Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held in Parliament’s old Legislative Chambers yesterday.
AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) is first and foremost a military alliance aimed at our major trading partner China. It is designed to maintain US primacy in the “Indo-Pacific” region and opponents are sceptical of claims that China represents a threat to New Zealand or Australian security.
The recent proposal to bring New Zealand into the alliance under “Pillar II” would represent a shift in our security and alliance settings that could dismantle our country’s independent foreign policy and potentially undo our nuclear free policy.
Clark’s assessment is that the way the government has approached the proposed alliance lacks transparency. National made no signal of its intentions during the election campaign and yet the move towards AUKUS seems well planned and choreographed.
Voters in the last election “were not sensitised to any changes in the policy settings,” Clark says, “and this raises huge issues of transparency.”
Such a significant shift should first secure a mandate from the electorate.
A key question the speakers addressed at the symposium was: is AUKUS in the best interest of this country and our region?
Highly questionable
“All of these statements made about AUKUS being good for us are highly questionable,” Clark says. “What is good about joining a ratcheting up of tensions in a region? Where is the military threat to New Zealand?”
Clark, PM from 1999-2008, has noticed a serious slippage in our independent position. She contrasted current policy on the Middle East with the decision, under her leadership, of not joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Sceptical of US claims about weapons of mass destruction, New Zealand made clear it wanted no part of it — a stance that has proven correct. Our powerful allies the US, UK and Australia were wrong both on intelligence and the consequences of military action.
In contrast, New Zealand participating in the current bombardment of Yemen because of the Houthis disruption of Red Sea traffic in response to the Israeli war on Gaza is, says Clark, an indication of this change in fundamental policy stance:
“New Zealand should have demanded the root causes for the shipping route disruptions be addressed rather than enthusiastically joining the bombing.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that if the drift we see in position continues, we will be positioned in a way we haven’t seen for decades – as a fully-signed-up partner to US strategies in the region.
“And from that, will flow expectations about what is the appropriate level of defence expenditure for New Zealand and expectations of New Zealand contributing to more and more military activities.”
A hugely important interview with Helen Clark about AUKUS
Economic security
Clark addressed another element which should add caution to New Zealand joining an American crusade against China: economic security.
China now takes 26 percent of our exports — twice what we send to Australia and 2.5 times what we send to the US. She questioned the wisdom of taking a hostile stance against our biggest trading partner who continues to pose no security threat to this country.
So what is the alternative to New Zealand siding with the US in its push to contain China and help the US maintain its hegemon status?
“The alternative path is that New Zealand keeps its head while all around are losing theirs — and that we combine with our South Pacific neighbours to advocate for a region which is at peace,” Clark says, echoing sentiments that go right back to the dawn of New Zealand’s nuclear free Pacific, “so that we always pursue dialogue and engagement over confrontation.”
Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.
In the 1960s the birthrate in Greenland was one of the highest in the world. Then it plunged. Decades later, women have finally begun speaking out about what happened
Bula Larson was 14 when one day she and her friends were told to go to the hospital. Bula lived in Greenland and was Inuit like most of the population of the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark. At the hospital she and her friends lined up, and one-by-one were told to enter a room. Bula recalls how she was asked to sit on a bed with ‘cold metal stirrups’ where, to her shock, she was fitted with an IUD, a contraceptive coil she had never asked for or agreed to have.
Today, more than 100 women are suing the Danish government for a policy of forced contraception. Helen Pidd hears how thousands of Inuit women and girls – some aged just 13 – were fitted with coils. Many say this was done without their or their parents’ consent, and caused lasting damage.
Body says no update has been made on treatment of prisoners one year after it accused Australia of a ‘clear breach’ of its obligations under anti-torture treaty
The United Nations’ anti-torture watchdog has issued a blunt warning to the Australian government for dragging its feet after a failure to update progress on improving the treatment of detainees across state prisons and immigration detention facilities.
On Thursday 18 April the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has released its follow-up review on UK aid to India. ICAI’s review raises questions over some investments made by the UK’s development finance institution British International Investment (BII), including in social media sites and a cosmetics company.
UK aid: financing a cosmetics company in India
As the Canary previously reported, BII was originally set up in 1948. Now, as the IDC report said:
BII invests capital in businesses either directly (by investing equity or providing loans and other debt finance) or indirectly (by investing through financial intermediaries such as private equity funds, banks or micro-financing entities).
That is, it invests in the private sectors of other countries. Predictably, BII gets much of its funding from foreign ODA – with the FCDO ploughing hundreds of millions into it every year.
Has investments via an intermediary in an education company which is alleged to have violated workers’ rights, with staff were accused of child sexual abuse, and had a child die on its watch.
Has 28% of its entire investment portfolio concentrated in India – which is classed as a middle-income country, not a poor one.
Does not have control over where its investments go, including putting money into a food and beverage outlets and a cosmetic surgery centre.
Overall, the IDC report found that BII’s investments sometimes conflict with the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the UK’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
UK aid not serving its purpose
The report comes after BII pledged in 2023 to the International Development Committee that it would improve its investments’ links to poverty reduction.
The watchdog found recent taxpayer-UK aid funding from BII going to an Indian fund that invested in social media platforms and dating apps – as well as the cosmetics company.
In reaction to the review, Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy and advocacy at Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said:
It is concerning that BII, which has received over £4 billion from the UK aid budget in recent years, thinks women’s economic empowerment and poverty reduction can be achieved by spending a huge amount of UK aid on questionable cosmetics, dating apps and social media businesses.
The UK government needs to hold BII to account and ensure that British taxpayers’ money is invested in local businesses that support local development and prioritise the needs of local communities, both in India and other countries where BII operates.
Jakarta’s age-old problem of air pollution reached record heights in 2023, posing significant health risks to its residents. Rafsi Albar scrutinises the government’s response through a human rights lens.
The Indonesian public is appalled by the worsening air quality in Jakarta. The city has, for years, been plagued by worsening air quality. However, recent months have been the worst in city history. Recent reports by IQAir consistently rank Jakarta as one of the top 10 most polluted cities since May 2023, with June 14 and August 9 being the days it peaked as the world’s first most polluted city. This problem extends beyond the capital; at least seven cities in the neighbouring regions suffer from even worse fates due to wind patterns.
In response to the worsening situation, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo convened officials in an ad hoc meeting to find solutions. In concrete terms, the meeting resulted in the government ordering state apparatus to work from home (WFH) and creating a task force to handle the situation further. The Minister of Law and Human Rights affirmed the decision to implement WFH for its employees, citing health as a human right.
A hypocritical act of sympathy
In September 2021, Jakarta’s residents were declared victorious in a landmark citizen lawsuit against various government institutions including the Jakarta administration, several ministers, and even the president for their failure in tackling the city’s air pollution problem. The ruling was made after two years of citizens eagerly waiting for justice for the thousands of deaths attributable to the same.
The government attempted to appeal the decision. This was perceived to be a defensive move, revealing the government’s lack of cooperative action. In 2022, the Jakarta High Court earned praise for rejecting this appeal. The judges reaffirmed the lower court’s reasoning that “[they have] been negligent in not fulfilling their obligations in ensuring the right to good and healthy [living conditions], which has resulted in poor air quality in the Special Capital Region of Jakarta.”
Despite this ruling and the 2023 actions, the government has largely failed to address this issue and improve the quality of life for its citizens. The right to health, as quoted in both instances, are used largely as buzzwords to appease the public.
The right to health is one of the most fundamental forms of human rights. This is connected to the right to life itself as stipulated under Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right is further elaborated by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Article 12 stipulates the need for the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health. Indonesia ratified the ICCPR in 2005 alongside seven of eight other instruments under the UDHR regime, then extended at the regional level through the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. Article 28 states that the right to adequate living standards takes multiple forms including a safe, clean, and sustainable environment.
While these voluntary pledges lack legal obligations, they remind the Indonesian government to address environmental issues like pollution promptly, preventing health crises and demonstrating a commitment to the well-being of their citizens. Yet the exact opposite is seen to be the case today. The government has not made meaningful progress in the past couple of years, and the proposed solutions are short-term – casting doubts over seriousness.
Steps to making real change
The government should first seek to understand the root causes of worsening air quality in Jakarta. They have claimed motorised vehicles and weather to be the combination that caused the event. In response, the government encouraged citizens to shift to using electric vehicles. Alas, this kind of proposition seems to be unrealistic at the present since the average price of EVs is still substantially higher than internal combustion vehicles. By extension, the government in this statement has failed to acknowledge the fact that coal is still the predominant source of electricity in the country,
In mid-August, the government commenced work to monitor coal-powered electricity generation plants, the current ‘accused’ in Jakarta’s pollution case. The public’s optimism and hopefulness should not be held without caution given the government’s history of inaction and defensiveness. The media, environmentalists, and international watchdogs play critical roles in ensuring that the government not only acknowledges the severity of the crisis but also takes swift and effective measures accordingly.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Thursday 18 of April marks the annual United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Day. This year however, an Indigenous rights non-profit is exposing UNESCO for the racist colonial institution that it is.
Significantly, the group is calling out the colonial conservation model that sits at the heart of the UNESCO designated World Heritage Sites.
On top of this, the Canary has dug up more evidence revealing the systemic violence, displacement, and abuse of Indigenous and local communities living at a number of these sites.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Across the world, there are currently 1199 World Heritage Sites (WHS). UNESCO designates WHS status for locations that are:
of outstanding universal value to humanity.
Crucially, UNESCO intends this to ensure conservation of world places of natural and cultural heritage. To date, natural sites make up 266 of the World Heritage List. These amount to approximately 3.5 million square kilometres, across more than 100 countries – larger than the size of India.
On 18 April every year, UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) mark World Heritage Day.
However, to mark this year’s celebrations, non-profit Survival International has published a scathing rap-sheet of human rights abuses in six of these sites. Notably, it has taken aim at UNESCO for its complicity in the illegal eviction and abuse of Indigenous people.
Decolonize UNESCO
Survival’s “#DecolonizeUNESCO” report points to multiple UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are the scene of serious and continuing conservation-related rights abuses.
In the report, Survival highlighted that:
at least a third of the 227 sites designated as World Heritage“natural” sites under UNESCO’s 1972 World Heritage Convention, “are fully or partially located within the traditional territories of Indigenous peoples and are of great significance for their livelihoods and their spiritual, social and cultural well-being”.
However, it said that:
instead of being celebrated as the best guardians of their territories, Indigenous peoples are paying a bitter price for having shaped and inhabited the most beautiful and important landscapes of our world.
Alarmingly, Survival researchers’ on-the-ground investigations have documented a litany of violence in WHS. In Indigenous communities across Africa and Asia, they have uncovered repeated cases of torture, rape, and killings of Indigenous people.
Significantly, the report lists six World Heritage Sites that occupy stolen Indigenous land. These include:
Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, Thailand
Kaziranga National Park, India
Chitwan National Park, Nepal
Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania
Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of Congo
Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo
UNESCO backing abuse
Today, the Canary has also highlighted an opportunistic luxury safari company displacing and abusing Indigenous communities in one of these WHS. Specifically, tourism operator Thomson Safaris has capitalised on the UAE royal family’s land-grabbing for a 1,500 square km game reserve. Since 2022, Tanzanian authorities have violently evicted many of the Maasai people in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
As we reported:
During this eviction in 2022, security forces fired live ammunition on the Maasai. As a result, they severely wounded dozens and displaced thousands more Maasai community members. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) has estimated that the land-grab for the 1,500 square km (approximately 370,000 acres) game reserve alone could displace 70,000 Maasai people from their ancestral lands.
Of course, UNESCO has explicitly backed removing the Maasai. One Maasai leader quoted by Survival has said:
UNESCO’s support is being used to evict us. We are very sick and confused, we don’t know when we will die.
Separately, the Oakland Institute has previously demonstrated UNESCO’s complicity in this. Crucially, it trashed the institutions claim that it had:
never at any time asked for the displacement of the Maasai people.
By contrast, UNESCO had in fact done exactly that. Notably, in the Tanzanian government’s review of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area it had backed “relocating” local people:
to establish Ngorongoro Nature Reserve. Retain historical bomas for cultural tourism.
Bomas are the Maasai people’s family homesteads complexes. So, in other words, it wanted to kick out the Maasai, but keep their homes for rich white tourists to ogle at.
‘Fortress conservation’ at its finest
Other WHS in the report epitomise the violent colonial impulses of this ‘fortress conservation’ approach. This is a militarized conservation model which has historically evicted existing Indigenous and local inhabitants from their traditional lands, or otherwise restricted their access to crucial resources like food, fuel, and medicinal plants.
For example, the park authorities and the Congolese army has implemented this in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Specifically, in 2019, they started a campaign to purge the forest of Indigenous Batwa people who had returned to their ancestral lands in the park. They conducted several extremely violent attacks against Batwa villages, involving many well-documented atrocities.
Naturally, UNESCO had promoted an approach based on force and militarization. In particular, it had urged the government to “increase the scope and frequency of the patrols” and to “evacuate the illegal occupants”.
The Batwa were hit hard by the resulting violence, but said:
We live in the forest. When they confront us, they rape us. Those of us who will die will die, but the forest is where we will stay.
Meanwhile, UNESCO designated Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo a WHS in 2023. This was despite well-documented abuses taking place there, including rape and torture.
Systemic UNESCO WHS rights violations
Now, the Canary has also found at least 16 protected areas (PAs) with WHS designations – not including the six Survival identified – that have displaced or adversely impacted Indigenous communities.
Using a combination of databases and targeted searches, we discovered WHS covering PAs spanning eleven countries with reports of land dispossession and human rights violations.
While each now has WHS status, often the initial eviction of local inhabitants took place before UNESCO designated it. However, it did so in knowledge of this torrid history of human rights violations and with the full understanding that the land belonged to Indigenous communities.
Ostensibly, both the Canary’s and Survival’s research shows that UNESCO WHS are maintaining patterns of colonial land-grabbing and violence against Indigenous peoples.
Complicity “beyond silence”
Given this, Survival is demanding UNESCO to act. In particular, it is calling on it to stop backing the abuse of Indigenous peoples’ rights in the name of conservation. Moreover, it is compelling the organisation remove World Heritage status from any site where human rights atrocities are occurring. Instead, it wants UNESCO to promote a model of conservation based on the full recognition of Indigenous land rights.
Survival’s director Caroline Pearce said:
UNESCO has played a key role in giving legitimacy to many of the most notorious Protected Areas in Africa and Asia, and it’s largely ignored the well-documented atrocities being committed on its watch. What it calls “Natural World Heritage Sites” are very often the stolen ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples, who are being kept out by force, intimidation and terror. Its complicity has gone beyond silence to encompass the active support of governments, and actions, that violate Indigenous rights. It must remove World Heritage Status from any such site where abuses are taking place.
Survival is launching a day of online activism to coincide with the publication of the report, asking people to share a new video and tag #DecolonizeUNESCO.
Feature image via Влада на РСМ/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, image in the public domain
Indigenous Maasai communities in Tanzania are being subjected to more land-grabbing and human rights abuse. This time, a major tourism company is the culprit.
Thomson Safaris stealing Maasai land
On Tuesday 16 April, independent policy thinktank the Oakland Institute exposed Boston-based Thomson Safaris’ human rights violations against Indigenous villagers. Specifically, the company has tightened control over land it previously stole from Maasai communities.
Notably, Thomson Safaris is exploiting the Tanzanian government’s brutal repression of land defenders to legitimize control over Maasai land in the Loliondo Division of the Ngorongoro District.
In June 2022, the government carried out land demarcation to create a game reserve in Loliondo. As the Canary’s Tracy Keeling previously reported:
done so in order to lease their land to a UAE-based trophy hunting company called Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which has operated in the country for decades.
Notably, the Emirati royal family owns OBC. During this eviction in 2022, security forces fired live ammunition on the Maasai. As a result, they severely wounded dozens and displaced thousands more Maasai community members. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) has estimated that the land-grab for the 1,500 square km (approximately 370,000 acres) game reserve alone could displace 70,000 Maasai people from their ancestral lands.
Of course, Thomson has capitalised on this. In the immediate aftermath of these events, it carried out a resurvey of a long-contested land claim they have in the same area.
Violence against local Maasai communities
The Oakland Institute conducted field research in Loliondo and spoke to Maasai pastoralists Thomson’s brazen land-grab impacted.
From this, it produced the report “Capitalizing on Chaos: Thomson Safaris Tightens Its Stranglehold Over Indigenous Lands in Tanzania”. In it, the Oakland Institute exposes how Thomson has harmed communities there.
As it explained [Pdf, p4]:
Since 2006, the Mondorosi, Sukenya, and Soitsambu villages in the Loliondo Division of the Ngorongoro District have been ensnared in a prolonged struggle for the return of their lands against Tanzania Conservation Limited (TCL) – a company run by the owners of Thomson Safaris, a high profile, award-winning, Boston-based tourism company. Local communities seek to reclaim 10,000 acres of land in what is known to them as the Sukenya farm, originally transferred without their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and vital to their pastoral livelihoods.
Now, communities have said Thomson excluded them from the resurvey process. Moreover, in a November 2023 court filing, they alleged that the company’s agents enforcing these boundaries have abused them.
Significantly, the report highlighted how Thomson’s strict enforcement of the new boundaries has aggravated daily hardships for the villagers. On top of this, villagers have reported Thomson Safaris’ guides have committed violence against pastoralists and their children.
For instance, one villager cited in the report alleged:
My boy was taking care of the livestock when he was caught by a Thomson Safaris’ guide and beaten for no reason. He suffered injuries on his body…Our rights have been violated by an intruder in our ancestors’ land.
To make matters worse, Thomson’s strict enforcement of the land boundaries has reportedly forced villagers to walk hours to access essential medical services and schools. Communities have also lost access to prime grazing land. Naturally, this has been particularly catastrophic in the context of the drought that ravaged the Horn of Africa between 2020 and 2023.
Violating Maasai rights
Yet this land Thomson has violently seized originally belonged to the local communities living there.
Since 2006, the Mondorosi, Sukenya, and Soitsambu villages have been fighting for the company to return their lands. Local communities seek to reclaim 10,000 acres of land in what is known to them as the Sukenya farm.
There, in 1984, the Tanzanian government originally gave state-owned Tanzania Breweries Ltd (TBL) the title deeds for this vast expanse of land. TBL procured the land for barley production. In 2003, it extended this by a further 2,617 acres.
Naturally, the government did not obtain the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local Maasai communities for this. Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold this right under a number of international human rights instruments.
However, this was just the start of the corporate colonial land land-grab. As the report explained:
In 2006, Tanzania Conservation Limited (TCL) – a company operated by the owners of the Boston-based tourism company, Thomson Safaris – purchased a 96-year lease to 12,617 acres of land from TBL.
So now, Thomson Safaris is denying local communities the return of this stolen land.
On top of this, the company is also allegedly lobbying the Tanzanian government to change the land use in the surrounding area exclusively for tourism. Such a move would further prohibit Maasai pastoralists’ livestock from accessing vital water and grazing land.
Global North governments propping up land-grabbing luxury tourism
In response to an inquiry by the Oakland Institute, Thomson Safaris’ attorneys in Tanzania denied the allegations about the resurvey and its impact on villagers. While they called the claims “baseless,” the firm failed to provide any evidence that the resurvey took place with full community participation.
Despite the ongoing land dispute and allegations of violence made in court by villagers, high-profile universities, museums, and conservation groups still use the company as their preferred tourism operator.
Moreover, Oakland Institute executive director Anuradha Mittal called out the Tanzanian government for its complicity in tourism-driven land-grabs. She said that:
Over the past two years, the Tanzanian government has repeatedly shown it will aid and abet foreign corporations operating luxury safaris at the expense of the Maasai communities who have stewarded these lands for generations. While labeling itself as a sustainable tourism operator, the American firm is getting away with capitalizing on this repression
Predictably, the US government also has its corporate-colonialist fingerprints all over it too. In a separate report, the thinktank has highlighted how USAID – the country’s official development aid arm – has underpinned land-grabs for tourism in Tanzania.
Specifically, the report detailed how the US is behind a number of policy changes and measures that have led to the expansion of so-called protected areas, game reserves. Naturally, it has shaped policies to favour private operators. This has included influencing changes to fiscal measures to benefit these tourism corporations like Thomson Safaris.
The fingerprints of the US government are all over the harmful policies and projects to expand protected areas, rendering it complicit in the forced evictions of the Maasai and other local communities across the country. It has turned a blind eye to the egregious human rights abuses of the government so that the rich Americans can keep going on upscale safaris and operators like Thomson Safaris keep raking in massive profits
Of course, multiple Global North governments and institutions have been complicit in these violent colonial land-grabs across Tanzania. As the Canary’s Tracy Keeling previously explained:
European governments, institutions, and nonprofit organisations are variously involved “directly or indirectly” in tourism and conservation projects in Tanzania.
Given this, in May 2023, a Maasai delegation travelled round Europe to call on governments there to stop funding and supporting projects leading to their mass eviction.
Ultimately, profiteering tourism companies, the Global North and Tanzanian governments all bear responsibility for the violent persecution of the Maasai. Now, to rake in profits from rich Western tourists, Thomson Safaris is abusing Maasai communities. Needless to say, it’s well past time the community got their land back.
Husain Ali Matar was an 18-year-old Bahraini citizen when he was arrested for the final time on 30 October 2022 without a warrant. He was previously arrested on 28 June 2020 when he was a 16-year-old minor student in his second year of middle school and was sentenced to three years in prison following an unfair trial. He was then released on 6 May 2022 under alternative sanctions. During both detentions, he was subjected to physical and psychological torture, enforced disappearance, communication cutoffs, forced confessions, unfair trials, deprivation of prayer, blackmail, and medical neglect. On 20 June 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted anopinion concerning six Bahraini students, including Husain, who deemed their detention as arbitrary. The Working Group called for the immediate and urgent release of all six prisoners and for an impartial investigation to hold the perpetrators accountable. He was sentenced to three years in prison, half of which he served before being released on 15 April 2024 under alternative sanctions issued on 9 April 2024, which included 210 convicts.
On the evening of 29 October 2022, Husain’s father was summoned to the Khamees Police Station. When he went to the station on the morning of 30 October, he was detained. The police officers demanded that the father hand over Husain, threatening to hold him hostage otherwise. Consequently, Husain surrendered himself on the evening of the same day, 30 November 2022. He wasaccused of participating in burning part of a tent that was serving as a center for a candidate in the parliamentary elections on 29 October 2022. Husain was interrogated at the police station for three days without a lawyer present and was prevented from sleeping and praying. Plainclothes officers beat him, gave him only one meal during the day, and did not allow him to use the toilet when needed. As a result of the beatings he endured, he is now experiencing severe vision weakness. He then forcibly disappeared, and his family was cut off from any news about him. Three weeks after his arrest, Husain managed to call his family for the first time since his arrest, informing them that he was in the isolation building of the new Dry Dock Prison, designed for convicts under the age of 21. On 5 November 2022, he was brought before the Public Prosecution Office (PPO), which accused him of participating in burning part of the parliamentary election candidate’s tent.
Husain was arbitrarilyarrested for the penultimate time on 28 June 2020, when he was a 16-year-old Bahraini minor student. He was subjected to torture, deprivation of communication, isolation, medical neglect, and ill-treatment, and was sentenced to three years in prison in an unfair trial. On 29 April 2022, the Bahraini governmentdecided to release Husain among a group of 69 prisoners under alternative sanctions, most of whom were criminals, with few political prisoners. On 6 May 2022, Husain was released before being re-arrested on 30 October 2022, just less than six months later.
Since his last release on 6 May 2022 under alternative sanctions and up until his final arrest, Husain had been pursued in the streets by security forces and shot at, which led to constant concern for his life by his family. While implementing his alternative sanctions by working in social service, he faced numerous harassment by the responsible personnel. He was subjected to insults, and his social service locations were changed without prior notice, resulting in his absence being recorded. Although he also completed his work according to his old schedule, he was surprised to find his absence recorded for days when he was working, and violations were registered against him.
Husain was not brought promptly before a judge within 48 hours of his arrest, did not have adequate time and facilities to prepare for his trial, was not given any opportunity to present evidence and challenge evidence presented against him, and was not allowed to speak during his trial. On 15 January 2023, the First High Criminal Courtsentenced Husain to 3 years in prison with a 3,000 Dinars fine for the destruction of the electoral tent through arson. On 12 May 2023, the Court of Appealupheld the verdict and rejected Husain’s appeal. On 23 October 2023, the Cassation Court in turnrejected Husain’s appeal and upheld the judgment.
On 20 June 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted anopinion concerning six Bahraini students, including Husain, who deemed their detention as arbitrary. The Working Group called for the immediate and urgent release of all six prisoners and for an impartial investigation to hold the perpetrators accountable.
In January 2024, a year and two months after his final arrest, Husain’s parents were allowed to visit him for the first and only time since his arrest.
Husain had been isolated in a cell withAli Isa Jasim since their transfer to the new Dry Dock Prison until the issuance of the alternative sanctions decree on 9 April 2024. They endured severe psychological pressure, systematic harassment, and deprivation of the most basic rights, including clothing, healthy meals, and education. On 3 March 2024, Husain’s mother indicated in an audio recording that her son had gone on a hunger strike along with his cellmate,Ali Isa Jasim, due to their isolation away from all other prisoners, and in solidarity with a colleague who was transferred to a ward containing foreign prisoners. On 5 March 2024, Husain’s cellmate, Ali, conveyed in anaudio recordingfrom the isolation cell, complaining about their deteriorating health condition after a hunger strike lasting more than 7 days and a significant drop in blood sugar levels. They have sent several letters to the prison administration and various officers. Consequently, Husain and his cellmate received repeated promises that they would be placed with other prisoners, yet to no avail.
On 9 April 2024, the General Directorate for the Implementation of Alternative Judgements and Sanctions and the PPO decided to replace the sentences of 210 convicts in Bahraini prisons with alternative sanctions. They also decided to release 47 convicts under the open prisons program. Husain was among the prisoners whose names were included in the alternative sanctions decree. On the same day, Husain was transferred from Jau Prison to the Roundabout 17 Police Station in preparation for his release. However, he was forced to remain at the police station due to another case against him. In detail, Husain received a new offer to work as an informant in exchange for completing his release procedures; however, he refused the offer. Despite his name being on the list of those to be released, authorities arbitrarily kept him in prison. When his family inquired about him outside the station, awaiting his release, the police informed them that there was another sentence issued against him in absentia for 3 years in prison, even though the decision issued by the General Directorate for the Implementation of Alternative Judgements and Sanctions and the PPO stated that the remaining period of imprisonment and fines imposed on all mentioned prisoners should be dropped.
On 15 April 2024, Husain was presented to the PPO, which ordered his release. On the same day, he was released without any further details or clarification provided.
Husain’s arbitrary arrests, including his penultimate one when he was a minor, torture, enforced disappearance, communication cutoffs, deprivation of prayer, denial of access to legal counsel during interrogations, restraints on his rights to education, denial of fair trial rights, medical neglect, blackmail, and isolation represent clear violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Bahrain is a party. The Bahraini authorities also violated the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules.
Thus, ADHRB calls on the Government of Bahrain to investigate the allegations of arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearance, communication cutoffs, deprivation of prayer, denial of access to legal counsel during interrogations, restrictions on his rights to education, medical neglect, blackmail, and isolation to hold perpetrators accountable. In addition, ADHRB urges the Bahraini government to end the isolation of all political prisoners, holding the government responsible for the deterioration of the psychological conditions of isolated detainees. While ADHRB welcomes the recent release of a large number of political prisoners, it considers this belated step insufficient if it is conditional. ADHRB considers this step insufficient unless investigations into the violations suffered by these released individuals are conducted, compensation is provided, perpetrators are held accountable, and political arrests and ongoing prison violations cease.
I came to this evening of short films not sure what to expect.
I have a history with West Papua (here referring to the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, which comprises five provinces, one named “West Papua”) from my days fronting the legendary West Papuan band Black Brothers in the early 1990s.
During that time, I was exposed to stories of struggle and pride in the identity of the people of West Papua. From their declaration of self-determination and self-government and the raising of the Morning Star flag on 1 December 1961, to the so-called “Act of Free Choice” referendum in 1969 which saw the fledgling Melanesian state become part of the larger Indonesian state, to the next 40 years of struggle.
However, apart from the occasional ABC or SBS news story and the 1963 ethnographic film Dead Birds, I hadn’t seen much footage on West Papua until now.
The West Papua Mini Film Festival is a touring festival of short films organised by the West Papuan community and their allies and supporters in Australia to raise awareness of the situation in West Papua.
The four films I saw, at the first screening in Sydney, were:
My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee) Pepera 1969, A Democratic Integration? Papuan Hip-Hop: When the Microphone Talks Black Pearl and General of the Field
The first two films were quite harrowing portrayals of internal displacement and coercion in West Papua. My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee) follows the lives and families of two children, both named “refugee”, born and currently being raised in parts of West Papua distant from their families’ places of origin.
Their displacement is clearly correlated with the increased presence of extractive corporate interests backed in and supported by a military presence.
In both children’s cases this has been enabled by the gradual breaking up of the region of West Papua into first two, and now five, separate provinces.
A scene from My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee)
My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee). Video trailer: Jubi TV
The second film, Pepera 1969, A Democratic Integration, deals with the history of oppression and coercion under Indonesian rule and the absurdity of the rubber-stamping process undertaken by Indonesia (the Act of Free Choice, the Indonesian acronym for which is Pepera) which enabled it to annex West Papua under the impotent gaze of the United Nations and the complicit support of countries including the US and Australia.
The film documents the process leading into decolonisation and West Papua’s short-lived period of self-rule.
The second two films were insightful celebrations of Papuan identity in the arts, through hip-hop artists like Ukam Maran and the earlier musical group Mambesak, and in sport, with the incredible story of the Persipura football club of Jayapura.
The latter’s achievements as a football team and subsequent discrimination and suppression in the racially charged Indonesian football league provide an allegory of West Papuan identity.
In both cases, the strength and resilience of West Papuan identity, and West Papuans’ pride in their ancient ties to land and culture, are palpable.
A scene from Papua Hip-Hop: When the microphone talks.
What I liked about the four films was that they presented a montage of West Papua from rural to urban, from the everyday life of internally displaced people to the exciting work of hip-hop artists with their songs of protest; from the big picture and history of West Papua to the smaller microcosm of the Persipura football team and supporters.
All in all, I was surprised how much I came out of the festival better informed about a place, its history and current developments. And this despite having the privilege of knowing more about West Papua than many Australians.
For those who don’t know much about West Papua and would like to know more, attending the West Papua Mini Film Festival is a must. It is on at various locations around Australia until 21 April 2024, with details here.
And to end on a happy note, my evening of film appreciation included meeting one of the festival’s organisers, Victor Mambor. Victor is the nephew of the late Steve Mambor, drummer for the Black Brothers!
West Papua Mini Film Festival 2024, 9-21 April 2024, Wollongong, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Lismore, Hobart, Melbourne, and Darwin.
The films are also available to view with English and Indonesian subtitles on the Jubi TV Youtube channel.
‘Alopi Latukefu is the director of the Edmund Rice Centre. He previously worked for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This review was first published on ANU Development Policy Centre’s DevPolicyBlog and is republished here under Creative Commons.
Three Palestinian solidarity groups have joined the humanitarian aid charity Kia Ora Gaza in calling on New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters to demand that Israeli authorities “end their inhumane blockade” of Gaza and allow the international Freedom Flotilla “safe and unhindered passage”.
A team of three doctors has been selected to join the flotilla to provide humanitarian medical aid when it sails soon to the besieged Gaza Strip.
They will be joined by hundreds of prominent civilians, human rights advocates and medics from around the world, plus international media people.
The volunteer doctors are Dr Wasfy Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais to be led by Dr Adnan Ali.
An open letter, signed by Kia Ora Gaza’s Roger Fowler; John Minto, national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA); Janfrie Wakim, spokesperson of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC); and Maher Nazzal, co-founder of Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC), has also called for permanent ceasefire.
The open letter stated:
Dear [Foreign Minister Winston Peters] and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon,
We call on the NZ government to demand the Israeli authorities end their inhumane blockade and siege and allow the international Freedom Flotilla safe and unhindered passage to their destination — Gaza
We are pleased to announce that a team of three New Zealand doctors have been selected to join the international Freedom Flotilla which is due to sail for Gaza very soon.
Our Kiwi team of volunteer doctors are Dr Wasfy Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais to be led by Dr Adnan Ali.
They will be joined by hundreds of prominent civilians, human rights advocates and medics from around the world, plus international media personnel on this peaceful non-governmental, civil-society mission to challenge the illegal and inhumane 17-year Israeli naval blockade and siege of Gaza and to deliver urgently needed humanitarian and medical aid and services.
The team of Kiwi doctors are ready to join the Freedom Flotilla to bring humanitarian and medical aid to Gaza.
Our NZ medical team’s participation in this important humanitarian mission has been facilitated by Kia Ora Gaza and supported by many hundreds of fellow New Zealanders. We expect our government to resolutely uphold their safety and wellbeing.
This mission seeks to bring a message of hope and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for peace and justice and to highlight demands to end Israel’s illegal siege and deprivation of Gaza, the bombing, and the occupation.
As with previous international humanitarian flotillas to Gaza, the current mission poses no threat whatsoever to Israel.
However, in light of the urgent need for aid, Israel’s non-compliance of ICJ orders, and their illegal interception and seizure of previous Gaza-bound boats in international waters, we call on the NZ government to urgently demand the Israeli (and US) authorities lift the siege, implement a permanent ceasefire and allow the Freedom Flotilla safe and unhindered passage to reach their destination and deliver humanitarian and medical aid.
Yours sincerely,
Roger Fowler QSM Chair, Kia Ora Gaza
John Minto National Chair Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa
Janfrie Wakim Spokesperson Palestine Human Rights Campaign
Maher Nazzal Co-founder
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC)
Seventy-six million metric tons of oil reserves are located in the Arab Gulf, constituting around 66% of the global reserves. Oil represents a prominent source of income in the Middle East, proven by the increased production during the last decades. From 1980, oil production passed from 11 million barrels per day to 18 million. The two biggest producers in the region are Saudi Arabia and UAE, respectively, making 39 and 14 percent of the total share. Various studies show that the industry causes significant methane emissions, contributing to global warming and other emissions that create significant health risks for citizens. Notably, on 28 November 2023, the BBC warned that toxic gas in the Middle East is putting millions at risk. In particular, the article showed how oil production was spreading gases over hundreds of kilometers in the region, possibly jeopardizing the health of the residents.
Most GCC countries have appointed Commissions or National Councils to preserve the environment and control the health risks associated with oil production. The leading producer (Saudi Arabia) has also committed to contributing to the Paris Agreement through different measures. To mention some, installing 50 gigawatts of renewable and nuclear energy can reduce the country’s emissions during production.
Nonetheless, these measures are still insufficient to mitigate the negative impacts of energy production in the GCC. In an article from December 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlighted that exposure to particulate matter (PM 2.5) in the UAE was eight times higher than what the World Health Organization (WHO) considers safe. Based on the estimates of the organization, approximately 1872 people have died in 2023 due to outdoor air pollution. The BBC also showed that the GCC countries, due to gas flaring (burning of waste gas during oil drilling), endanger the lives of millions in the region. In particular, pollutants from flaring include PM 2.5 and Ozone NO2, which, at high levels, have been linked to strokes, cancer, asthma, and heart diseases.
Alarmingly, UAE national oil company Adnoc, run by Sultan al-Jaber, committed 20 years ago to end gas flaring; nonetheless, satellite assessment shows that it occurs daily. Other states, like Iraq and Kuwait, analyzed in the BBC study, declined to comment. On the other hand, oil companies like Saudi Aramco and Shell said they are working to reduce the practice.
The urgency in mitigating the negative impact of oil production in the Middle East has been vividly stressed. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, David R. Boyd, recently commented: ‘’ Big oil companies and states in the Middle East are violating the human rights of millions of people by failing to tackle air pollution from fossil fuels.’’. ADHRB also expresses concerns over the health of millions of residents in the region. Acknowledging that respiratory diseases are the leading cause of death in the area, our organization considers that new positive steps should be taken. In particular, ADHRB points out the pronouncements of the Human Rights Committee in view of the case Portillo Caceres v. Paraguay, affirming that states must protect individual degradation under Article 6 of the ICCPR (Right to Life). With these aspects in mind, we stress the need for accountability for human rights violations, which, in this instance, are challenging due to political considerations and the dependency of the West on Middle East oil.
An Indigenous tribe, the Kawahiva people, in the Brazilian Amazon was discovered 25 years ago. Now, Indigenous rights campaigners are criticising Brazil’s authorities for leaving surviving members of the uncontacted tribe open to attack, in one of the most violent areas of the country. Notably, they have accused Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of failing to step up land rights to protect the Indigenous community. As a result, they said the tribe now “teeter on the brink of extinction”.
The Kawahiva people: an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon
The existence of the Kawahiva people (who have no interaction with outsiders) was officially confirmed 25 years ago. Then, thirteen years ago they were caught on camera in a chance encounter. As Indigenous rights non-profit Survival International wrote:
The Kawahiva are nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Past this, very little is known about them, because they have no peaceful contact with outsiders. They may be closely related to a nearby tribe called the Piripkura as they share a similar language, cut their hair in the same way, and use the same kind of arrowheads to hunt fish.
Neighboring tribes refer to them as the “red head people” and the “short people”.
The Kawahiva of the Rio Pardo are part of a larger group which has gradually split up as outsiders have invaded their land. It is likely that many were murdered by outsiders who steal their land and resources, and perished from diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
Eight years ago this week, Brazil’s justice minister signed a decree into law declaring the area in which the Kawahiva live an Indigenous territory.
However, corporate interests – namely, cattle ranching and logging companies – have hamstrung the completion of the legal protection for this.
Corporate interests killing the Kawahiva people
The Kawahiva people’s territory lies within the municipality of Colniza. It is one of the most violent areas in Brazil. Partly, this is due to illegal logging in the municipality. Notably, 90% of Colniza’s income comes from this illegal practice.
In recent decades, loggers and ranchers have killed many members of the Kawahiva people. Moreover, they have brought in diseases epidemics that have decimated the Indigenous group.
In short, logging, ranching, and mining companies are killing the Kawahiva people and destroying their way of life.
Of course, these powerful corporate interests have also been routinely attacking the Kawahiva’s rights. Survival International has documented a number of these attempts. It wrote:
In 2005, loggers and local politicians managed to persuade a judge to overturn one order protecting the territory. Survival campaigned successfully to have it reinstated.
Some loggers even filed an injunction questioning the existence of the Kawahiva, and an anti-Indigenous local official claimed FUNAI “implanted” the tribe.
FUNAI field workers were threatened and prevented from protecting the area by a logging company, whose workers tried to terrorize the Kawahiva by flying planes low over their forest and opening trails, roads and clearings.
Now, rights groups have said that Lula’s government is failing to protect the Kawahiva people from these genocidal capitalist forces.
Teetering “on the brink of extinction”
In August 2022, Brazil’s Supreme Court gave FUNAI (the Indigenous Affairs Agency) 60 days to finalize a plan for the definitive demarcation of the territory.
FUNAI official Jair Candor in charge of protecting the territory from invasions has said:
The only way to ensure their survival is to map out the land and have in place a permanent land protection team. Otherwise, the Kawahiva will be relegated to the history books, like so many other Indigenous peoples of this region.
However, after a year in power, Lula’s government hasn’t made progress on the Kawahiva territory. On election, he had promised to expand Indigenous reserves. And, as the Canarypreviously reported, he has made progress on this, designating a number of reserves.
Nonetheless, the Kawahiva people’s case demonstrates that big corporate interests still reign supreme. Moreover, as we also reported in January, Lula has also been failing Yanomani Indigenous communities. Similarly, in instance, illegal gold-mining has created an acute health crisis – which is literally killing them.
President of the local Indigenous organization FEPOIMT Eliane Xunakalo said of the Kawahiva’s situation:
It’s vital that the demarcation of this territory is resumed. Our uncontacted relatives’ security can only be guaranteed if the territory is demarcated.
Survival International’s director Caroline Pearce said that:
It’s now more than a year since President Lula took office, and the Kawahiva land protection process appears to be frozen – despite the fact that they live in one of the most violent areas of the country. Lula’s team are fully aware that the Kawahiva won’t survive unless their land is completely protected. We know that countless Kawahiva have been killed in previous massacres, and that the forest around them is being cleared at an astonishing rate.
President Lula’s commitment to Indigenous rights will mean little if peoples like the Kawahiva, who teeter on the brink of extinction, are left to the mercies of heavily-armed logging and ranching gangs who make no secret of their desire to take over the Kawahiva’s territory.
Report says thousands of people held in little-reported facilities where authorities are violating human rights on a large scale
The US and UK are complicit in the detention of thousands of people, including British nationals, in camps and facilities in north-east Syria where disease, torture and death are rife, according to Amnesty International.
In a report, the charity says the western-backed region’s autonomous authorities are responsible for large-scale human rights violations against people held since the end of the ground war against Islamic State (IS) more than five years ago.
Rishi Sunak’s authority suffers blow as several Conservatives vote against bill, which clears first Commons hurdle with 383 votes to 67
At 12.30pm a transport minister will respond to an urgent question in the Commons tabled by Labour on job losses in the rail industry. That means the debate on the smoking ban will will not start until about 1.15pm.
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is one of the Britons speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels starting today. The conference, which features hardline rightwingers from around the world committed to the NatCons’ ‘faith, flag and family’ brand of conservatism, is going ahead despite two venues refusing to host them at relatively short notice.
The current UK government doesn’t have the political will to take on the ECHR and hasn’t laid the ground work for doing so.
And so it’s no surprise that recent noises in this direction are easily dismissed as inauthentic.
Any attempt to include a plan for ECHR withdrawal in a losing Conservative election manifesto risks setting the cause back a generation.
Human rights groups have called out fossil fuel major Shell’s plans to palm off its projects in the Niger Delta. Crucially, they are highlighting to Nigeria’s government that the company must guarantee Shell honours its responsibilities to local communities, especially regarding pollution.
Shell pollution in the Nigeria
The Anglo-Dutch fossil fuel major started operating in Nigeria in the 1950s. Since then, the company has routinely polluted the Niger Delta with oil spills, destroying ecosystems and community livelihoods. The Niger Delta is the heartland of Nigeria’s crude production.
Moreover, as the Canarypreviously explained Shell has a notorious history of rights violation in the country:
The Niger Delta in Nigeria is the site of perhaps one of the most infamous cases of fossil fuel human rights abuse. In 1995, the Nigerian government executed nine activists who were opposing Shell’s operations in the delta. This included writer and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. For decades, widowers of the Ogoni Nine – the men who were arbitrarily detained and executed without fair trial – have been fighting for justice. They took Shell to court, claiming that the company was complicit in the death of their husbands. However, in March 2022, a district court in the Hague dismissed the case due to insufficient evidence to prove Shell’s role.
Shell has repeatedly denied any involvement in the execution of the Ogoni 9. However, in 2009, it settled out of court with the Saro-Wiwa estate, relatives of members of the Ogoni 9, and others who faced human rights violations at the hands of the company for a sum of $15.5m.
Farming and fishing communities in the Niger Delta have fought years of legal battles over damage from oil spills in the area. In November, the High Court in London ruled that over 13,000 Nigerian farmers and fishers could take Shell to court. Specifically, as the Guardianreported:
The judge ruled it was arguable the pollution had fundamentally breached the villagers’ right to a clean environment under the Nigerian constitution and the African charter on human and people’s rights. Claims under these rights have no limitation period.
Given all this, on Monday 15 April, Amnesty International and other rights groups called on Nigeria’s government to halt Shell’s sell-off. In particular, they said that the company should first guarantee the rights of local communities.
Shell “slipping away from its responsibilities”
Shell has agreed to sell its onshore assets in the country to a Nigeria-based group for up to US $2.4bn as it shifts to offshore operations. Renaissance African Energy is the company seeking to acquire these.
So, in an open letter dozens of Nigerian and international rights groups called on a Nigeria regulatory commission to refuse approval of the sale of the assets. The letter reads:
Shell should not be permitted to use legal gymnastics to escape its responsibilities for cleaning up its widespread legacy of pollution
In addition, it argued that the commission should not be permit the Shell asset sale unless the company fully consults local communities. On top of this, the regulatory commission should stop the sale in its tracks until Shell has cleaned up its mess. Specifically, it suggested the government should assess the environmental pollution Shell has caused to date. Then, it would need to calculate the clean-up costs Shell should fund.
In a press release Amnesty International’s Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said:
There is now a substantial risk Shell will walk away with billions of dollars from the sale of this business, leaving those already harmed without remedy and facing continued abuse and harms to their health.
Guarantees and financial safeguards must be in place to immediately remedy existing contamination and to protect people from future harms before this sale should be allowed to proceed.
Shell must not be permitted to slip away from its responsibilities for cleaning up and remedying its widespread legacy of pollution in the area.
Meanwhile, chairman of Nigeria-based Human and Environmental Development Agenda Olanrewaju Suraju added that:
Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta over many decades have come at the cost of grievous human rights abuses of the people living there. Frequent oil leaks from its infrastructure and inadequate maintenance and clean-up practices have left groundwater and drinking water sources contaminated, poisoned agricultural land and fisheries, and severely damaged the health and livelihoods of inhabitants.
A pro-independence activist in New Caledonia is warning France to immediately halt its planned constitution amendments or face “war”.
The call for a u-turn follows proposed constitutional changes to voting rights which could push the number of eligible anti-independence voters up.
Pacific Independence Movement (le Mouvement des Océaniens indépendantistes) spokesperson Arnaud Chollet-Léakava was one of the thousands who took to the streets in Nouméa in protest last Saturday.
A dog wearing a Kanak flag at the pro-independence rally last Saturday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis
She feared the indigenous people of New Caledonia — the Kanak people — would lose in their fight for independence:
“They want to make us a minority . . . it will make us a minority!
“The law will make the Kanaky people a minority because it will open the electoral body to other people who are not Kanaky and who will give their opinion on the accession of Caledonia to full sovereignty,” Ponija said.
Security was high last weekened with more than 100 additional security forces sent from France for the protest and counter-protest. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis
‘Heading towards a civil war’ A French man who has lived in New Caledonia for two decades said independence or not, he just wanted peace.
The man — who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution — said he moved to New Caledonia knowing he would be living on colonised land.
Having experienced violence in 2019, the man begged both sides to be amicable.
“[It’s] very complicated and very serious because if the law is not withdrawn and passed. We are clearly heading towards a civil war,” he said.
“We hope for peace and we hope that we find a common agreement for both parties.
“People want peace and we don’t want to move towards war.”
The constitutional bill was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2.
The next stage is for the bill to be debated, which has been set down for May 13.
Then both the Senate and the National Assembly will gather in June to give the final stamp of approval.
This would allow any citizen who has lived in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to cast their vote at local elections.
The Kanaky New Caledonia pro-independence rally last Saturday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis
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.
Famine is already happening in parts of Gaza, a top U.S. humanitarian official publicly acknowledged last week for the first time. After six months of Israeli war and blockades, an estimated 2.2 million people are facing acute or catastrophic food shortages. One in three children in northern Gaza are malnourished, and deaths due to hunger are expected to accelerate quickly, U.S. officials have warned.
According to the groundbreaking work of Dutch researcher Tessa Roseboom, the impacts of near-starvation are also likely being experienced by generations not yet born. Roseboom, a biologist and professor of early development and health at the Amsterdam UMC/University of Amsterdam, has been studying the long-term consequences of prenatal malnutrition for almost 30 years.
Much of her work focuses on people like her parents, who were born around the time of the Dutch “Hunger Winter” at the end of World War II. In dozens of studies, Roseboom and her colleagues have provided some of the first direct evidence in humans of the intergenerational impact of in-utero exposure to stresses such as famine. Their work suggests that malnutrition during pregnancy can have lasting consequences not only for the future health of the child, but also for subsequent generations. “It’s one of the things that makes me very passionate to talk about how the decisions we make today will have an effect for many, many decades,” Roseboom says. “I really feel the generations before me urging me to speak out.”
Audio journalists Neroli Price, Salman Ahad Khan and Gabrielle Berbey talked with Roseboom as part of their investigation into how Israel’s blocking of aid trucks carrying food and medical supplies is leading to a maternal and infant health disaster. Excerpts of their conversation can be heard on the latest Reveal episode, “In Gaza, Every Pregnancy is Complicated.” Given the timeliness and urgency of the subject, we are presenting a longer digital version here.
Let’s start with the Hunger Winter. What was the confluence of events that made the winter of 1944-1945 so devastating for people in the Netherlands?
Tessa Roseboom: The Hunger Winter was a period of famine that occurred at the end of the Second World War, in the part of the Netherlands that had not been liberated by the Allied forces. (After the D-Day invasion in June 1944), the Allies liberated France and Belgium and retook the southern part of the Netherlands. The Dutch government-in-exile called for a railway strike to support the Allies, but the operation failed before they could retake the north and west of the country, which included the capital, Amsterdam. The German occupying forces retaliated for the railway strike by banning all food transports from rural parts of the country to urban areas. Suddenly, rations that had been around 2,000 calories a day during the entire war dropped to around 400 to 600 calories a day. Two slices of bread, two potatoes and half a sugar beet was the typical ration for adults during that period.
The blockade coincided with a very early and extreme winter, which froze all the waterways in the Netherlands – and canals are an important way of transporting food. So it was really a combination of this harsh winter and the blockade that suddenly led to a very acute period of famine, which lasted until the Netherlands was liberated and the war ended, in May 1945.
How did that extreme level of famine affect mortality?
Roseboom: During the first six months of 1944, when there was sufficient food, mortality rates were half what they were in the first six months of 1945, during the famine period. It is estimated that a total of 25,000 people died during the Dutch Hunger Winter.
What do you know about what happened to yourfamily during this period?
Roseboom: My father was born in the first weeks of the famine, and my mother was born in the month after liberation, so they don’t remember anything, of course. But my grandmothers remember what it was like to be pregnant during a war and during a period in which there was very little food available.
Luckily, both my parents were born in the rural part of the country, where the famine was much less extreme. My father’s mother told me how she delivered my father at home when there was no light and bombings were going on. She told me how families from Amsterdam came fleeing to the part of the country where she lived, looking for food. Even though my father was only 10 weeks old, he was already heavier than the 10-month-old boy from Amsterdam.
When you began to study the broader effects of this famine, what did other people tell you?
Roseboom: Even though I spoke to them decades later, they still remember it as such a traumatic period. I remember one woman who was so undernourished after the birth of her first baby, she couldn’t breastfeed. She told me that her baby looked like a skinned rabbit – that’s how skinny he had become after a few days. So she went to church to try to find someone willing to take him, because she realized, “He’s going to die if I keep him with me.” Luckily, someone helped her get milk and food, so she could feed herself and her baby. But she felt so guilty all her life that she had considered giving him away. It took her almost 50 years before she told her son this story.
You’ve written or co-authored numerous papers about how the Hunger Winter affected the long-term health of people conceived or born during that period. What are some of the impacts you’ve found?
Roseboom: In almost three decades of studying men and women who were being shaped inside their mother’s womb during the Dutch famine, we know that the lack of nutrients left lasting marks on the organs and tissues that were forming at the time.
The babies who were conceived during the famine and whose mothers were undernourished while their brains were being built – those brains were smaller. When those people were adults, their brains were wired in a different way. They were more susceptible to stress and addiction; their cognitive function was affected. They were less likely to participate in the labor market.
We found that babies who were conceived during the famine had a higher risk of depression in particular. They also had a higher risk of schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorders.
Their metabolism was altered as well. It makes a lot of sense that if you are taking in very few nutrients in utero, your body will develop a very, very efficient way of metabolizing the calories you do get. But then, because of your efficient metabolism, when food becomes more plentiful later in life, you have a higher risk of becoming obese. Our research found more obesity and Type 2 diabetes, higher cholesterol levels, and people developing cardiovascular disease at a younger age.
Were these effects immediately apparent when the Hunger Winter babies were born?
Roseboom: No. It’s fascinating, but based on the size of babies who were born just after the Dutch famine ended, one wouldn’t have thought that they were that much impacted. At birth, babies were not particularly small, particularly thin or particularly any different from most babies. So for a long time, we thought maybe they’re not going to be affected by famine. They’re safe inside their mother’s womb. We shouldn’t be too worried.
But based on our research now, we know that the structure and function of their organs are different. And it’s only as we age that problems with our organs tend to arise as damage accumulates across the life course.
Separate from the effects of famine, did you find any impacts of maternal stress on babies during that period?
Roseboom: In general, (the fetus is) protected from the stress hormones that the mother has in her own bloodstream. But when women are undernourished, the enzyme in the placenta that protects the fetus from getting exposed to this stress hormone is not functioning properly anymore. So with high stress levels and low nutrition, the baby will get exposed to the stress levels that the mother is experiencing.
Your research didn’t stop with people born around the time of the Hunger Winter. You also studied their children. What did you find?
Roseboom: We saw that both through the mother and the father, these effects can be transmitted to future generations.
As a biologist, I often talk about the fact that each and every one of us, every human being, started as a single fertilized egg. But the egg that made you and me didn’t arise just before it was fertilized. It was actually formed when our mothers were in our grandmothers’ wombs. So the egg that made me was formed during the Hunger Winter.
Human beings are very sensitive to their environment, particularly in early life during development. And we know that the environment, whether it is nutrition or whether it’s a traumatic experience, has an impact on the expression of the genetic code – what we call epigenetic effects. The environment has a big impact on the extent to which your genetic potential is being expressed. The Dutch Famine Study, as well as other studies looking at other crises and catastrophic events – 9/11, climate disasters such as flooding and fires – they’ve all consistently shown that there are epigenetic effects. Not so much of the DNA structure is changed, but the extent to which our genes are expressed is altered by the environment in which we grow and develop, and even these effects are transmitted from one generation to the next.
The blockade of food transports by the German occupying forces seems like a parallel to what’s happening in Gaza right now.
Roseboom: I think there is a strong parallel with what’s going on in Gaza. And because of the research I’ve done, I’m not worried only about the people currently experiencing the situation there. I’m very worried about the long-term consequences this will have for the generation that isn’t even born yet.
We’ve spoken with OB-GYNs from Gaza who ran out of basic medical supplies to take care of women and babies back in October. How might that kind of collapse in the medical infrastructure affect fetal development?
Roseboom: I can only guess what the impact might be. Based on the studies that we’ve been doing on the Dutch famine, I have no proper comparison of the medical system collapsing because, quite surprisingly, during the war and the famine, the medical system continued to operate. Doctors and nurses continued to provide care and record details of the pregnancies that we’ve been able to see because these records were kept.
But based on other studies of disruptive situations like flooding that didn’t allow pregnant women to go to their doctors or midwives, we know that increases stress levels and has a negative impact on the development of the (fetus). You can actually still see (this) in the way that their genes are expressed, in the way that these children develop and in their risks of chronic diseases later in life.
I’m imagining a mother who is living through what has been happening in Gaza, who may be wondering if there was any way to protect her infant from those negative long-term effects.
Roseboom: It’s a very difficult question, because during your time in the womb, your organs are formed and you cannot do that again. You cannot rebuild your brain. But the scientific evidence is quite clear that in terms of stress, the effects can be greatly reduced if people get social support. Even if you cannot get out of that stressful situation, getting social support can be very important in helping reduce the negative impact.
Another thing that people could do if they have been unnourished or have a child who is unnourished during pregnancy is to make sure they eat healthy diets and exercise as they grow up, which will help reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease or Type 2 diabetes.
If you could grab all the world’s leaders and get on your soapbox, what is the one message you would tell them about mothers and babies and war and famine?
Roseboom: I’d say that we as human beings have all been shaped by the environment that our ancestors created. The world that we live in, the knowledge that we have access to, our societies, our cities, our families are shaped by those who came before us. What we do today is literally shaping the environment in which future generations will be allowed to develop to their full potential.
And these future generations are not some imaginary future creatures that are not around already. As I said before, the egg that made you and me was already there when our mothers were in our grandmothers’ wombs. The future generations are already here, in the present, and we are affecting them with our actions right now.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.It was edited by Nina Martin.
Israel is still restricting aid entering Gaza, Palestine. Israel is only permitting 169 of the 500 needed daily trucks to enter Gaza. This is according to the very latest figures.
This flies in the face of the repeated International Court of Justice (ICJ) order for Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza through allowing sufficient aid through.
Israel: ignoring the ICJ and actively starving people in Gaza
Israel is additionally ignoring a UN Security Council resolution in March that ordered humanitarian access to Gaza.
The Euro-med Human Rights Monitor reported on 15 April that “Israel’s restriction of humanitarian access into the Gaza Strip, particularly the Strip’s northern parts, and its impeding the timely delivery of life-saving food supplies is drastically worsening the already-dire food insecurity faced by the Palestinian population there”.
It concluded that:
This puts them at risk of death from starvation, particularly given the rise in the number of children dying from acute malnutrition, hunger, and related diseases
Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians is illegal under international law. Another war crime on top of this is the IDF massacring Palestinians at aid collection points.
There have been at least 14 incidents of the state targeting Palestinian people while they receive aid – through firing and shelling – according to the UN.
Israel has also killed international food aid workers including three Britons as well as a Palestinian driver with a UK-made drone.
An IDF officer involved in the attack on World Central Kitchen staff had signed an open letter to Israel’s war cabinet and the IDF Chief of Staff calling on them not to allow “humanitarian supplies and the operation of hospitals inside Gaza City”.
A ceasefire doesn’t go far enough
On 15 April, UN experts condemned Israel for targeting civilian infrastructure – another war crime:
Six months into the current military offensive, more housing and civilian infrastructure has now been destroyed in Gaza as a percentage, compared to any conflict in memory.
Homes are gone, and with that, the memories, hopes and aspirations of Palestinians and their ability to realise other rights, including their rights to land, food, water, sanitation, health, security and privacy (especially of women and girls), education, development, a healthy environment and self-determination. And this comes on top of systematic demolitions of Palestinian homes over decades of occupation and previous bombardments.
In December 2023, the IDF had already destroyed 70% of Gaza’s homes. Comparing the assault on Gaza to other instances of civilian punishment, political scientist Robert Pape said:
Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history… It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.
We don’t just need a ceasefire. We need an end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem alongside a lasting political settlement that ensures the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis.
Ugandan communities have once again spoken out about the devastating impact of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project on their livelihoods. In a report, they exposed the inadequate compensation and environmental harms wrecking their living, destroying their families, and making them sick.
Predictably, while local communities suffer the cost of the climate destructive project, its developers continue to rake in the returns. At the same time as community members shared their stories, EACOP developer TotalEnergies raised a pretty penny on the bond market.
EACOP screwing over communities
EACOP is a 930-mile long pipeline that will transport oil from Uganda to a port in Tanzania. French fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd (CNOOC), and Uganda’s state oil company are partnering on the pipeline.
On 4 April, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) released a report exploring the impacts the project has had on communities across the region. Titled “Stories of pain & resistance”, the publication shares the experiences of local communities that the EACOP project has displaced and affected.
Throughout the report, people living along the pathway of the pipeline detailed a number of recurring issues. For one, the developers and its contractors have offered inadequate, low financial compensation to landowners, below the market value. 29-year-old landowner Rachael Tugume from Hoima district explained how:
After two years, they brought me assessment forms that indicated that I was to receive Shs. 500,000 [USD 127.45] for 0.089 acres of land. I did not understand these measurements because we measure our land in misiri, or plots. My affected land was one plot, whose market value was Shs. 4 million [USD 1,019.6]. My land is near a main road, making it more valuable.
Meanwhile, the project developers have disregarded the health and needs of elderly and sick people living along the pipeline. Teddy Nakintu is an elderly resident of Lwengo district. Notably, the pipeline will run a few metres from her home. EACOP has acquired some of her land, but refused to relocate her despite concerns she raised on the project’s impact on her home and health.
This made me sad. I am an old woman. I was living in peace before this pipeline, and caused no one any harm. I wonder why I am being punished. All I ask is for the EACOP Company to relocate me. Because I have been complaining, I have also not received the livelihood restoration assistance that the company is giving to other community members. Other affected people have been receiving seeds but because my son, who is speaking on my behalf, has raised my grievances, he is always told that we are not on the list of people that are to receive livelihood restoration.
On top of this, many in the report explained how EACOP had cheated them out of compensation for their crops. 40-year-old disabled farmer Ismail Bwow Jjuko detailed how his:
banana and coffee plants were also affected by the project. My property was assessed while I was in Kampala and I was informed that the following crops of mine were affected by the pipeline: 36 mature coffee plants, 48 immature coffee plants and bananas. Some of my coffee plants that had started flowering were assessed as being immature! Very little money
was paid for immature plants. When it came to bananas, saplings were not assessed.
EACOP: destroying fishing livelihoods
Now, fisherfolk on Lake Albert have also added their grievances against EACOP and its related fossil fuel projects to this litany of injustices.
Specifically, these concerned the oil and gas extraction projects that developers have designed EACOP for.
In early August, the company started operations in Murchison Falls National Park, in the Lake Albert region. There, EACOP joint venture companies have discovered oil fields containing approximately 1.7bn barrels of recoverable oil. These sit on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Due to the large deposits of oil, the companies are developing the EACOP project to deliver crude to Tanzania for international export.
Already, the projects are impacting fishing communities in the region. On 10 April, fisherfolk living around Lake Albert petitioned TotalEnergies and CNOOC. In a letter, they said:
Fisherfolk including fishermen, divers and traders, majority of whom are women, say that the Kingfisher and Tilenga oil project activities have negatively impacted their livelihoods.
Notably, the letter highlighted a number of these impacts, including:
Polluting run-off into Lake Albert affecting fish stocks.
Pollution of a lagoon from poor waste management.
Inadequate compensation displacing members of fishing communities and jeopardising their livelihoods.
Inappropriate relocation to villages where fisherfolk are unable to make a living trading fish.
Light and noise pollution disrupting fishing and harming health.
Oil-driven in-migration causing gentrification that is harming local fish trading businesses, of primarily women.
As such, the fishing communities called on the TotalEnergies and CNOOC to address these harms.
Banks and investors back TotalEnergies
Yet, while TotalEnergies’ projects have been running roughshod over the livelihoods of these communities, the company continues to profit. At the start of April, a number of commercial banks helped TotalEnergies to raise US $4.25bn on the bond market.
Bonds are the French oil and gas major’s main source of financing. These enable it to pursue its climate-wrecking strategy. In particular, it does so by helping it to develop new oil and gas projects. Of course, this includes the Tilenga and Kingfisher fields in Uganda. Notably, the fossil fuel giant has 45 active bonds totaling US $48.9bn, which accounted for 68% of the company’s financing between 2016 and 2022.
Multiple commercial banks and large insurers have ruled out direct finance and support for the controversial project. Most recently, five leading insurance companies have confirmed that they would not support the EACOP. This took the total declarations to not insure or reinsure EACOP to 28 companies.
Crucially then, it is largely these bonds which are enabling the company to pursue its climate and community destructive EACOP project. Significantly, Standard Chartered, BPCE/Natixis, and Deutsche Bank all aided the company with raising funds through its bonds at the beginning of April. Of course, all three companies have previously publicly confirmed they would not directly finance EACOP.
Given this, a coalition of non-profits are calling on banks to ditch facilitating the issuing of new bonds by TotalEnergies.
Coinciding with the Lake Albert fishing communities’ letter to EACOP developers, nearly 60 non-profits from around the world penned a letter to banks and investors of TotalEnergies.
In it, they are calling on the banks to commit to no longer facilitating TotalEnergies’ bonds. Additionally, they are calling for this to extend to any other company developing new oil and gas projects. In tandem with this, they are also calling on investors to stop investing in new bonds issued by TotalEnergies. They are also asking them to make a public commitment not to invest in bonds issued by any company developing new fossil fuel projects.
Sustainable investment campaigner at Reclaim Finance Lara Cuvelier said:
Bonds are more discreet than project financing and provide TotalEnergies with a veritable El Dorado. It’s mind blowing to see that the financial players involved in Total’s latest bond are agreeing to finance Total until 2064! It is more than time that the investors and the banks behind these colossal transactions recognized their responsibility in financing Total’s climate–wrecking strategy.
Crucially, 10 of TotalEnergies‘ 45 active bonds are due to expire by the end of 2025. Therefore, it is possible that the company will seek to renew them in order to raise capital. Current banks and investors supporting the company’s most recent bonds have included Abrdn, Allianz, Amundi, BlackRock, Bank of America, Barclays, NatWest, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale.
Ultimately, fossil fuel companies like TotalEnergies and their financiers continue to profit off the back of people in the Global South. In other words, climate colonialism is alive and kicking. However, communities and climate groups everywhere won’t stop fighting against these profiteering fossil fuel capitalists wherever they appear.
Authorities continuing ‘intimidation’ including separating children from their parents, despite pledge to end collective punishment
China continues to unlawfully target the families of activists and dissidents, despite a pledge to end the practice of collective punishment, a Chinese human rights group has said in a new report.
The persecution, which includes intimidation and harassment, forced evictions, travel bans, criminal proceedings against family members and preventing children from attending school, have affected people across China and the diaspora community for decades, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said in a report on Monday. Acts of collective punishment are prohibited in international human rights law.
Foreign Office officials are holding secret talks with the paramilitary group that has been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year.
News that the British government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are engaged in clandestine negotiations has prompted warnings that such talks risk legitimising the notorious militia – which continues to commit multiple war crimes – while undermining Britain’s moral credibility in the region.
Several nonprofit organizations filed a petition this month asking the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to rule on the police-perpetrated killing of Manuel Terán, an activist known to Stop Cop City activists as “Tortuguita.” More than a year after the killing, the circumstances remain hazy. The Georgia State Patrol claims that Tortuguita shot first; an independent autopsy shows…
Jury trial against military contractor CACI over ‘sadistic, blatant and wanton abuses’ comes 20 years after scandal broke
The first trial to contend with the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in US custody begins on Monday, in a case brought by three men who were held in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The jury trial, in a federal court in Virginia, comes nearly 20 years to the day that the photographs depicting torture and abuse in the prison were first revealed to the public, prompting an international scandal that came to symbolize the treatment of detainees in the US “war on terror”.
Concerns that vicious circle of party ill-discipline is undermining the PM’s ability to restore order
Senior Tories fear Rishi Sunak is facing a vicious circle of party ill-discipline, amid concerns that attacks from Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman will signal his inability to restore authority in the months before the general election.
Human heads eaten by crows, unidentified and decomposing body parts, and hundreds of corpses piled up and buried in mass graves are all that remained of the victims of the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital. The grim scene was something out of a dystopian movie, the product of the two-week siege of Gaza’s largest hospital that ended in its total destruction. Following the completion of al-Shifa’s…
Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other.
One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella) and its CCAT (field action group), was protesting against planned changes to the French Constitution to “unfreeze” New Caledonia’s electoral roll by allowing any citizen who has resided in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to cast their vote at local elections — for the three Provincial assemblies and the Congress.
The other march was called by pro-France parties Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes who support the change and intend to make their voices heard by French MPs.
The constitutional bill was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2.
However, as part of the required process before it is fully endorsed, the constitutional bill must follow the same process before France’s lower House, the National Assembly.
Debates are scheduled on May 13.
Then both the Senate and the National Assembly will be gathered sometime in June to give the final approval.
Making voices heard
Today, both marches also want to make their voices heard in an attempt to impress MPs before the Constitutional Bill goes further.
The pro-France march is scheduled to end at Rue de la Moselle in downtown Nouméa, two streets away from the other pro-independence march, which is planned to stop on the Place des Cocotiers (“Coconut square”).
The pro-independence rally in the heart of Nouméa today. Image: @knky987
At least 20,000 participants were estimated to take part.
Security forces reinforcements have been sent from France, with two additional squads (140) of gendarmes, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said yesterday.
While acknowledging the “right to demonstrate as a fundamental right”, Le Franc said it a statement it could only be exercised with “respect for public order and freedom of movement”.
“No outbreak will be tolerated” and if this was not to be the case, then “the reaction will be steadfast and those responsible will be arrested,” he warned.
Le Franc also strongly condemned recent “blockades and violence” and called for everyone’s “calm and responsibility” for a “Pacific dialogue in New Caledonia”.
CCAT spokesman Christian Téin, Arnaud Chollet-Leakava (MOI), Dominique Fochi (UC) and Sylvain Boiguivie (Dus) during a press conference on Thursday at the Union Calédonienne headquarters. Image: LNC
Tight security to avoid a clash New Caledonia’s Southern Province vice-president and member of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Philippe Blaise, told Radio Rythme Bleu he had been working with security forces to ensure the two opposing marches would not come close at any stage.
“It will not be a long march, because we are aware that there will be families and old people,” he said.
“But we are not disclosing the itinerary because we don’t want to give bad ideas to people who would like to come close to our march with banners and whatnot.
“There won’t be any speech either. But there will be an important security setup,” he reassured.
Earlier this week, security forces intervened to lift roadblocks set up by pro-independence militants near Nouméa, in the village of Saint-Louis, a historical pro-independence stronghold.
The clash involved about 50 security forces against militants.
Tear gas, and stones Teargas and stones were exchanged and firearm shots were also heard.
On March 28, the two opposing sides also held two marches in downtown Nouméa, with tens of thousands of participants.
No incident was reported.
The UC-revived CCAT (Field Actions Coordination Cell, cellule de coordination des actions de terrain), which is again organising today’s pro-independence march to oppose the French Constitutional change, earlier this month threatened to boycott this year’s planned provincial elections.
CCAT head Christian Tein said they were demanding that the French Constitutional amendment be withdrawn altogether, and that a “dialogue mission” be sent from Paris.
“We want to remind (France) we will be there, we’ll bother them until the end, peacefully”, he said.
“Those MPs have decided to kill the Kanak (Indigenous) people . . . this is a programmed extermination so that Kanaks become like (Australia’s) Aborigines,” he told local media.
“Anyone can cause unrest, but to stop it is another story . . . now we are on a slippery slope,” he added.
War of words, images over MPs Pro-France leader Sonia Backès, during a the March 28 demonstration, had also alluded to “causing unrest” from their side and its ability to “make noise” to ensure their voices are heard back in the French Parliament.
“The unrest, it will come from us if someone tries to step on us,” she lashed out at that rally.
“We have to make noise, because unfortunately, the key is the image,” she said.
“But this little message with the ballot box and Eloi Machoro’s picture, this is provocation.
“I am receiving death threats every day; my children too,” she told Radio Rythme Bleu.
The CCAT movement is placing a hatchet on a ballot box, recalling the Eloi Machoro protest. Image: 1ère TV screenshot APR
Hatchet and ballot box – the ghosts of 1984 During the CCAT’s press conference earlier this month, a ballot box with a hatchet embedded was on show, recalling the famous protest by pro-independence leader Eloi Machoro, who smashed a ballot box with a hatchet to signify the Kanak boycott of the elections on 18 November 1984.
The iconic act was one of the sparks that later plunged New Caledonia in a quasi civil war until the Matignon Accords in 1988. Both pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur and Lanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou shook hands to put an end to a stormy period since described as “the events”.
On 12 January 1985, Machoro was shot by French special forces.
The territorial elections day in New Caledonia on 18 November 1984 when Eloi Machoro smashed a ballot box in the small township of Canala. Image: RNZ/File
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Decision by European court of human rights around vulnerability of older women to heatwaves marks significant shift
A landmark legal ruling at the European court of human rights could open the floodgates for a slew of new court cases around the world, experts have said.
The Strasbourg-based court said earlier this week that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions was a clear violation of the human rights of a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women. The women argued successfully that their rights to privacy and family life were being breached because they were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves.
More videos appear to have been released by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) showing New Zealand hostage Phillip Mehrtens.
The New Zealander was taken hostage more than a year ago on February 7 in Paro in the highlands of the Indonesian-ruled region of West Papua while providing vital air links and supplies to remote communities.
In the recent videos he is seen surrounded by armed men and delivers a statement, saying his “life is at risk” because of air strikes conducted by the Indonesian military.
An appeal in February by Foreign Minister Winston Peters for the release of the New Zealand hostage pilot Phillip Mehrtens by his West Papuan rebel captors. Image: NZ govt
He asks Indonesia to cease airstrikes and for foreign governments to pressure Indonesia to not conduct any aerial bombardments.
RNZ has sought comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Peters said his continued detention served no-one’s interests.
In the last year, a wide range of New Zealand government agencies has been working extensively with Indonesian authorities and others towards securing Mehrtens release.
The response, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has also been supporting his family.
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.
Human rights campaigner who founded the charity Redress following his unlawful imprisonment and torture in Saudi Arabia
Questions were asked in the House of Commons after Keith Carmichael disappeared into a Saudi Arabian jail in November 1981. His case was repeatedly raised by MPs and peers as news of his brutal mistreatment filtered out. It was not until he was released without charge two and half years later, however, that the extent of the torture he had endured became public knowledge.
Carmichael, who has died aged 90, was held in solitary confinement for three months, deprived of food and sleep, beaten on his knees and feet, sexually assaulted, shackled in leg irons, suffered a fractured spine and detained in rat-infested cells. He was also threatened with crucifixion and electrocution if he did not confess to numerous crimes (including leaving Saudi Arabia illegally, spying and criticising the royal family), which he refused to do.
On 9 April 2024, Michael Morrison in Human Rights Centre Blog of the University of Essex wrote a post “Standing Strong: Supporting Human Rights Defenders Worldwide” about the work of Prisoners Of Conscience (PoC), a UK-based charity,
In a world where human rights are not universally respected, there are courageous individuals who face persecution, silencing, torture, and forced displacement just for standing up for their beliefs. Prisoners Of Conscience (PoC), our UK-based charity, stands in solidarity with these brave people, offering both financial and practical support to those who defend human rights worldwide.
Prisoners Of Conscience operates on a simple yet powerful belief: no one should be persecuted for protecting or advancing human rights. We recognise that while we enjoy the freedom to express ourselves, many others around the world are not so fortunate. These individuals face unimaginable challenges for their beliefs, often enduring imprisonment, torture, harassment, violence, or being forced to flee their home countries.
Our mission is clear: supporting those who stand for rights. Our charity provides rapid financial assistance through grants; ensuring immediate relief, resettlement, and requalification during a recipient’s time of greatest need. These grants are not just about providing temporary relief; they are a lifeline for those who have sacrificed their freedom for the principles they believe in. Financial assistance includes covering legal fees, medical expenses, and basic living costs for individuals and their families.
Moving towards holistic support, we have developed various programs to empower our beneficiaries beyond financial aid. Our employability panel offers guidance and opportunities for career development, including job placement services and vocational training. Additionally, our web-based forum provides a platform for networking and collaboration, where individuals can connect with like-minded activists and organisations. We also collaborate with other parties to offer signposting to practical support, such as mental health services, legal advice, language classes, and integration support for those seeking asylum.
Yuzana* for example, is a writer, surgeon, and founding member of PEN Myanmar. Yuzana faced a daunting 20-year sentence for her role as a campaigns assistant for the National League of Democracy (NLD) and her unwavering commitment to human rights. Despite enduring almost six years of imprisonment in one of Myanmar’s most notorious prisons, Yuzana’s determination remained unyielding. After being released on humanitarian grounds due to her declining health and international pressure, she continued her advocacy work.
Yuzana
In the wake of the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, PEN Myanmar continues to monitor and share critical information despite grave risks to their safety. Several members of the organisation have been detained, and tragically, four poets are among the unarmed civilians killed. Yuzana, concerned for her safety, was compelled to leave Myanmar and seek refuge in another country. With the assistance of Prisoners Of Conscience, Yuzana was able to cover her travel expenses and basic living costs while she establishes herself in a new environment.
Our recent research indicates that at any one time there are tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience who are persecuted and in need of our support. The impact of our work is evident in the numbers: in the past year alone, Prisoners of Conscience awarded 130 grants to over 420 individuals from 28 countries. This vital support reached a total of 424 individuals, offering crucial assistance during times of adversity. We are profoundly grateful for the generosity of our donors, whose unwavering support enables us to continue our mission of empowering those who defend human rights.
The challenges of the past year, compounded by the pandemic, have prompted us to adapt and innovate, and right now, April is all about #RightsRealityCheck.
Not everyone has access to even the most basic of human freedoms, so we launched the #RightsRealityCheck campaign. This April, human rights champions are undertaking a series of challenges to raise awareness of the rights that many take for granted – basic rights and freedoms which prisoners of conscience risk their life to uphold and protect. Whether it’s reading 5 books throughout the month, writing a blog post each week, or walking in public each day without wearing a head covering, our kind-hearted fundraisers are standing in solidarity with those who face persecution for these simple acts. If you would like to join others who have taken on this commitment to an everyday right, you will not only be standing with prisoners of conscience, but also raising crucial funds to help keep those who defend human rights, and their voices, alive. It’s easy to get started: Simply download our fundraising pack by signing up here (it’s packed with tips and resources to make your challenge a success). Then, share your challenge with friends, family, and colleagues to gather sponsorship. Every pound raised goes directly to supporting human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience around the world. Or alternatively, see what we’re up to and support someone on their challenge by heading to the link here: #RightsRealityCheck Challenge – JustGiving. Let’s turn our everyday actions into a powerful force for change. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of those who need it most.
https://t.co/mKVC21XSwQ pic.twitter.com/VHjWt3NboE
