On 4 April 2024 the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) announced the call for applications for the 2024 ASEAN Human Rights Advocacy Academy. The Academy is a capacity building platform for youth activists in Southeast Asia to gauge a strong understanding and skills to engage with the ASEAN Human Rights mechanism.
Since 2005, FORUM-ASIA has been actively engaged in the development and strengthening of the ASEAN human rights mechanisms. Against the backdrop of a global shrinking civic-space due to the rise of authoritarianism and a lack of capacities for civil society to meaningfully engage and influence law and policy making spaces, the Academy aims to bolster regional civil society participation and capacity to influence the regional human rights mechanisms to strengthen its human rights protection and promotion mandate.
The Academy will be held in-person for a total of five days (including travel days) in one of the Southeast Asian countries. It will consist of a series of knowledge sharing sessions and skills development workshops and field visits to engage with relevant stakeholders.
Programme:
The Academy, which will take place in the last week of May 2024 in one of the Southeast Asia countries (details will be shared upon announcement of successful application). Participants will be engaged in knowledge sharing and interactive group work involving the ASEAN and UN human rights mechanisms. They will meet with AICHR representatives, diplomatic missions, experts, and relevant regional stakeholders and gain first-hand insights into the workings of ASEAN and its human rights mechanisms.
Eligibility Criteria:
Youths of Southeast Asian nationality within the age of 18-35 who are in their early and mid-level stages of work or activism in human rights, peace and democracy. Those based in Southeast Asia will be prioritized.
All Southeast Asian individuals are eligible to apply regardless of race, ethnicity, color, SOGIESC, religion, disability, etc.
Application from FORUM-ASIA’s Southeast Asia member organizations will be welcomed
Prior knowledge or experience in engaging with regional or international human rights mechanisms is a plus. Those without prior knowledge or experience are also welcome to apply.
Interested applicants must complete this application form by midnight of 18 April 2024 (BKK time). Late applications will not be considered.
Petition to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filed on behalf of Manuel Paez Terán, aka ‘Tortuguita’, and their mother
Human rights groups have filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calling for a US Department of Justice investigation into the police killing of “Cop City” protester Manuel Paez Terán, as well as the release of all related evidence, and apologies to the family from the US government.
By Saleh Hijazi I graduated from the University of Essex Human Rights Center in 2007. I went on to work as a human rights researcher documenting and reporting on violations in Palestine for over 13 years. The work was always risky not least because of the brutality of Israel’s system of apartheid which regularly targets journalists and […]
It has been 60 years since Indonesia has been refused humanitarian agencies and international media access to enter West Papua, says a leading West Papuan leader and advocate.
Speaking with the Vanuatu Daily Post on Friday in response to claims by the Indonesia ambassador Dr Siswo Pramono last Thursday, Wenda said organisations such as the Red Cross, International Peace Brigades, human rights agencies, and even the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had been banned from West Papua for 60 years.
“Indonesia claims to be a democratic country. Then why does Indonesia refuse to allow, in line with calls from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a visit from the United Nations (UN) Commissioner to examine the human rights situation?” he said.
“It has been 60 years, yet Indonesia has not heeded this call, while the killings continue.
“If Indonesia truly upholds democracy, then it should allow a visit by the UN Commissioner.
Indonesia ‘must respect UN visit’
“This is why we, as Melanesians and Pacific Islanders, are demanding such a visit. Even 85 countries have called for the UN Commissioner’s visit, and Indonesia must respect this as it is a member of the UN.”
The ULMWP also issued a statement stating that more than 100,000 West Papuans were internally displaced between December 2018 and March 2022 as a result of an escalation in Indonesian militarisation.
Indonesian Ambassador Dr Siswo Pramono’s controversial and historically wrong “no colonisation” claims over West Papua published in the Vanuatu Daily Post last Thursday have stirred widespread criticism. Image: VDP screenshot APR
It was reported that as of October 2023, 76,228 Papuans had remained internally displaced, and more than 1300 Papuans were killed between 2018 and 2023.
Also a video of Indonesian soldiers torturing a West Papuan man in Puncak has made international news.
In response to the disturbing video footage about the incident in Papua, Indonesia stated that the 13 Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers allegedly involved had been detained.
“The Embassy emphasised that torture is not the policy of the Government of Indonesia nor its National Armed Forces or Indonesian National Police,” the statement relayed.
“Therefore, such actions cannot be tolerated. Indonesia reaffirms its unwavering commitment to upholding human rights, including in Papua, in accordance with international standards.”
Indonesia lobbying Pacific
The ULMWP said Indonesia was lobbying in Vanuatu and the Pacific, “presenting themselves as friends”, while allegedly murdering and torturing Melanesians.
“This claim is flatly untrue: for one thing, the Ambassador claimed that ‘West Papua has never been on the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24)’ — but in fact, West Papua was added to the list of ‘Non-Self Governing Territories’ as the Dutch decolonised in the 1960s,” the movement stated.
“According to the 1962 New York Agreement, West Papua was transferred to Indonesia on the condition of a free and fair vote on independence.
“However, in 1969, a handpicked group of 1022 West Papuans (of an estimated population of 800,000) was forced to vote for integration with Indonesia, under conditions of widespread coercion, military violence and intimidation.
“Therefore, the right to self-determination in West Papua remains unfulfilled and decolonisation in West Papua is incomplete under international law. The facts could not be clearer — West Papua is a colonised territory.”
The Vanuatu Daily Post also asked some similar questions that had been posed to Indonesia on March 28, 2024, to which Wenda responded adeptly.
Insights into West Papua
Additionally, he provided insightful commentary on the current geopolitical landscape:
What do you believe Indonesia’s intention is in seeking membership in the MSG? Indonesia’s intention to join MSG is to prevent West Papua from becoming a full member. Their aim is to obstruct West Papua’s membership because Indonesia, being Asian, does not belong to Melanesia.
While they have their own forum called the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), we, as Melanesians, have the PIF, representing our regional bloc. Indonesia’s attempt to become an associate member is not in line with our Melanesian identity.
Melanesians span from Fiji to West Papua, and we are linguistically, geographically, and culturally distinct. We are entitled to our Melanesian identity.
Currently, West Papua is not represented in MSG; only Indonesia is recognised. We have long been denied representation, and Indonesia’s intention to become an associate member is solely to impede West Papua’s inclusion is evident.
Is Indonesia supporting West Papua’s efforts to become a full member of the MSG? I don’t think their intention is to support; rather, they seek to exert influence within Melanesia to obstruct and prevent it. This explains their significant investment over the last 10 years. Previously, they showed no interest in Melanesian affairs, so why the sudden change?
What aid is Indonesia offering Vanuatu and for what purpose? What are Indonesia’s intentions and goals in its foreign relations with Vanuatu? I understand that Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG and contributes to its annual budget, which is acceptable. However, if Indonesia is investing heavily here, why aren’t they focusing on addressing the needs of their own people?
I haven’t observed any ni-Vanuatu begging on the streets from the airport to here [Port Vila]. In contrast, in Jakarta, there are people sleeping under bridges begging for assistance.
Why not invest in improving the lives of your own citizens? People in Jakarta endure hardships, living in slum settlements and under bridges, whereas I have never witnessed any Melanesians from West Papua to Fiji begging.
So, why the sudden heavy investment here, and why now?
Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.
Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst, has told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story that the US is more likely to move in the “right direction” when it comes to Israel if it feels pressure from its allies, reports Al Jazeera.
“The more Washington feels pressure from its friends, that its policy on Israel is becoming a liability, the more likely I think that we’re going to see a movement in the right direction,” Odeh, who is also the former spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story.
Odeh noted a recent letter calling for the US to halt weapons sales to Israel, which showed more Democratic politicians, including Nancy Pelosi, are finding US policies “untenable” after a recent Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza.
Palestinian analyst Nour Odeh . . . “What the Americans are doing now seems like a big deal because they’ve been complicit in this war since the beginning.” Image: APR File
“What the Americans are doing now seems like a big deal because they’ve been complicit in this war since the beginning”, she said.
Odeh, who spoke to Al Jazeera from Ramallah, described the last six months as “soul-crushing”, but said that a lot of “solace if not hope is found in the global solidarity movement”.
“This is not a destiny anybody can accept,” she said.
Ngāmotu protest
Meanwhile, a Ngāmotu (New Pymouth) rally on al-Quds Day was featured on Al Jazeera Arabic world news as thousands of people took to the streets of New Zealand over the weekend to protest against the war and the failure of Israel to abide by the US Security Council resolution last month ordering an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
International Quds Day is an annual pro-Palestinian event held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to express support for Palestinians and oppose Israel and Zionism.
It takes its name from the Arabic name for Jerusalem — al-Quds.
On RNZ’s Saturday Morning programme yesterday, the author of a new book featuring the hardships and repression facing Palestinians in their daily lives living under occupation in Jerusalem gave some insights into this human story.
Jerusalem-based American journalist and author Nathan Thrall’s book is named on 10 best books of the year lists, including The New Yorker, The Economist and The Financial Times.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story is a portrait of life in Israel and Palestine, giving an understanding of what it is like to live there and the oppression and complexities of the pass system, based on the real events of one tragic day, where Jewish and Palestinian characters’ lives and pasts unexpectedly converge.
Thrall has spent a decade with the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project. His first book, published in 2017 is The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine.
I pray that Thrall’s article will remind President Joe Biden of the courageous stance he took against apartheid in South Africa as a senator.
I hope that it will provide a mirror which shows that the very same type of laws that he opposed in South Africa are now instrumental in oppressing Palestinians, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) has declared its solidarity with civil society groups and student protesters demonstrating against the torture of a Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya, by Indonesian troops in West Papua last February.
The torture was revealed in a video that went viral across the world last month.
PANG said in a statement that peaceful demonstrations came after the video was circulated showing Defianus Kogoya bound in a water-filled barrel, being beaten and cut with knives by Indonesian soldiers.
Indonesian authorities have since admitted and apologised for the torture, and announced the arrest of 13 soldiers.
In the same video incident, two other Papuan men, Warinus Murib and Alianus Murib, were also arrested and allegedly tortured. Warinus Murib died of his injuries.
Reports state that 62 protesting students have been arrested and interrogated before they were released, while two people were seriously injured by Indonesian security forces.
In an earlier protest, 15 people were arrested for giving out pamphlets. Protesters demand all military operations must cease in West Papua.
“We condemn the excessive military presence in West Papua and the associated human rights violation against Papuans,” said the PANG statement.
“We also condemn the use of heavy-handed tactics by the Indonesian police to violently assault and detain students who should have the right and freedom to express their views.
“This demonstrates yet again the ongoing oppression by Indonesian authorities in West Papua despite decades of official denial and media censorship.”
United Nations experts have expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, citing shocking abuses against indigenous Papuans, including child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people.
Thirteen arrests over the Papuan torture video. Video: Al Jazeera
Media censorship
In its concluding observations of Indonesia’s second periodic report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted on 26 March 2024, the Human Rights Committee expressed deep concern over:
patterns of extrajudicial killings,
enforced disappearances, torture, and
other forms of cruel and degrading treatment, particularly of or against indigenous Papuans and the failure to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.
The committee also highlighted continuing reports of media censorship and suppression of the freedom of expression.
“We call on the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) and the people and the governments of all Pacific Island countries to demand that Indonesia allow for the implementation of the decision of the PIF Leaders in August 2019 for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct a mission to West Papua,” the PANG statement said.
“We call on the special envoys of the PIF on West Papua to expedite their mandate to facilitate dialogue with Indonesia, and particularly to pave the way for an urgent UN visit.
“We echo the calls made from the 62 students that were arrested for the Indonesian government to cease all military operations in West Papua and allow the United Nations to do its job.
“Our Pacific governments should expect nothing less from Indonesia, particularly given its privileged position as an associate member of the MSG and as a PIF Dialogue Partner,” PANG said.
Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
From Whangārei in the north to Invercargill in the south, thousands took to the streets of Aotearoa New Zealand in today’s climate strike, RNZ News reports.
Hundreds march on Parliament in Wellngton.
But it was not just about the climate crisis — the day’s event was led by a coalition including Toitū Te Tiriti, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa, and School Strike 4 Climate.
Protesters in the climate strike near the Beehive in Wellington today. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
Palestine solidarity protesters called on the New Zealand government to expel the Israeli ambassador in protest over Tel Aviv’s conduct of the devastating Gaza war.
The UN Human Rights Council today adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.
It was a decisive vote with 28 in favour, 14 abstentions and six voting against, including Germany and the US.
An ACT New Zealand post on X stated that the School Strike 4 Climate was “encouraging kids across the country to wag school”.
‘Raise awareness’
School Strike 4 Climate organisers said their aim was to “raise awareness about the urgent need for climate action and to demand meaningful policy changes to combat the climate crisis”.
1News reports that one protester said she was attending today’s march in Auckland because she had a problem with the government’s approach to conservation.
“They’re dismantling previous rules that have been in place, they are picking up projects that have been previously turned down by the Environment Court . . . and they’re doing it behind our back and the public has nothing to say, so they have become the predators,” she said.
Another protester said: “I’m terrified, because I know I’m going to die from climate change and the government is doing absolutely zero for it.”
“Dinos thought they had time too” . . . school protesters march on Parliament in Wellington. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
An indigenous flag waving response on climate and Gaza action . . . the Aboriginal flag of Australia, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag of Aotearoa New Zealand, a Palestinian activists’ ensign and various Pacific flags. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
This report is drawn from RNZ News reports and photographs under a community partnership and other sources.
From Whangārei in the north to Invercargill in the south, thousands took to the streets of Aotearoa New Zealand in today’s climate strike, RNZ News reports.
Hundreds march on Parliament in Wellngton.
But it was not just about the climate crisis — the day’s event was led by a coalition including Toitū Te Tiriti, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa, and School Strike 4 Climate.
Protesters in the climate strike near the Beehive in Wellington today. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
Palestine solidarity protesters called on the New Zealand government to expel the Israeli ambassador in protest over Tel Aviv’s conduct of the devastating Gaza war.
The UN Human Rights Council today adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.
It was a decisive vote with 28 in favour, 14 abstentions and six voting against, including Germany and the US.
An ACT New Zealand post on X stated that the School Strike 4 Climate was “encouraging kids across the country to wag school”.
‘Raise awareness’
School Strike 4 Climate organisers said their aim was to “raise awareness about the urgent need for climate action and to demand meaningful policy changes to combat the climate crisis”.
1News reports that one protester said she was attending today’s march in Auckland because she had a problem with the government’s approach to conservation.
“They’re dismantling previous rules that have been in place, they are picking up projects that have been previously turned down by the Environment Court . . . and they’re doing it behind our back and the public has nothing to say, so they have become the predators,” she said.
Another protester said: “I’m terrified, because I know I’m going to die from climate change and the government is doing absolutely zero for it.”
“Dinos thought they had time too” . . . school protesters march on Parliament in Wellington. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
An indigenous flag waving response on climate and Gaza action . . . the Aboriginal flag of Australia, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag of Aotearoa New Zealand, a Palestinian activists’ ensign and various Pacific flags. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
This report is drawn from RNZ News reports and photographs under a community partnership and other sources.
Last year, 25-year-old Carlee Russell called 911 in Hoover, Alabama, reporting that there was a child on the interstate. Then Russell vanished, and no child was found. A massive search effort followed, along with a national media frenzy. Two days later, she returned home, seemingly unharmed but claiming that she had escaped a kidnapping.
After about a week, sympathy for Russell turned to anger as investigators concluded that she had faked her disappearance and charged her with two misdemeanors for false reporting. She pleaded guilty, and a judge ordered Russell to pay nearly $18,000 in restitution and to serve probation and community service – a sentence deemed far too lenient by those outraged by Russell’s actions. Nothing less than jail time would satisfy them.
“The biggest thing was just the impact it had,” said Alabama state Rep. Mike Shaw, a Republican from Hoover. “I mean, hundreds of people showed up to search, and it was a pretty damaging thing for the community.”
Emboldened by the community outrage, Shaw and other state lawmakers proposed legislation that was designed to deter, or at least more severely punish, the next Carlee Russell. The bill, which has cleared the House of Representatives and is poised for a vote in the Senate, would create a new class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a false report that “alleges imminent danger to a person or the public.”
“One of the real problems with that false report is that it hurts the next person who actually experiences something,” Shaw said. “If you have a false report, it kind of makes everybody skeptical on the next one.”
As anyone who has been told the fable of the child who cried wolf knows, Shaw is right that false reports lead to more skepticism. But the outsized attention they receive obscures the fact that they’re relatively rare. And this legislation doesn’t consider a prevalent problem: the troubling track record of police in Alabama and across the country when it comes to framing reports of violence as having been made up.
Kijana Mitchell is an Alabama-based advocate for survivors of domestic violence who’s also worked as a 911 dispatcher. She said she’s encountered law enforcement officers who suspect a victim is lying simply because they make the common and complicated decision to return to an abusive relationship.
And she fears this bill could work in the favor of abusers – “master manipulators” who will use it to convince victims not to report an assault to skeptical officers. “A law like this can scoop up a lot of innocent victims” if people aren’t able to prove their case to the police’s satisfaction, Mitchell said. “This added factor that our lawmakers are trying to bring into the equation will really bolster a lot of (abusers’) ability to keep victims from speaking up.”
For the last six years, I’ve been collecting and researching cases in which people – mostly young women and sometimes children – were charged with falsely reporting a rape or sexual assault. I’ve amassed more than 230 cases that span the country, an investigation we first shared in the documentary “Victim/Suspect,” streaming on Netflix. In our first-of-its-kind qualitative analysis, we found a pattern of police turning their suspicions to the reporting victim before thoroughly investigating the alleged crime.
Academic studies consistently estimate that 2% to 8% of reports of sexual assault and rape are false. But police officers presume reporting victims are lying much more frequently: In one 2010 study, a majority of sex crimes detectives with less than seven years of experience believed that anywhere from 40% to 80% of rape reports were false. And a 2018 study found that officers’ estimates of false rape reports go up the more they believe in popular myths about rape, like the idea that women lie about rape after regrettable sex or they bear responsibility if they were drunk.
In case after case I reviewed, detectives didn’t interview suspects or send rape kits to the lab. Instead, they interrogated the reporting victim, seizing on the moment when they backtracked or buckled under the pressure, framing it as either a recantation or a confession.
In one-quarter of the 52 cases we analyzed, it took investigators less than 24 hours after the report was made to conclude the victims were lying.
Tangled up in these reports are complicating factors: gaps in memory due to trauma, delays in reporting and a lack of physical evidence. I’ve watched or listened to more than a dozen recorded interrogations and interviewed women who were charged with false reporting.
What I heard again and again were police officers clumsily or aggressively questioning alleged victims, who were typically interviewed alone, in the same manner in which they interrogated suspects. One detective lied to a teenager, saying videos proved her account of being raped at a party wasn’t true. She was left confused and desperate to end the interaction. Another detective told a 12-year-old who insisted she was raped by a family member that she would have to return to foster care. A college student facing harsh questioning about an allegation of sexual assault eventually agreed when police said it wasn’t true, wanting to drop the case.
All of them saw the police conclude their reports were intentionally fabricated and were charged with crimes.
Emma Mannion is all too familiar with this dynamic. In 2016, when she was an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Alabama, she told police that a man she’d met earlier that night had raped her in the back of a car while his friend stood guard.
“Knowing what I know now, I would absolutely not report,” said Mannion, now living in her home state of New Hampshire.
Tuscaloosa investigators concluded within a few days that she lied because she was ashamed that she had sex with a stranger. Under questioning for two and a half hours, Mannion never backed away from her allegation that she was raped – and still hasn’t. But there was a moment in her interrogation when everything seemed to change. A detective chided her for wasting police resources. She had distracted him from working with “true victims,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” she responded.
“Well, if you’re sorry, then that makes me feel better,” the detective said, softening his tone.
Police records summarized that Mannion confessed to lying about the assault and she was charged with making a false report to law enforcement.
Shortly before Mannion had to decide whether to fight the charge, she heard about what happened to University of Alabama student Megan Rondini, who was also interrogated by Tuscaloosa police after reporting a rape. Similarly, detectives quickly turned the focus of their investigation against Rondini. While a grand jury considered criminal charges against her in February 2016, Rondini took her own life.
Mannion said she wasn’t mentally stable enough to go through a trial and relive the incident again and again. She pleaded guilty to a youthful offender charge, a generic label used for nonviolent crimes. Mannion faced only a misdemeanor. But other young women seeking justice after being sexually assaulted could face felony charges.
“I already have a hard time comprehending and understanding how they did what they did,” Mannion said. “I cannot fathom (Tuscaloosa police) looking at 18-year-old Emma and going, ‘Yes, this is a felony charge, and she should go to prison.’ ”
There is no evidence that false reports in Alabama – or nationwide – are increasing or creating a measurable strain on police resources. Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time Alabama has tried to make false reporting penalties more severe. In 2019, then-Rep. Dickie Drake, a Republican, introduced a similar bill, aiming to make a false report of sexual assault or rape a class C felony. At the time, advocates and survivors testified against the measure, saying it would only deter legitimate reports of assault. It didn’t make it out of the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Merika Coleman, a Democrat based in the greater Birmingham area, spoke out against the bill back then and intends to do the same when the new proposal goes to a vote in the Senate. “I think that it can make our communities less safe,” she said. “If someone is afraid to report because they may face up to 10 years in prison if they are not believed, and then you would have a monster still on the streets.”
She also said the racial dynamics of Carlee Russell’s case can’t be ignored. Russell is a young Black woman who received the type of sympathetic media treatment usually reserved for blond-haired, blue-eyed women. “I think people got pissed off,” Coleman said. “White folks got pissed off.”
The proposed bill includes a qualifier that the false report must allege “imminent danger” to a person or the public, a provision a sponsor said is intended to account for only the most egregious false reports: someone falsely reporting a bomb threat, for instance, or a report similar to Russell’s that launches a big police response. But could a report of a stranger rape or an abusive spouse with a gun also be considered an imminent threat? After Mannion reported rape, her university issued a public safety notice to warn other students.
Best estimates suggest that only about a third of sexual assaults are reported to police, and advocates worry this bill could further exacerbate already existing police and victim mistrust.
“My greatest fear is that this bill will cause victims of sexual violence to read this as another reason NOT to report,” Brenda Maddox, executive director of the Tuscaloosa SAFE Center, a sexual assault crisis center, wrote in an email. “These types of crimes are significantly underreported because by nature they are shrouded in secrecy, not to be talked about in the light of day, and often turned back on the victim as being culpable in their own crime.”
Shaw, the state representative who proposed the House version of the bill, said he spoke to constituents, law enforcement officers and his fellow legislators while drafting this legislation. But he said he didn’t reach out to anyone who works with victims, the community that is most likely to ask police for help and at risk of being accused of false reporting.
He acknowledged the bill is in response to the Russell case – a “sample size of one,” he said. “I think it’s somewhat reactive. But we’re really trying not to be.”
If this bill passes and law enforcement officers in Alabama pursues felony charges for a rape or domestic violence case and there are questions about the quality of the investigation, Shaw promised that he would look into it.
The draft of Saudi Arabia’s first penal code was leaked in July 2022. The text has been the subject of various allegations, which Saudi Arabia promptly denied. However, Amnesty International, which first denounced the code’s flaws, ensures that several Saudi legal experts have confirmed its authenticity. More recently, Amnesty International shared its analysis of the draft code with Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers and the Saudi Arabian Human Rights Commission, who stated that the text is still under legislative review. Nonetheless, the draft leak poses serious concerns over the premises of the Crown Prince to improve human rights standards. In particular, some provisions allow for measures criminalizing defamation; it provides for the death penalty for minors and gives too broad power to judges to interpret Sharia law.
Indeed, codifying Saudi Arabia’s penal code is an opportunity to better define crimes and check whether the punishments align with international law standards. However, the leaked version lacks a well-defined legislative framework (crimes and punishments can be broadly interpreted). Also, it criminalizes acts protected under international law with the use of corporal punishment and the death penalty.
The penalty for premeditated murder was included in the draft code, stipulating that it is punishable by seven to fifteen years. However, the text left significant legal loopholes that allowed judges to interpret the circumstances of the crime and consequently inflict the death penalty. For example, judges can impose the death penalty in cases where the perpetrator committed other ‘serious crimes.’ In addition, for hadd crimes, which the Quran deems as serious crimes, the draft code allows for execution. However, included in this category of crimes, there are some offenses like robbery and drinking alcohol that are considered minor under international law and consequently should not be punished with the death penalty. Finally, the most concerning aspect of the draft code was setting the age of criminal responsibility at seven years, at which time a person can also be punished with the death sentence. On this matter, The Commission on the Rights of the Child (CRC) repeatedly stated that the age of criminal responsibility is 12 years old and that the use of the death penalty against minors is prohibited.
Another issue present in the draft of the penal code for which ADHRB has often advocated is the significant discretionary power of the judges. Even with the possible presence of a written code, judges would use discretion to interpret Sharia, possibly violating human rights law standards. ADHRB expresses particular concern over the interpretation of ta’zir, which, following the Sharia, should not reach the level of punishment for hudud crimes. Nonetheless, in Saudi Arabia, there have been examples in which judges could sentence individuals to death by using broad interpretative powers.
ADHRB acknowledges that drafting a penal code for Saudi Arabia would benefit the judiciary by defining a framework for its operation. However, the draft code raises serious concerns over the Crown’s political premises and the reliability of the laws. For these reasons, ADHRB recommends that Saudi Arabia amend the draft code significantly and ensure that its text aligns with the international obligations adopted.
Demonstrations have been held in New Caledonia — with more protests expected — from both pro- and anti-independence supporters after the French Senate endorsed a constitutional amendment bill to “unfreeze” the French Pacific territory’s electoral roll.
In June, both Houses of Parliament (the Senate and National Assembly) will gather to give a final green light to the text with a majority of two-thirds required for it to pass.
The Senate vote in Paris on Tuesday has since triggered numerous reactions from both the pro-France and the pro-independence parties.
Southern Province president and leader of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Sonia Backès, hailed the Senate’s decision, saying it came “despite strong pressures from the pro-independence parties”.
She said “we have to stay mobilised” in the face of the two other planned votes in the next few weeks, she said, announcing more demonstrations from the pro-France sympathisers, including one next Saturday.
The marches each gathered more than 10,000 supporters under strong surveillance from some 500 police and security forces, who ensured the two crowds did not clash. No significant incident was reported.
Several officials have taken to social media to comment on the issue.
New Caledonia constituency’s MP in the National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, posted that the electoral roll changes were “a national and international legal obligation” and “those who are calling [New] Caledonians to take to the streets to oppose this are taking a considerable risk”.
Pro-France Rassemblement (local) Congress caucus president Virgine Ruffenach posted: “We are engaged in a struggle for justice, for a democratic Caledonian society which respects international rules and does not reject anyone.”
French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who initiated the constitutional amendment, wrote that the French government “remains more than ever open to a local agreement and has a mechanism in place that will allow to take the time to finalise it”.
Darmanin was referring to a related political issue — the need, as prescribed by the 1998 political Nouméa Accord, for all parties to meet and inclusively arrive at a political agreement regarding New Caledonia’s future.
‘Strong message to Paris’ On the pro-independence side, FLNKS-Union Calédonienne Congress caucus president Pierre-Channel Tutugoro conceded that the Senate vote’s results were “something to be expected”.
“Now we’re waiting for what comes next [the National Assembly and French Congress votes] and then we’ll know whether things will eventuate,” he said.
The Union Calédonienne, one major component of the four-party pro-independence FLNKS, has in a few months revived a so-called CCAT (Cellule de Coordination des Actions de Terrain, or Field Action Coordination Cell).
The CCAT, consisting of non-FLNKS pro-independence parties and trade unions, has since organised several demonstrations, including one on March 28 and the latest on April 2, the day the Senate vote took place.
This week, CCAT claimed it managed to gather about 30,000 participants, but the French High Commission’s count was 6000.
Reacting to the Senate vote on Wednesday, CCAT head Christian Tein announced more protest marches against the “unfreezing” of the electoral roll were to come . . . the next one being as soon as April 13 “to keep on sending a strong message to Paris”.
Tein said the march was scheduled to take place on Nouméa’s central Peace Square.
The protesters once again intend to ask that the French government withdraw its text, claiming the French state is no longer impartial and that it is trying to “force its way” to impose its local electoral roll change.
The same date was also chosen by pro-France leaders and sympathisers who want to make a demonstration of force to show their determination to have their voting rights recognised through this proposed constitutional amendment.
PALIKA to ‘review strategy’ Meanwhile, another major component of the FLNKS, the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA), held its general assembly last weekend.
Its spokesman, Jean-Pierre Djaïwé, told a news conference that PALIKA, while deploring that New Caledonia’s politics had significantly “radicalised”, was now considering “reviewing its strategy”.
He said PALIKA and FLNKS, who recently have displayed differences, must now reaffirm a strategy of unity and “the pro-independence movement’s will to work towards a peaceful future”.
It’s been two weeks since the UK government was hauled over the coals by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) over their “grave violations” of the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. Anyone who watched the hearing live online will know what went down. The government told a pack of lies then told some more to gloss over the deaths of disabled people when questioned.
It was frustrating for all disabled people to hear that the government – who’ve been not only failing them but actively endangering them – apparently think they’re, to borrow a phrase from Gillian Keegan, “doing a fucking great job”. However, it was even more infuriating for those of us in the room.
However, I was quite shocked when as well as giving me a quote, Ellen casually asked me if I wanted to go to the UNCRPD with the Deaf and Disabled Peoples’ Organisations (DDPOs) delegation in a couple of weeks to watch the government finally answer for their treatment of us.
Ellen and I have worked together a couple of times, and I was one of the few reporters who got the story of how the government just plain refused to show up at the UNCRPD last August (when they were originally invited to give evidence at the same time as the DDPOs) into mainstream media.
At the time the government told me they had always intended to give evidence in March in the ultimate “oh no you misunderstood us – silly little disableds” gaslighting we’re all used to by now.
That sort of abject trauma of fighting for disability rights and screaming til our voices break I suppose bonds people. So, despite it being in less than two weeks’ time I instinctively knew I had to be there with the incredible bunch of people Ellen was telling me about.
A delegation of lived experience
The delegation included activists from DPAC, Inclusion London, Disability Wales, Disability Rights UK, Reclaiming our Futures Alliance, DPAC NI, and unions such as Unite, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), and Equity. I was quietly anxious to meet the families of deceased benefit claimants, some of whom I’d written or edited pieces about.
Two flights and later and I was touching down in Geneva on Sunday 17 March. The delegation was split around the city and although the hearing was on Monday 18 March and obviously the main reason we were there, it gave us an excuse to all come together and just be in each other’s company.
We spent Sunday coming up with our clear messages whilst also eating fondue, chatting on the beach, exploring the city, sharing resources, and finding comfort in other people who had our lived experience.
Then Monday afternoon came round all of a sudden and there I was walking up to one of the most famous buildings in the world.
Before the session the DDPO delegation got together to have lunch and discuss what we hoped would come from today. Although we weren’t allowed to speak it was important to the DDPOs that we got the message out there that we were here standing up for rights – even if the government wouldn’t speak to us.
The government whitewashing its record at the UNCRPD
I’ve been asked a lot how it felt to be in the room when the government told the UNCRPD that they pretended to be:
committed to upholding the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People.
The short answer is frustrating. The long answer is frustratingly exhausting with moments of incredulity that meant I guffawed so loudly I thought I was going to be asked to leave.
Basically, after refusing to attend a hearing session that DDPOs were at, the government attempted to make it sound like they cared at all about disabled people.
They bragged about policies that they’d been forced to commit to by campaign groups. They boasted about the Disability Action Plan and National Disability Strategy. This is despite the fact that the strategy was being challenged in the High Court by disabled activists and the action plan had been widely derided for offering no solutions to the real issues affecting us.
The temptation to scream almost became too much when Alexandra Gowlland (someone who is so obscure in the Disability Unit I had to Google her whilst she was speaking) claimed the government are “Committed to transforming the benefits system”.
Lie after lie
I almost definitely muttered “Are you fuck” under my breath when she continued that they are:
ensuring people can access the right support and have a better overall experience when applying for benefits.
I felt the bile rise up in my throat as she claimed that “disability hate crime is completely unacceptable” when you consider the disgusting rhetoric that the government ministers are spreading via the press; something I’ve fought hard against.
I was unsurprised to see that the focus was kept on SEND kids, something the government love to tug on people’s heart strings about. But what happens when we stop being cute disabled kiddies? They’re quick to paint us as burdens then.
The most “you what mate??” moment was when Gowlland repeated that the government “welcome this dialogue” which was news to all of us who they couldn’t even make eye contact with despite being sat a few rows away.
‘Dehumanising disabled people’
There was a moment of intense validation though when it came time for the UK Rapporteurs to grill the government.
The outstanding Rosemary Kayess and Laverne Jacobs used evidence the DDPOs had shared with them about our real-life experiences under this government. Kayess said the government had created a “pervasive framework that dehumanises disabled people”.
Jacobs in her questioning brought up disability benefits deaths that had occurred after benefits had been stopped. The government did not even reference disability deaths in passing in their response. This was especially insulting when incredible campaigners like Alison Turner, daughter in law of Errol Graham, were sat in the room.
After the hearing I felt drained. Standing outside with Alison whilst she smoked a cigarette, we both sobbed frustrated tears. After many of the DDPOs expressed disbelief at the governments lack of shame, with one member cracking the group up with “well that could’ve been an email!”
Despite how disappointing and embarrassing the government’s “evidence” was, this wasn’t a loss for disabled people in my opinion.
The UNCRPD showed the power of community
The main aim was to make a huge fuss on social media and more than anything ensure the disabled community knew there were people in their corner.
Being a disabled person can be isolating, even more so when the government and media are constantly belittling our rights and trying to make us scared to live our lives. The DDPO delegation showed disabled people at home that they’re not alone, to be part of that made me feel so empowered, surrounded by people who had mine and so many others backs.
There was never a single moment that didn’t feel huge and significant all weekend, from sitting on the beach discussing our lives and experiences to catching up over baba ghanoush. The trip felt serious sure, but it also felt joyous; significant to have this many disabled people not only fighting back but existing and thriving and loving our lives despite what the government threw at us.
The end of the trip was bookended the same way it began, with a big meal, this time also celebrating my birthday, which was on 19 March. When I was shocked, Ellen told me “It’s important we celebrate disabled people, there’s enough shit”.
The love and joy I felt from these incredible hardworking compassionate souls is something I will hold with me forever.
It’s this power in community that the government can never take away from us, no matter how hard they try.
The UN Human Rights Council passed its first ever resolution on Thursday 4 April over tackling discrimination against intersex people, despite opposition from several countries to the terminology used. The resolution passed in the 47-member council with 24 votes in favour, none against and 23 abstentions.
Intersex people: combatting persecution and discrimination
Around 1.7% of the population are intersex. In the UK there are 1.1 million intersex people – three times more than the trans population. As the University of Manchester wrote:
The term ‘intersex’ covers more than 40 variations in a person’s physical sex characteristics. These variations may relate to a person’s internal or external genitalia, chromosomes and/or hormones.
Yet intersex people face systemic discrimination. So, the UN resolution was long overdue.
Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, and the US were among the countries voting Yes. Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates abstained.
The resolution, entitled “Combating discrimination, violence and harmful practices against intersex persons”, was brought forward by Australia, Chile, Finland, and South Africa.
South Africa’s ambassador Mxolisi Nkosi said:
The resolution seeks to create awareness of the plight of intersex persons. Intersex persons face lifelong discrimination in various areas of their lives, including in sports, health, and education.
In extreme cases, this leads to violence and harmful practices such as forced castration, forced sterilisation and even infanticide.
France’s ambassador Jerome Bonnafont welcomed the council discussing the situation of intersex people for the first time, saying they were “too often the victims of rejection, by their family or society”.
US ambassador Michele Taylor called it a “landmark resolution” and a “historic juncture” for the UN’s top rights body.
The resolution recognises that persons:
with innate variations in sex characteristics, that is persons who are born with sex characteristics that do not fit typical definitions for male or female bodies, including sexual anatomy, reproductive organs and hormonal or chromosome patterns (also known as intersex persons) exist in all societies.
Quibbling about terminology – or just discrimination?
Some countries predictably pushed back. Qatar’s representative, speaking for the Arab Group members of the council, said they had presented constructive ideas “to make the text more balanced”:
The Human Rights Council is not the right platform for discussing this complex issue, especially given the medical aspects.
We wanted to change intersex persons to another description: persons with disorders in sex development. For us, this is the more scientific and medically appropriate description.
Many intersex people would rightly object to the idea that they are somehow living with a disorder that needs to be corrected.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh said the term intersex was “unknown in the national legal systems and social contexts of many member states”, and the resolution “offers a vague and arbitrary definition of intersex persons”.
Malaysia said the term intersex “is not universally recognised” and when translated into local languages could be derogatory and “do more harm than good”. China said the resolution should respect traditions in various countries.
Long overdue for intersex people
The resolution recognises that intersex persons “may face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in all areas of life”, and voices grave concern about the “violence and harmful practices” they face, “including medically unnecessary or deferrable interventions, which may be irreversible”.
The resolution encourages states to enhance efforts to combat discrimination, violence and harmful practices, “such as stereotypes, the spread of misconceptions and inaccurate information, stigma and taboo”.
Civil society groups welcomed the move. ILGA World is the international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex association. It and 34 other groups commented:
This resolution marks yet another milestone in how international bodies are looking at the rights of intersex persons.
Over the years, the work of civil society and States alike has built tremendous momentum, but things could take an even more decisive turn this time. Thanks to this vote, the first-ever official United Nations report to address the human rights situation of persons with innate variations in sex characteristics will raise awareness of the issue in a way that States can no longer ignore, and will have to act upon.
Iran’s murderous “war on drugs” and its violent repression of ethnic minorities has turned its prisons into sites of “mass killing”. This was the conclusion of a new Amnesty International report on 4 April documenting the “horrifying surge in executions” Iran carried out in 2023.
Iran’s executions – upholding state patriarchal violence
Amnesty’s report titledDon’t Let Them Kill Us: Iran’s Relentless Execution Crisis since 2022 Uprising detailed how Iranian authorities executed at least 853 people in 2023. Notably, this was up 48% on the previous year.
Significantly, it said that its report reveals:
how the Iranian authorities have intensified their use of the death penalty to instil fear among the population and tighten their grip on power in the aftermath of the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising of September-December 2022.
This refers to protests in 2022, when women in Iran took to the streets after the Iranian authorities allegedly murdered 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish Mahsa Amini. The Iranian Morality Police had purportedly arrested Amini because she dressed in skinny jeans and was not wearing her headscarf correctly, which breached dress codes under the state’s sharia law.
It triggered country-wide protests against patriarchal and state violence, which particularly impacts Kurdish women. Since then, Iranian authorities have violently suppressed multiple protests rising up under the anti-government “Women Life Freedom” banner.
Crucially, Amnesty’s report highlighted that since the 2022 uprising, the Iranian authorities have executed nine people in connection to the protests. In particular, it said that:
Of the six executions that took place in 2023, five protesters were executed for the vague and broadly worded charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) or “corruption on earth” (efsad-e fel arz).
Iran’s “war on drugs”
On top of this, Amnesty’s report underscored how Iran has weaponised its brutal “war on drugs” type policies against marginalised groups.
It stated that:
The briefing also raises the alarm over the disproportionate impact of the authorities’ lethal anti-narcotics policies on poor and marginalized communities.
Specifically, over half of the executions – 56% – were for drug-related charges. Iran modified it anti-narcotics legislation in 2017 and executions for drug offences declined in 2018 and 2020. However, they dramatically rebounded last year.
Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa Diana Eltahawy said that:
The death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances but deploying it on a mass scale for drug-related offences after grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts is a grotesque abuse of power.
The Islamic Republic’s deadly anti-narcotics policies are contributing to a cycle of poverty and systemic injustice, and further entrenching discrimination against marginalized communities, in particular Iran’s oppressed Baluchi minority.
Murdering minorities and children
Amnesty said the Iranian authorities have been targeting the Sunni Baluch minority concentrated in the southeast disproportionately. Significantly, the report noted that the the minority:
constitutes only about 5 percent of Iran’s population but accounted for 20 percent of all executions in 2023
Meanwhile, it also drew attention to Iran’s execution of those arrested as children. It noted that:
Iran is one of the last countries in the world that continues to use the death penalty against individuals aged under 18 at the time of the crime in a violation of international law. The authorities persist in their refusal to amend Article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code to abolish the death penalty for crimes committed by children in all circumstances.
Among those Iran executed was 17-year-old Hamidreza Azari. Authorities in Razavi Khorasan province hung Azari in November after convicting him over a deadly 2023 stabbing when he was 16.
Amnesty said that it had reviewed his birth certificate and that his age “was misrepresented” as 18 by state media to “evade accountability”.
‘Grotesque abuse of power’
Given its findings, Amnesty said that the Iranian authorities have:
persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields
Two other NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report last month giving the slightly lower figure of 834 people executed in 2023.
However, Amnesty emphasised that its numbers were “minimum figures” and the real death toll would be higher.
Moreover, it said that Iran’s behaviour has not changed this year. Already, rights groups have recorded at least 95 executions up to 20 March.
In its report, Amnesty said that:
Without a robust global response, Amnesty International fears that the Iranian authorities will continue using the death penalty as a tool of oppression to execute thousands more people in the coming years
Without stronger international action to halt the rise in executions, Amnesty said “thousands” risked being hanged in the coming years.
Three New Zealand doctors — two Palestinian and one Iraq-born — are planning to join the charity Kia Ora Gaza in its mission this month to provide humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave, reports 1News.
But reporter Simon Mercep says “they’re not completely sure whether they’ll reach the Gaza coast and step on dry land”.
Mercep asked Gaza-born Dr Wasfi Shahin how hopeful was he?
“He paused before smiling as he told 1News tonight: ‘Fifty percent. Not more’.
But Mercep said he remained determined.
Dr Shain said: “I hope I can reach there to see what I left 50 years ago.”
1News asked Faiez Idais, a Jordan-trained doctor, how dangerous he expected the mission to be.
‘We’ll be in danger’
“If they [the people of Gaza] are in danger, we’ll be in danger. It’s not a problem for us,” he said.
“They don’t have even water to drink. They don’t have food to eat.”
“I am a physician,” he added. “I can’t do anything from here.”
Dr Idais was born in Jerusalem and has never been to the Gaza Strip.
The third doctor, Iraqi-born Dr Adnan Al-Kenani, took a pragmatic approach, reports Mercep.
The three doctors off to Gaza . . . Dr Faiez Idais (from left), Dr Adnan Al-Kenani and Gaza-born Dr Wasfi Shahin (seated) . . . “If we get an opportunity, if we land there, we can do service.” Image: 1News screenshot APR
“If we get an opportunity, if we land there, we can do service on land,” he said. “It depends on the circumstances there. But we are purely a health organisation.”
The doctors will fly out of Auckland next week to join the Freedom Flotilla Coalition international humanitarian effort, which is assembling ships at the port of Istanbul in Turkiye.
A container vessel and one ship for volunteers is already there, and a third is expected to join soon.
Seven aid workers killed
Since the doctors were interviewed for the report last weekend, seven international charity workers were killed in a drone attack by Israeli forces in Gaza — six foreigners and a Palestinian.
This took the death toll of aid workers to at least 203 aid workers in Israel’s deadly six-month war on Gaza, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
The killing has caused outrage around the world and the founder of the charity World Central Kitchen that employed the aid workers, Spanish American celebrity chef Jose Andres, said they were “targeted systematically”.
This took the death toll of aid workers to 195 in Israel’s deadly six-month war on Gaza.
Dr Adnan Al-Kenani , a GP and surgeon from Auckland, and Kia Ora Gaza coordinator Roger Fowler speaking at a Palestine solidarity rally in Aotea Square last Sunday. Image: David Robie/APR
‘Catastrophic hunger’
Meanwhile, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition reports that it will be sailing in mid-April with several vessels carrying 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
“This is an emergency mission as the situation in Gaza is dire, with famine setting in in northern Gaza, and catastrophic hunger present throughout the Gaza Strip as the result of a deliberate policy by the Israeli government to starve the Palestinian people,” the coalition said in a statement.
“Time is critical as experts predict that hunger and disease could claim more lives than have been killed in the bombing.
“Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza.”
The statement added that “allowing Israel to control what and how much humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in Gaza is like letting the fox manage the henhouse.”
Asia Pacific Report with 1News and Freedom Flotilla Coalition reporting.
The Majestic, one of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition ships bound for Gaza. Image: 1News screenshot APR
Former Foreign Office minister had suggested some in government were prepared to overlook human rights violations
Members of the National Education Union have voted to delay moving to a formal strike ballot until they know the detail of the government’s pay offer for 2024/5.
Delegates attending the NEU’s annual conference agreed the offer – when it comes – should be put to members in a snap poll and if rejected with a convincing turnout, move to a formal ballot for industrial action.
After achieving an overwhelming majority vote in our recent indicative ballot, NEU conference committed to intensify its campaign to win a fully-funded, above-inflation pay rise and greater resources for schools and colleges.
Education is on its knees, struggling to cope with a crisis never seen before in our sector. And the responsibility for this lies squarely at the door of secretary of state for education Gillian Keegan and 14 years of mismanagement and underinvestment by a government that does not care.
The Greens claim their policies could lead to at least 150,000 extra council homes a year being built. In his speech, Ramsay said these would come from a mix of new-build, refurbishments and exisiting homes. This is one of several policies intended to increase the supply of affordable housing. In its press notice the party says:
The policies the Green party would introduce to help councils increase the supply of affordable housing include:
-Providing funding to councils to meet their needs for affordable social housing and lift the overly restrictive rules on council borrowing for housebuilding – ensuring at least an extra 150,000 council homes a year are made available through a mix of new build, refurbishment, conversions and buying up existing homes
Denyer said the Greens were aiming for a record number of seats in the local elections. She said:
We are aiming for a record number of seats in the city and to lead the next administration. We know there is a huge appetite for the bold progressive approach of the Greens here, like in so many other towns, cities and villages across the country.
We go into these local elections with around 760 councillors on nearly 170 councils in both urban and rural settings and Greens being a governing party in 10% of all councils in England and Wales already.
She claimed the Greens had “more ambition” than any other party. She said:
When times are hard we need more ambition, not less. We need to rise to the scale of the challenges we face and be clear that not doing that is a political choice. Leaving millions of children in poverty is a political choice. Letting our NHS fall into chaos is a political choice. And failing to commit to the green investment we need is a political choice.
At the Green party, we’re making a different political choice. We choose to listen to what people need. We choose to see the cost of living crisis for what it really is, a widening inequality crisis. And we choose to offer solutions to fix it.
Denyer and Ramsay confirmed that the Greens are focusing on four seats in particular at the general election. They are Brighton Pavilion, where Siân Berry is the candidate, hoping to succeed Caroline Lucas; Bristol Central, where Denyer is the candidate; Waveney Valley, where Ramsay is the candidate; and North Herefordshire, where Ellie Chowns is the candidate. According to the YouGov MRP poll published yesterday, only Berry is on course to win. But Ramsay claimed he had a good chance because last year the Greens won control of Mid Suffolk district council (which roughly overlaps with the Waveney Valley constituency). He went on:
The counsellors there have spent the last year delivering on their promises to secure investment in the local area, make the council’s operations greener and improve local services. And their efforts are being recognised because the Green-majority council has recently won the council of the year award.
If you ever wanted a job bootlicking for Tory big brother Britain, look no further, because the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has you covered. Champing at the bit to snoop into the DWP benefits of the most marginalised members of society?
Well, it has a role just for you – as per the government’s latest machinations to persecute disabled, chronically ill, poor, and vulnerable people across the UK. Naturally, these new fraud-finder general jobs are part of the department’s suite of new plans to “crack down” on so-called “benefit fraud”.
DWP’s “benefit fraud” fiction
On 3 April, journalist Rachel Charlton-Daileybroke the news that the DWP has posted job listings for up to 25 “covert surveillance officers”. As the Big Issue reported:
The job roles are, according to the advertisement on GOV.UK, part of the DWP’s response to tackling fraud within the welfare system.
The ad says: “The department utilises covert surveillance to gather evidence to prove/disprove offences” – although it is not clear what these offences are.
Of course, this wasn’t to tackle the multi-billions in dud covid PPE type of fraud. Instead, these jobs are to wrangle with the criminal masterminds that are, largely, sick and out-of-work people barely surviving on the lowest social security benefits in Northern Europe.
As the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously pointed out, “benefit fraud” is, of course “a right-wing construct not grounded in reality”. More specifically, he has highlighted that a significant proportion of the DWP’s fraud estimates are not in fact from actual claimants. Instead, Topple has detailed how:
much of the £8.3bn the DWP promotes as fraud (and that the media dutifully laps up) is just based on assumptions and guesswork.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good scapegoating? Moreover, Charlton-Dailey noted that:
This latest recruitment drive comes after the government has upped its commitment to benefit fraud with its Fraud Strategy, which was released last year. According to GOV.UK the plan “sets out bold new measures to fight fraud against the welfare state” and they say it will save the DWP £1.3bn.
So, let us get this straight. The government spaffed multiple billions of pounds up the wall for rich Tory donors, and this new slick surveillance could help save the DWP – wait for it – a grand sum of £1.3bn.
Hang up your ballet shoes, as according to the DWP’s latest hiring drive, your next job could be in benefit snooping (you just don’t know it yet.)
Sweeping new surveillance powers
Of course, the roles are part and parcel of the Tory government’s sweeping new surveillance plans for the DWP.
Specifically, it’s currently trying to ram through a series of new powers to enable the department to spy on the bank accounts of benefit claimants. It is doing so through the innocuously titled Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
So far, campaigners and media outlets have lambasted a litany of the DWP’s souped-up surveillance schemes for things like:
The use of AI to detect fraud (What could possibly go wrong? I’m old enough to remember when faulty AI wrecked the lives of 900 postmasters)
Posing a serious risk to disabled people who have set up bank accounts for social care
Threatening the dignity and privacy of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and other disability benefits claimants
Over 40 organisations condemned the bill’s surveillance powers in March in an open letter to work and pensions secretary Mel Stride. In it, groups including Disability Rights UK and Big Brother Watch argued that:
There are approximately 22.6 million individuals in the welfare system, including those who are disabled, sick, caregivers, job seekers, and pensioners. They should not be treated like criminals by default
Meanwhile, a petition is calling on the DWP to ditch the new surveillance plans.
Scapegoated as “scroungers”
As the Guardian’s Frances Ryan pointed out, the surveillance roll-out is the inevitable end result of the government (and its corporate media lapdogs) painting benefit claimants as “scroungers” and a burden on the taxpayer:
The government is seeking new powers for mass surveillance of the bank accounts of millions of benefit claimants to “scan for fraud.” Congrats to every politician and pundit who peddled the scrounger myth. This is where you took us. https://t.co/QxyJbnd6nq
Invariably, scapegoating is exactly the point. Ostensibly, the Tory government is shirking accountability for fomenting a devastating cost-of-living crisis. No changes there of course – it’s Tory writ large.
As Topple also recently reported for instance, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) accused the UK government of systematically violating disabled people’s human rights – and for the second time, no less. There too, the government of course denied responsibility.
But back in morally-bankrupt Tory Britain, the government’s putrid weaponisation of welfare benefits has had devastating consequences. The DWP has presided over tens of thousands of deaths, as claimants waited for benefits, or after the DWP told them they were fit to work. Repeated inquests into the deaths of benefit claimants have revealed the rot at the heart of its routinely punishing and deadly system.
So, it’s not hard to imagine what these new DWP benefit fraud-busting jobs will mean for the people claiming this social security. What’s more, finding new ways to deny people benefits – in this instance, by criminalising them – sits comfortably alongside the government’s plans to push people into work. Of course, this drive has particularly targeted sick and disabled claimants.
Naturally, the Tories want you to blame your neighbourhood “scrounger” for all social ills. After all, it has spent years peddling this pernicious rhetoric, demonising disabled, chronically ill, and vulnerable claimants to manufacture consent for stripping back the welfare state.
Spy on your DWP benefits-claiming neighbours
So, enter the era of “covert surveillance officers”. The Big Issueexplained that the new roles:
are based in 20 locations across the country with salaries ranging from £29,500 to £33,979.
Moreover, it highlighted that:
The job’s description is very vague on detail as to what the job actually entails. It includes “leading in taking forward tasking requests”, sometimes leading “on the activities of the surveillance team” and “actively participating in surveillance operations”, with hours described as “unsociable”, starting early and ending late.
The ad does however state that hirees will be producing “evidential packages” which include obtaining and writing up witness statements to provide evidence of the activities witnessed. Successful applicants may be required to wear “covert audio equipment” and will also have to present the evidence obtained, which includes compiling and editing video and audio data.
In other words, for five figures, you can become a dutiful agent of the UK’s fascist, eugenicist state. But hey, be grateful for the opportunity, or the DWP might deny you social security.
As ever, in Tory UK, it’s blame your benefit “scrounger” neighbour, not the slimy rich elite that grease the wheels of this despicable government. Now, you can even spy on benefit claimants’ spending too – and get paid to do it.
Salman Maki Ali was a 15-year-old Bahraini student and minor when Bahraini authorities arbitrarily arrested him on 21 October 2014 from the street without presenting an arrest warrant. During detention, he endured torture, enforced disappearance, solitary confinement, denial of access to legal counsel, unfair trials based on confessions extracted under torture, sectarian-based insults, and medical neglect. He is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence in Jau Prison on politically motivated charges.
On 21 October 2014, at around 9:45 P.M.,masked plainclothes officers, aided by a number of security forces, arrested Salman and two others on the main street in the Markuban area of Sitra, where they were setting up Ashura banners with a group of young men. As Salman was near Sahara Studio, two civilian cars passed by him and the group, from which masked officers in civilian clothes and security forces emerged, chasing them on the street before apprehending Salman. Simultaneously, they beat, kicked, insulted, and cursed him. Subsequently, they transported him and his friends on a bus to the Sitra area, where they seated him in the front seat, subjected him to psychological pressure and beatings, and demanded he guide them to a relative’s house. Furthermore, Salman and his friends were taken to al-Bandar (the coast guard in Sitra), where they were threatened that if they didn’t confess, they would be tortured. Following this, they were transferred to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) building.
On the same day after his arrest, the family was unaware of their son’s location. His mother visited the Sitra Police Station, Isa Town Police Station, and Nabi Saleh Island Police Station, seeking information about his whereabouts, but received no information. On the morning of the second day, she went to the CID, where officers took her information, but she still received no response. Salman’s family continued to search for him by visiting the CID, the Public Prosecution Office (PPO), and the court, yet they received no response. Three days after his arrest, on 24 October 2014, Salman’s family was surprised when they saw a news in the state media and a statement from the Ministry of Interior, stating that their son was accused of terrorist crimes, primarily the case of burning the car of parliamentary election candidate, MP Sheikh Majid AlAsfour.
During Salman’s interrogation, he was transferred multiple times between the CID building and the PPO before being transferred to the Dry Dock Detention Center. At the CID, the detainees were dispersed into separate rooms. Salman had his friend’s phone when CID officers asked him to unlock it. However, he did not know the password to do so. Consequently, they subjected him to psychological pressure and beatings. CID officers stripped him of his clothes, beat him, insulted and slandered him, and sexually harassed him. They also threatened him with rape, beatings, and deprived him of the ability to pray.
Furthermore, officers didn’t allow Salman to use the bathroom when needed, but only at specific times. They rushed Salman inside the bathroom and sometimes opened the door on him. Additionally, they lined the detainees up in one row blindfolded and hit their heads against the wall. Husain AlSari, Ali Abdulhadi, and Jasim Mohamed Ajwaid were among those detainees accused of the same charge brought against Salman, which was burning the car of the parliamentary elections candidate, Majid AlAsfour.
Salman’s interrogation lasted for about 7 days and was conducted without the presence of a lawyer. As a result of the threats and torture, his mental state deteriorated, and consequently, he was forced to confess by signing an investigation report without being aware of its content. On 28 October 2014, Salman was transferred to the Dry Dock Detention Center. A week after his transfer to the Dry Dock Detention Center, his family received phone calls from detainees at the center who informed them that their son was in the detention center, enduring a bad psychological state. A few minutes later, Salman called and reassured his family of his condition.
Salman was not given adequate time and facilities to prepare for his trials, was unable to present evidence and challenge evidence presented against him, was denied access to his attorney, and wasn’t allowed to meet with him alone. Furthermore, his confessions extracted under torture were used against him despite informing the judge that the charges against him were untrue and obtained under torture. On 6 September 2015, Salman was sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison in the case of burning the car of the parliamentary election candidate for a terrorist purpose and endangering people’s lives and money. He was charged with1) arson, and 2) manufacturing usable or explosive devices. Moreover, he was later sentenced to ten years in prison on the charge of 3) attacking a police patrol and causing harm to a citizen. On 28 October 2015, he was also sentenced to ten years in prison in a gathering and rioting case on charges of 4) negligent destruction, 5) intentionally endangering a private means of transport, 6) manufacturing usable or explosive devices, 7) arson, and 8) assaulting the body integrity of others. Lastly, on 1 November 2015, he was sentenced to three years in prison on the charge of 9) manufacturing usable and explosive devices to disturb public security, resulting in a total sentence of 33 years imprisonment. On 28 March 2016, the court of appeals reduced Salman’s first sentence for the charge of burning the car of MP AlAsfour to five years of prison. On 29 May 2016, the court of appeals also reduced the sentence for the last case, the charge of manufacturing usable and explosive devices to disturb public security, to two years imprisonment. However, the court of appeal upheld the verdict for the third case on 31 May 2016, making the total of his sentence 27 years. On 6 September 2015, after the issuance of the first verdict, Salman was transferred to the New Dry Dock Prison, designated for inmates under the age of 21.
After the first sentencing hearing, on 6 September 2015, the prisoners were taken to Jau Prison to collect their personal belongings. During this time, Salman was severely beaten and handcuffed from behind. Additionally, a police officer beat him in the stomach. He endured long hours of torture before being transferred to the young convicts’ prison. Furthermore, the security forces subjected him and the other prisoners to psychological and physical torture by insulting, laughing, and mocking them.
Salman and his fellow inmates were insulted and tortured by the Dry Dock Prison officers, forcing them to stand and sit for a long time. He also suffered from alopecia in the head, for which he was denied medical treatment before being allowed to bring in the necessary medicine from outside the prison.
In 2020, Salman was transferred to Jau Prison upon reaching 21 years old, where he faced mistreatment while serving his sentence. Jau Prison officers once tied him up on a cold day while he was wearing light clothes and left him in the corridor of the prison where it was extremely cold. Moreover, Salman was subjected to discrimination by Jau Prison officers based on his religious and political opinions. They insulted him, his Shia sect, and the opposition figures belonging to the sect. Additionally, he was once placed in solitary confinement in Jau Prison for going out to the prison fence.
Furthermore, Salman was infected with COVID-19 and was isolated with the other infected inmates in a cell containing more than eight people. Back then, he did not receive the necessary medical treatment for a period ranging from 10 days to two weeks.
In August 2023, Salman participated in a collective hunger strike with around 800 prisoners in Jau Prison to protest mistreatment and inadequate healthcare. This hunger strike persisted for 40 days, ending in September 2023 with a promise from the prison administration to improve conditions inside the prison.
Recently, Salman complained about medical neglect in Jau Prison and the inedible meals offered to him. For three months, he has been suffering from poor eyesight and needed an eye test to get suitable glasses. After prolonged delays, he underwent an eye test at Salmaniya Hospital, and eyeglasses were prescribed to him; however, the glasses have not yet been handed over to him.
Salman’s warrantless arrest, torture, enforced disappearance, unjust solitary confinement, denial of attorney access, unfair trials, religious discrimination, and medical negligence constitute violations of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 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. Furthermore, the violations he endured as a minor contravene the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Bahrain is also a party.
As such, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) calls on the Bahraini authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Salman. ADHRB also urges the Bahraini government to investigate allegations of arbitrary arrest, torture, enforced disappearance, solitary confinement, denial of legal counsel, religious discrimination, and medical negligence, and to hold the perpetrators accountable. At the very least, ADHRB advocates for a fair retrial for Salman under the Restorative Justice Law for Children, leading to his release. Additionally, it urges the Jau Prison administration to promptly provide appropriate healthcare for Salman, including eyeglasses, treatment for his head alopecia, and adequate healthy food, holding it responsible for any further deterioration in his health condition.
Fijian bus drivers and bus checkers wake up early in the morning to serve the public so it is disappointing to see school students harassing and bullying them, says the bus operators industry group.
Fiji Bus Operators Association general secretary Rohit Latchan said he was responding to a recent video on social media involving a high school student threatening a bus checker.
Latchan also pleaded with parents and teachers to teach students respect towards everyone, especially bus drivers and checkers.
“People should realise that bus drivers and checkers are also humans,” Latchan said.
“They’re providing service to the public, especially to students.
“I am pleading with parents and teachers to respect and appreciate bus drivers and checkers. There is no need for abuse or threats.
“Driving all day is not an easy job. We don’t want our drivers to get hurt.”
Closed fist threat
The video shows the student threatening a bus driver and a bus checker saying, ‘Au sega ni rerevaki kemudrau’ (I am not afraid of you) after he got on board with a closed fist.
Although it is unclear what caused the incident, many found the issue of a young student challenging adults alarming.
Acting Police Commissioner Juki Fong Chew said the matter had been directed to the Central Deputy Police Commissioner for investigations and a team would visit the school tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Selina Kuruleca said all necessary processes had been followed, including informing parents and the Child Protection Services.
“We again request parents to remind their children on the importance of proper behaviour at all times,” Kuruleca said.
“Even though the student was responding to some earlier incident by the driver, he could have reported the incident to the police instead of this swearing and threatening behaviour.
“The student is undergoing counselling at the moment.”
Temalesi Vono is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as “lopsided” in favour of Tel Aviv.
He said New Zealand media was too dependent on American and British news services, which were based in two of the countries most committed to Israel and in denial of the genocide that was happening.
New Zealand media were tending to treat the conflict as “just another war” instead of the reality of a “horrendous” series of massacres with a long-lasting impact on Western credibility and commitment to a global rules-based order.
Lois asked: “What is happening to Gaza now is a nightmare, very disturbing, or should be, and yet are we, the public, in New Zealand and other countries, are we getting the true picture from journalists?”
Dr Robie replied, “No, we are getting a very sanitised version through our media, particularly in New Zealand, less so in Australia, but it’s pretty bad there . . .”
He explained the reasons for his criticism.
Praise for AJ and TRT coverage
During the half-hour interview, Dr Robie praised television coverage of the “real war” by independent news services such as the Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Turkey-based TRT World News, which have had Arabic-speaking Palestinian journalists on the ground in Gaza throughout the six-month-old war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Al Jazeera this week with closure of the network’s operations in Israel — under the powers of a new law — because of its graphic and uncensored coverage from the besieged enclave.
Al Jazeera called Netanyahu’s attack “slanderous” and managing editor Mohamed Moawad said: “What we are doing is trying to give voice to the voiceless and try and make sure that the suffering of civilians on the ground is heard by the entire world.”
Almost 33,000 Palestinians and more than 75,000 others have been wounded as outrage grows globally following Israel’s strike and killing of aid workers in Gaza this week.
Exclusive: YouGov survey indicates loss of support among people in Britain for Israel’s war in Gaza
A majority of voters in Britain back a ban on arms sales to Israel, according to a YouGov poll.
One of the first up-to-date assessments of whether Israel is losing public support in key allied states, the research also suggests most people believe the Israeli government is violating human rights in Gaza.
An Australian West Papuan solidarity group has condemned a brutal crackdown by Indonesian police against student protesters demonstrating against torture by the security forces.
A video of the cruel torture of a West Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya, by Indonesian troops in West Papua in early February, went viral last week with students and civil society groups staging several protest rallies and meetings over the past two days.
Indonesian security forces violently crushed these protests with tear gas and water cannon and arrested 62 people at one demonstration.
“Yet again we have peaceful demonstrators being arrested, beaten and tear gassed by the Indonesian security forces,” Joe Collins, spokesperson of the Australian West Papua Association (AWPA), said in a statement.
“Do they really believe West Papuans will be so intimidated that they’ll stop protesting against the injustices they suffer under Indonesian rule?
“The West Papuan people will continue to protest until the international community and the United Nations start to bring Jakarta to account for the actions of its military in West Papua.
“The issue isn’t going away.”
University crackdown
In Jayapura, a rally was held yesterday at Perumnas 3 Waena and the Jayapura University of Science and Technology (JUST) by civil society groups, including by the Papuan Student and People’s Front Against Militarism (FMRPAM).
The local news outlet Jubi reported that the police had cracked down on the rally, assaulting demonstrators and firing tear gas.
The demonstrators were demanding that an independent investigation team be formed into the case of torture of Puncak regency residents by Indonesian military (TNI) soldiers and asked that the perpetrators be tried at the III-19 Jayapura Military Court.
Although the demonstrators tried to negotiate with the police, it ended in frustration. The police then dispersed the crowd by hitting the demonstrators and firing tear gas.
“Disperse, disperse, this is a public street,” shouted the Commander of Battalion A Pioneer of the Papua Mobile Brigade in Kotaraja Jayapura, Police Commissioner Clief Duwit.
The police then dispersed the crowd by beating them and firing tear gas.
Demonstrators ran for their lives towards the JUST campus.
In Sentani, at the red light junction where protesters began giving speeches and criticise the behaviour of the military in West Papua, security forces arrived quickly with two water canon vehicles.
Jubi reported that the field coordinator of the FMRPAM action, Kenias Payage, said that his party was taken away by a combination of TNI/Polri security forces while carrying out a peaceful speech at the Sentani red light.
Sixty two people were reportedly arrested.
Reverend Benny Giay . . . “Those who are arrested or killed are often referred to as ‘armed groups’, ‘separatists’, ‘terrorists’, and with other accusations.” Image: Jubi/CR-8
‘Third party’ probe call
Meanwhile, Reverend Benny Giay, the moderator of the Papuan Church Council, has called for a “third party” to investigate allegations of violence by the security forces in Papua, reports Jubi News.
The third party should examine the facts, including allegations that the victims were members of the pro-independence West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).
“Those who are arrested or killed are often referred to as ‘armed groups’, ‘separatists’, ‘terrorists’, and with other accusations,” Reverend Giay said.
“It’s necessary to have a third party to clarify this. There is a lot of violence in Papua now but the media doesn’t classify it, so we suspect everything,” he said earlier this month.
The French Senate has endorsed a Constitutional review project bearing significant modifications to the local electoral rules for New Caledonia, but with amendments.
The text passed on Tuesday with 233 votes in favour and 99 against.
It aims at modifying the conditions for French citizens to access a special list of voters for the elections in New Caledonia’s three provinces and the Congress.
Since 2007 the electoral roll for those local elections was “frozen”, allowing only people residing in New Caledonia before 1998.
However, the French government and its Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin introduced earlier this year a new text for a “sliding” electoral roll allowing citizens who had been residing in New Caledonia for an uninterrupted 10 years to be on the local roll.
The move has been strongly contested by pro-independence parties in New Caledonia, who fear the new rules (which would grant the local vote to up to 25,000 extra voters) will threaten the French Pacific terrotory’s political balance.
During heated debates last week and Tuesday for the vote, Senators sometimes traded robust words, with the left-wing parties (including Socialists and Communists) rallying in support of New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties and accusing Darmanin of “forcing the text through”.
New Caledonia’s pro-independence umbrella, the FLNKS, last week officially demanded that the French government withdraw its Constitutional amendment and that instead a high-level mediatory mission be sent to New Caledonia.
Parallel to the Parliamentary moves, New Caledonia’s politicians, both pro and against independence, have been asked to meet for comprehensive talks in order to draw up a new agreement that would replace the now-defunct Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998.
Nouméa Accord
One of the Accord’s prescriptions was that three consecutive referendums on New Caledonia’s self-determination be held.
All three ballots took place in 2018 and 2021 and three times independence was defeated, albeit in narrow votes in the first two referendums.
However, even though the FLNKS contested the result of the third referendum (boycotted by the independence parties because of the covid pandemic), French President Emmanuel Macron said in July 2023 that he now considered New Caledonia wanted to remain French.
The next step in the Nouméa Accord was for political stakeholders to engage in “inclusive” talks to examine the “situation thus generated”.
The French government’s current moves are said to be a pragmatic response to those sometimes elusive guidelines.
The provincial elections, which were originally scheduled to take place in May, have now been postponed to December 15 “at the latest”.
But in the Constitutional review project, even though the sole subject is the change in access to local elections roll of voters, there are also references to the date of those elections.
This includes that even if a local, bipartisan, inclusive agreement was found and duly recognised between now and December 15, the Constitutional amendment would become irrelevant. Priority would be given to a local New Caledonian agreement to serve as the base for a new Constitutional amendment.
‘Give more time’ During debates since last week, the Senate’s Law Committee managed to introduce new amendments, sometimes rectifying the initial government text.
For instance, if the awaited accord to succeed the Nouméa pact came through, there would be a call for a new election date.
Originally, this would have been achieved by way of a government decree which, the government said, would be the fastest way.
Now the Senate has changed that to a Parliamentary process (also including New Caledonia’s Congress) which could take much more time to set in place.
The general idea, the Senate’s Law Committee said, was to “give more time” for the expected political agreement to happen “without applying excessive stress” to the whole process.
There was consensus on the need to “unfreeze” the local electoral roll (the measure was initially temporary and transitional under the Nouméa Accord) because it denied some 12,000 citizens (even if some of those, indigenous Kanaks or non-Kanaks, were born in New Caledonia) the right to vote.
It was feared that if those elections were held under the “frozen” rule, they would probably be declared invalid and unconstitutional.
Critics of the amendment, including New Caledonia’s first pro-independence Senator Robert Xowie, also said that the manner in which it was “forced” — more than its substance — was a major flaw and that the French State should keep an “impartial” posture, consistent with the spirit of the Nouméa Accord.
New Caledonia’s first pro-independence Senator Robert Xowie speaks before the French Senate Tuesday . . . . “The point of no return has not been reached yet.” Image: Sénat.fr/screenshot
‘Don’t inflame’ call “The point of no return has not been reached yet. We can still avoid lighting that spark which could inflame the whole situation”, Xowie told the Senate.
He also called on the French Prime Minister’s office, once directly in charge of New Caledonia’s matters, to return to steer these issues.
The 10-year uninterrupted residency condition was described by the government as “a reasonable compromise”, Darmanin’s delegate Minister for Overseas Marie Guévenoux told the Senate.
While apologising for Darmanin’s absence, she said the new self-imposed calendar challenges due to the change of implementation process would be hard to meet.
She said there were provisions in the initial draft that would have allowed the government to react more quickly by way of decree in suspending the provincial elections — and even postponing them as far as “November 2025”.
French delegate Minister for Overseas Marie Guévenoux speaks to the French Senate on Tuesday . . . calendar challenges would be hard to meet. Image: Sénat.fr/screenshot
Waiting for a local, inclusive political agreement After the Senate’s endorsement of the modified amendment, the text is, however, far from the end of its legislative journey: it is now due for debate before the National Assembly on May 13.
If it passes again, its legislative journey is not finished yet as it has to be endorsed sometime in June 2024 by the French Congress, which is a gathering of both the Senate and National Assembly by a required three-fifths majority.
Tensions high back in Nouméa During debates on Tuesday, Senators often alluded to the recent radicalisation from both the pro-independence and pro-French parties.
Last week, the two antagonist groups held two opposing demonstrations and marches at the same time, both in downtown Nouméa, only a few hundred meters away from each other.
Thousands, on each side, have held banners and flags opposing the electoral changes on one side and supporting them on the other side.
There was also a clear escalation in the tone of speeches held, notably by the French “loyalists”.
Part of their protest last Thursday was also to denounce a series of government-imposed taxes, including one on fuel (which has since been withdrawn after a series of blockades) and the other on electricity (to avoid bankruptcy for local power company Enercal)
Last month, “loyalists” members walked out of New Caledonia’s “collegial” government, saying they regarded their pro-independence party colleagues as “illegitimate”.
On the local scene, over the past few months, New Caledonia has been facing the very real effects of an economic crisis for its crucial nickel industry.
One of the three nickel mining plants has been temporarily shut down and the other two are facing a similarly bleak future, putting at risk thousands of jobs.
Paris has put on the table a rescue plan worth over 200 million euros to bail out New Caledonia’s nickel industry, provided it engages in stringent reforms to lower its production costs, but the signing, initially scheduled to take place by the end of March, has still not happened.
Later this week, New Caledonia’s congress is due to meet specifically on the matter to authorise President Louis Mapou to do so.
One strong opponent to the amendment’s vote this week, Mélanie Vogel (Greens and Solidarity caucus) warned the House she believed if the amendment was forced through “we are getting ready to break the conditions that made a return to civil peace possible”.
She and others from all sides of the House also supported the idea of some kind of a delegation to foster the conclusion of talks for the much-expected successor agreement to the Nouméa Accord.
During the first half of the 1980s, New Caledonia was the scene of a civil war between pro and anti-independence sides which only ended after the signing of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords in 1988.
The Nouméa Accord followed in 1998.
“We’re all waiting for this inclusive agreement to arrive, but for the time being, it’s not there. So this (constitutional amendment), for now, is the least bad solution,” Senator Philippe Bonnecarrère (Centrist Union) told the House.
“So this (constitutional amendment), for now, is the least bad solution.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Image from flickr by Wasfi Akab By Carla Ferstman There is a psychological reaction we tend to have, when we read the news and try to process the horrific images and pictures we see of massive human suffering, wherever it might be happening. Perhaps it has something to do with the coping mechanisms we deploy […]
The New York-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists says the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of his intention to ban Al Jazeera follows a similar pattern of media interference, including the killing of media workers.
“We’ve seen this kind of language before from Netanyahu and Israeli officials in which they try to paint journalists as ‘terrorists’, as ‘criminals’. This is nothing new,” Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.
“It’s another example of the tightening of the free press and the stranglehold the Israeli government would like to exercise. It’s an incredibly worrying move by the government.”
Netanyahu wrote on X on Monday that “Al Jazeera harmed Israel’s security, actively participated in the October 7 massacre, and incited against Israeli soldiers.
“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity.’
The Israeli parliament approved a law granting the government authority to ban foreign news networks, including Al Jazeera. PM Netanyahu pledged to “act immediately” to close the network’s local office pic.twitter.com/L2RXOzVi5t
The Qatar-based network rejected what it described as “slanderous accusations” and accused Netanyahu of “incitement”.
“Al Jazeera holds the Israeli Prime Minister responsible for the safety of its staff and network premises around the world, following his incitement and this false accusation in a disgraceful manner,” it said in a statement.
‘Slanderous accusations’
“Al Jazeera reiterates that such slanderous accusations will not deter us from continuing our bold and professional coverage, and reserves the right to pursue every legal step.”
Netanyahu has long sought to shut down broadcasts from Al Jazeera, alleging anti-Israel bias, the network reports on its website.
The law, which passed in a 71-10 vote in the Knesset, gives the prime minister and communications minister the authority to order the closure of foreign networks operating in Israel and confiscate their equipment if it is believed they pose “harm to the state’s security”.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that an Israeli move to shut down Al Jazeera would be “concerning”.
“The United States supports the critically important work of journalists around the world and that includes those who are reporting in the conflict in Gaza,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.
“So we believe that work is important. The freedom of the press is important. And if those reports are true, it is concerning to us.”
The legislation’s passage comes nearly five months after Israel said it would block Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen. It refrained from shutting Al Jazeera at the same time.
Move with closure
After the vote on Monday, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said he intended to move forward with the closure. He said Al Jazeera had been acting as a “propaganda arm of Hamas” by “encouraging armed struggle against Israel”.
“It is impossible to tolerate a media outlet, with press credentials from the Government Press Office and offices in Israel, acting from within against us, certainly during wartime,” he said.
According to news agencies, his office said the order would seek to block the channel’s broadcasts in Israel and prevent it from operating in the country. The order would not apply to the occupied West Bank or Gaza.
Israel has often lashed out at Al Jazeera, which has offices in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
In May 2022, Israeli forces shot dead senior Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.
A UN-commissioned report concluded that Israeli forces used “lethal force without justification” in the killing, violating her “right to life”.
During the war in Gaza, several of the channel’s journalists and their family members have been killed by Israeli bombardments.
On October 25, an air raid killed the family of Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, including his wife, son, daughter, grandson and at least eight other relatives.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 32,782 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.
Indonesia’s military regional command in Papua has denied claims made by a pro-independence West Papuan group that abducted New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens more than a year ago that the army had staged a bombing attack, The Jakarta Post reports.
Responding to a claim by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) that aerial bombing had taken place in an area in Nduga regency where Mehrtens had been taken hostage on February 7 last year, the Indonesian Military (TNI) said it had deployed only flyby operations there.
Lieutenant Colonel Candra Kurniawan, a spokesperson for the Cendrawasih Regional Military Command in Papua province, denied that any military operation involving aerial bombs had taken place.
“This [patrol] was conducted together with the local community. There has been nothing like an air strike,” Candra told the Bahasa-language Tempo on Saturday.
He also rebuffed TPNPB’s claim that TNI soldiers had engaged in a firefight with members of pro-independence group.
“Many [TNI] members are in the field serving the community, the situation is also conducive,” Colonel Candra said.
On March 30, TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom said in a statement received by Tempo that the military had deployed aerial attacks using “military aircraft, helicopters and drones” and destroyed four of the group’s posts in Nduga.
Lawmakers in Kentucky are hoping to amend a law that would effectively criminalise whistleblowing and protect industrial livestock farming companies – but a new investigation into Pilgrim’s Pride chicken farms shows exactly why the ‘ag-gag’ legislation needs to be aborted.
The livestock lobby in the US seems to be in full swing. As several states look to ban cultivated meat, academics are tapped to discredit alternative proteins, and industry groups fund education schemes to influence school teachers and students, there’s a lot riding in a year that has been dubbed the climate election year.
In Kentucky, policymakers are taking a different approach, going on the offensive to be defensive of the industrialised meat sector. In what is called an ag-gag law, both houses have approved a measure that would criminalise unauthorised recording or photography at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – essentially dealing a blow to whistleblowers who expose health and safety hazards in the food industry.
But a new investigation from animal rights charity Mercy For Animals shows just how important it is to curtail the legislation. It has released footage displaying the cruelty that goes on behind the scenes at the poultry farms of Pilgrim’s Pride, which supply popular fast-food chains, from KFC (famously also from Kentucky) to Popeyes.
What is Kentucky’s ag-gag bill?
Courtesy: John Schickel
Sponsored by Republican senator John Schickel, SB 16 weeks to amend a trespassing law from 2018, which looked to protect “key infrastructure assets” like energy and drinking water facilities from surveillance by unauthorised drones.
This bill, however, seeks to extend these rules to CAFOs – numbering 150 in the state as of 2022 – and commercial food manufacturing and processing facilities (like meatpacking plants). And this time, it’s not just drones – SB 16 aims to restrict any photography or filming of these sites, making it a Class B misdemeanour sustainable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a $250 fine for a first offence.
“Ag-gag legislation, like Kentucky’s SB 16, draws support from industry giants, like Tyson, who do not want the public to see what goes on in their facilities,” Alex Cerussi, senior state policy manager at Mercy For Animals, tells Green Queen. Schicker has explicitly said that the bill was introduced to protect companies like Tyson Foods – you know, the same company that refused to shut down its meatpacking plants during Covid-19 and led to over 1,000 workers contracting the virus, which spread across the local community.
“The problem is that there’s unauthorized drone access over our facilities,” said Tyson Foods government affairs manager Graham Hall, who testified in favour of the bill. “A narrative can be created that’s problematic for us.” It’s almost incredible how transparent this effort is about safeguarding the business of meat producers. Tyson Foods is concerned about problematic narratives and has spent over $42,000 since January 2023 in lobbying government officials to bat for the company against any scrutiny of its operations.
The bill will now need to be voted on the House and Senate floors before it reaches governor Andy Beshear’s desk for consideration, but critics note that this violates free speech and removes a crucial tool for the press and animal advocates to hold corporations accountable. “Ag-gag laws seek to keep the public in the dark about where their food comes from,” says Cerussi. “The industry does not want the public knowing how animals and farmworkers are often treated.”
Michael Abate, an attorney for the Kentucky Press Association, told the Courier Journal: “We’re very concerned about this bill, which would purport to make it a crime to engage in basic newsgathering activities if there are stories related to food processing companies and their facilities.
Ag-gag laws have been deemed unconstitutional in at least five states – North Carolina, Kansas, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. “It just doesn’t seem like smart policy to pass something that’s been found unconstitutional more often than not,” Todd Blevins, Kentucky state director of the Humane Society of the United States, told the Kentucky Lantern.
Mercy For Animals’ investigation into Pilgrim’s Pride
Courtesy: Mercy For Animals
An investigator for Mercy For Animals visited 23 contract farms belonging to Pilgrim’s Pride, the second-largest poultry company in the US, whose resulting footage shows why Kentucky’s pro-livestock bill needs to be voted against.
The farms had between three to eight broiler houses, each of which held between 25,000 and 38,000 birds – research has shown that most (if not all) chickens in the US are factory-farmed in such CAFOs. The chickens at Pilgrim’s Pride farms have been described as ‘Frankenchickens’ – they’re selectively bred to grow unnaturally large, and fast. The company raises about a billion of these birds each year.
Hidden camera footage shows the chickens being kicked, stomped on, and thrown against the metal walls of the barns. Many are picked up by their legs, necks or wings and thrown several feet through the air into transport cages while already injured or in pain. Tens of thousands of these chickens are crammed into sheds and forced to live for weeks in their own waste, while severely sick and injured birds are bred to grow so large and so fast, they can’t support their own weight.
The investigation found that workers often carried seven chickens at a time and swung them all into transport cafes together, while in many instances, transport cage doors were slammed shut, trapping chickens’ heads, wings and legs in the gaps. These cages have 15 compartments and employees – who are likely incentivised to catch chickens fast as they’re paid per chicken, not hour – were supposed to put 21 chickens into each, but the footage shows that they intentionally exceeded that limit often.
Even more alarmingly, chickens were mishandled for non-work-related purposes too. Some birds were carried outside the barn and placed on the driver’s seat of a forklift, for example. And in one instance, a worker held two chickens by their necks – one in each hand – slammed them against the wall, and moved their heads as though they were pecking each other.
“Pilgrim’s is falling behind on addressing enormous suffering in its chicken supply chain,” says Cerussi. “The company could significantly reduce the suffering for 1.5 billion birds a year by adopting the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), a set of industry-leading standards that hundreds of companies have promised to meet.”
The BCC calls for an end to the use of these Frankenchickens, whose rapid growth can lead to organ failure, heart attacks, lack of mobility, as well as muscular abnormalities, like white striping. “The BCC also requires improved living conditions, more space for birds, and a less cruel slaughter method,” says Cerussi. “As the second-largest poultry company in the United States, Pilgrim’s has a responsibility to the birds bred to suffer in its supply chain.”
Can such investigations have public and legislative impact?
Courtesy: Mercy For Animals
This is far from the only investigation into animal cruelty in CAFOs. These have been going on for a long time, and it’s why Kentucky is attempting its ag-gag law. But it does feel that they don’t connect with the masses as much as they intend to – the US still overconsumes meat, and had fewer vegans in 2023 than in the previous decade.
“There is an overwhelming lack of awareness about the extent of animal cruelty in factory farming, and most consumers are unaware of the conditions in which animals are raised and slaughtered in industrial operations,” explains Cerussi.
He says there are a majority of reasons why consumers continue to purchase factory-farmed animal products. First, a lack of transparency into the “horrific conditions” shields the truth and makes it easier to ignore. Then, many prioritise convenience and lower prices over ethical considerations when making food decisions – factory-farmed products are often less expensive and more accessible than ethically sourced alternatives. And finally, most consumers are “disconnected from the source of their food” and “feel less responsible” for things happening to animals that they don’t see.
Mercy For Animals has not been in touch with KFC or Popeyes about the investigation into its supplier yet, but it intends to do so. “We have had numerous meetings with Yum! Brands (the parent company of KFC) and Restaurant Brands International (the parent company of Popeyes), and we remain deeply concerned about their lack of seriousness toward reducing suffering for the millions of chickens in their supply chains,” says Cerussi.
Despite adopting the BCC in the UK and Ireland, KFC hasn’t replicated that in the US or Canada. “Implementing the BCC would address some of the most egregious suffering in the company’s chicken supply chain,” he says. Restaurant Brands International, meanwhile, has embraced the commitment but not reported any progress or shared an implementation path. “As two of the world’s largest restaurant chains, these companies must take responsibility for the cruelty the chickens they source and serve to their customers endure.”
Speaking of large companies, Cerussi argues it’s exactly these corporations – not small family farms – that are being protected from accountability by the Kentucky bill, which he labels “particularly egregious”. “If passed, [it] could set a dangerous precedent for other states,” he notes. “This ag-gag legislation threatens the First Amendment rights of Kentucky residents and would allow cruel and unsanitary practices to run rampant with little oversight.”
He adds: “Undercover investigators go in as the eyes and ears of the public, who are kept largely in the dark about how the animal agriculture system really works, particularly how animals suffer before they reach their plates. If Kentucky’s SB 16 is signed into law, anyone seeking to inform the public about the conditions in factory farms and slaughterhouses – not just Mercy For Animals, but journalists, workers, and concerned citizens – would be in danger of having criminal charges against them.”
A community-based Asia-Pacific network of academics, journalists and activists has now gone online with an umbrella website for its publications, current affairs and research.
“The APMN is addressing a gap in the region for independent media commentary and providing a network for journalists and academics,” said director Dr Heather Devere.
“Our network aims to protect the free dissemination of information that might challenge political elites, exposing discrimination and corruption, as well as analysing more traditional media outlets.”
Pacific Journalism Review editor Dr Philip Cass said: “For 30 years, PJR has been the only journal focusing exclusively on media and journalism in the Pacific region.”
APMN has members in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines and has links to the Manila-based AMIC, Asia-Pacific’s largest communication research centre.
Deputy director and founding editor of PJR, Dr David Robie, was awarded the 2015 AMIC Asia Communication Award for his services to education, research, institution building and journalism.
Conference partner
The new website publishes news, newsletters, submissions, and research, and the network is a partner in the forthcoming international Pacific Media Conference being hosted by the University of the South Pacific on July 4-6.
ANALYSIS:By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report
On my office wall hangs a framed portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, the inspiring and celebrated American-Palestinian journalist known across the Middle East to watchers of Al Jazeera Arabic, who was assassinated by an Israeli military sniper with impunity.
State murder.
She was gunned down in full blue “press” kit almost two years ago while reporting on a raid in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, clearly targeted for her influence as a media witness to Israeli atrocities.
As in the case of all 22 journalists who had been killed by Israeli military until that day, 11 May 2022, nobody was charged.
Now, six months into the catastrophic and genocidal Israeli War on Gaza, some 137 Palestinian journalists have been killed — murdered – by Israeli snipers, or targeted bombs demolishing their homes, and even their families.
Also in my office is pasted a red poster with a bird-of-paradise shaped pen in chains and the legend “Open access for journalists – Free press in West Papua.”
The poster was from a 2017 World Media Freedom Day conference in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, which I attended as a speaker and wrote about. Until this day, there is still no open door for international journalists
Harassed, beaten
Although only one killing of a Papuan journalist is recorded, there have been many instances when local news reporters have been harassed, beaten and threatened – beyond the reach of international media.
Ardiansyah Matra was savagely beaten and his body dumped in the Maro River, Merauke. A spokesperson for the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Victor Mambor, said at the time: “‘It’s highly likely that his murder is connected with the terror situation for journalists which was occurring at the time of Ardiansyah’s death.”
Dr David Robie . . . author and advocate. Image: Café Pacific
Frequently harassed himself, Mambor, founder and publisher of Jubi Media, was apparently the target of a suspected bomb attack, or warning, on 23 January 2023, when Jayapura police investigated a blast outside his home in Angkasapura Village.
At first glance, it may seem strange that comparisons are being made between the War on Gaza in the Middle East and the long-smouldering West Papuan human rights crisis in the Asia-Pacific region almost 11,000 km away. But there are several factors at play.
Melanesian and Pacific activists frequently mention both the Palestinian and West Papuan struggles in the same breath. A figure of up to 500,000 deaths among Papuans is often cited as the toll from 1969 when Indonesia annexed the formerly Dutch colony in controversial circumstances under the flawed Act of Free Choice, characterised by critics as the Act of “No” Choice.
The death toll in Gaza after the six-month war on the besieged enclave by Israel is already almost 33,000 (in reality far higher if the unknown number of casualties buried under the rubble is added). Most of the deaths are women and children.
The Palestinian and West Papuan flags flying high at a New Zealand protest against the Gaza genocide in central Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR
Ethnic cleansing
But there are mounting fears that Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Gazans has no end in sight and the lives of 2.3 million people are at stake.
Both Palestinians and West Papuans see themselves as the victims of violent settler colonial projects that have been stealing their land and destroying their culture under the world’s noses — in the case of Palestine since the Nakba of 1948, and in West Papua since Indonesian paratroopers landed in a botched invasion in 1963.
They see themselves as both confronting genocidal leaders; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose popularity at home sinks by the day with growing protests, and Indonesia’s new President-elect Prabowo Subianto who has an atrocious human rights reputation in both Timor-Leste and West Papua.
And both peoples feel betrayed by a world that has stood by as genocides have been taking place — in the case of Palestine in real time on social media and television screens, and in the case of West Papua slowly over six decades.
Indonesian politicians such as Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi have been quick to condemn Israel, including at the International Court of Justice, but Papuan independence leaders find this hypocritical.
“We have full sympathy for the struggle for justice in Palestine and call for the restoration of peace,” said United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda.
Pacific protesters for a Free Palestine in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR
‘Where’s Indonesian outrage?’
“But what about West Papua? Where was Indonesia’s outrage after Bloody Paniai [2014], or the Wamena massacre in February?
“Indonesia is claiming to oppose genocide in Gaza while committing their own genocide in West Papua.”
“Over 60 years of genocidal colonial rule, over 500,000 West Papuans have been killed by Indonesian forces.”
Wenda said genocide in West Papua was implemented slowly and steadily through a series of massacres, assassinations and policies, such as the killings of the chair of the Papuan Council Theys Eluay in 2001; Mako Tabuni (2012); and cultural curator and artist Arnold Ap (1984).
In the South Pacific, Indonesia is widely seen among civil society, university and community groups as a ruthless aggressor with little or no respect for the Papuan culture.
Jakarta is engaged in an intensive diplomacy campaign in an attempt to counter this perception.
Unarmed Palestinians killed in Gaza – revealing Israel’s “kill zones”. Video: Al Jazeera
Israel’s ‘rogue’ status
But if Indonesia is unpopular in the Pacific over its brutal colonial policies, it is nothing compared to the global “rogue” status of Israel.
In the past few weeks, as atrocity after atrocity pile up and the country’s disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions increasingly shock, supporters appear to be shrinking to its long-term ally the United States and its Five Eyes partners with New Zealand’s coalition government failing to condemn Israel’s war crimes.
On Good Friday — Day 174 of the war – Israel bombed Gaza, Syria and Lebanon on the same day, killing civilians in all three countries.
In the past week, the Israeli military racheted up its attacks on the Gaza Strip in defiance of the UN Security Council’s order for an immediate ceasefire, expanded its savage attacks on neighbouring states, and finally withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital after a bloody two-week siege, leaving it totally destroyed with at least 350 patients, staff and displaced people dead.
Fourteen votes against the lone US abstention after Washington had earlier vetoed three previous resolutions produced the decisive ceasefire vote, but the Israeli objective is clearly to raze Gaza and make it uninhabitable.
As The Guardian described the vote, “When Gilad Erdan, the Israeli envoy to the UN, sat before the Security Council to rail against the ceasefire resolution it had just passed, he cut a lonelier figure than ever in the cavernous chamber.”
The newspaper added that the message was clear.
‘Time was up’
“Time was up on the Israeli offensive, and the Biden administration was no longer prepared to let the US’s credibility on the world stage bleed away by defending an Israeli government which paid little, if any, heed to its appeals to stop the bombing of civilian areas and open the gates to substantial food deliveries.”
Al Jazeera interviewed Norwegian physician Dr Mads Gilbert, who has spent long periods working in Gaza, including at al-Shifa Hospital. He was visibly distressed in his reaction, lamenting that the Israeli attack had “destroyed” the 78-year legacy of the Strip’s largest and flagship hospital.
Speaking from Tromso, Norway, he said: “This is such a sad day, I’ve been weeping all morning.”
Dr Gilbert said he did not know the fate of the 107 critical patients who had been moved two days earlier to an older building in the complex.
“The maggots that are creeping out of the corpses in al-Shifa Hospital now,” he said, “are really maggots coming out of the eyes of President Biden and the European Union leaders doing nothing to stop this horrible, horrible genocide.”
Australia-based Antony Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, who has been reporting on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories for two decades, described Israel’s attack on the hospital as the “actions of a rogue state”.
Gaza health officials said Israel was targeting all the hospitals and systematically destroying the medical infrastructure. Only five out of a total of 37 hospitals still had some limited services operating.
Indonesian soldiers gag journalists in West Papua – the cartoon could easily be referring to Gaza where attacks on Palestinian journalists have been systemic with 137 killed so far, by far the biggest journalist death toll in any conflict. Image: David Robie/APR
Strike on journalists’ tent
Yesterday, four people were killed and journalists were wounded in an Israeli air strike on a tent in the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
The Israeli military claimed the strike was aimed at a “command centre” operated by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group, but footage screened by Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary clearly showed it was a tent where displaced people were sheltering and journalists and photographers were working.
The Israeli military have killed another photojournalist and editor, Abdel Wahab Awni, when they bombed his home in the Maghazi refugee camp. This took the number of journalists killed since the start of the war to 137, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
Al Jazeera has revealed that Israel was using “kill zones” for certain combat areas in Gaza. Anybody crossing the “invisible” lines into these zones was shot on sight as a “terrorist”, even if they were unarmed civilians.
The chilling practice was exposed when footage was screened of two unarmed civilians carrying white flags being apparently gunned down and then buried by bulldozer under rubble. A US-based civil rights group described the killings as a “heinous crime”.
The kill zones were confirmed at the weekend by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which said the military had claimed to have killed 9000 “terrorists”, but officials admitted that many of the dead were often civilians who had “crossed the line” of fire.
Call for sanctions
The Israeli peace advocacy group Gush Shalom sent an open letter to all the embassies credited to Israel calling for immediate sanctions against the Israeli government, saying Netanyahu was “flagrantly refusing” to comply with the ceasefire resolution.
“We, citizens of Israel,” said the letter, “are calling on your government to initiate a further meeting of the Security Council, aiming to pass a resolution which would set effective sanctions on Israel — in order to bring about an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip until the end of Ramadan and beyond it.”
A Palestinian-American professor of law Dr Noura Erakat, of Rutgers University, recently told a BBC interviewer that Israel had made its end game very clear from the beginning of the war.
“Israel has made its intent clear. Its war cabinet had made its intent clear. From the very beginning, in the first week of October 7, it told us its goal was to depopulate Gaza.
“They have equated the decimation of Hamas, which they cannot achieve militarily, with the depopulation of the entire Gaza strip.”
A parallel with Indonesia’s fundamentally flawed policies in West Papua. Failing violent settler colonialism.
OPEN LETTER:To Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong
Dear Foreign Minister,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Australia West Papua Association in Sydney concerning the brutal torture of a West Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya by Indonesian troops in West Papua in early February.
Anybody watching the video footage of the Papuan man being tortured by the Indonesian security forces cannot help but be horrified and outraged at the brutality of those involved in the torture.
A video of the torture is circulating on social media and in numerous articles in the main stream media.
Flashback to Asia Pacific Report’s report on the Indonesian torture on 23 March 2024 . . . global condemnation and protests quickly followed. Image: APR screenshot
The video shows the man placed in a drum filled with water, with both his hands tied. The victim is repeatedly punched and kicked by several soldiers.
His back is also slashed with a knife. One can only imagine the fear and terror the Papuan man must feel at this brutal torture being inflicted on him.
At first the military denied the claim. However, they eventually admitted it was true and arrested 13 soldiers involved in the incident.
I’m sure we will hear statements from Jakarta that this was an isolated incident, that they were “rogue” soldiers and that 13 soldiers have been arrested over the torture. However, if the video had not gone viral would anybody have been held to account?
Tragically this is not an isolated incident. We will not go into all the details of the human rights abuses committed against West Papuans by the Indonesian security forces as we are sure you are aware of the numerous reports documenting these incidents.
However, there are regular clashes between the Indonesian security forces and the TPNPB (Free Papua Movement) who are fighting for their independence. As a result of these clashes the military respond with what they call sweeps of the area.
It’s not unusual for houses and food gardens to be destroyed during these operations, including the arrest and torture of Papuans. Local people usually flee in fear from the military to the forest or other regions creating internally displaced people (IDP).
Human rights reports indicate there are more than 60,000 IDP in West Papua. Many suffer from malnutrition and their children are missing out on their education.
Amnesty International Indonesia, church and civil society groups in West Papua and around the world have condemned the torture and are calling for a thorough investigation into the torture case.
AWPA is urging you to also add your voice, condemning this brutal torture incident by the Indonesian military .
The West Papuan people are calling on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory. We urge you to use you good offices with the Indonesian government, urging Jakarta to allow such a visit to take place.
Yours sincerely
Joe Collins
Australia West Papua Association (AWPA)
Sydney
