilla All ziønists are terrørists (@jaraparilla) September 9, 2024
Bigger picture
Recently, the UK government has been doing everything it can to repress pro-Palestinian voices. This fits into the much broader attempts by the state to silence anyone speaking up for Palestine – whether it be protesters, or members of the independent press:
Repression of pro Palestine voices is so strong that a former UK ambassador does not feel safe in his own country https://t.co/PpmYrYQKAc
None of this is remotely surprising given the UK governments ties to Israel – a genocidal, apartheid state. Given the repeated arrests of people speaking out against genocide, there is no wonder Craig Murray decided to flee the UK. Nonetheless, it’s incredibly alarming – and also signals the dire state of the UK’s so-called free press – which recent arrests have proven over and over are a sham.
Julio Pacheco says he will appeal against the ‘devastating’ decision to abandon the first such investigation in Spain
Hopes of securing justice for people tortured under the four-decade Franco dictatorship in Spain have suffered a major setback after a judge in Madrid shelved a landmark investigation into a teenager tortured by police three months before the dictator’s death.
Julio Pacheco was a 19-year-old student and anti-Franco activist when he was arrested in August 1975 on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a police officer. He was taken to the infamous headquarters of the Directorate-General for Security in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where secret police officers tortured him for seven days before he was imprisoned for “terrorism”.
Review finds research did not meet ‘minimum standards’ for assessing whether Rwanda was safe place to send people
The last Conservative government relied largely on evidence from Rwandan officials in its assessment of the country as a safe place to send asylum seekers, an official report has found.
Report says governments in global north increasingly using draconian measures while criticising similar tactics in global south
Wealthy, democratic countries in the global north are using harsh, vague and punitive measures to crack down on climate protests at the same time as criticising similar draconian tactics by authorities in the global south, according to a report.
A Climate Rights International report exposes the increasingly heavy-handed treatment of climate activists in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.
Record prison sentences for non violent protest in several countries including the UK, Germany and the US.
Preemptive arrests and detention for those suspected of planning peaceful protests.
Draconian new laws passed to make the vast majority of peaceful protest illegal.
Measures to stop juries hearing about people’s motivation for taking part in protests during court cases, which critics say fundamentally undermines the right to a fair trial.
Another church has been set alight in New Caledonia, confirming a trend of arson which has already destroyed five Catholic churches and missions over the past two months.
The latest fire took place on Sunday evening at the iconic Saint Denis Church of Balade, in Pouébo, on the northern tip of the main island of Grande Terre.
The fire had been ignited in at least two locations — one at the main church entrance and the other on the altar, inside the building.
The attack is highly symbolic: this was the first Catholic church established in New Caledonia, 10 years before France “took possession” of the South Pacific archipelago in 1853.
It was the first Catholic settlement set up by the Marist mission and holds stained glass windows which have been classified as historic heritage in New Caledonia’s Northern Province.
Those stained glasses picture scenes of the Marist fathers’ arrival in New Caledonia.
Parts of the damages include the altar and the main church entrance door.
In other parts of the building, walls have been tagged.
A team of police investigators has been sent on location to gather further evidence, the Nouméa Public Prosecutor said.
250 years after Cook’s landing The fire also comes as 250 years ago, on 5 September 1774, British navigator James Cook, aboard the vessel Resolution, made first landing in the Bay of Balade after a Pacific voyage that took him to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the Marquesas islands (French Polynesia), the kingdom of Tonga and what he called the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).
It was Cook who called the Melanesian archipelago “New Caledonia”.
Both New Caledonia and the New Hebrides were a direct reference to the islands of Caledonia (Scotland) and the Hebrides, an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland.
Five churches targeted Since mid-July, five Catholic sites have been fully or partially destroyed in New Caledonia.
This includes the Catholic Mission in Saint-Louis (near Nouméa), a stronghold still in the hands of a pro-independence hard-line faction (another historic Catholic mission settled in the 1860s and widely regarded as the cradle of New Caledonia’s Catholicism); the Vao Church in the Isle of Pines (off Nouméa), and other Catholic missions in Touho, Thio (east coast of New Caledonia’s main island) and Poindimié.
Another Catholic church building, the Church of Hope in Nouméa, narrowly escaped a few weeks ago and was saved because one of the parishioners discovered packed-up benches and paper ready to be ignited.
Since then, the building has been under permanent surveillance, relying on parishioners and the Catholic church priests.
The series of targeted attacks comes as Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, is the largest religion in New Caledonia, where Protestants also make up a large proportion of the group.
Each attack was followed by due investigations, but no one has yet been arrested.
Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media these actions were “intolerable” attacks on New Caledonia’s “most fundamental symbols”.
Why the Catholic church? Several theories about the motives behind such attacks are invoking some sort of “mix-up” between French colonisation and the advent of Christianity in New Caledonia.
Nouméa Archbishop Michel-Marie Calvet, 80, himself a Marist, said “there’s been a clear determination to destroy all that represents some kind of organised order”
“There are also a lot of amalgamations on colonisation issues,” he said.
Nouméa Archbishop Monsignor Michel-Marie Calvet on the scene of the destroyed Saint Louis Mission. Image: NC la 1ère screenshot
“But we’ve seen this before and elsewhere: when some people want to justify their actions, they always try to re-write history according to the ideology they want to support or believe they support.”
While the first Catholic mission was founded in 1853, the protestant priests from the London Missionary Society also made first contact about the same time, in the Loyalty Islands, where, incidentally, the British-introduced cricket still remains a popular sport.
On the protestant side, the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia (French: Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, EPKNC), has traditionally positioned itself in an open pro-independence stance.
For a long time, Christian churches (Catholic and Protestants alike) were the only institutions to provide schooling to indigenous Kanaks.
‘Paradise’ islands now ‘closest to Hell’ A few days after violent and deadly riots broke out in New Caledonia, under a state of emergency in mid-May, Monsignor Calvet held a Pentecost mass in an empty church, but relayed by social networks.
At the time still under the shock from the eruption of violence, he told his virtual audience that New Caledonia, once known in tourism leaflets as the islands “closest to paradise”, had now become “closest to Hell”.
He also launched a stinging attack on all politicians there, saying they had “failed their obligations” and that from now on their words were “no longer credible”.
More recently, he told local media:
“There is a very real problem with our youth. They have lost every landmark. The saddest thing is that we’re not only talking about youth. There are also adults around who have been influencing them.
“What I know is that we Catholics have to stay away from any form of violence. This violence that tries to look like something it is not.
“It is not an ideal that is being pursued, it is what we usually call ‘the politics of chaos’.”
Declined Pope’s invitation to Port Moresby He said that although he had been invited to join Pope Francis in Port Moresby during his current Asia and Pacific tour he had declined the offer.
“Even though many years ago, I personally invited one of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, to come and visit here. But Pope Francis’s visit [to PNG], it was definitely not the right time,” he said.
Monsignor Calvet was ordained priest in April 1973 for the Society of Mary (Marist) order.
Assassinated FLNKS leader Jean Marie Tjibaou in Kanaky/New Caledonia, 1985. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific
He arrived in Nouméa in April 1979 and has been Nouméa’s Archbishop since 1981.
He was also the chair of the Pacific Episcopal Conference (CEPAC) between 1996 and 2003, as well as the vice-president of the Federation of Oceania Episcopal Conferences (FCBCO).
In 1988, charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as head of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accords with then French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, putting an end to half a decade of quasi civil war.
One year later, he was gunned down by a member of the radical fringe of the pro-independence movement.
Tjibaou was trained as a priest in the Society of Mary order.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Officials in the United States have said that Washington still does not “know with full certainty what transpired” when a US citizen was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last week, stressing that they were waiting for the findings of an Israeli investigation.
The US on Monday also appeared to reject calls for an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi,reports Al Jazeera.
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to acknowledge that Eygi was killed by an Israeli soldier, but he called for the process to “play out and for the facts to be gathered”.
He also urged Israel to “quickly and robustly conduct” its probe and make the findings public but confirmed the administration is not planning to independently investigate the killing — as Eygi’s family had requested.
“We are working closely to ascertain the facts, but there is not a State Department-led investigation that is going on,” Patel told a press briefing yesterday.
Eygi, 26, a Turkish-American citizen, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper on Friday while attending a demonstration against the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in Beita, south of Nablus.
Israeli forces fired live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas at demonstrators, with eyewitnesses saying Eygi was intentionally targeted even as she posed no threat.
Palestinian rights advocates and Eygi’s loved ones have been calling for accountability for her killing.
Earlier this month, following the killing in Gaza of US-Israeli captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the US Department of Justice quickly announced it was investigating his killing “and each and every one of Hamas’s brutal murders of Americans”.
Procession for Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces. Video: Al Jazeera
Pressed on the double standard yesterday, Patel sought to differentiate Goldberg-Polin’s killing from the shooting of Eygi.
“Let’s make sure we are not conflating the direct murder of American-Israeli citizens, hostages, being held by a terrorist group,” he told reporters.
“Each circumstance is unique and different,” he added.
The department did not immediately answer a request by Al Jazeera to elaborate on that comment.
Patel also did not directly answer questions about how Eygi’s family and those of others killed by Israel could trust an investigation process handled by the perpetrators of their killings.
NoUS investigation After the White House said on Friday that it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing and that it had requested Israel to conduct an investigation, Eygi’s family pushed back and called for an independent one.
American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi . . . shot dead by an Israeli sniper and her family has called for an independent investigation. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot
“We welcome the White House’s statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate,” they said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the White House said on Monday that US President Joe Biden had not yet spoken to the family.
Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USPCR), dismissed the US call for Israel to investigate its own forces.
Israeli authorities rarely ever prosecute troops for abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories despite reports of rampant rights violations against Palestinians.
“The first investigation should be into how the State Department continues to arm the state of Israel as it’s killed several US citizens and tens of thousands of Palestinians in the last year alone. That’s the primary investigation we’re waiting on the results for,” Abuznaid told Al Jazeera.
Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, also described the US call for an Israeli investigation as “wholly insufficient”.
“Israel doesn’t conduct transparent investigations and neither Israel nor the US hold the perpetrators of these killings accountable. You don’t rely on the criminal to investigate his crime,” DeReus said.
“Over the past nearly 11 months, President Biden has shown daily which lives he values and which lives he deems dispensable. He cannot place his allegiance to this genocidal regime over the lives of his own citizens,” she added.
‘Cover-ups’ over US citizens Israeli forces have killed several US citizens in recent years, but the Biden administration has consistently rejected calls for independent investigations into those incidents as well.
For example, in 2022, Washington resisted demands for a US-led probe into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli military in the West Bank, urging Israel to conduct its own probe instead.
Israeli authorities eventually dismissed the fatal shooting as an “accident” and refused to pursue criminal charges in the case.
Israeli and US media outlets reported months after the killing of Abu Akleh that the US Justice Department opened a probe into the shooting. But US officials have not publicly confirmed the existence of the investigation, whose findings remain unknown.
Families of the victims have condemned the decision to once again allow Israel to investigate a killing by its own forces.
“Israel does not do investigations; they do cover-ups,” Cindy Corrie, Rachel Corrie’s mother, told Democracy Now on Monday.
An Israeli soldier crushed Rachel Corrie to death with a bulldozer in Rafah in 2003. Her family spent years lobbying multiple administrations to launch an independent, US-led probe — to no avail.
“Our family worked for an investigation into Rachel’s killing, and we wanted some consequences out of that. And we hoped — even though we didn’t know the names of the people that would be killed in the future, we hoped that that would stop and it would not happen,” Cindy Corrie said.
Some advocates have argued that even a US-led investigation would not suffice.
“An international investigation, ideally by the ICC, must commence because Israeli authorities cannot be trusted to credibly investigate the killings of American citizens, and the US government is unwilling to hold Israel accountable,” human rights lawyer Jamil Dakwar, who co-represented the Corrie family in their civil case in Israeli courts, said.
Eygi, who was born in Antalya, Turkey but grew up in Seattle, Washington in the US, had recently graduated from the University of Washington, where she had participated in campus protests against US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
She was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation.
In recent years, Beita has been the site of weekly demonstrations against the construction of new illegal Israeli outposts. Before Eygi, 17 Palestinian protesters were killed there since 2020, according to the group.
Pro-Palestinian anti-war activists in Australia have protested in Melbourne, disrupting a defence expo set to open on Wednesday.
Protesters gathered yesterday in front of companies connected to weapons manufacturing across Melbourne as police were called to prevent an escalation of the events, according to 7News Melbourne.
Many police cars and units were visible in front of company buildings to prevent an escalation of the protests.
Protests are expected to move across the city to different areas ahead of the Land Forces Military Expo on Wednesday, with more than 25,000 participants, potentially one of the biggest in the country in decades.
On Sunday, Extinction Rebellion activists blocked Montague Street near the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre where the expo is being held.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Australia have been urging the government to impose sanctions on Israel for its genocidal war on Gaza.
Israel has continued a devastating military offensive in the Gaza Strip since an attack by Hamas resistance forces on October 7, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 91,700 wounded, according to local health authorities.
As the Israeli war enters its 12th month, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel has also intensified its attacks on the Occupied West Bank in recent weeks, killing at least 692 Palestinians.
Extinction Rebellion disruption
Formed in 2018, Extinction Rebellion has employed disruptive tactics targeting roads and airports to denounce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, reports Al Jazeera.
However, since the war on Gaza, they have also taken a strong position on the fighting and have called for an immediate ceasefire.
“If we believe in climate and ecological justice, we must seek justice in all forms. The climate and ecological emergency has roots in centuries of colonial violence, exploitation and oppression,” the UK-based group said in a statement in November.
In July 2014, shortly after the kickoff of Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” in the Gaza Strip — a 51-day affair that ultimately killed 2251 Palestinians, including 551 children — Danish journalist Nikolaj Krak penned a dispatch from Israel for the Copenhagen-based Kristeligt Dagblad newspaper.
Describing the scene on a hill on the outskirts of the Israeli city of Sderot near the Gaza border, Krak noted that the area had been “transformed into something that most closely resembles the front row of a reality war theatre”.
Israelis had “dragged camping chairs and sofas” to the hilltop, where some spectators sat “with crackling bags of popcorn”, while others partook of hookahs and cheerful banter.
Fiery, earth-shaking air strikes on Gaza across the way were met with cheers and “solid applause”.
To be sure, Israelis have always enjoyed a good murderous spectacle — which is hardly surprising for a nation whose very existence is predicated on mass slaughter. But as it turns out, the applause is not quite so solid when Israeli lives are caught up in the explosive apocalyptic display.
For the past 11 months, Israel’s “reality war theatre” has offered a view of all-out genocide in the Gaza Strip, where the official death toll has reached nearly 41,000.
A July Lancet study found that the true number of deaths may well top 186,000 — and that is only if the killing ends soon.
Protests for hostage deal
Now, massive protests have broken out across Israel demanding that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enact a ceasefire and hostage deal to free the remaining 100 or so Israeli captives held in Gaza.
Last week, when the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six captives, CNN reported that some 700,000 protesters had taken to the streets across the country. And on Monday, a general strike spearheaded by Israel’s primary labour union succeeded in shutting much of the economy down for several hours.
Although certain wannabe peaceniks among the international commentariat have blindly attributed the protests to a desire to end the bloodshed, the fact of the matter is that Palestinian blood is not high on the list of concerns.
Rather, the only lives that matter in the besieged, pulverised, and genocide-stricken Gaza Strip are the lives of the captives — whose captivity, it bears underscoring, is entirely a result of Israeli policy and Israel’s unceasing sadistic treatment of Palestinians.
As Israeli analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg recently commented to Al Jazeera regarding the aims of the current protests, “the issue of returning the hostages is centre stage”.
Acknowledging that “an understanding that a deal would also mean an end to the conflict is there, but rarely stated”, Flaschenberg emphasised that “as far as the protests’ leadership goes, no, it’s all about the hostages”.
The captives, then, have assumed centre stage in Israel’s latest bout of blood-soaked war theatrics, while for some Israelis the present genocide is evidently not nearly genocidal enough.
Press a button for ‘wipe out’
During a recent episode of the popular English-language Israeli podcast “Two Nice Jewish Boys”, the podcasting duo in question suggested that it would be cool to just press a button and wipe out “every single living being in Gaza” as well as in the West Bank.
Time to break out the popcorn and hookahs.
At the end of the day, the disproportionate value assigned to the lives of the Israeli captives in Gaza vis-à-vis the lives of the Palestinians who are being annihilated is of a piece with Israel’s trademark chauvinism.
This outlook casts Israelis as the perennial victims of Palestinian “terrorism” even as Palestinians are consistently massacred at astronomically higher rates by the Israeli military.
During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, for example, no more than six Israeli civilians were killed. And yet Israel maintained its monopoly on victimisation.
In June of this year, the Israeli army undertook a rescue operation in Gaza that freed four captives but reportedly killed 210 Palestinians in the process — no doubt par for the disproportionate course.
Meanwhile, following the recovery of the bodies of the six captives last week, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for their demise, declaring: “Whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal.”
General consensus over Israeli life
But what about “whoever” continues to preside over a genocide while assassinating the top ceasefire negotiator for Hamas and sabotaging prospects for a deal at every turn?
As the protests now demonstrate, many Israelis are on to Netanyahu. But the issue with the protests is that genocide is not the issue.
Even among Netanyahu’s detractors, there persists a general consensus as to the unilateral sacrosanctity of Israeli life, which translates into the assumption of an inalienable right to slaughter Palestinians.
And as the latest episode of Israel’s “reality war theatre” drags on — with related Israeli killing sprees available for viewing in the West Bank and Lebanon, too — this show is really getting old.
One would hope Israeli audiences will eventually tire of it all and walk out, but for the time being bloodbaths are a guaranteed blockbuster.
Belén Fernández is the author of Inside Siglo XXI: Locked Up in Mexico’s Largest Immigration Detention Center (OR Books, 2022), Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), and Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016). She writes for numerous publications and this article was first published by Al Jazeera.
In his address to Papua New Guinea, the Sovereign Head of the Vatican and the Head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, called for an end to ethnic violence in Papua New Guinea.
Pope Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea a month after the brutal killings in East Sepik Province where men, women and children were mercilessly killed.
This happened at the backdrop of continued tribal conflicts in parts of the Highlands Region where in February an ambush resulted in mass killings in Enga Province. Isolated incidents of ethnic clashes have happened in cities and towns.
Highlighting these issues that continues to plague rural Papua New Guinea, Pope Francis called for individuals and groups to take responsibility in stopping the spread of violence.
“It is my hope that tribal violence will come to an end, for it causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development,” Pope Francis said.
“I appeal, therefore, to everyone’s sense of responsibility to stop the spiral of violence and instead resolutely embark on the path that leads to fruitful cooperation for the benefit of all the people of the country.”
The Pope went on to challenge the Catholic faithful to follow the Gospel of Jesus, and preach the good news of peace hope and love.
Faith can be ‘lived culture’
“For all those who profess to be Christians — the vast majority of your people — I fervently hope that faith will never be reduced just to the observance of rituals and precepts.
“May it be marked instead by love of Jesus Christ and following him as a disciple.
“In this way, faith can become a lived culture, inspiring minds and actions and becoming a beacon of light that illuminates the path forward.
“At the same time, faith can also help society to grow and find good and effective solutions to its greatest challenges,” Pope Francis said.
Inside PNG reports that Papua New Guinea is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, a proclamation even Pope Francis acknowledges.
But Papua New Guinea is also challenged with socio-economic developments that do not reach the rural majority despite the presence of numerous extractive industries.
The Pontiff in his remarks at the APEC Haus said Papua New Guinea besides consisting of islands and languages, was also rich in natural resources.
“These goods are destined by God for the entire community.
Needs of local people a priority
“Even if outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources, it is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, to improve their living conditions.
“These environmental and cultural treasures represent at the same time a great responsibility, because they require everyone, civil authorities and all citizens, to promote initiatives that develop natural and human resources in a sustainable and equitable manner,” said Pope Francis.
Governor-General Sir Bob Dadae, in acknowledging the work of the Catholic Church in the country, also requested the Pope in his capacity as a world leader to help advocate on climate change and its impacts that was being felt by island nations like PNG.
“Climate change is real and is affecting the lives of our people in the remote islands of Papua New Guinea.
“Across the Pacific, islands are sinking and are affected and displaced.
“We seek your prayers and support for global action and advocacy on climate change, we need to let the world know that there is no more time.
“What the world needs is commitment for action,” Sir Bob said.
10 November 2023 and with my anxiety peaking, I continued through the streets of Kazimierz (Krakow’s Jewish Quarter) to the designated pick-up point.
Today, I was going to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau for the first time.
Having spoken to Jewish friends and colleagues prior to my trip to Poland, I was anticipating a day of reflection, tears and shock.
Boarding the coach amongst a group of strangers, I began bracing myself for an intense experience.
Auschwitz: where people become numbers
At Auschwitz I – the former Nazi work camp.
Around an hour and a half later, we arrived in Oswiecim – the Polish name for the town where the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex was developed.
Passing security, I stood with the other English speakers and was introduced to a local tour guide who would join us for the first half of the visit: Auschwitz I– the former work camp.
Built upon old army barracks, here Jewish, Roma, Polish and other individuals were worked to death, subjected to medical experiments and in some cases, gassed to death.
As we started the tour, we entered through a tunnel to the sound of the names of the victims – a poignant moment of reflection. This is what I’d anticipated.
However, one and a half hours later, I was left angry, frustrated and disappointed. Not (solely) with the injustice of the Shoah, but at the utter insensitivity of the tour guide at the world’s most poignant genocide memorial.
The guide’s tour was impersonal, insensitive and incomplete.
Speaking at the speed of light with a dead-pan voice, we were rushed from building to building.
Struggling to keep up with the speed, whilst critically reflecting and taking photos and met in a basement of crowds of people, I was then separated from my group.
Following judgmental glare after glare from another tour guide, I was lost.
When I finally found the group around 20 minutes later, I was left to enter the gas chamber alone. No history, no context, nothing.
Met with indignance and blame by the tour guide, I later shared my experience with the trip leader.
The complete lack of sensitivity shown by a man who is tasked to guide visitors around one of the most haunting sites of history.
Left: Block 10, where medical experiments were carried out on prisoners. Right: the shoes of prisoners which were confiscated upon arrival.
Aware of time constraints, I expected merely time for reflection and an engaged guide from whom we could learn and reflect.
However, with the speed and content of the tour, we learnt nothing of the people behind the numbers – their lives, their feelings, their histories. They were merely arrivals, prisoners or deceased…
Where was the humanity? The reflection? The remembrance? The shame?
We heard very little about people affected. Very little about their feelings, their histories and their pain.
The Jewish and Roma and Sinti communities were mentioned by name, but with very little detail.
Number, after number, we walked around bricks and mortar, only occasionally met by photos of people affected.
We reflected upon the painful images of Hungarian Jewish families arriving at the camp.
Contrastingly, we also saw the portraits of prisoners – with the same clothing and shaved head – images that showed how prisoners had been denied their individual personalities, histories and freedoms. They had become numbers.
Expressing my concern to the trip leader, I explained how I could understand a certain desensitisation when working day-in-day-out in such an environment but that I was left questioning:
What is the aim of a memorial if not to promote respect for the deceased, reflection on how humanity sank so low and to invite action to stop it from happening again (although we all know it did)?
Inviting reflection: visiting Birkenau
The train tracks at the entrance of Birkenau death camp.
For the second part of the day, I joined an Italian group for the visit to Birkenau: the former death camp.
The remaining site consists of a mixture of rubble from where the Nazis attempted to conceal the truth of the gas chambers, the original cold, dark, shabby “huts” where women were left to sleep, and a multilingual memorial to pay tribute to those who were murdered.
As a British-born woman, brought up in a monolingual household, Italian was not my first language. I am half-Italian but learnt Italian as a foreign language as a teenager.
However, I can honestly say I understood and took away far more from that half of the trip then the first.
Our guide was personable, honest and kind. She shared stories of families, feelings and experiences as she taught the horrors of the camp.
One particularly poignant moment was when she recalled how one Italian mother shed a tear as she silently hugged her son goodbye, knowing they’d never see each other again.
Arriving on tracks purposefully built to enable the Nazis to bring as many people as possible directly to the camp (out of sight from the public), she shared how the conditions in the barracks were so bad that rats would feed upon deceased prisoners.
She explained how the graffiti we’d seen on the walls of these huts was made by modern visitors not prisoners – as they’d dare not write anything for fear of being accused of conspiracy.
This beautiful lady also allowed time for questions (including catch-up questions from me), for pause, for feeling.
She gave us the space for introspection, reflection and respect to those so brutally killed at this hell hole.
The “huts” where female prisoners were held.
Pausing to end the tour, she concluded with a clear message:
We should visit this site to understand. For we’ll hopefully never suffer so tragically as those who died in the Shoah. We therefore won’t fully understand.
But, we must learn and we must stand against hate – for the future.
And that’s the message we needed to hear.
Going to Auschwitz-Birkenau shouldn’t be about “dark tourism”. About checking a box, seeing bricks and mortar and crumbled remains, or about learning numbers without knowing the lives, fears and hopes of the people behind them.
It’s the people that matter.
And that’s why visiting any camp (as part of wider Holocaust education), should be about remembrance of those so brutally murdered, reflection on how this was enforced on them and about committing to action to ensure it never happens to anyone every again.
The Holocaust didn’t happen in a day.
It was the culmination of centuries of antisemitism, amid a fascist regime and economic collapse. The accumulation of “othering”, demonising and scapegoating.
And so, it’s a very sad day indeed that when visiting a memorial, I was also told that there was “no time” to light a candle, to lay a memorial stone, to read a poem or to recite a prayer so lovingly shared with me by a Jewish friend and colleague. To show my respect, to mourn and to remember these people in this very personal way.
Left: Memorial to the murdered Jews at Birkenau. Right: remaining segment of the wall of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.
With no time at Birkenau, I was however able to spend my final day in Krakow making up for this.
And so, I’d like to finish with said poem, recited in front of the remainder of the ghetto wall in Krakow the very next day. And where, lies a plaque that reads:
“Here they lived, suffered and perished at the hands of Hitler’s executioners. From here they began their final journey to the death camps.”
We remember you. We honour you.
May your memory be a blessing.
You who live safe In your warm houses, You who find on returning in the evening, Hot food and friendly faces: … Consider if this is a woman, Without hair and without name With no more strength to remember, Her eyes empty and her womb cold Like a frog in winter. Meditate that this came about: I commend these words to you. Carve them in your hearts At home, in the street, Going to bed, rising; Repeat them to your children, Or may your house fall apart, May illness impede you, May your children turn their faces from you.
(Excerpt from “If This Is a Man” by Primo Levi, translated by Stuart Woolf)
Acknowledgements:
Firstly, like to thank CEJIfor enabling me to travel to Poland as part of their “Train the Trainer” programme in combatting antisemitism.
Thanks also go to FESTIVALT for hosting us in Krakow and for helping to organise my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Secondly, I’d also like to thank my dear friend Doreen for her support and for sharing the beautiful (coincidentally Italian!) Primo Levi poem with me.
Lastly, to read and share personal life stories of survivors from the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, click here.
Despite the regime withdrawing even the most basic human rights of women and girls, liberal democracies have failed to take action
‘So pervasive is the Taliban’s institutionalised gender oppression, and so slender are the spaces in which women and girls may live freely, that in Afghanistan today almost any act can be characterised as an act of resistance.”
That conclusion from Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, encapsulates how unbearably suffocating it is to be female in Afghanistan today: excluded from education and from running a business; forbidden from going outside for a walk or to exercise, to speak or show any part of their face or body outside the home; or even for their voices to be heard singing or reading from within their own home. There is no other country where women and girls are so oppressed on the basis of their sex.
We are deeply concerned with the misleading nature of the journalism presented in your recent coverage of the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. By focusing on specific language and framing, while leaving out the necessary context of international law, the broadcast misrepresents the reality of the situation faced by Palestinians.
This has the effect of perpetuating a narrative that could be seen and experienced as biased and dehumanising.
This ruling highlights the severity of Israel’s actions and the international community’s obligation to hold those responsible accountable. However, TVNZ’s coverage has often failed to reflect this legal and humanitarian perspective.
Instead it echos biased narratives that obscure these realities. This includes the expansion of genocidal like acts to the West Bank and the serious concerns about the potential for mass ethnic cleansing and further escalation of grave human rights violations.
Under international law, including the Genocide Convention, media organisations have a crucial responsibility to report accurately and avoid inciting violence or supporting those committing genocidal acts.
Complicity in genocide can occur when media coverage supports or justifies the actions of perpetrators, contributing to the dehumanisation of victims and the perpetuation of violence. By failing to provide balanced reporting and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes and misinformation, TVNZ risks being complicit in these grave violations of human rights.
Tragic history of attacks
New Zealand’s own tragic history of attacks on Muslims, such as the Al Noor Mosque shootings, should serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of dehumanising narratives. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public perception, and it is deeply concerning to see TVNZ contributing to the marginalisation and demonisation of Muslims and Palestinians through biased reporting.
We urge you to review your coverage of the genocide to ensure that it is fair, balanced, and aligned with international law and journalistic ethics. Specific examples of biased reporting include recent stories on Gaza that failed to mention the ICJ ruling or the context of an illegal occupation.
This includes decades of systematic land confiscation, military control, restrictions on movement, and the suppression of Palestinian voices through media censorship and the shutdown of local newspapers. Accurate and responsible journalism is essential in fostering an informed and empathetic public, especially on matters as sensitive and impactful as this.
On August 29, 2024, TVNZ aired a news story that exemplifies problematic media framing when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story begins by benignly describing Israel’s “entry into the West Bank” as part of a “counter-terrorism strike”— the largest operation in 10 years — implying that the context is solely anti-terrorism.
Automatically, the use of the word terrorism, sets the narrative of “good Israel” and “bad Palestinian” for the remainder of the news story. However, the report fails to mention numerous critical aspects, such as the provocations by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threatening to build a synagogue at Islam’s third holiest site, or Israel’s escalations and violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Convention considers the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it occupies a war crime, and under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist such occupation, a right recognised and protected by international legal frameworks.
The story uses footage, presumably provided by the IDF, that portrays the Israeli military as a calm, moral force entering “terrorist strongholds”, which is at odds with abundant open-source footage showing the IDF destroying infrastructure, terrorising civilians, and protecting armed settlers as they displace Palestinians from their homes.
Bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes
It portrays the IDF entering the town with bulldozers, but makes no mention of how those bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure to make way for Israeli settlements.
Furthermore, the report fails to mention that just last month, the Israeli government announced its plans to officially recognise five more illegal settlements in the West Bank and expand existing settlements, understandably exacerbating tensions.
The narrative is further reinforced by giving airtime to an Israeli spokesperson who frames the operation as a defensive counter-terrorism initiative. The journalist echoes this narrative, positioning Israel as merely responding to threats.
Although a brief soundbite from a Palestinian Red Crescent worker expresses fears of what might happen in the West Bank, the report fails to provide any counter-narrative to Israel’s self-defence claim.
The story concludes by listing the number of deaths in the West Bank since October 19, implying that the situation began with Hamas’s actions in Gaza on that date, rather than addressing the illegal Israeli occupation since 1967, as the root cause of the violence.
Why is this important? The news story is a violation of the Accuracy and Impartiality Standard with TVNZ failing to present a balanced view of the situation in Palestine, potentially misleading the audience on critical aspects of the conflict.
Secondly, the news story violates the Harm and Offence Standard, being an insufficient and inflammatory portrayal of the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine contributing to public misperception and harm.
Additionally, there is a concern regarding the Fairness Standard, with individuals and groups affected by the conflict not being given fair opportunity to respond or be represented in the broadcast.
These breaches are significant as they undermine the integrity of the reporting and fail to uphold the standards of responsible journalism. Holding our media outlets to high journalistic standards is essential, particularly in the context of the genocide in Gaza.
The media plays a significant part in either exposing or obscuring the realities of such atrocities. When news outlets fail to report accurately or neglect to label the situation in Gaza as genocide, they contribute to a narrative that minimises the severity of the crisis and enables and prolongs Israel’s social license to continue it’s genocidal actions.
Should there be no substantial changes to address our concerns, we will escalate this matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for further review.
Government and paramilitary forces responsible for rape, violence and torture, according to civilian interviews
Peacekeepers should be deployed to Sudan immediately and an existing international arms embargo should be expanded to protect civilians from “harrowing” rights abuses committed by the warring parties in the country’s civil war, UN experts said on Friday.
Sudan’s army (SAF) and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces [RSF], have raped and attacked civilians, used torture and made arbitrary arrests, according to a UN-mandated fact-finding mission based on 182 interviews with survivors, relatives and witnesses. The violations “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, its report said.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune set for second term as president after changed poll date is expected to favour him
Algeria goes to the polls on Saturday in a presidential election being held in the context of what rights groups have called “a steady erosion of human rights” under the president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who is expected to win a second five-year term.
As many as 24 million people are eligible to vote in the north African country in a process moved forward by three months.
Between October and May, Israeli forces worked to create a wide “buffer zone” along Gaza’s eastern border, where they damaged or destroyed nearly everything, ranging from schools to agricultural land — making an area of destruction encompassing 16 percent of Gaza’s land, a new report finds. According to an analysis by Amnesty International released Thursday, Israel has cleared a strip of land…
Israel is using a range of “lethal war-like tactics” amid its assault of the occupied West Bank, the UN has warned, as Israeli forces destroy crucial civilian infrastructure and carry out drone strikes in Jenin refugee camp and beyond. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday that Israeli forces have killed over two dozen people in the West Bank…
At least two loggers have been killed, one wounded, and two more reported missing, in an encounter with uncontacted Mashco Piro people in Peru’s Amazon – the same Indigenous tribe whose images went viral in July.
Peru’s Mashco Piro Indigenous people
The tragedy has prompted angry criticism of the government by regional Indigenous organisation FENAMAD, which in a statement denounced Peru’s authorities for their persistent failure to abide by Peruvian and international law and formally recognise and protect the entire Mashco Piro territory:
They also called for all outsiders such as logging workers in the area to be evacuated.
The attack happened near the Pariamanu river in Madre de Dios province on 29 August, but the news has only now been confirmed.
It took place in a part of the Mashco Piro’s ancestral territory that has been sold off by the government as a logging concession. It follows a similar attack one month ago in the same area, in which at least one logger was wounded. No official investigation of that incident has taken place, despite Indigenous requests.
Part of the Mashco Piro territory has been legally recognised and protected, but a significant part is unprotected, and much of it has been sold off for logging. Both the location where the recent images of the Mashco Piro were taken, and the site of the latest attacks, are in that region of Peru.
There are people wounded, dead, missing – we don’t know what’s happening or what has happened. We’ve asked the authorities to provide assistance with a helicopter. And this isn’t the first time, that’s our concern. FENAMAD has been demanding for a long time that this territory be properly protected for uncontacted peoples.
This is a tragedy that was entirely avoidable. The Peruvian authorities have known for years that this area that they chose to sell off for logging was actually the Mashco Piro’s territory. By facilitating the logging and destruction of this rainforest they’re not only endangering the very survival of the Mashco Piro people, who are incredibly vulnerable to epidemics of disease brought in by outsiders, but they’ve knowingly put the lives of the logging workers in danger.
The government must act now: it must cancel the logging concessions and recognise and protect the whole Mashco Piro territory. If it doesn’t, further tragedies are inevitable.
Featured image and additional images via Survival International
‘Dismal’ lack of progress leaves women and girls facing litany of abuses – with no country on track to achieve equality
More than 850 million women and girls are living in countries rated as “very poor” for gender equality, says a new report, subjecting them to a litany of potential restrictions and abuses, including forced pregnancies, childhood marriage and bans from secondary education.
The U.K. is suspending 30 arms export licenses to Israel, the country’s foreign minister announced Monday, citing the “clear risk” that Israel would use the weapons to commit grave violations of international law amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza and raid on the occupied West Bank. Foreign Minister David Lammy told parliament that the decision to suspend 30 of the U.K.’s 350 arms licenses to…
Update: The chairman of Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, instructed workers to return to their jobs following an order by an Israeli court to end the general strike on Monday afternoon. Earlier: Workers across Israel walked off the job and took to the streets on Monday to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal…
EHRC investigation found 11 unlawful acts aimed at barring Irish Travellers from Pontins’ holiday parks
Pontins has issued an apology to Gypsy and Traveller communities after an investigation by the equality watchdog uncovered discriminatory practices by the holiday park operator.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) served Pontins with an unlawful act notice in February after an investigation found practices aimed at barring Irish Travellers from its holiday parks between 2013 and 2018.
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