The 2021 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Awards have been given to Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan in the courage category, Palestinian journalist Majdoleen Hassona in the independence category, and the Pegasus Project in the impact category.
RSF’s press freedom prizes are awarded every year to journalists or media that have made a notable contribution to the defence or promotion of freedom of the press in the world.
The 2021 awards have been given in three categories — journalistic courage, impact and independence. Six journalists and six media outlets or journalists’ organisations from a total of 11 countries were nominated.
Courage Prize
The 2021 Prize for Courage, which aims to support and salute journalists, media outlets or NGOs that have displayed courage in the practice, defence or promotion of journalism, has been awarded to Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan.
Despite constant threats, this lawyer-turned-journalist covered the covid-19 outbreak in the city of Wuhan in February 2020, live-streaming video reports on social media that showed the city’s streets and hospitals, and the families of the sick.
Her reporting from the heart of the pandemic’s initial epicentre was one of the main sources of independent information about the health situation in Wuhan at the time.
After being arrested in May 2020 and held incommunicado for several months without any official reason being provided, Zhang Zhan was sentenced on 28 December 2020 to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.
In protest against this injustice and the mistreatment to which she was subjected, she went on a hunger strike that resulted in her being shackled and force-fed. Her friends and family now fear for her life, and her health has worsened dramatically in recent weeks.
Independence Prize The 2021 Prize for Independence, which rewards journalists, media outlets or NGOs that have resisted financial, political, economic or religious pressure in a noteworthy manner, has been awarded to Palestinian journalist Majdoleen Hassona.
Majdoleen Hassona
Before joining the Turkish TV channel TRT and relocating to Istanbul, this Palestinian journalist was often harassed and prosecuted by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities for her critical reporting.
While on a return visit to the West Bank in August 2019 with her fiancé (also a TRT journalist based in Turkey), she was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and was told that she was subject to a ban on leaving the territory that had been issued by Israeli intelligence “for security reasons”.
She has been stranded in the West Bank ever since but decided to resume reporting there and covered the anti-government protests in June 2021 following the death of the activist Nizar Banat.
Impact Prize The 2021 Prize for Impact, which rewards journalists, media outlets or NGOS that have contributed to clear improvements in journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism, or increased awareness of these issues, has been awarded to the Pegasus Project.
The Pegasus Project
The Pegasus Project is an investigation by an international consortium of more than 80 journalists from 17 media outlets* in 11 different countries that was coordinated by the NGO Forbidden Stories with technical support from experts at Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
Based on a leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers targeted by Pegasus, spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group, the Pegasus Project revealed that nearly 200 journalists were targeted for spying by 11 governments — both autocratic and democratic — which had acquired licences to use Pegasus.
This investigation has made people aware of the extent of the surveillance to which journalists are exposed and has led many media outlets and RSF to file complaints and demand a moratorium on surveillance technology sales.
“For defying censorship and alerting the world to the reality of the nascent pandemic, the laureate in the ‘courage’ category is now in prison and her state of health is extremely worrying,” said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
“For displaying a critical attitude and perseverance, the laureate in the ‘independence category has been unable to leave Israeli-controlled territory for the past two years.
“For having revealed the scale of the surveillance to which journalists can be subjected, some of the journalists who are laureates in the ‘impact’ category are now being prosecuted by governments.
“This, unfortunately, sums up the situation of journalism today. The RSF Award laureates embody the noblest journalistic qualities and also pay the highest price because of this. They deserve not only our admiration but also our support.”
Chaired by RSF president Pierre Haski, the jury of the 29th RSF Press Freedom Awards consisted of prominent journalists and free speech defenders from across the world: Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist and Washington Post opinion columnist; Raphaëlle Bacqué, a leading French reporter for Le Monde; Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer and president of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression; Zaina Erhaim, a Syrian journalist and communication consultant; Erick Kabendera, a Tanzanian investigative reporter; Hamid Mir, a Pakistani news editor, columnist and writer; Frederik Obermaier, a German investigative journalist with Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper; and Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and founding editor-in-chief of Dozhd, Russia’s only independent TV news channel.
Previous winners of this prize, which was created in 1992, have included Russian journalist Elena Milashina (2020 Prize for Courage), Saudi blogger Raif Badawi (Netizen category prize in 2014) and the Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (Press Freedom Defender prize in 2004).
Pacific Media Watch works in association with Reporters Without Borders.
*(Aristegui Noticias, Daraj, Die Zeit, Direkt 36, Knack, Forbidden Stories, Haaretz, Le Monde, Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Proceso, PBS Frontline, Radio France, Le Soir, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Guardian, The Washington Post and The Wire)
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
October 2021 was a horror month for Facebook as the headlines screamed “Facebook under fire” which started with the social media behemoth suffering an outage for several hours.
bowing to the will of state censors in some countries;
allowing hate speech to burgeon in other countries;
ignoring fake accounts that may influence voters and undermine elections;
allowing the antivaccine message to proliferate; and
having algorithms that fuel noxious behaviour online.
Add to that, a major impending problem of capturing a young audience who are flocking elsewhere and turning their backs on the oldest social media platform which was founded in 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
Even so, its success as the leading platform is undeniable with it announcing a $9 billion quarterly profit in October with a massive 3 billion users.
It was the access to smartphones when they were offered in the Pacific and technology that drove Facebook’s popularity to largely receptive devotees. Image: FB
It was the access to smartphones when they were offered in the Pacific and technology that drove Facebook’s popularity to largely receptive devotees. The uptake of the social media platform in French Polynesia (72.1 percent penetration by 2020), Fiji (68.2 percent, Guam (87.8 percent), Niue (91.7 percent), Samoa (67.2 percent) and Tonga (62.3 percent) made it a no-brainer for Sue Ahearn, founder of the highly credible The Pacific Newsroom page to use the platform.
Measured success
The success of The Pacific Newsroom page can be measured by the site garnering in excess of 40,500 members most of who can participate actively by contributing to the page.
Ahearn is no stranger to the Asia-Pacific region. An Australian journalist for more than 40 years, 25 at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), who originally hails from Martinborough in New Zealand, she was drawn to set up the page primarily because of misinformation that tends to flourish in the Pacific news.
“It came to me about four years ago when the ABC cut back on all of its coverage of the Pacific, and I could see there was a big gap there,” she says.
“The ABC was only providing a small service and there was a lack of interest in most of the Australian media. You could see the technology was changing, how the information was flowing from the region was changing.’’
Pacific Newsroom founder Sue Ahearn … “Pacific journalists just can’t fathom why is there so little interest in our region among the Australian media.” Image: ROA
The apathy for a thirst for Pacific knowledge has had a profound effect on insularity in the media, especially in Australia and New Zealand, although the Public Interest Journalism Fund is attempting to address that in some way in New Zealand.
“I wish I knew, Sean Dorney, Jemima Garrett and all of the Pacific journalists just can’t fathom why is there so little interest in our region among the Australian media,’’ says Ahearn.
“It doesn’t make sense. There tends to be three or four journalists that cover the region and try to convince news outlets to run their stories or send reporters, and that has become very difficult.”
Only Pacific correspondent based in Pacific Natalie Whiting of the ABC and the recipient of the Dorney-Walkley Foundation grant 2021 is the only journalist from Australasia who is based in the Pacific. She is stationed in the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby.
“In New Zealand, that’s not a problem and New Zealand does good coverage of the Pacific. New Zealand has a much closer relationship with the Pacific,” Ahearn says.
Page administrator and journalist Michael Field … qualms about the Pacific coverage out of New Zealand. Image: BWB
However, Michael Field in Auckland, a page administrator and a veteran of the Pacific who went to journalism school with Ahearn, had qualms about the coverage out of New Zealand.
“The thing that really bugs me is that only Radio New Zealand (RNZ) seems to be doing Pacific news. For example, you’d pick up the (New) Herald and see who’s covering the hurricane out in Fiji only to see it is a re-run of a RNZ story,” says Field.
“It bothers me. The Herald should have had a different angle on the story, RNZ a different angle, The Dominion Post would be different and there would be work for stringers in the Pacific. Now that is not the case because RNZ takes up everybody else’s work and runs it that way,
“I guess that is the reality of it now, but it seems the voice of the Pacific these days is state radio.
“Call me old fashioned, but I’d be too embarrassed to run a story quoting another media organisation, and if you had to do it you’d do it grudgingly. We are starting to fail in the coverage of the region,” he says.
Success stirs amazement
The success and growth of The Pacific Newsroom as an organic, quasi news agency akin to Reuters, Agence France Press (AFP) or Australian Associated Press (AAP) in a tiny way, has caught Ahearn by amazement.
“I am surprised because we have a lot of engagement, some stories get 80,000 or 90,000 engagements so there is a lot of interest in it, and I think it fills a huge niche.
She speaks about the talanoa concept of The Pacific Newsroom.
“It’s like a town square where people can meet, share stories and talk about what is happening. Michael (Field) and I spend an enormous time on this project and we’re basically volunteers, we’re not being paid or making any money from it,” she says.
Nor would she entertain the thought of applying for funding either in New Zealand or Australia, preferring instead to maintain their editorial independence.
“Mike and I have discussed this, and we think one of the main attractions of our site is it is not monetised, that it is a voluntary site, there are no advertisements on it, we try and keep it independent, and we are both at the stage in our lives where we’re not working fulltime in the media,” Ahearn says.
“We’ve got time to spend doing this as a public interest, we really enjoy doing it too, it’s a lot of fun.
Many great stories
“There are so many great stories in the Pacific that need to be amplified to the world.
“Things are happening with technology and it’s giving a much stronger voice to the Pacific whether it’s on climate change or fishing or other important issues and that is why it is going to get stronger and stronger,” Ahearn says.
Among the stories that gained the site momentum was the University of the South Pacific (USP) having its vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia at the centre of controversy during his first term when Fiji government and educational officials tried to oust him from office in the so-called USP saga, eventually unceremoniously deporting him in a move widely condemned around the Pacific.
“The big story which moved us along was the USP saga last year, for quite political reasons which had to do with the players, we were leaked all the reports and people could see if it got a certain amount of information on Pacific Newsroom that things might happen, and it did,” Field says.
“More recently we’ve had the same with the Samoan elections where a number of players wanted to be interviewed directly; the former Prime Minister (Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi) seemed to have some misinformed view that we are more powerful than we are. We cope with that so it is constantly moving thing.”
“The libel laws, it’s another tension and another thing we’ve got to watch. We watch it like a hawk (as moderators) and that is not to characterise the particular audience we’ve got,” Field says.
‘Shooting your mouth off’
“Shooting your mouth off seems to be regarded in much of the Pacific as a God-given right — ‘why you trying to stop me from saying this’, we just delete people now. We tried saying to people right at the beginning we didn’t need expletives, swear words and all that stuff, and we were going to take them down.
“It is learning experience, moderating a site like Pacific Newsroom can be hard, depressing work and sometimes there’s a lot of people that sort of feel they have to say something even though it is a complete nonsense, and it is hard yakka that sort of stuff,’’ Field says.
On the flip side of it were the tangible rewards that make it all worthwhile.
“I can remember one particular point where we were tracking a superyacht that was tripping around Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga; there were people from quite remote village areas of these countries that would send us pictures saying, ‘here is a picture of the yacht that has just passed my village ‘. Whereas back in the day you tried to get a shortwave radio operator to tell you what happened three weeks after the event.
As for the credibility of the site, Field declined an approach from a major mainstream New Zealand media company that sought copyright and permission to use the material that was published.
Then there was the young journalist from another mainstream media company who asked Field for a contact in relation to a Vanuatu story, telling Field that they all shared their contacts in the newsroom. Needless to say, he went away disappointed and empty-handed.
Ancient settler societies
Just how well The Pacific Newsroom is regarded in the Pacific is summed up eloquently by history associate professor Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano of the USP who tells it with a Pacific panache.
USP academic Dr Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano … Pacific nations “remain steeped in ancient systems of governance based largely on hereditary hierarchies.” Image: USP
“Apart from Australia, New Zealand, Tokelau, Hawai’i, Guam, American Samoa, West Papua, Rapanui, and the French territories (New Caledonia, Uvea and Futuna, Tahiti), the nature of independent and self-governing Pacific societies is that they are ancient settler societies steeped in conservatism,” Tuimaleali’ifano says.
“While their constitutions have absorbed Western influences, imperial laws, Christianity, fundamental freedoms/rights, monetary capitalism, they remain steeped in ancient systems of governance based largely on hereditary hierarchies.
“Two worlds co-exist with the constitutional democratic model heavily influenced by kinship patterns of thought and behaviour. Within kinship hierarchies, there exists diverse governance structures and no two villages share the exact governing structure,” he says.
“Equally important are the constitutions and parliamentary legislation. These law-making institutions together with the judiciary are constantly evolving as they must with changing circumstances and best practices.
“It is within these social dynamics that journalism provides the Fourth or Fifth Estate to maintain an even keel on the Pacific’s growth as a viable region of nation-states.
“The Pacific Newsroom plays a vital role, of mirroring the changing Pasifika people needs and commenting on sensitive matters that many may find unsavoury difficult and overwhelming to articulate within ultra-conservative societies.
‘Without fear or favour’
“Without fear or favour, The Pacific Newsroom and its sister networks provide a critical service for a multi-faceted Pasifika struggling to reconcile and reshape a new consciousness for Pasifika.
“These include the enduring issues of regional identity and solidarity and unity within the context of relentless ideological and geopolitical power plays.”
USP journalism academic Dr Shailendra Singh … “It is indeed a success story, due to a large following, because of media restrictions in Fiji.” Image: USP
As associate professor and head of journalism at USP Shailendra Singh in Suva, who continues to strive to keep his students well abreast in journalism under draconian media laws in Fiji, says:
“It is indeed a success story, due to a large following, because of media restrictions in Fiji. Users from Fiji especially feel more comfortable expressing themselves on this page.
“The page is prudently and professionally moderated, so it is respectable. The page uses information from credible news sources. (Independent sources like Bob Howarth on Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste; former Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Dan McGarry; current Pacific Island Times publisher Mar-Vic Cagurangan; and photojournalist Ben Bohane, until he returned to Australia from Vanuatu; as well as David Robie‘s Asia-Pacific Report which is a huge contributor to the page).
“I promote USP journalism students’ work on Pacific Newsroom. It is exemplary of how Facebook can support democracy.”
A vital source of information in the covid era. You get a cross-section of news and views on one platform. It is definitely the most popular virtual “kava bar” in the Pacific.
The Philippine Court of Appeals (CA) has finally granted overseas travel to Rappler CEO and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, who will be in the United States for the entire month of November to deliver a series of lectures at the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston.
Ressa filed the request on October 5, three days before the Nobel announcement was made.
The CA promulgated its decision in favour of Ressa on October 18, 10 days after the journalist was named one of the two joint winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Unlike past travel requests, the CA Eighth Division said the Harvard lectures were proven to be urgent and necessary.
In August 2020, the CA denied Ressa’s travel request saying that to accept the 2020 International Press Freedom Award from the National Press Club was not necessary and urgent.
In December 2020, the CA also denied a travel request from Ressa to visit her 76-year-old mother in Florida who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer two months prior to the request. The CA said then that it was also not considered a necessary and urgent travel.
For this request, the CA said Harvard’s “invitation letter shows that Ressa’s participation in the programme requires her physical presence” and that “in fact, the Harvard Kennedy School explained that the programme involves an in-person 30-day residency.”
Wish to visit her parents
Ressa also indicated in her request her wish to visit her parents in Florida within November which will coincide with the American Thanksgiving holiday, saying she had not seen them in two years.
The CA said “humanitarian reasons support Ressa’s intended travel,” adding that “certainly, one’s legitimate intention to be reunited with her/his parents cannot be doubted”.
Generally, a person under trial for bailable offences in the Philippines are easily granted their travel requests. The other courts handling Ressa’s tax and securities charges have granted her requests.
It’s the CA, which is handling her appeal for her cyber libel conviction, that’s the hardest to hurdle as conviction further restricts one’s right to travel.
“While Ressa’s conviction changes her situation and warrants the exercise of greater caution in allowing her to leave the Philippines, her undisputed compliance with the conditions imposed by the court a quo on her previous travels shows that she is not a flight risk,” said the CA, the decision penned by Associate Justice Geraldine Fiel-Macaraig, with concurrences from Associate Justices Elihu Ybañez and Angelene Mary Quimpo-Sale.
Ressa is scheduled to fly home to the Philippines in early December. To attend the Nobel awarding in Oslo on December 10, she would have to file another batch of travel requests before all the courts handling the seven cases.
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) tried to contest this travel grant, citing among others Ressa’s alleged flight risk, but the CA did not agree.
“We cannot sustain the OSG’s opposition grounded on Ressa’s dual citizenship and alleged lack of respect for the Philippine judicial system because the same is speculative as of now,” the CA said in its October 29 denial of OSG’s motion for reconsideration.
Ressa has strong economic ties in the Philippines as she is the CEO of Rappler, an online media platform based in the country.”
Lian Buan covers justice and corruption for Rappler. This article is republished with permission.
The dilemma facing whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances — the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.
This week, on October 27-28, Julian Assange appeared before a United Kingdom court defending himself against an appeal that, if successful, would see him extradited to the United States to face a raft of indictments that ultimately could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.
The US lawyers argued largely that human rights reasons that caused the UK courts to reject extradition to the US could be mitigated. That Julian Assange’s case could be heard in Australia and if found guilty serve out jail time in his home country rather than the US.
Assange’s defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC argued: “In short there is a large and cogent body of extraordinary and unprecedented evidence… that the CIA has declared Mr Assange as a ‘hostile’ ‘enemy’ of the USA, one which poses ‘very real threats to our country’, and seeks to ‘revenge’ him with significant harm.” The lawyers said the United States assurances were “meaningless”.
“It is perfectly reasonable to find it oppressive to extradite a mentally disordered person because his extradition is likely to result in his death.” Fitzgerald QC added that a court must have the power to “protect people from extradition to a foreign state where we have no control over what will be done to them”.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde, said: “You’ve given us much to think about and we will take our time to make our decision.”
The judges then reserved their decision. It is expected Assange’s fate will be revealed within weeks.
In this Special Report, we examine why the US wants this man. And we detail the space between whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances: the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.
Should Julian Assange be extradited from the UK to face indictments in the United States? Or should he be set free and offered a safe haven in a country such as Russia or even New Zealand?
It was always going to come down to this: Is Julian Assange captured by the assumptions people have of him, or a blurred line between a public’s right and a state’s wrong.
‘Manhunt Timeline’ The United States effort to capture or kill Assange goes back to 2010. But his inclusion in what’s called the “Manhunt Timeline” soon lost its sting when, under US President Barack Obama, it was believed if charges against Assange were brought before the US courts for his publishing activity, then he would be found not guilty due to the US First Amendment “freedom of the press” constitutional protections.
But everything changed with a new president, and a massive leak to Wikileaks of CIA secret information on 7 March 2017.
That leak of what was called Vault 7 information “detailed hacking tools the US government employs to break into users’ computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.”
CBS News reported at the time: “The documents describe clandestine methods for bypassing or defeating encryption, antivirus tools and other protective security features intended to keep the private information of citizens and corporations safe from prying eyes.” (CBS News)
The Vault 7 leak (and earlier leaks going back to 2010) also revealed information that the US security apparatus argued compromised the safety of its personnel around the world. This aspect is vital to the US Justice Department’s case against Julian Assange.
Among a complex web of indictments and superseding indictments, the US alleges Wikileaks and Assange conspired with whistleblowers (significant among them Chelsea Manning) in what it argues was a conspiracy against the US interest. It also argues that Wikileaks and Julian Assange failed to satisfactorily redact leaked documents before dissemination or publication of the same — including details that put US personnel and agents at risk.
Prominent New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager had knowledge of Wikileaks’ processes, and, going back to 2010, spent time working with Wikileaks on redacting documents.
Hager testified at The Old Bailey in London in September 2020 before a hearing of the Assange case and, according to The Australian, said: “My main memory was people working hour after hour in total silence, very concentrated on their work and I was very impressed with efforts that they were taking (to redact names).” Hager added that he himself had redacted “a few hundred” Australian and New Zealand names.
On cross examination, The Australian reported: “Hager referred in his testimony to the global impact of the publication of the collateral murder video, which shows civilians being gunned down in Iraq from an Apache helicopter, which led to changes in US military policies. He claimed it had a ‘similar galvanising impact as the video of the death of George Floyd’.” (The Australian)
But it was the Vault 7 leak that triggered the then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo to act. After that leak, Pompeo set out to destroy Wikileaks and its publisher Julian Assange.
Pompeo vs Assange
Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Image: ER
Mike Pompeo was appointed as CIA director in January 2017. The Vault 7 leak occurred on his watch. It was personal, and in April 2017 he defined Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service”.
That definition triggered a shift of approach. The US intelligence apparatus and its Justice Department counterpart then re-asserted that Wikileaks and its publisher and editor-in-chief Julian Assange were enemies of the United States.
Pompeo’s definition paved the way for a more targeted operation against Assange. But, for the time being, the US public modus operandi was to ensure extradition proceedings, through numerous hearings and appeals, were dragged out while stacking an increasing number of complex indictments on the charge-sheet.
The definitions ensured the UK’s corrections system regarded Assange as a high risk and dangerous prisoner hostile to the UK’s special-relationship partner, the USA.
The tactic is well used by governments and states around the world. But in this case it appears beyond cold and calculated. As the US applied a figurative legal-ligature around the neck of Julian Assange it knew his circumstances — that he was imprisoned, isolated, in solitary confinement, on a suicide watch, handled by prison guards under a repetitive high security risk protocol. It knew the psychological impact was compounding, causing legal observers, his lawyers, his supporters — even the judge overseeing the extradition proceedings — to fear that the wall before Assange of ongoing litigation, compounded with the potential for extradition and possible life imprisonment, would overwhelm him.
Let’s detail reality here. In real terms, being on suicide-watch as a high security risk prisoner, meant every time Assange left his cell for any reason (including when meeting his lawyers), on return he would be stripped, cavity searched (which includes being forced to squat while his rectum is digitally searched, and a mouth and throat search).
This was a similar security search protocol that was used against Ahmed Zaoui while he was held at New Zealand’s Paremoremo maximum security prison. At that time Zaoui was regarded as a security risk to New Zealand. He was of course later found to be a man of peace and given his liberty. Sometimes things are not what they initially seem.
In the UK, for Assange the monotonous grind of total solitude and indignity ticked on. In the US in March 2018, Mike Pompeo was set to be promoted. He received the then US President Donald Trump’s nomination to replace Rex Tillerson as US Secretary of State. The US Senate confirmed Pompeo’s nomination and he was sworn in on 26 April 2018.
Pompeo quickly became one of Trump’s most trusted and powerful White House insiders. As Secretary of State, Pompeo toured the globe’s foreign affairs circuit asserting the Trump Administration’s position on governments throughout the world. As such, Pompeo was regarded as one of the world’s most powerful men.
Looking back, Pompeo wasn’t the first high ranking US official to regard Assange as an enemy of the state. The Edward Snowden leaks of 2014 revealed that the US government had in 2010 added Assange to its “Manhunting Timeline” — which is an annual list of individuals with a “capture or kill” designation.
This designation came during the early stages of the Obama Administration years. However, US investigations into Wikileaks then suggested Assange had not acted in a way that excluded him from being defined as a journalist and therefore it was likely Assange, if tried under US law, would be provided protections under the First Amendment constitutional clauses.
But when Pompeo advanced toward prominence, Obama was gone. And under Donald Trump, the US appeared to ignore such constitutional rocks in the road. Trump had his own beef with the US Fourth Estate, and the conditions for respecting First Amendment privilege had deteriorated.
Did Trump stop the CIA kidnap or kill plan?
Former US President Donald Trump speaking to NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Image: ER
Perhaps we understand the Trump Administration’s mindset more now in the wake of the 6 January 2021 insurrection where supporters of Trump stormed the US House of Representatives seeking to overturn the election result and reinstate Trump as President. Throughout much of that destructive day, Trump reportedly remained at the White House while the mob erected a gallows and sought out Vice-President Mike Pence. The mob’s reason? Because Pence had begun the process of certifying electoral college writs, an essential step toward swearing in as President the newly elected Joe Biden.
It may reasonably be argued that Trump and some members of his Administration displayed a disregard for elements of the US Constitution. But, it must also be said, that Trump had at times displayed an empathy for Julian Assange’s situation.
This week The Hill reported on Trump’s view of Assange through an interview with the former president’s national security advisor, Keith Kellogg (who is also a retired US Army Lieutenant General.
Kellogg told The Hill: “He (Trump) looked at him (Assange) as someone who had been treated unfairly. And he kind of related him to himself … He said there’s an unfairness there and I want to address that.”
Kellogg added that Trump saw similarities between Assange and himself in that Trump would not back down in the face of media attacks: “I think he kind of saw that with Julian in the same way, like ‘ok, this guy’s not backing down’.” (The Hill)
Kellogg’s account seems incongruous to what we now know. On 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.
But more on the detail of that below. First, let’s look at a confusing picture of how former President Trump’s words do not meet his Administration’s actions.
We know that “someone” in the Trump Administration put a halt to the CIA’s kill or capture plan. We just do not know whether Trump commanded its cessation, or whether Pompeo or Trump’s attorney-general/s operated outside the former president’s orbit. But we do know the US Justice Department pursued Assange through an intensifying relentless application of indictments of increasing severity and complexity. If it is an MO, then it is reasonable to suggest the legal wall of indictments and the CIA’s plan to kill or capture were potentially one of the same.
Which segues back to the details of the US case against Assange.
The US Justice Department vs Assange In March 2019, The Washington Post reported that US Whistleblower Chelsea Manning had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the investigation of Julian Assange. The Post correctly suggested that the US Justice Department appeared interested in pursuing Wikileaks before a statute of limitations ran out.
Washington Post reported: “Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges.” (Washington Post)
Then, On April 11 2019, after high-level bilateral meetings between the US and Ecuador, the Ecuadorian Government revoked Assange’s asylum. The UK’s Metropolitan Police were invited into Ecuador’s London embassy and Assange was arrested.
Once Assange was in custody (pending the outcome of a court ruling of what eventually became a 50 week sentence for breaching bail) the United States made its move. On 11 April 2019 (the same day Ecuador evicted him) US prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Assange referring back to information that Wikileaks had released in stages from 18 February 2010 onwards. (US Justice Department)
Collateral Murder, the video that Wikileaks published that turned public opinion against the US-led occupation of Iraq.
This video, known as the collateral murder video, was among the Wikileaks release. The video is of US military personnel killing what they initially thought were Iraqi insurgents. It also displays an apparent indifference by US personnel when, shortly after, it was revealed by ground troops that there were civilians killed, including women and children (and also what were later found to be journalists). The leaked video exposed the United States to potential allegations of war crimes.
The video, and the accompanying dossier of US classified documents, shocked the world and revealed what had been covered up by US secrecy. The information that was leaked by then US Military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and published by Wikileaks and provided to a select group of the world’s most prominent media, was arguably a tipping point for public sentiment regarding the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was, in the <2010 decade, on a par with revelations of abuses of detainees by US personnel at Abu Ghraib prison.
In a release to the US press, the Justice Department’s office of international affairs stated: “According to court documents unsealed today, the charge relates to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”
It connected to how Wikileaks had acquired documents from US whistleblower Chelsea Manning. The leak contained 750,000 documents defined as “classified, or unclassified but sensitive” military and diplomatic documents. The documents included video. The sum of the leaks detailed what were regarded generally as atrocities committed by American armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The leaked material was also published by The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. In May 2010, Manning was identified then charged with espionage and sentenced to 35 years in a US military prison. Later, in January 2017, just three days before leaving office, US President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence.
On 23 May 2019, the US Justice Department issued a statement confirming Assange had been further charged in an 18-count superseding indictment that alleged violation of the Espionage Act 1917. It specifically alleged (among other charges) that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in late 2009 and that: “… Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ that sought, among other things, classified documents. Manning responded to Assange’s solicitations by using access granted to her as an intelligence analyst to search for United States classified documents, and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 US Department of State cables.” (US Justice Department)
The superseding indictment added: “Many of these documents were classified at the Secret level.”
It’s also important to note, a superseding indictment, in this context carries heavy weight. It isn’t merely a charge lodged by an investigative wing of government, but issued by a US grand jury.
The Washington Post, The New York Times, and media freedom organisations criticised the US government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act. Image: ER screenshot
The May 2019 superseding indictments ignited a stern rebuttal from powerful media institutions.
The Washington Postand The New York Times, as well as press freedom organisations, criticised the government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act, characterising it as an attack on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press. On 4 January 2021, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the US request to extradite him and stated that doing so would be “oppressive” given his mental health. On 6 January 2021, Assange was denied bail, pending an appeal by the United States. (Wikipedia.org)
In normal times an assault on the US First Amendment through a clever legal move would destroy a presidency. But these were not normal times.
Ultimately, the powerful US Fourth Estate fraternity failed to ward off the Trump Administration’s men. Trump himself was by this time already hurling attacks on the credibility and purpose of the United States media. And, he tapped in to a constituency that distrusted what it heard from journalists.
Then on 24 June 2020, the US Justice Department delivered more charges against Assange, this time with an additional superseding indictment that included allegations he conspired with “Anonymous” affiliated hackers: “In 2010, Assange gained unauthorised access to a government computer system of a NATO country. In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack.” (US Justice Department)
As the Trump presidency ran out of steam, and arguably created its own attacks on the US national interest, Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden won the election and became the 46th President of the United States.
Why Assange was imprisoned in the UK
Julian Assange on the first day of extradition proceedings in 2020. Image: Indymedia Ireland.
Julian Assange was tried before the UK courts and convicted for breaching the Bail Act. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. He was expected to have been released after five to six months, but due to the US extradition proceedings and appeal he was held indefinitely.
The initial bail conditions (of which Assange was found to have breached) were set resulting from an alleged sexual violence allegation made in Sweden in 2010. Assange had denied the allegations, and feared the case was designed to relocate him to Sweden and then onto the US via a legal extradition manoeuvre — hence this is why he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange was never actually charged by Swedish authorities nor their UK counterparts, but rather the initial bail breach related to a move to extradite him to Sweden.
Also, as a side-note: in November 2019, Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into allegations of sexual violence crime. The BBC reported that Swedish authorities dropped the case as it had: “Weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.”
Meanwhile, Assange was imprisoned at London’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he was incarcerated indefinitely pending the outcome of US extradition proceedings.
There is an irony that in January 2021, the week Assange was denied bail pending the outcome of the US-lodged appeal, back in the US a mob loyal to Trump attempted a coup d’etat against the US constitution.
Out with Trump, in with Biden On 20 January 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as US President. Around the world a palpable mood of change was anticipated. It’s fair to say those involved or observing the Assange case were hopeful the United States under Joe Biden’s presidency would withdraw the initial charges and superseding indictments.
But, that was not to be.
Then on 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.
The investigation’s timeline revealed a plan was developed in 2017 during Pompeo’s tenure at the CIA and considered numerous scenarios where Assange could be liquidated while he resided at the Ecuadorian Embassy. The investigation was backed by “more than 30 US official sources”. (Yahoo News)
The media investigation stated: “… the CIA was enraged by WikiLeaks’ publication in 2017 of thousands of documents detailing the agency’s hacking and covert surveillance techniques, known as the Vault 7 leak.”
It added that Pompeo: “was determined to take revenge on Assange after the (Vault 7) leak.”
Apparently, the CIA believed Russian agents were planning to remove Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy and “smuggle” him to Russia: “Among the possible scenarios to prevent a getaway were engaging in a gun battle with Russian agents on the streets of London and ramming the car that Assange would be smuggled in.”
It appears a wise-head in the Trump Administration ordered a halt to the CIA plan due to legal concerns. Officials cited in the investigation suggested there were: “Concerns that a kidnapping would derail US attempts to prosecute Assange.”
It would also be reasonable to suggest that a prosecution would be difficult should Assange be dead.
As the US extradition appeal loomed, Julian Assange’s US-based lawyer Barry Pollack reportedly said: “My hope and expectation is that the UK courts will consider this information (the CIA plot) and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the US.”
Assange’s partner Stella Morris, on the eve of the US extradition appeal proceedings also said reports of the CIA’s plan “was a game-changer” in his fight against extradition from Britain to the United States. (Reuters)
Greg Barnes, special council and Australian human rights lawyer and advocate spoke this week to a New Zealand panel (A4A via the internet): “Now we know that the CIA intended effectively to murder Assange. For an Australian citizen to be put in that position by Australia’s number one ally is intolerable. And I think in the minds of most Australians the view is that the Australian Government ought to intervene in this particular case and ensure the safety of one of its citizens.”
Barnes added that the Assange case is now a human rights case: “I can tell you that the rigours of the Anglo-American prison complex which we have here in Australia and in which Julian is facing at Belmarsh (prison in London) are such that very few people survive that system without having severe mental and physical pain and suffering for the rest of their lives.
“This should not be happening to an Australian citizen, whose only crime, and I put quotes around the word crime, has been to reveal the war crimes of the United States and its allies.” (A4A YouTube)
The respected journalist advocacy organisation Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF), this week called for the US case against Assange to be closed and for Assange to be “immediately released”. (Reporters Without Borders)
RSF added: “During the two-day hearing, the US government will argue against the 4 January decision issued by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, ruling against Assange’s extradition to the US on mental health grounds. The US will be permitted to argue on five specific grounds, following the High Court’s decision to widen the scope of the appeal during the 11 August preliminary hearing. An immediate decision is not expected at the conclusion of the 27-28 October hearing, but will likely follow in writing several weeks later.”
RSF concluded: “If Assange is extradited to the US, he could face up to 175 years in prison on the 18 counts outlined in the superseding indictment… (If convicted) Assange would be the first publisher pursued under the US Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence.”
RSF recently joined a coalition of 25 press freedom, civil liberties and international human rights organisations in calling again on the US Department of Justice to drop the charges against Assange.
Beyond Belmarsh Prison – human rights and asylum options
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg speaking to an online panel organised by New Zealand’s A4A group. Image: ER
There remains a logical and considered question as to what will become of Julian Assange should his legal team successfully defend moves of extradition to the United States.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has found relative safety living inside the Russian Federation. But beyond Russia there are few safe-haven options available to Julian Assange.
This week a group called A4A (Aotearoa for Assange) coordinated an online panel of human rights advocates and whistleblowers to consider whether New Zealand should become involved.
It was a serious move. The panel included the United States’ highly respected Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. (Pentagon Papers, Wikipedia)
Daniel Ellsberg told the panel: “A trial under (the Espionage Act) cannot be a fair trial as there is ‘no appeal to motives, impact or purposes’.”
“A trial under the Espionage Act could not permit that person to tell the jury why they did what they did,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “It is shameful that President Biden has gone in the footsteps of President Trump. It is shameful for President Biden to have continued that appeal.
“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call the National Defence or National Security…”
It’s a valid point for those that work within the sphere of Fourth Estate public interest journalism. While in New Zealand, there are rudimentary whistleblower protections, they fail to protect or ensure anonymity. For journalists, if a judge orders a journalist to reveal her or his source(s), then the journalist must consider breaching the code of ethics required from the profession, or acting in contempt of court.
In the latter case, a judge can, in New Zealand, order the journalist to be held in custody for contempt, and it should be pointed out there is no time limit of incarceration. Defamation law is equally as draconian. In New Zealand (unlike the United States) a journalist accused of defamation shoulders the burden of proof — to prove a defamation was not committed.
The chill factor (a reference to pressures that cause journalists to abandon deep and meaningful reportage) is real.
Daniel Ellsberg knows what this means. And he fears, that if the US wins its appeal against Assange, it will erode the Fourth Estate from reporting on what goes on behind the scenes with governments: “… there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression… A great deal rides (on this case) on the possibility of freedom.”
Former NZ Prime Minister and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme Helen Clark. Image: ER
His comments connect remarkably with those of former New Zealand prime minister, and former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark.
In a previous online discussion, Clark was asked what she thought of Julian Assange’s case. In a considered reply she said: “You do wonder when the hatchet can be buried with Assange, and not buried in his head by the way.
“I do think that information that’s been disclosed by whistleblowers down the ages has been very important in broader publics getting to know what is really going on behind the scenes.
“And, should people pay this kind of price for that? I don’t think so. I felt that Chelsea Manning for example was really unduly repressed.
“The real issue is: the activities they were exposing and not the actions of their exposure,” Helen Clark said.
The US appeals case this week is not litigating the merits of its indictments. But rather it has attempted to mitigate the reasons Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition in January 2021. The US legal team has suggested to the UK court that Assange’s human rights issues could be minimised should he face trial in his native Australia, that if found guilty that he could serve out his sentence there. It gave, however, no assurances that this would occur.
On the eve of the appeal, and appearing before the A4A online panel was Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver.
Dr Driver is an academic with the University of Reading (UK) and a legal observer very familiar with the Assange case. The degree of human rights abuses against Assange disturb her.
Dr Driver detailed what she had observed: “Julian Assange was served the second superseding indictment on the first day of trial. When he took his papers with him, back to the prison, his privileged papers were taken from him. He was handcuffed, cavity searched, stripped naked on a daily basis. [This is] a highly intelligent human being who we already know is on the Autism Spectrum. To be put through the indignities and arbitrariness of the process which is consistently working in a way that doesn’t stand with normal process…
“For somebody who has gone through all of this for a number of years, it has its psychological impact. But it is not just psychological, the physical effects of torture are pretty severe including the internal damage that he has.”
She added: “We expect the high court will recognise the kind of serious gross breaches of Julian’s basic rights and the inability for him to have a fair trial in the UK or in the US and that this case will be dismissed immediately.”
On the merits of whistleblowers, Dr Driver said: “You can see through the Vault 7 leaks how much the state knows about what is going on in your daily lives… As an observer in court I see how he (Julian Assange) is being tortured on a day to day basis. His privileged conversations with his lawyers were spied on.”
Dr Driver said the Swedish allegations were never backed up with charges. In fact the allegations were dropped due to time and insufficient evidence.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, concluded after his investigation of the Swedish allegations that Assange was never given the opportunity to put his side of the case.
Dr Driver said: “In any situation where there is violence against women, and I say this as a survivor myself, people are meant to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And, this new trend which is accusation-equal-to-guilt is a bad trend because it undermines the cause of women, and it prevents women from getting justice — just as it happened in Sweden because indeed nobody will ever know what happened between Julian and those women other than the two parties there.”
A crime left undefended or a case of weaponising violence against women? Dr Deepa Driver said: “If cases like this are not brought to court, then neither the women nor those accused like Julian get justice. And it is Lisa Longstaff at Women Against Rape who has said time and again, ‘this is the state weaponising women in order to achieve its own ends and hide its own war crimes’. And this is what Britain and America have done in weaponising the case in Sweden, because Sweden was always about extraditing Julian (Assange) to America.”
She suggested Assange’s situation was a human rights case where he was the victim. The view has validity.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer. Image: ER
The United Nations’ special rapporteur Nils Melzer issued a statement on 5 January 2021 welcoming the UK judge’s ruling that blocked his extradition to the United States (a ruling that this week was under appeal).
Melzer went on: “This ruling confirms my own assessment that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to conditions of detention, which are widely recognised to amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Melzer said the judgement set an “alarming precedent effectively denying investigative journalists the protection of press freedom and paving the way for their prosecution under charges of espionage”.
“I am gravely concerned that the judgement confirms the entire, very dangerous rationale underlying the US indictment, which effectively amounts to criminalizing national security journalism,” Melzer said.
In summary Melzer said: “The judgement fails to recognise that Mr Assange’s deplorable state of health is the direct consequence of a decade of deliberate and systematic violation of his most fundamental human rights by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador.”
He added: “The failure of the judgment to denounce and redress the persecution and torture of Mr Assange, leaves fully intact the intended intimidating effect on journalists and whistleblowers worldwide who may be tempted to publish secret evidence for war crimes, corruption and other government misconduct”. (UNCHR)
A call for New Zealand to provide asylum This week, US whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg applauded New Zealand’s independent global identity. And, he called for New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to provide an asylum solution should Julian Assange be released.
Dr Ellsberg’s call was supported by Matt Robson, a former cabinet minister in Helen Clark’s Labour-Alliance government and whom currently practices immigration law in Auckland.
Matt Robson said: “We can support this brave publisher and journalist who has committed the same crime, in inverted commas, as Daniel Ellsberg — to tell the truth as a good honest journalist should do. Our letter to our (New Zealand) government is a plea to do the right thing. To say directly on the line that is available, to (US) President Biden, to free Julian Assange.”
Australian-based lawyer Greg Barnes said: “New Zealand plays a prominent and important role in the Asia-Pacific region and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the New Zealand government could offer Julian Assange what Australia appears incapable of doing, and that is safety for himself and his family.”
So why New Zealand?
Daniel Ellsberg said: “There are many countries that would have been supportive of Assange, none of whom wanted to get into trouble with the United States of America. Of all the countries in the world I think you can pick out New Zealand that has dared to do that in the past. I remember the issue over whether they would allow American warships into New Zealand harbours.
“Julian Assange should not be on trial,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “And given he is indicted, he should not be extradited. It is extremely important, especially to journalists.
“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target, a bull’s eye, on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call national security. It’s to assure every journalist that he or she as well as your sources can be put in prison, kidnapped if necessary to the US.
“That is going to chill (journalists) to a degree that there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression such as we have just seen. The world cannot afford that. A great deal rides on the policy matters on the possibility of freedom,” so said Daniel Ellsberg — the US whistleblower who blew the lid off atrocities that were committed in Vietnam.
Conclusion Of course there are always complications, such as executive government leaders involving themselves in judicial matters. But sometimes a leader does the right thing, simply because it is the right thing to do — as Helen Clark did early on in her prime ministership when she extended an olive branch to people fleeing tyranny onboard a ship called the Tampa, which was under-threat of sinking off the coast of Australia. Helen Clark brought the Tampa refugees home to a new place called Aotearoa New Zealand, and we have been better off as a nation because of it.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Rappler chief executive Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov have been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 in an unprecedented recognition of journalism’s role in today’s world.
They won the prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”, reports Rappler.
Ressa has been the target of attacks for her media organisation’s critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and a key leader in the global fight against disinformation.
Ressa is the first Filipino to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the past, two Filipinos were part of international teams that won the Nobel as a group.
Franz Ontal was one of the officers of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that won the prize in 2013, while former Ateneo de Manila University president Father Jett Villarin was part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won in 2007 together with former US Vice-President Al Gore.
The award-giving body also acknowledged Muratov, one of the founders and the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta, for his decades of defending “freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions”.
Combating ‘troll factories’
Announcing the award today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the newspaper was “the most independent newspaper in Russia,” publishing critical articles on “corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and ‘troll factories,’ to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia”.
Rappler’s Maria Ressa and Russia’s Dmitry Muratov … they have won the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression”. Montage: Rappler
He is the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev – who himself helped set up Novaya Gazeta with the money he received from winning the award in 1990.
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” the committee said in a press release.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee is convinced that freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public. These rights are crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict.
“The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights.”
Ressa and Muratov are the latest journalists to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the world’s most prestigious political accolade.
In February, Norwegian labour leader and parliamentary representative Jonas Gahr Støre nominated Ressa, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists for the 2021 Prize.
Symbol for thousands of journalists
“She is thus both a symbol and a representative of thousands of journalists around the world. The nomination fulfills key aspects of what is emphasized as peace-promoting in Alfred Nobel’s will.
“A free and independent press can inform about and help to limit and stop a development that leads to armed conflict and war,” Støre said in his nomination.
Skei Grande, former leader of Norway’s Liberal Party, also nominated the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Rappler is one of the two verified signatories of IFCN’s Code of Principles in the Philippines – the other being Vera Files.
Here is Rappler’s statement on Friday’s announcement:
“Rappler is honoured – and astounded – by the Nobel Peace Prize Award given to our CEO Maria Ressa. It could not have come at a better time – a time when journalists and the truth are being attacked and undermined.
“We thank the Nobel for recognising all journalists both in the Philippines and in the world who continue to shine the light even in the darkest and toughest hours.
“Thank you to everyone who has been part of the daily struggle to uphold the truth and who continues to hold the line with us. Congratulations, Maria!”
Under attack The attacks against Ressa and Rappler have reached the world stage. When Duterte assumed office in 2016 and launched his signature bloody drug war, Rappler cast a harsh light on the extrajudicial killings the President himself encouraged.
In June 2020, Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. were convicted of cyber libel – a judgment Rappler regards as a failure of justice and democracy.
Ressa and Santos are out on bail, and have filed their appeal with the Court of Appeals.
This is one of at least seven active cases pending in court against Rappler as of August 10, 2021.
An award-winning documentary A Thousand Cuts, released in 2020 by Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona Diaz, outlines Rappler’s journey and the fight for press freedom in the country.
Before founding Rappler, she focused on investigating terrorism in Southeast Asia as she reported for CNN’s Manila and Jakarta bureaus.
A Rappler report with news agency coverage. Republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
EDITORIAL:By the Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley
Fiji’s Assistant Minister for iTaukei Affairs Selai Adimaitoga said quite a lot on Friday in her end of week statement on the Media Industry Development Act 2010 in Parliament.
She blamed reckless reporting by journalists as “one of the causes of violence and economic destruction over the past years”.
She said dishonest media had played a role in every troubling event in Fiji’s history. For that, she said, media organisations had a duty to tell the truth to the public and not to publish things that would stir political instability or violence.
“We must ensure that history does not repeat itself as Fijians deserve honest and fair media,” Ms Adimaitoga said.
She said every media organisation should only speak the truth and fairly report on facts, adding “Fiji cannot afford the reckless reporting of the past. The media have a responsibility to publish the truth. They also have a responsibility to maintain professional standards, a responsibility to maintain integrity”.
We totally agree with her that media organisations have a duty to tell the truth and fairly report on issues. We do not just talk about it. We do it, every day.
We try, every day, to fairly report on issues of importance to the nation, and to provide coverage that cuts through any imaginary demarcation line.
There are many such lines — political leanings, ethnicity, gender and religion for instance. Any good news organisation lives on its reputation for reliability. If its information is reliable it has the trust of its readers or viewers. But a key part of the media’s role is to hold power to account.
Ms Adimaitoga, whose [FijiFirst] government has held power (in one form or another) for more than a decade, said nothing about that. Our editorial decisions on what information we present must factor in what is of public interest, and the public interest requires close scrutiny of those who exercise power over us.
So when a government politician talks about “anti-government” news, she must think carefully about the fact that the public expects accountability from her government. Keeping the trust of our readers requires us to maintain a balance and not to be partisan advocates for one political side or the other.
Ms Adimaitoga needs to better appreciate and understand the role of the media. And we will say to her what we have said to the government in the past when we have faced the same “anti-government” label.
We are not anti-government, nor are we pro-government, and neither she nor anyone should try to put us into one corner or another.
The Fiji Times does not exist to create positive headlines for the government. It exists to publish all views and to ensure there is balanced coverage of the news and balanced political debate.
The public in any democracy expects to read diverse news and opinions which are representative of our whole society and the different viewpoints and perspectives that exist in our nation.
And we believe in serving the public in line with those democratic expectations.
The Fiji Times was founded at Levuka in 1869. This editorial was published in The Sunday Times edition of the newspaper yesterday (September 26) under the title “The role of the media” and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it is very disturbed by the “11 journalism rules” that the Taliban announced at a meeting with news media on September 19.
The rules that Afghan journalists will now have to implement are vaguely worded, dangerous and liable to be used to persecute them, the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog said.
Working as a journalist will now mean complying strictly with the 11 rules unveiled by Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, the interim director of the Government Media and Information Centre (GMIC).
At first blush, some of them might seem reasonable, as they include an obligation to respect “the truth” and not “distort the content of the information”, said RSF.
But in reality they were “extremely dangerous” because they opened the way to censorship and persecution.
“Decreed without any consultation with journalists, these new rules are spine-chilling because of the coercive use that can be made of them, and they bode ill for the future of journalistic independence and pluralism in Afghanistan,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
“They establish a regulatory framework based on principles and methods that contradict the practice of journalism and leave room for oppressive interpretation, instead of providing a protective framework allowing journalists — including women — to go back to work in acceptable conditions.
‘Tyranny and persecution’ “These rules open the way to tyranny and persecution.”
The first three rules, which forbid journalists to broadcast or publish stories that are “contrary to Islam,” “insult national figures” or violate “privacy,” are loosely based on Afghanistan’s existing national media law, which also incorporated a requirement to comply with international norms, including Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The absence of this requirement in the new rules opens the door to censorship and repression, because there is no indication as to who determines, or on what basis it is determined, that a comment or a report is contrary to Islam or disrespectful to a national figure.
Three of the rules tell journalists to conform to what are understood to be ethical principles:
They must “not try to distort news content”;
They must “respect journalistic principles”; and
They “must ensure that their reporting is balanced”.
But the absence of reference to recognised international norms means that these rules can also be misused or interpreted arbitrarily.
Rules 7 and 8 facilitate a return to news control or even prior censorship, which has not existed in Afghanistan for the past 20 years.
‘Handled carefully’
They state that, “matters that have not been confirmed by officials at the time of broadcasting or publication should be treated with care” and that “matters that could have a negative impact on the public’s attitude or affect morale should be handled carefully when being broadcast or published”.
The danger of a return to news control or prior censorship is enhanced by the last two rules (10 and 11), which reveal that the GMIC has “designed a specific form to make it easier for media outlets and journalists to prepare their reports in accordance with the regulations,” and that from now on, media outlets must “prepare detailed reports in coordination with the GMIC”.
The nature of these “detailed reports” has yet to be revealed.
The ninth rule, requiring media outlets to “adhere to the principle of neutrality in what they disseminate” and “only publish the truth,” could be open to a wide range of interpretations and further exposes journalists to arbitrary reprisals.
Anyone filling their lockdown downtime binge-watching the final series of US spy show Homeland might have found its fictionalised account of the US trying to get out of Afghanistan in a hurry pretty prescient.
“It’ll be Saigon all over again,” the gravelly-voiced Afghan president says as he warns the US that making peace with the Taliban will end in tears.
When the US troops left this month, it was indeed a case of “choppers at the embassy compound” once more.
And after that, getting other people out who feared the Taliban became a story all of its own.
RNZAF and NZDF forces dispatched to get out New Zealand citizens and visa holders provided the media with dramatic stories of improvised rescues.
One exclusive in the New Zealand Herald described a grandmother in a wheelchair hauled out from the crowd via a sewage filled ditch, illustrated with NZDF images and footage.
But while the government said it got about 390 people out of the country, Scoop’s Gordon Campbell pointed out authorities here have not said how many were already New Zealand citizens — or Afghan citizens or contractors whose service put them and their family members in danger.
Afghan translator Bashir Ahmad — who worked for the NZDF in Bamiyan province and came to New Zealand subsequently — told RNZ’s Morning Reporthe knew of 36 more people still stuck there.
Sticking around
Afghan channel Tolo news broadcasts the Taliban’s first press conference since they took over in Kabul. Image: RNZ screenshot
The end of 20 years of US occupation was witnessed by BBC’s veteran correspondent Lyse Doucet. She was also there in 1989 reporting for Canada’s CBC when the Soviet Union’s forces pulled out after its occupation that lasted almost a decade.
Back then she pondered how she would work when power changed hands to the Mujaheddin. Thirty-two years on, herself and others in Afghanistan — including New Zealander Charlotte Bellis who reports from Kabul for global channel Al Jazeera — are also wondering what the Taliban has in store for them.
The last time the Taliban were in charge — 1996 to 2001 — the media were heavily controlled and independent journalism was almost impossible.
Local and international media have flourished in Afghanistan after the US ousted the Taliban 20 years ago – but now their future is far from clear.
The Taliban have offered reassurances it will respect press freedoms. On August 21 they announced a committee including journalists would be created to “address the problems of the media in Kabul.”
But some have already reported harassment and confiscation of equipment. Five journalists from Etilaatroz, a daily newspaper in Kabul, were arrested and beaten by Taliban, the editor-in-chief said on Wednesday.
In the meantime, the Taliban have been getting to know reporters who are still there.
Charlotte Bellis told RNZ’s Sunday Morning she was sticking around to cover what happens next in Afghanistan and build relationships with the Taliban — and even give them advice.
“I told them … if you’re going to run the country you need to build trust and you need to be transparent and authentic – and do as much media as you can to try and reassure people that they don’t need to be scared of you,” she said.
It helps that Al Jazeera is based in Qatar where the Taliban have a political office.
Earlier this month, the Taliban’s slick spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi told Charlotte Bellis they were grateful for New Zealand offering financial aid to Afghanistan.
But that money is for the UN agencies and the Red Cross and Red Crescent operations — and not an endorsement of the Taliban takeover.
“They’ve cottoned on to the fact they can use social media for propaganda,” she told Newstalk ZB.
“When journalists run these stories it implies that governments are supporting the Taliban when nothing could be further from the truth,” Clark said.
How should the media deal with an outfit which turfed the recognised government out of power — and whose real intentions are not yet known?
The Taliban’s governing cabinet named last week has several hardliners — and no women.
Will reporters really be able to report under the Taliban from now on?
‘Please, my life is in danger.’ Image: RNZ Mediawatch
Peter Greste was the BBC’s correspondent in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s when the Taliban was poised to take over the first time — and he is now the UNESCO chair in journalism at the University of Queensland.
“We need to make it abundantly clear to the Taliban that they need to stick to their promises to protect journalists and media workers — and let them continue to work. The Taliban‘s words and actions don’t always align but at the very least we need to start with that,” Greste said.
“And we need to give refuge and visas to media workers who want to get out,” he said.
“Watching the way they treat journalists is going to be an important barometer of the way they plan to operate,” said Greste, who is working with the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom to monitor abuses and to create an online “Afghan media freedom tracker”.
“There’s been an obvious gap between the spokespeople who say they are prepared to let journalists operate and women continue to work — and the troubling reports of attacks by Taliban fighters on the ground, going door-to-door looking for journalists and their families,” he said.
“We need to maintain communications with them. We need to use all the tools we can to make sure we are across where all the people are. Afghanistan’s borders are like Swiss cheese. It’s not always easy to get across — but it is possible,” he said.
Peter Greste said the translators and fixers the international journalists rely on are absolutely critical to international media.
“Good translators don’t just translate the words– but help you understand the context. To simply give refuge just to the people who have their faces in their stories and names on bylines is not fair,” Greste said.
Peter Greste, UNESCO chair of journalism at the University of Queensland, Australia … Image: RNZ Mediawatch
Greste was jailed for months in Egypt on trumped-up charges in 2014 along with local colleagues when the regime there decided it didn’t like their reporting for Al Jazeera.
It triggered a remarkable campaign in which rival media outlets banded together to demand their release under the slogan “Journalism is not a crime”.
Does he fear for journalists if the Taliban resort to old ways of handling the media?
Will we even know if they make life impossible for media and journalists outside the capital in the future?
“The country has mobile phone networks now it has social media networks. It is possible to find out what’s going on in those regions and it’s going to be difficult for the Taliban to uphold that mirage – if that’s what it is,” he said.
“I’m not prepared at this point to write them off as an workable and we need to acknowledge the realities of what just happened in Afghanistan,” he said.
When Greste first arrived in Afghanistan for the BBC in 1994 there was no reliable electricity supply even in the capital city — let alone local television like TOLO news.
Al-Jazeera news channel’s Australian journalist Peter Greste listens to the original court verdict in June. Image: RNZ Mediawatch
“One of the great successes of the last decade or two has been the flowering of local media. Western organisations and donors and Afghans have understood that having a free media is one of the most important aspects of having a functioning society,” he said.
Afghans have really taken to that with real enthusiasm. The number of outlets and journalists has been phenomenal. You can’t put that genie back in his bottle without some serious consequences,” Greste told Mediawatch.
The regime in Egypt wasn’t afraid to imprison him and his colleagues back in 2014. Does he fear for international reporters like Charlotte Bellis and her colleagues?
“Al Jazeera will have a lot of security in place to make sure the operation is protected,” Greste said.
“But of course I worry for Charlotte — and also the staff at work with her. As a foreign correspondent though, I think you enjoy more protection than most other journos locally,” Greste said.
“If my name had been Mohammed and not Peter and if I’d been Egyptian and not Australian or a foreigner there wouldn’t have been anywhere near the kind of outrage and consequences for the government,” Greste said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Do the Fiji news media represent a wide range of political perspectives?
Fiji’s national media, like media elsewhere, would cover a wider berth collectively, rather than as individual media organisations, because individual media have obvious leanings and priorities.
But do the media, even as whole, provide a wide enough perspective?
Not always – media coverage is discriminatory by nature, even by necessity, some would argue.
Besides media’s commercial priorities and political biases, there are resource and logistical constraints to consider, as well as professional capacity development challenges. Inevitably, certain individuals and groups fall through the cracks.
Generally, the political elites, and to some extent the business lobby tend to receive proportionality greater coverage because they are deemed more important and more sellable than the less prominent, prosperous or powerful in society.
Internationally, research indicates that women are among the disadvantaged groups consigned to the margins of political coverage, along with youth.
Then there’s the question of political parties. Are they treated equal?
Usually, the dominant party, and/or the governing party, which can marshal the most resources, gets the lion’s share of coverage, and follows in descending order.
In Fiji, the governing party regularly accuses some media of being anti-government, especially The Fiji Times. Meanwhile, the opposition complain that they are ignored by the Fiji Sun and the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation, whom they label pro-government media.
Fiji media weaned on Anglo-American news tradition
The Fiji media were weaned on the Anglo-American news reporting tradition, based on journalistic objectivity as an ethos. This calls for reporting the “facts” in a neutral, unattached manner.
Because objectivity is neither possible nor ideal in every situation, the media can, and will take a stance on certain issues, political or otherwise. The compromise is that any such leanings are confined to the opinion sections. The news section must remain objective, unbiased and untainted by opinion.
However, it is a slippery slope, and the lines between news and opinion have become blurred, both in Fiji and abroad. Nowadays, it is not unusual to see opinion masquerading as news.
Different media commentators have different takes about the risks and benefits of this trend. At best it is a mixed bag, depending on the issue on hand.
Media can support government policy out of conviction, but not out of pecuniary/financial interests. Even if they take a certain stance, media should still provide reasonably equal coverage to opposing views. Especially state media since it is tax-payer funded.
Ideally, state media should give opposing views a fair hearing, but in the Pacific, the reality is different. State media, by policy, serve as government mouthpieces.
The surest way to know if media represent wide a political perspective is through research. USP Journalism is examining Fiji’s 2018 election coverage data with Dialogue Fiji, and preliminary results indicate a clear bias on the part of all media – some far more than others.
Complex variables for media bias
While the Fiji media do have their favourites, analysing media bias can be complex because there are so many variables to consider. For one, media bias is not only intentional, but unintentional as well.
For example, if a politician or political party refuses to talk to a certain media, then the bias is self-inflicted. The media can hardly be blamed for it.
The bottom line is that the Fiji public know by now their media’s stances. While the media have an obligation to be fair and balanced, the public have the right to choose not to consume media that are deliberately biased.
Do Fiji media exercise self-censorship? It’s obvious that media exercise a greater level of self-censorship since the 2006 coup and the punitive 2010 Fiji Media Industry Development Act. There are several reports attesting to this, including IDEA’s Global Media-Integrity indices.
The indices show that the Fiji media have been bolder since 2013, yes, but they will not cross a certain line – the fines and jail terms in the Media Act are not worth the risk.
While no one has been charged under the Act so far, it’s like having an axe on your neck because the lettering in the Act is quite broad. For instance, any news reports that are “against the national interest” is a breach of the Act, without clearly defining what constitutes “against national interest”.
This means that there are any number of reports that could be deemed to be against the “national interest”.
An ordeal in terms of stress
Even if in the end the charges don’t stick, just going through the hearing process would be an ordeal in terms of the stress, both financial and emotional.
In 2015, the fines and jail terms for journalists were removed from the Act. Was this impactful in reducing self-censorship? Not necessarily, because the editors’ and publishers’ penalties were retained.
The editor, and to some extent the publisher, are the newsroom gatekeepers – they would put a leash on their journalists to protect themselves and their investment.
So, media are trying to live with the Act and operate around its parameters. Rather than take big risks, they are taking calculated risks, such as a degree of self-censorship, so that they can live to fight another day.
Is criticism of the government common? The answer is both yes and no — criticism is common with some media, not all media.
There is not as much criticism as before the Act, but still a fair amount of criticism — under the circumstances. Private media such as The Fiji Times stand out for their critical reporting, as well as Fiji Village, more recently.
The FBC and the Fiji Sun are on the record saying that they have pro-government policies, and this is reflected in their coverage.
Blind eye to goverment faults
Of course, being pro-government policy would not mean turning a blind eye to the government’s faults, or endlessly singing its praises.
Some complain that Fiji media in general are not critical enough — such people do not fully understand the context that media work in, or appreciate the risks they take — on a daily basis.
Government accusations usually come with the territory. But because of the Act, the government criticism is menacing. So given the context, I don’t buy fully into claims that the media are not critical enough.
Besides its news reporting, The Fiji Times gives space to government critics in its letters columns, and hosts columnists ranging from opposition members, academics and civil society representatives.
Could there be more criticism? Should there be more criticism?
My answer to both is “yes”. But the criticism needs to be measured, as well as fair and balanced.
In the last IDEA session, University of Hawai’i professor Tacisius Kabutaulaka stated that the quality of media reporting was part of media freedom. I agree — the two cannot be separated. Just as a fawning, biased media is bad for democracy, so is a negative, overly-critical media.
Region’s toughest media law
Fiji’s Media-Integrity graph has improved since 2013 but is still among the lowest in the region. Why so?
Fiji has the lowest ranking in the region, simply because it has the toughest media law in the region. There was some improvement in the rankings because of the 2013 constitution and the 2014 elections. Compared to military rule, this signalled a return to a form of democratic order.
But as long as the Act is in place, the media are government-regulated. In a fuller democracy, the media are self-regulated, as Fiji’s media used to be.
Also, the two-day media coverage blackout on the 2018 elections would have affected Fiji’s ranking as well. The ban was seen to restrict political debate at a crucial time.
The contempt of court charge against a government critic and The Fiji Times sedition trial all affected Fiji’s rankings.
How can Fiji media improve?
Addressing the issues concerning the Act could be a starting point. For one, the Act was imposed on the media; for another, it has not been reviewed in over 10 years.
I suggest a roundtable of stakeholders to review and update the act. The government, the media and other interested parties can get together to find common ground and apply it in the Act to come up with a more acceptable arrangement.
A group of young Afghan women secretly held a press conference in a Kabul suburb on August 28 to launch a new women’s movement against the Taliban and present their demands, reports Farooq Sulehria.
Fijian Media Association president Stanley Simpson says a journalist who asked Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum to respond to comments made against him by opposition National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad have acted responsibly.
He made the comment in relation to a question posed by a Fijivillage journalist to the AG about Professor Prasad’s statement that Sayed- Khaiyum should separate his ego from his ministerial job during a press conference on Sunday.
The AG’s response to the journalist was, “So you see again, responsible media organisations would simply not report what somebody utters even if it’s nonsensical and try and get a response from us.”
Simpson said the backbone of any democracy was “an independent, strong and responsible media”.
“They inform, critique, analyse and stimulate debate that is vital to the democratic process,” he said.
“In this regard, the media was asking the Attorney-General to respond to a statement made by an elected Member of Parliament and political party leader, Biman Prasad.
Media ‘behaved responsibly’
“The FMA’s stand is that the media behaved responsibly in seeking a comment from the AG to the statement made against him by Biman Prasad.
“To not report Biman Prasad’s statement would have been irresponsible.
“To not seek a response from the AG would have also been irresponsible. Both are elected representatives of the people.
“The media acted responsibly in endeavouring to inform the people of the views of their elected members of Parliament on a political issue.”
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The military’s brutality is a daily reality for all the people of Myanmar. As Myanmar’s army prepares to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops, the country’s media workers remain exposed to Covid-19 and under extreme threat, writes Phil Thornton.
Myanmar’s military leaders used its armed forces to launch its coup and take control of the country from its elected government on 1 February 2021. In protest, millions of people took to the streets.
The military responded to these protests by sending armed soldiers and police into residential areas to arrest defiant civilians, workers, students, doctors and nurses.
In March, martial law was enforced in Yangon, snipers were used, and protesters were shot on sight.
To restrict news coverage of their crimes and to impede the organisatiojn of protests, the military ordered telecommunication companies to restrict internet and mobile phone coverage. Independent media outlets had their licences withdrawn, offices were raided and trashed.
Journalists were targeted and hunted by soldiers and police. Obscure laws were added to the penal code and used to restrict freedom of speech and expression. State-controlled media published pages of arrest warrants and photographs of the wanted, including journalists.
To avoid arrest, independent journalists went underground or sought refuge with border based ethnic armed organisations.
Myanmar journalists are well aware that being “arrested” and held in detention by the military doesn’t come with respect for their legal or human rights. The military uses a wide range of obscure laws, some dating back to colonial times, to detain, intimidate and silence its critics — academics, medics, journalists, students and workers.
95 journalists arrested
Independent website, Reporting ASEAN, recorded that, as of August 18, 95 journalists had been arrested and 42 were being held in detention.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) estimated by August 29 that the military has now killed at least 1026 people, arrested 7627, issued warrants for 1984 and are still holding 6025 in detention.
Journalists Sithu Aung Myint and Htet Htet Khine pictured in a newspaper clipping. Image: Global New Light of Myanmar
They want names Those arrested are taken to interrogation centres and held indefinitely without contact with family or legal representation. Torture is used to extort names and contacts from the detained to be added to the military’s long list of those to be hunted down and suppressed into silence.
One of those names on the military’s wanted list is that of journalist Nyan Linn Htet, now in hiding, after a warrant under Section 505 (a) was issued for his arrest.
Nyan Linn Htet, managing editor of Mekong News, in an interview with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) explains the impact of being hunted has had on both him and his family.
“If I’m arrested it means I lose everything. When we had to run and go into hiding, we lost our home and our possessions. You lose your income. Your equipment. You never feel safe when hiding. Living like this affects all of us. If the military does not find me, they will pressure and threaten my family with arrest.”
Nyan Linn Htet said he is still working despite the risk of arrest.
“Losing a journalist is a big loss for our struggle for democracy. We’re only doing our job as reporters, but our news coverage exposes the military and its abuses – this is why we’re the enemy.”
Despite the danger to him and his family, Nyan Linn Htet worries about the safety of those who helped him avoid arrest.
‘Caught in hiding’
“If I’m caught in hiding, the SAC (military-appointed State Administration Council) will persecute the people who gave me a place to live. I’m afraid they [the military] will arrest those who helped me.”
His fears are well founded.
Journalist and political analyst Sithu Aung Myint was high on the military’s wanted list for his political commentary and published opposition to the coup.
On Sunday, August 15, the military raided the home of his colleague, BBC freelance producer, Htet Htet Khine, and arrested both of them.
A week later, in its Sunday, August 21, edition, the military-run newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar, said Sithu Aung Myint had been charged with sedition, spreading “fake news” and being critical of the military coup leaders and its State Administration Council under Sections 505 (a) and 124 (a) of the Penal Code.
He could be sentenced to life in jail under Section 124 (a) of the penal code.
Htet Htet Khine was arrested for giving shelter to Sithu Aung Myint, and charged under section 17(1) of the Unlawful Association Act for working with the recently formed National Union Government’s radio station, Federal FM.
Held in interrogation centre
Friends and colleagues of Sithu Aung Myint and Htet Htet Khine told IFJ they are concerned both journalists were held at an interrogation centre for more than a week before having access to either legal help or contact with colleagues or family.
Nyan Linn Htet told IFJ he is aware his legal and human rights will not be respected if he is arrested.
“They will not let us get legal help until they’ve got what they want from us. The military amended 505 (a) of the Penal Code to prevent giving us bail. We know they will jail us even if we have legal representation.
“We know SAC is torturing journalists because of the work we do.”
Reports by local and international humanitarian groups have detailed the severe beatings — hours of maintaining stressed positions, use of sexual violence — and killing of people while held in detention.
Nyan Linn Htet said if arrested, he knows it will come with beatings. He admits that the thought of being tortured keeps him awake at night.
“They will jail me, but only after they torture me. I will not be released until I sign a statement that I will never criticise them. I’m not afraid of being arrested, but torture scares me. There are nights when I’m too afraid to sleep.”
International media drop Myanmar He and other local journalists told the IFJ it was disappointing that international media has dropped Myanmar from its news agenda and moved on to cover other stories.
Nyan Linn Htets said despite access difficulties, the international media can use local reporters who are willing to help.
“We know the difficulties media has getting ground access to Myanmar. Covid-19 restrictions also make it impossible to legally cross borders from neighboring countries, but we are already here in the country and are capable of doing the job.”
Despite the fear of arrest and torture, he is still reporting and urged local journalists to keep doing the same.
“It’s important we use what we can to still work and report news events of interest to people. People are accessing news and information in many different ways now.”
The military, while trashing local and international laws and ignoring its constitution, is quick to use and amend laws to jail its opponents for being critical of the coup and for reporting military violence, abuse and corruption.
We have no rights
Nan Paw Gay, editor-in-chief at the Karen Information Center, says the military council has no respect for journalists or their right to publish information in the public interest.
“There is no freedom of the press. If journalists try to report news or seek information from the military’s opponents — CRPH, NUG, CDM, G-Z and PDF — the State Administration Council prosecutes them under Section 17/1 of the Illegal Association Act.
“Since the military launched its coup, sources we use have had their freedom of speech and expression made illegal and they now risk arrest for talking to us and… we can be arrested for speaking with them.
“Independent media groups have been outlawed and totally lost their right to speak freely or write about news events.”
Nan Paw Gay points out if journalists are “critical of the military, its appointed State Administration Council or its lack of a public health plan to tackle the covid-19 pandemic now ravaging the country, section 505 (a) is used to arrest journalists for spreading false news.”
Essentially torture is used to terrorise journalists, he says.
“When the military council arrests and detains journalists, the torture is both physical and psychological. Even before being detained threats are issued and then during the arrest the violence becomes real – shootings, people being kicked and dragged from homes by their hair and beaten.”
Women journalists tortured
Nan Paw Gay says women journalists are more likely to be “tortured using psychological abuse – kept in a dark room and constantly told that they will be killed tomorrow – to mess and generate fear with their thoughts. You can see the effects of the tortured on some journalists when they appear in court – shaking hands and body spasms.”
Military brutality is a daily reality for Myanmar’s people. At the time of writing, the army is preparing to deploy and reinforce its bases with hundreds of extra troops into areas of the Karen National Union-controlled territory and where anti-coup protesters, striking doctors and politicians have been offered refuge and safety.
A senior ethnic Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier told the IFJ that army drones and helicopters have been surveying the area in recent months.
“We know they’ve sent munitions and large troop numbers to our area… last time we had drones flying over our area, they later attacked villages and our positions with airstrikes. They’re already fighting in our Brigade 5 and 1 and have started in 6 and 2.”
Since the military launched its coup on February 1, there has been at least 500 armed battles between the KNU and the military regime and 70,000 Karen civilians have been displaced and are hiding in makeshift camps as a direct result of these attacks.
Fighter jets have flown into Karen National Union-controlled areas 27 times and dropped at least 47 bombs, killing 14 civilians and wounding 28.
Burning rice stores in Myanmar. Image: KIC
Naw K’nyaw Paw, general secretary of the Karen Women Organisation, in an interview with Karen News, said villagers displaced by the Myanmar Army attacks are now in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
‘Shoot at villagers’
“They shoot at villagers if they see them on their farms, burning down their rice barns and killing the livestock left behind. The Burma Army also arrests people when they see them and use them as human shields to protect them when attacked by Karen soldiers.”
Naw K’nyaw Paw said accessing the displaced villagers is difficult, especially during the wet season.
“The only accessible way in is on foot, supplies have to be carried through jungle. Given the restrictions due to covid-19 as well as the increasing Burma Army military operations, villagers are unable to return to their homes and they will need food, clothing and medicine, especially the young and old.”
Nan Paw Gay says the military’s strategy to muzzle the media is a familiar tactic that has been used before.
“Stop international media getting access to conflict areas, shut down independent media, hunt local journalists and when there’s no one to left to report, launch attacks in ethnic regions, displacing thousands of villagers.”
Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in South East Asia. This article was first published by the IFJ Asia-Pacific blog and is republished with the author’s permission. Thornton is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
Publicly, the Taliban have undertaken to protect journalists and respect press freedom but the reality in Afghanistan is completely different, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The new authorities are already imposing very harsh constraints on the news media even if they are not yet official, reports RSF on its website.
The list of new obligations for journalists is getting longer by the day. Less than a week after their spokesman pledged to respect freedom of the press “because media reporting will be useful to society,” the Taliban are subjecting journalists to harassment, threats and sometimes violence.
“Officially, the new Afghan authorities have not issued any regulations, but the media and reporters are being treated in an arbitrary manner,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
“Are the Taliban already dropping their masks? We ask them to guarantee conditions for journalism worthy of the name.”
Privately-owned Afghan TV channels that are still broadcasting in the capital are now being subjected to threats on a daily basis.
Reporters branded ‘takfiri’
A producer* working for one privately-owned national channel said: “In the past week, the Taliban have beaten five of our channel’s reporters and camera operators and have called them ‘takfiri’ [tantamount to calling them ‘unbelievers’, in this context].
“They control everything we broadcast. In the field, the Taliban commanders systematically take the numbers of our reporters and tell them: ‘When you prepare this story, you will say this and say that.’
“If they say something else, they are threatened.”
Many broadcasters have been forced to suspend part of their programming because Kabul’s new masters have ordered them to respect the Sharia — Islamic law.
“Series and broadcasts about society have been stopped and instead we are just broadcasting short news bulletins and documentaries from the archives,” said a commercial TV channel representative, who has started to let his beard grow as a precaution and now wears traditional dress.
The owner of a privately-owned radio station north of Kabul confirmed that the Taliban are progressively and quickly extending their control over news coverage.
‘They began “guiding” us’
“A week ago, they told us: ‘You can work freely as long as you respect Islamic rules’ [no music and no women], but then they began ‘guiding’ us about the news that we could or could not broadcast and what they regard as ‘fair’ reporting,” said the owner, who ended up closing his radio station and going into hiding.
Two journalists working for the privately-owned TV channel Shamshad were prevented by a Taliban guard from doing a report outside the French embassy because they lacked a permit signed by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
But when they asked the guard where they should go or who they should ask for such a permit, he said, “I don’t know.”
In the past few days, the Taliban have ordered the most influential Afghan broadcast media to broadcast Taliban propaganda video and audio clips.
When media outlets object, “the Taliban say it is just publicity and they are ready to pay for it to be broadcast, and then they insist, referring to our national or Islamic duty,” a journalist said.
Incidents are meanwhile being reported in the field, and at least 10 journalists have been subjected to violence or threats while working in the streets of Kabul and Jalalabad in the past week.
The Taliban spokesman announced on Twitter on August 21 that a tripartite committee would be created to “reassure the media”. Consisting of representatives of the Cultural Commission and journalists’ associations, and a senior Kabul police officer, the committee’s official purpose will be to “address the problems of the media in Kabul.”
What will its real purpose be?
100 private media outlets suspend operations
The pressure is even greater in the provinces, far from the capital. Around 100 privately-owned local media outlets have suspended operations since the Taliban takeover.
All privately-owned Tolonews TV’s local bureaus have closed.
In Mazar-i-Sharif, the fourth largest city, journalists have been forced to stop working and the situation is very tense.
One national radio station’s terrified correspondent said: “Here in the south, I have to work all the time under threat from the Taliban, who comment on everything I do. ‘Why did you do that story? And why didn’t you ask us for our opinion?’ they say. They want comment on all the stories.”
The head of a radio station in Herat province that had many listeners before the Taliban takeover said the same.
He also reported that, at meeting with media representatives on August 17, the province’s new governor told them he was not their enemy and that they would define the new way of working together.
While all the journalists remained silent, the governor then quoted a phrase from the Sharia that that sums up Islam’s basic practices. He said: “The Sharia defines everything: ‘Command what is good, forbid what is evil.’ You just have to apply it.”
The radio station director added: “After that, most of my colleagues left the city and those of us who stayed must constantly prove that what we broadcast commands what is good and forbids what is evil.”
Foreign correspondents work ‘normally‘
Foreign correspondents still in Kabul have not yet been subjected to these dictates and are managing to work in an almost normal manner. But for how much longer?
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s Youth and Information Department issued this message to foreign journalists on August 21: “Before going into the field and recording interviews with IEA fighters and the local population, they should coordinate with the IEA or otherwise face arrest.”
“There are no clear rules at the moment and we have no idea what will happen in the future,” said a Swiss freelancer who has stayed in Kabul.
Another foreign reporter said: “The honeymoon is not yet over. We are benefitting from the fact that the Taliban are still seeking some legitimacy, and the arrival of the big international TV stations in the past few days is protecting us.
“The real problems will start when we are on our own again.”
*The anonymity of all Afghan and foreign journalists quoted in this RSF news release has been preserved at their request and for security reasons, given the climate of fear currently reigning in Afghanistan. Many of the journalists contacted by RSF said they did not want to be quoted at all, because they have no way of leaving Afghanistan.
Philippines tabloid editor Gwenn Salamida has been shot dead by a robber in her recently opened salon in Quezon City.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) have called for a rapid investigation into this murder to assure justice for Salamida and her family.
The shooting took place at Salamida’s salon in Barangay Apolonio Samson about 3:35pm on August 17. Salamida was shot after the killer barged inside, declaring a heist, and shot the victims when Salamida resisted.
Salamida was a former editor of Remate Online and had been working recently for another tabloid, Saksi Ngayon.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) asked the authorities to investigate the murder of Salamida.
PTFoMS Executive Director, Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco, said on August 18 that while the motive may not be related to Salamida’s past career in journalism, justice must be served for the sake of Salamida’s family and the community.
Messages by NUJP, IFJ
The NUJP said: “The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines [send] condolences with the family and colleagues of Gwenn Salamida of Saksi Ngayon …
“We join the National Press Club in condemning her murder and in calling for a swift resolution to the case and for justice for her murder.”
The IFJ said: “The death of Gwenn Salamida has been a great loss to the media community of the Philippines.
“We call on the government of the Philippines to rapidly investigate her murder and to ensure that justice is done. The media must be given a safe environment to work in within the Philippines, the murder of journalists must be stopped.”
Journalists are frequently killed in the Philippines. The Reporters Without Borders 2021 global media freedom index ranks Philippines 138th out of 180 countries.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on the Taliban to immediately cease harassing and attacking journalists for their work, allow women journalists to broadcast the news, and permit the media to operate freely and independently.
Since August 15, members of the Taliban have barred at least two female journalists from their jobs at the public broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan, and have attacked at least two members of the press while they covered a protest in the eastern Nangarhar province, according to news reports and journalists who spoke with New York-based CPJ.
“Stripping public media of prominent women news presenters is an ominous sign that Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have no intention of living up their promise of respecting women’s rights, in the media or elsewhere,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator in a statement.
“The Taliban should let women news anchors return to work, and allow all journalists to work safely and without interference.”
On August 15, the day the Taliban entered Kabul, members of the group arrived at Radio Television Afghanistan’s station and a male Taliban official took the place of Khadija Amin, an anchor with the network, according to news reports and Amin, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.
When Amin returned to the station yesterday, a Taliban member who took over leadership of the station told her to “stay at home for a few more days”.
He added that the group would inform her when she could return to work, she said.
‘Regime has changed’
Taliban members also denied Shabnam Dawran, a news presenter with Radio Television Afghanistan, entry to the outlet, saying that “the regime has changed” and she should “go home”, according to newsreports and Dawran, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Male employees were permitted entry into the station, but she was denied, according to those sources.
Taliban claims it will respect women’s rights, media freedom at first media conference in Kabul. Video: Al Jazeera
On August 17, a Taliban-appointed newscaster took her place and relayed statements from the group’s leadership, according to those reports.
Separately, Taliban militants yesterday beat Babrak Amirzada, a video reporter with the privately owned news agency Pajhwok Afghan News, and Mahmood Naeemi, a camera operator with the privately owned news and entertainment broadcaster Ariana News, while they covered a protest in the city of Jalalabad, in eastern Nangarhar province, according to news reports and both journalists, who spoke with CPJ via phone and messaging app.
At about 10 am, a group of Taliban militants arrived at a demonstration of people gathering in support of the Afghan national flag, which Amirzada and Naeemi were covering, and beat up protesters and fired gunshots into the air to disperse the crowd, the journalists told CPJ.
Amirzada and Naeemi said that Taliban fighters shoved them both to the ground, beat Amirzada on his head, hands, chest, feet, and legs, and hit Naeemi on his legs and feet with the bottoms of their rifles.
CPJ could not immediately determine the extent of the journalists’ injuries.
Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app.
CPJ is also investigating a report today by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle that Taliban militants searched the home of one of the outlet’s editors in western Afghanistan, shot and killed one of their family members, and seriously injured another.
The militants were searching for the journalist, who has escaped to Germany, according to that report.
Taliban militants have also raided the homes of at least four media workers since taking power in the country earlier this week, according to CPJ reporting.
In the current upheaval, it is difficult to obtain figures on how many journalists have been attacked, but the Afghan Independent Journalist Association and Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union express grave concerns for the well-being of journalists and media personnel.
UNESCO has recorded five deaths of journalists in Afghanistan in 2021, making it the country with the world’s greatest number of journalists’ deaths this year. Four have been women, reflecting the higher risk of attacks on female journalists.
The Taliban has a long-established pattern of striking out against journalists.
A Human Rights Watch report, released in April 2021, in the lead up to the United States and NATO troop withdrawal, noted that Taliban forces had already established a practice of targeting journalists and other media workers.
Journalists are intimidated, harassed and attacked routinely by the Taliban, which regularly accuses them of being aligned with the Afghan government or international military forces or being spies.
Female journalists face a higher level of threats, especially if they have appeared on television and radio.
International Press Institute figures, released in May 2021 at the start of the troop withdrawals, also showed that Afghanistan had the highest rate of deaths of journalists in the world.
The IPI expressed concern about an intensification of attacks on journalists and the future of the news media in Afghanistan.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The #HoldTheLine (#HTL) Coalition has welcomed the dismissal of a cyber-libel charge against Rappler CEO and founder Maria Ressa in the Philippines — the second “spurious” charge against Ressa to be dropped in just two months, says Reporters Without Borders.
The #HTL coalition calls for all remaining charges to be immediately dropped and the endless pressure against Ressa and Rappler to be ceased.
In a hearing on August 10, a Manila court dismissed the case “with prejudice” after the complainant, college professor Ariel Pineda, informed the court he no longer wished to pursue the cyber-libel claim against Maria Ressa and Rappler reporter Rambo Talabong.
The move followed the dismissal on June 1 of a separate spurious cyber-libel case brought by businessman Wilfredo Keng, also “with prejudice” after Keng indicated he did not wish to continue to pursue the claim.
“We welcome the overdue withdrawal of this trumped-up charge against Maria Ressa, which was the latest in a cluster of cases intended to silence her independent reporting,” said the #HTL steering committee in a statement.
“We call for the remaining charges against Ressa and Rappler to be dropped without further delay, and other forms of pressure against them immediately ceased.”
Ressa was convicted on a prior spurious cyberlibel charge in June 2020, based on a complaint made by Wilfredo Keng in connection with Rappler’s reporting on his business activities.
Possible six years in jail
If the charge is not overturned on appeal, Ressa faces a possible six years in prison. Ressa and Rappler are also facing six other charges, including criminal tax charges; if convicted on all of these, Ressa could be looking at many years cumulatively in prison.
The #HTL coalition continues to urge supporters around the world to add their voices to a continuous online protest that will stream until the charges against Ressa and Rappler are dropped, and to don an #HTL mask in solidarity. The joint #HTL petition also remains open for signature.
Contact #HTL Steering Committee members for further details: Rebecca Vincent (rvincent@rsf.org); Julie Posetti (jposetti@icfj.org); and Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (gguillenkaiser@cpj.org). The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organisations around the world. This statement was issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual coalition members or organisations.
Journalists already under threat of military arrest, jail and torture in Myanmar are now fronting a covid-19 national crisis as the virus rips through a country stripped bare, writes Phil Thornton.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Phil Thornton of the International Federation of Journalists
It is six months since Myanmar’s military began dismantling the institutional framework supporting the country’s fledgling democracy by propelling a deadly coup to wrest parliamentary control away from the newly-elected National League of Democracy (NLD) government.
Soon after the coup in February 2021, the military swiftly targeted voices of dissent and launched a deadly campaign of violence to silence critics. Rooftop snipers were ordered to shoot to kill, police and army raided homes of journalists, doctors, politicians and protesting citizens.
Independent media were outlawed and journalists were forced into hiding.
Critics of the “coup”, or even naming it as such in reporting or on social media, resulted in arrest warrants for breaches of section 505(a) of the Penal Code.
Non-profit human rights organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) confirmed as of August 4, 2021, the military had killed 946 people, including 75 children and arrested 7051 protesters.
Among them, seven health workers have been killed, another 600 doctors and nurses have arrest warrants issued against them, a further 221 medical students have been arrested and 67 medical staff are in detention.
AAPP reported the military has arrested at least 98 journalists, six of whom have been tried and convicted. Journalists may have gone into hiding for their safety, but this hasn’t stopped the military targeting and threatening their families.
A country in chaos Myanmar is now in crisis. The economy has crashed. The already threadbare healthcare system has collapsed from the strain of the covid-19 pandemic.
Military restrictions prevent people receiving medical treatment, while doctors and nurses continue to be arrested for protesting against the coup. Meanwhile, people infected by the covid-19 virus face certain death via the military’s heartless restrictions on hospitals, oxygen and medicine.
Doctors who manage to work from clandestine pop-up clinics are exhausted by the huge surge in cases needing treatment.
International health experts estimate as many as half the country’s population could become infected with the various covid-19 strains and the risk of death is high.
United Nation’s human rights expert Tom Andrews has urged Myanmar’s military at the end of July to join a “covid ceasefire” to combat the pandemic sweeping the country. But international pleas are unlikely to sway the military coup leaders or its puppet, the State Administration Council, now reformed as a caretaker government under the leadership of General Min Aung Hlaing as its so-called prime minister.
The military has a certain form when handling natural disasters — its strategy is to treat them as security threats. When Cyclone Nargis battered Burma on 2 May 2008, killing as many as 138,000 people and affecting at least another 2.4 million, the military’s response was to block international aid and jail those who reported on or tried to help storm victims.
The same strategy has been used with the ceasefires it negotiates with ethnic armed groups. A senior Karen National Liberation Army officer told the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that ceasefires with the military produce little for the people.
“Our experience is they tie us up in endless meetings that yield little of value. They are a delaying tactic and we know they map our army positions and those of displaced people camps and later attack us as happened in March this year,” he said.
In March 2021, the Myanmar armed forces launched a series of airstrikes and ground attacks in ethnic regions that left as many as 200,000 villagers displaced. These people are now in desperate need of basic shelter, medicine, food and security.
The military’s go-to strategy is to block critical aid and medicine getting to displaced people and to jail and kill those it classifies as its enemies. Since the February coup, these “enemies” have included doctors, lawyers, politicians, community leaders, activists and journalists.
AAPP said people are now having to face the covid-19 pandemic with under-resourced hospitals and clinics with most unable to buy basic medicine from pharmacies that have run out of stock. Basic medicine is hard to find and expensive to buy.
The military is forcing public hospitals to close and is actively stopping people buying or refilling oxygen cylinders. Cemeteries and crematoriums are unable to cope with the huge numbers of fatalities, leaving corpses to pile up.
Through all this, the State Administration Council is accused by international, regional and opposition health professionals of withholding statistics and issuing false information.
‘I’m only doing my job’ Senior journalist Win Kyaw, who is now in hiding on the Myanmar border, spoke with IFJ about the ongoing difficulties of trying to keep reporting six months on from the coup.
“I fled my home months ago. I left everything behind. Now it’s much worse for journalists worried about catching covid. We can’t move around because of soldiers at checkpoints checking phones and who we are. It is very hard to keep going,” said Kyaw.
He said there is no way to counterbalance the false information and quackery remedies circulating among people desperate for ways to combat the virus.
“Before the coup, I reported the first and second wave freely. We only worried about catching the infection. Authorities willingly gave us data, information. Since the coup it’s the opposite.
“The military is trying to arrest us, we have to work secretly, we can’t get any information from authorities or our old sources. How can people make informed decisions about treatments and what medicines to take with all the misinformation being spread?”
Win Kyaw has an arrest warrant issued against him for what the military claims are breaches of section 505(a) of the Penal Code.
“I was only doing my job as a journalist, but they saw our news coverage as a threat. If we are not allowed to do our job uncensored at such a critical time it causes all sorts of problems. People need to know what to do and what not to do during the pandemic.
“We also know important stories putting the military under scrutiny need to be reported. For example, what’s happened to the US$350 million donated to the country by the International Monetary Fund (to help prevent covid)? It’s important accredited journalists cover these stories and we are allowed to do our job.”
Win Kyaw acknowledges the difficulty of confirming actual death rates from covid-19 as the State Administration Council reports are sanctioned and approved by military leaders.
“We know the military is restricting oxygen and medical supplies and jailing doctors. We know people are dying in their thousands.”
A recent incident involving a senior Myanmar Army officer highlighted the need to keep the spotlight on corruption, he said. The story the journalist is referring to involved Myo Min Naung, an army colonel who ordered the seizure of 100 oxygen cylinders crossing from Thai border town Mae Sot to Myawaddy on the Myanmar side.
Myo Min Naung first denied he had taken the cylinders but was later quoted in state-owned media saying he had only “borrowed” the oxygen for emergency use in Karen State hospitals.
“This is a clear case of abuse of authority,” says Win Kyaw. “It was clear the oxygen had the official paperwork and been ordered by a Yangon charity to treat covid patients. As far as we know the oxygen has not been returned.”
The journalist is convinced the military is deliberately using covid-19 against citizens.
“Government hospitals are full – they cannot take anymore covid-19 patients. People are forced to rely on home treatment. Knowing this, the military blocked people refilling oxygen cylinders for private use, restricted medicine and closed hospitals – the military is using covid-19 as a weapon to kill people.”
Win Kyaw has just recovered from fighting the virus while in hiding.
“It was hard. Out of our seven people in the household, four were sick. We had the symptoms, we couldn’t get tested, we didn’t know if it was the flu or covid. We were lucky … we could get oxygen, medical advice and medicine.”
Every journalist the IFJ has spoken to during the past six months since he coup has either been infected and or had a family member die.
Despite knowing the risks and the fact that the military is actively hunting him, Win Kyaw is determined to keep reporting.
“Most of us don’t get salaries now, as most independent media houses have been outlawed by the military, but we feel we have a duty to cover the news as best we can.
“We have to try to travel to confirm stories and this puts us at risk. We need money for masks and PPE, medicine and oxygen concentrators.”
When their media organisations’ operating licences were cancelled by the military, many independent journalists had to go underground or risk arrest. Without paid work many journalists resorted to selling their equipment – laptops, drones, voice recorders and cameras – keeping only the essentials needed to keep reporting.
People dying alone Than Win Htut, a senior executive with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), is still managing to send out regular daily reports despite having to hide on the border of a neighboring country.
Like other journalists interviewed, Than Win Thut is dismayed at the carnage caused by the military’s refusal to stop harassing and jailing doctors and let them tackle the pandemic as a public health issue.
“It’s sad. People are dying alone, collapsing in the street. Yet high ranking officers are taking oxygen and medicine for themselves and leaving lower rank soldiers to fend for themselves.
“The people have to manage the best they can, they can no longer expect anything from the government.”
Than Win Htut explains that reporting the health crisis is proving problematic.
“We cannot risk sending our reporters to confirm what’s happening at crematoriums or graveyards. Official sources won’t confirm or talk – they’re too scared.
“We keep in contact with our sources, but we can only manage to give estimates. State media can’t be relied on… nobody believes what it reports.”
The need for accurate reporting was never more important, he said.
“People are sceptical of vaccines, schools are closed, everywhere is overcrowded, there have been jail riots by anti-coup prisoners… unconfirmed killings of 20 jail protesters, doctors are being jailed, the cost of living is sky high, no work … no wages, medical supplies are being blocked… charity workers jailed.”
He says the pandemic has completely changed social media interactions.
“Facebook and social media sites have become our obituary pages. We see posts everyday of friends or their family members who have died. It’s tragic. We can’t do our job because the military has weaponised covid.”
Lost hope waiting on UN intervention Wei Min Oo is still managing to work for a news agency and told IFJ he is lucky he still has a job.
“When the junta closed eight independent media outlets, hundreds of employed journalists were suddenly forced out of work. Journalists, like everyone, have to eat.
“Some journalists have opened online shops, young ones have become delivery riders and some can’t do anything, but try to live on their meagre savings.”
Trying to report when you can be arrested for just doing your job is one of the big difficulties.
“We can’t carry our journalist’s IDs. We have to make sure our phones are cleaned off as anything like Facebook that could get us in trouble at checkpoints. No bylines on stories. Journalists have to rely on social media as sources.”
Wei Min Oo said the massive number of covid-19 infections in the community means that reporters dare not go to areas under martial law or known crisis areas for fear of being arrested.
The actions of the military during the pandemic has exposed its disregard for civilians and community institutions critical to a democratic society, according to Wei Min Oo.
“The military is taking its revenge on doctors, health workers, teachers, students, politicians and charity volunteers for taking a stand by striking and speaking out.”
Meanwhile,people in Myanmar are scathing of international interventions happening and have resigned to opposing the military alone, he said.
“People now say ‘we have lost hope any international intervention will come — if we want a revolution we have to do it alone through our Civil Disobedience Movement’.”
There is no plan Saw Win, a senior journalist who has worked in ethnic media for more than 20 years spoke to the IFJ about the greater effects the coup has had.
“The country is in chaos. The coup is a citizen’s nightmare. People have given up on international help. Working the borderline we see – displacement, refugees, corruption, armed conflict – any help will come with restrictions imposed on it by the military.
“Aid will eventually be allowed in and available, but it will not reach the people in need.”
Saw Win stresses the importance of accredited journalists being allowed to cover the pandemic.
“People don’t believe what they hear or see on state media. It’s total rubbish. Data, death rates, number of cases and health information are not believed. People joke the military run pictures and names of those they intend to arrest under 505(a) on state television and newspapers to get people to tune in – it’s the only item we can believe, the rest is useless.”
Covid’s impacts in the cities are worse than those experienced in rural areas, he says.
“We have pharmacies unable to buy or sell medicines, we hear of groups and individuals with links to the military profiting from selling oxygen cylinders, people can’t bury or cremate their loved ones, wet season floods, farmers not farming, food shortages, cooking oil prices have increased by as much as 33 per cent, essential shops are closing, refugee camps are struggling, there’s more than 200,000 displaced people in our region in desperate need of everything – these are all important stories our journalists need to keep covering.”
Phil Thornton is a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists in Southeast Asia.
Names have been changed for the protection of journalists. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre reports 322,838 infection cases and 11,262, but as the author points out the real statistics are far worse than what is reported officially.
It is open season again for Indonesian trolls targeting Asia Pacific Report and other media with fake news and disinformation dispatches in a crude attempt to gloss over human rights violations.
Just three months ago I wrote about this issue in my “Dear editor” article exposing the disinformation campaign. There was silence for a while but now the fake letters to the editor – and other media outlets — have started again in earnest.
The latest four lengthy letters emailed to APR canvas the following topics — Jakarta’s controversial special autonomy status revised law for Papua, a brutal assault by Indonesian Air Force military policemen on a deaf Papuan man, and a shooting incident allegedly committed by pro-independence rebels – and they appear to have been written from a stock template.
And they all purport to have been written by “Papuan students” or “Papuans”. Are they their real names, and do they even exist?
The latest letter to Asia Pacific Report, dated July 30, was written by a “Paulus Ndiken” who claims:
“I’m a native Papuan currently living in Merauke, Papua, Indonesia. I would like to address your cover story about Indonesia apologises for ‘excessive force’ against deaf Papuan man.
“One day after the incident, the Indonesian Air Force had detained and punished severely 2 members … that had roughly apprehending [sic] Esebius Bapaimu in Merauke, Papua province.”
Dubious reputation
The letter linked to Yumi Toktok Stret, a website with a dubious reputation with accuracy. The report was sketchy and the correct name of the assaulted man, according to reputable news media and Papuan sources, is actually Steven Yadohamang.
“We regret that this kind of rough-housing [sic] happened on the street,” wrote correspondent “Ndiken”, “but we, as Papuans, [are] also glad to know that these perpetrators have received sound punishment …
“Responding to the unfortunate events, the Indonesian netizens had asked for the Indonesian military to immediately take action against the guilty party and were glad that the institution had addressed the people’s concern in a very fast manner.”
A more nuanced and accurate article was written for Asia Pacific Report by Brisbane-based West Papuan academic Yamin Kogoya who compared the “inhumane” assault to the tragic killing of George Floyd in the United States after a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes as he lay face down in the street on 25 May 2020.
Excerpt from one of the spate of questionable letters received by Asia Pacific Report about Papua. Image: ScreenshotHow Tabloid Jubi reported the assault on 29 July 2021.
Another letter writer, “Michel Wamebu” … “a native West Papuan living in Merauke”, said on June 29 he would like to bring our attention to West Papua, “which has been painted as if the whole island is in conflict, when actually [there are] only a few small areas [that] were invaded by the Free Papua terrorists that had been exposed to enormous violence.
“I would like to assure the world that there [is] nothing like a full-blown war.”
In the lengthy letter about an incident on June 4 when four civilians were killed in a shooting and two were wounded, “Wamebu” provided alleged details that are likely to have been provided by military sources and at variance with actual news reports at the time.
‘Spike’ over special autonomy
“Yamkon Doleon”, a “student from West Papua and currently studying in Yogyakarta, Indonesia” wrote on July 19 that there had been “a spike in the topic of Papuan special autonomy in social media and also [in] a few international media”.
Launching into a defence of the new Special Autonomy for Papua law for the governance of the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua for the next two decades – adopted by the House of Representatives in Jakarta last month without consultation with the Papuans, “Doleon” wrote:
“The Special Autonomy itself is a law that guarantees every Papuan to be the leader of their region, to have free education, free health service, and a boost I [the] economy … So which article is not in favour of the people?”
In a comment about the spate of Indonesian troll messages to some media outlets, West Papua Media Alerts said:
“Indonesian intelligence bots, go away. You are being banned and reported and deleted everytime you post, so go away.”
The engaged media advocacy and news service continued: “It is clear we are telling the truth, otherwise you wouldn’t have to spend so much money trying to counter it with a transparent influence exercise. Go home, invaders.
“Friends, there are literally over a hundred sock accounts using random Anglo names, and the same script response. These accounts all come from the BIN-run FirstMedia in Jakarta, and were all created after March 2.
West Papua Media Alerts message to “Indonesian bots”. Image: Screenshot
Report fake accounts
“If you see a comment, please click through on the account name, click the 3 dots and report them as a fake account and going against community standards. We will obviously delete and ban these fake accounts.”
Meanwhile, the London-based Indonesian human rights watchdog Tapol has strongly condemned the two Air Force military policemen who severely beat the disabled man, Steven Yadohamang, in Merauke, Papua, on 27 July 2021.
Video footage which has been widely shared on social media, shows the two personnel beating up a man and crushing his body into the ground and stamping on his head.
Tapol said in a statement: “It is clear from the footage that Yadohamang does not possess the capacity to defend himself against two individuals who appear to be unconcerned with possible consequences.”
A similar incident in Nabire took place the following day, said the statement. A West Papuan man, Nicolas Mote, was suddenly smacked on the head repeatedly during his arrest despite not resisting.
“The incident follows a spate of previous violent incidents committed by the security forces against civilians in West Papua province and is likely to raise further questions about what purpose increasing numbers of military personnel are serving in West Papua,” Tapol said.
Although the Air Force had apologised, it had suggested that the two military policemen, Second Sergeant Dimas Harjanto and Second Private Rian Febrianto, alone should bear responsibility for the incident, said the watchdog.
‘Pattern of violence’
“They, and the Indonesian media, have described the soldiers as ‘rogues’. This assessment is not consistent with a pattern of violence committed against civilians that has been allowed to go unpunished in recent months and years,” Tapol said.
“Indeed, had there not been such indisputable visual evidence of security force violence, it is entirely possible that the incident would not now be subject to further investigation by the authorities.
“But despite facing punishment, the perpetrators are likely to only to receive light sentences because they will be tried in military courts.”
Following the end of the New Order period, civilian politicians were not pushing for military personnel to be tried in civilian courts.
Since 2019, there had been a steady build-up of military and police personnel in the two provinces of Papua and West Papua, said Tapol.
“Deployments and security force operations have increased further since April 2021, when the Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Mahfud MD, designated the armed resistance movement, TPNPB, as a ‘terrorist’ group.
“West Papuans and Indonesians have raised concerns that the designation would further stigmatise ordinary West Papuans.
“We would also highlight that in West Papua there are significant underlying problems with institutionalised racism by the authorities.”
Tapol called on President Joko Widodo and the House of Representatives of Indonesia to finish the post-Suharto agenda of reforming the military to combat a culture of impunity over human rights violations in West Papua.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has warned the news media that the country’s emergency powers enable the government to target “yellow journalism” and the spreading of misinformation, reports the Solomon Islands Herald.
Speaking in Parliament on a motion to extend the covid pandemic State of Public Emergency by a further four months, Sogavare said the rationale for having this provision was to ensure individuals or the news media did not spread rumours or misinformation that cause disturbances may divert much needed resources.
“I respect our freedom to express ourselves but I must say that I am extremely disappointed in how some individuals and mainstream media have continued to disseminate rumours and misinformation to our people,” he said.
The Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (No.2) Regulations 2021 have provisions relating to yellow journalism.
Sogavare cited recent media reports that had been published in the past few days as “pathetic and disappointing”, especially since the publications were “mere rumours, misinformation and just outright lies”.
“The government has been very tolerant of these malicious lies and rumours published in the media. We have demonstrated restraint but I must say our patience and restraint is surely tested with this yellow journalism,” Prime Minister Sogavare said.
The press, though not formally recognised as an established part of the formal political system, played the role of the watchdog over the formally established three estates of the state — judiciary, legislature and executive.
Role of watchdog
Prime Minister Sogavare said the role of the watchdog must be based on the press providing verified and reliable information to the public.
He said the press was accorded the title of “Fourth Estate” because of the confidence and trust that the public had in the press as the watchdog.
Quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Prime Minister said: “Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and licence.
“Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.”
Prime Minister Sogavare also quoted Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961, saying: “Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves just what freedom of the press really is. Whose freedom is it?
“Does it merely guarantee the right of the publisher to do and say whatever he wishes, limited only by the laws of libel, public order and decency?
“Is it only a special licence to those who manage the units of the press? The answer, of course, is no.
‘Freedom of the press’
“Freedom of the press — or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press belongs to everyone — to the citizen as well as the publisher,” he said.
“The publisher is not granted the privilege of independence simply to provide him with a more favoured position in the community than is accorded to other citizens. He enjoys an explicitly defined independence because it is the only condition under which he can fulfil his role, which is to inform fully, fairly and comprehensively.
“The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is rather the citizens’ ‘right to know’, Sogavare added.
“Yellow journalism” is an American expression referring to newspapers that present poorly researched and unverified news while using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, rumours or false information. In the Pacific context, the phrase often means any journalism critical of governments.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
What started out as a simple image has inspired Filipino artists across the nation to “stand up” for what they believe in.
Satirical cartoonist Tarantadong Kalbo posted a digital drawing on Saturday, July 17, of “fist people” bowing down to seemingly resemble the fist bump gesture used by President Rodrigo Duterte and his allies.
The focus of the drawing is on the one fist person, reminiscent of the raised fist used by activists everywhere, who dared to stand up and stand out from the crowd.
Several artists have since joined in and added their own fist people to the drawing, slowly populating the artwork with more “dissenters.”
Kevin Eric Raymundo, the artist behind Tarantadong Kalbo, said he didn’t expect anyone to answer his call to action.
“’Yung sa artwork na ginawa ko, hindi ko siya na-envision as a campaign or a challenge (I didn’t envision my artwork as a campaign or a challenge). I was simply expressing my thoughts as an artist,” Raymundo said in a message to Rappler.
‘Deluge of trolls’
“At that time kasi, ang daming lumalabas na bad news…. And then as a satire artist, the deluge of trolls on my page…napapagod na ako.”
(At that time, there was a lot of bad news going around…. And then as a satire artist, I got tired by the deluge of trolls on my page.)
“But at the same time I also felt that I have this responsibility as an artist with a huge following to use my platform for good,” he added.
Three days after he posted his artwork, Raymundo tweeted about the overwhelming support he has received from fellow artists. He started retweeting artists who posted their own versions of the drawing, and he later compiled several entries all in one image.
But before his artwork went viral, Raymundo actually shared that his frustration with the local art community was one of the triggers that prompted him to draw the image.
“Mayroon kasing disconnect ’yung nakikita kong art [ng local art community] sa nangyayari sa bansa. So siguro I wanted to jolt people na, ‘Makialam naman tayo sa nangyayari,’” he explained.
(There’s a disconnect between the art [of the local art community] and what’s happening in the country. I guess I wanted to jolt people as if to tell them, “Let’s get involved with what’s happening.”)
Hoped for inspiration
Raymundo hoped the artwork inspired Filipinos to gather the strength and courage to take a stand, even if it means starting small.
“I guess the message is to not be afraid of speaking out, of standing up for what is right, even if it feels like you’re the only one doing it. All it takes [is] one drop to start a ripple,” he said.
Artists can post versions of Raymundo’s artwork featuring their own fist drawings using the hashtag #Tumindig.
Gaby Baizas is a digital communications specialist at Rappler. Journalism is her first love, social media is her second—here, she gets to dabble in both. She hopes people learn to read past headlines the same way she hopes punk never dies.
In the wake of this week’s revelations about the Pegasus spyware, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and two journalists with French and Moroccan dual nationality, Omar Brouksy and Maati Monjib, have filed a joint complaint with prosecutors in Paris.
They are calling on them to “identify those responsible, and their accomplices” for targeted harassment of the journalists.
The complaint does not name NSO Group, the Israeli company that makes Pegasus, but it targets the company and was filed in response to the revelations that Pegasus has been used to spy on at least 180 journalists in 20 countries, including 30 in France.
Drafted by RSF lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, the complaint cites invasion of privacy (article 216-1 of the French penal code), violation of the secrecy of correspondence (article 226-15), fraudulent collection of personal data (article 226- 18), fraudulent data introduction and extraction and access to automated data systems (articles 323-1 and 3, and 462-2), and undue interference with the freedom of expression and breach of the confidentiality of sources (article 431-1).
This complaint is the first in a series that RSF intends to file in several countries together with journalists who were directly targeted.
The complaint makes it clear that NSO Group’s spyware was used to target Brouksy and Monjib and other journalists the Moroccan authorities wanted to silence.
The author of two books on the Moroccan monarchy and a former AFP correspondent, Brouksy is an active RSF ally in Morocco.
20-day hunger strike
Monjib, who was recently defended by RSF, was released by the Moroccan authorities on March 23 after a 20-day hunger strike, and continues to await trial.
“We will do everything to ensure that NSO Group is convicted for the crimes it has committed and for the tragedies it has made possible,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
“We have filed a complaint in France first because this country appears to be a prime target for NSO Group customers, and because RSF’s international’s headquarters are located here. Other complaints will follow in other countries. The scale of the violations that have been revealed calls for a major legal response.”
After revelations by the Financial Times in 2019 about attacks on the smartphones of around 100 journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents, several lawsuits were filed against NSO Group, including one by the WhatsApp messaging service in California.
The amicus brief that RSF and other NGOs filed in this case said: “The intrusions into the private communications of activists and journalists cannot be justified on grounds of security or defence, but are carried out solely with the aim of enabling government opponents to be tracked down and gagged.
“NSO Group nonetheless continues to provide surveillance technology to its state clients, knowing that they are using it to violate international law and thereby failing in its responsibility to respect human rights.”
RSF included NSO Group in its list of “digital predators” in 2020.
I wasn’t invited to the inaugural Vanuatu media awards a couple of weeks ago. Nor was I asked to participate.
Instead, I spent the weekend preparing the final draft of the Media Association of Vanuatu’s Code of Ethics and Practice. I am proud to say it was adopted by the MAV executive last Friday.
If I had been there, and if I had been asked to say something, this is what I would have said (seriously: when did I ever wait for someone to ask me for my opinion?): Journalism isn’t just a profession; it’s a public service. It consists of sharing, broadcasting or publishing information in the public interest.
That’s the first paragraph in the new preamble of an updated Media Code of Ethics and Practice.
This code is integral to our work. It guides us from day to day. It tells us what we must do, what we should do, and what we should aspire to. It will help us serve the community better.
By describing how we should report the news, it helps us to decide what is news, and what’s not.
I agreed to help with this final draft because I know how important it is to think carefully about these things. Agonising over each word of this code has been an invaluable process for me. It’s taught me new things. It’s reinforced others. And it’s led me to do the one thing required of every reporter:
Challenge assumptions
Challenge every single assumption.
Reporting starts with asking questions. Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Socrates, one of humanity’s most famous inquiring minds, reportedly said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
The professional journey of every reporter begins with that phrase.
The Media Association of Vanuatu awards 2021. Image: MAV
In that spirit of examination, I want to take a moment to consider where we are as a media community, where we’ve come from, and where we need to go.
Vanuatu’s media can congratulate themselves for a number of things:
Our populace has a more nuanced and subtle understanding of the law and governance than many others. We joke about bush lawyers, but our interest in the law — and respect for it — is a product of how we in the media portray it.
We are bound to defend and protect the truth. The truth is the seed we sow. And from that seed, we reap a better democracY.
— Dan McGarry
Understanding politics
The same is true of our understanding of politics and Parliamentary procedure. Vanuatu follows Parliament the way some nations follow football. Our society is more engaged with the process of government than a great many others. The media plays a role in that, and we should be proud of it.
The status of women has advanced by leaps and bounds, both in media industry, and in society at large. Of course, the lioness’ share of the work has been done by two generations of fearless women who have campaigned tirelessly, selflessly to improve their lot.
But we have been there to mark their progress, to celebrate their wins, and to shine a light on the countless obstacles that still impede their progress.
The number of prosecutions and convictions for spousal abuse, sexual violence and other gender-based crimes is rising. These crimes are still happening far too often, but we can fairly say that the new, tougher sentences being handed out are a result of an awareness that we helped raise.
Our nation’s environmental awareness has been assisted greatly by the media. Again, we aren’t the ones saving the planet, but we are celebrating the people who do.
By giving space to the wisdom of kastom and the knowledge of science, we can exercise our right and our duty to protect this land.
The list of our achievements is long. I’m grateful that we finally found time to recognise and celebrate them. We have much to be proud of, and we should take this moment to applaud ourselves for a job well done.
About our failures
Now… let’s talk about our failures.
The Code of Ethics requires that we be frank, honest and fair. It also instructs us not to leave out any uncomfortable facts just because they don’t fit the narrative. But we cannot ignore the fact that we could do much, much more, and we could do far, far better.
Fear still dominates and diminishes us. Don’t pretend it’s not there. And don’t you dare tell me it hasn’t made you back off a story. Every single press conferences reeks of faltering confidence.
We’re all guilty of it. Every single one of us. Back in 2015, I made sure my ABC colleague Liam Fox was in the room when Marcellino Pipite announced that he had exercised his power as Acting Head of State and pardoned himself and his cronies.
I made sure he was there because I knew he would ask the one question that mattered: “Aren’t you just trying to save your own skin?”
I’m grateful to Liam for stepping up. But now I wish I’d been the one who had the courage to ask.
We have to find a way past our fear, and we can only do that together. If we all enter the room ready to ask hard questions, it’s easier for each one of us to quit wishing we could and just do it.
Stand up for each other
We have to learn to stand up for each other. Ten years ago, media pioneer Marc Neil-Jones was savagely assaulted by a minister of state.
That bullying act of injustice upset me deeply. It’s also what inspired me to take Marc’s place when his health forced him to step aside.
But what upset me even more was the failure of the media community to say one thing, and say it clearly: Violence against the media is never OK.
Never.
The only way we can be sure that those days of violent intimidation are past is if we hold that line, and condemn any act of coercion or violence loudly and in one voice.
To this day, I’m ashamed that we didn’t do at least that much for Marc.
Where is Marc’s lifetime achievement award? How much longer are we going to ignore his bravery, his leadership? Is his courage and determination going to be forgotten?
Not by me, it won’t.
Standing up to threats
I know how hard it is to stand up to disapproval, verbal abuse, threats of violence, abusive language, rumours, lies and prejudice. I know how hard it is to stand up to my own peers, to take it on the chin when I find out I’m wrong, and to refuse to bend when I know I’m right.
I’ve learned this lesson: They can take your job. They can take your livelihood. They can stab you in the back. They can grind you down. They can attack your dignity, they can shake your confidence.
But they can’t change the truth. Because it’s not my truth, or yours, or theirs.
You can find another place to work. You can find other ways to ply your trade. You can bear up under pressure, even when nobody else believes you can. You can learn to carry on.
You can do all of that, if you’re faithful to the truth. The truth is what we serve, not the director, the producer, the editor.
The truth is our republic. We have a duty to defend it. All of it. Not just the bits that please us. All of it. All the time. Even when it costs us. Especially when it costs us.
We are bound to defend and protect the truth. The truth is the seed we sow. And from that seed, we reap a better democracy.
Holding power to account
Democracy unchallenged isn’t democracy. The people can’t rule if they can’t ask questions.
This principle underpins the media’s role in keeping democracy healthy, and rebuilding it when it’s under threat. The role of the media is to hold power to account.
In Vanuatu, this basic idea needs to be better understood by the government and the governed alike. We can do this by helping journalists better understand their role, and helping them get what they need to fulfil that role more effectively.
The revised Media Code of Ethics and Practice is a milestone on that road. But it’s meaningless if we don’t stand by it.
To my media colleagues, I say: Forget your jealousies, your rivalries. Reject pride, collusion and corruption wherever you see it, even in yourself. Especially in yourself.
Stand with MAV. Uphold this code, and we will stand together with the truth. Because the truth is our republic.
Dan McGarry is former media director (pending an appeal) of the Vanuatu Daily Post / Buzz FM and independent journalist and he held that position since 2015 until the government blocked his work permit in 2019. His Village Explainer is a semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Greste, who spent more than 400 days behind bars after he and two colleagues were charged with terrorism offences while on assignment for Al Jazeera in Egypt, said the press freedom tracker would record incidents, both attacks on press freedom and positive steps forward, and help the AJF and other stakeholders assess the state of press freedom in the region.
Peter Greste wants to help the Australian public understand the challenges facing press freedom in Australia.
Journalism professor Peter Greste … biggest challenge facing press freedom in Australia is making the public understand the threats facing media. Image: Screenshot/Pacific Media Watch
“It’s designed to be something that looks at the state of press freedom, the direction of travel and whether it’s up or down across the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
“We’re also being very careful not to rate countries because we don’t think that’s necessarily helpful. What we’re looking at, though, is a way of comparing and contrasting the way that various countries handle press freedom across the region and the broad direction of trends.”
Greste said the AJF would use it as a tool “for opening political and diplomatic conversations and as a tool for advocacy”.
The AJF was formed in 2017 by Greste, lawyer Chris Flynn and former journalist and strategic communications consultant Peter Wilkinson. Flynn and Wilkinson worked with the Greste family to free Greste from an Egyptian prison.
Complement advocacy work
The press freedom tracker, which was launched in Brisbane yesterday, will complement the AJF’s advocacy work and how the organisation engages with governments to discuss press freedom issues.
Greste said the AJF was also working on its “regional dialogue” project, which is a series of semi-formal meetings between news companies, governments and security agencies designed to help each understand the other better and find better ways of working together.
“One of the chief arguments is that there’s often talk about the trade-off between press freedom and national security, the balance between press freedom and national security, which implies that if you have more of one, by definition, you have less of the other,” he said.
“We disagree with that characterisation. We think that press freedom is actually part of the national security framework. It indirectly helps government function better, it helps the system work more effectively, it helps expose corruption within governments and organise crime.”
The biggest challenge facing press freedom in Australia, said Professor Greste who is also UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, was making the general population understand the threats facing media.
“Opening up a daily newspaper, it doesn’t feel as though Australia press is limited in any way. We don’t have explicit censorship and not seeing journalists thrown in prison. Up until the [Australian Federal Police] raids [on the ABC and a News Corp journalist], we weren’t seeing police kicking down the doors of journalists in a rage reaction. So it doesn’t look as though journalism is in a crisis,” he said.
Greste said that if the public had a better understanding of how “dangerous it is for sources within government to speak to journalists anonymously, confidentially”, and the effect that has on stories that are not being told, he believed it would be more widely recognised that journalism in this country was “not as healthy as we’d like to believe”.
No constitutional protection
“The challenge is getting the public to understand the role that journalism plays, and appreciate that role, and recognise the loss of press freedom that we’ve seen since 9/11. The impact that the national security legislation has had on press freedom.”
In Australia specifically, the AJF is pursuing the creation of a media freedom act that would help provide protections to journalists and compel the courts to consider press freedom in any case that would affect the state of press freedom in the country.
“Australia is about the worst Western liberal democracy in the world when it comes to legal and constitutional protections for things like freedom of speech and press freedom,” Greste said.
“We have no constitutional protection at all.”
The AJF hopes a media freedom act would help protect news organisations from police raids such as the AFP’s 2019 raid on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters by insisting judges be obligated to consider press freedom and the public interest before signing warrants to allow such raids to take place.
Greste said that while a parliamentary inquiry in August last year recommended sweeping reforms, politicians need to find the will to implement the recommendations.
“The opportunity for the AJF is to help the public understand this and to find and develop political support for media freedom,” he said.
“We’re getting some support, we’ve had a number of politicians approach us. We’re in the process of drafting an act. We’ve been speaking to a number of independent MPs about working on the idea and certainly politicians in the Coalition and in the Labor Party privately have been expressing support for the idea.”
“It’s just that it’s hard to put on the political agenda and get the kind of moment that we need to see a piece of legislation go through.”
Republished with permission from the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.
Veteran journalist and former chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) Jose Jaime “Nonoy” Espina has died after battling liver cancer, his family has confirmed.
Espina was 59 years old, and died yesterday at their home in Bacolod.
“Nonoy passed on peacefully, quietly surrounded by family tonight, at 9:20 pm,” his sister, journalist Inday Espina-Varona, said on Facebook.
Espina “survived a severe infection of covid-19 and was able to return to the bosom of the family. His death was due to liver cancer,” said Varona.
Press freedom champion Espina had just turned over the NUJP to a new set of officers early this year, but even amid health problems he shepherded the union through challenging times for the Philippine press.
Under his chairmanship, the NUJP led rallies in support of media organisations which were harassed by the Duterte government – the closure order by the Securities and Exchange Comission of Rappler in 2018, and the franchise kill of ABS-CBN in 2020.
“Nonoy was among the loudest voices at rallies in support of the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise, leading a march in Quezon City in March 2020 and later joining similar activities in Bacolod City, where he was based,” the NUJP said in a statement.
“He was a tireless champion for the freedom of the press and the welfare of media workers,” said the NUJP.
Espina was among the founding members of the union, and a member of the directorate for multiple terms until his chairmanship from 2018 to 2021.
“He led the NUJP through waves of attacks and harassment by the government. For his defence of colleagues, he was red-tagged himself, and, alongside other members of the union, was made a target of government propagandists,” said the NUJP.
Espina “was also among the first responders at the Ampatuan Massacre in Maguindanao in 2009,” said the NUJP, referring to the worst attack on Philippine media in the country’s history, where 32 journalists were killed when a powerful political clan ambushed the convoy of its rival who was on his way to file a certificate of candidacy.
At the tail end of his chairmanship, the NUJP led the campaign for justice for the 58 victims of the massacre up to the historic conviction in December 2019 for the principal suspects.
Media welfare Speaking to Rappler in 2019 about the Ampatuan case, Espina discussed the need for the Philippine media to galvanisxe and fight for workers’ rights, saying the situation “has worsened” since the massacre.
“Community media aside, even the mainstream especially broadcast, there are more and more contractual workers, there’s no security of tenure, no benefits – that’s harsh,” said Espina.
This is true to Espina’s character.
“A former senior editor for news website InterAksyon, he advocated for better working conditions for media despite himself being laid off from the website, a move that he and other former members of the staff questioned before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC),” said the NUJP.
“They won that fight and Nonoy has led many other journalists to join the bigger fight for a more independent and freer press,” said the NUJP.
Active in the ‘mosquito press’ Espina was a musician known to journalists for his signature singing voice, “but he was first and foremost a journalist,” said Varona.
Espina had been a journalist from high school to college, editing UP Visayas’ Pagbutlak. Espina was a recipient of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines or CEGP’s Marcelo H. Del Pilar Award, the highest honour of the guild.
“He was later part of community media group Correspondents, Broadcasters and Reporters Association—Action News Service, or COBRA-ANS, which was part of the “mosquito press” during the Marcos dictatorship,” said the NUJP.
He also served as editor for Inquirer.net.
“NUJP thanks him for his long years of service to the union and the profession and promises to honour him by protecting that prestige,” said the union.
“Nonoy leaves us with lessons and fond memories, as well as the words he often used in statements: That the press is not free because it is allowed to be. It is free because it insists on being free,” the NUJP said.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published a gallery of grim portraits — those of 37 heads of state or government who crack down massively on press freedom, reports RSF.
Some of these “predators of press freedom” have been operating for more than two decades while others have just joined the blacklist, which for the first time includes two women and a European predator.
Nearly half (17) of the predators are making their first appearance on the 2021 list, which RSF is publishing five years after the last one, from 2016.
All are heads of state or government who trample on press freedom by creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them, when they do not have blood on their hands because they have directly or indirectly pushed for journalists to be murdered.
Nineteen of these predators rule countries that are coloured red on the RSF’s press freedom map, meaning their situation is classified as “bad” for journalism, and 16 rule countries coloured black, meaning the situation is “very bad.”
The average age of the predators is 66. More than a third (13) of these tyrants come from the Asia-Pacific region.
“There are now 37 leaders from around the world in RSF’s predators of press freedom gallery and no one could say this list is exhaustive,” said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
“Each of these predators has their own style. Some impose a reign of terror by issuing irrational and paranoid orders.
Others adopt a carefully constructed strategy based on draconian laws.
A major challenge now is for these predators to pay the highest possible price for their oppressive behaviour. We must not let their methods become the new normal.”
The full RSF 2021 media predators gallery. Image: RSF
New entrants The most notable of the list’s new entrants is undoubtedly Saudi Arabia’s 35-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is the centre of all power in his hands and heads a monarchy that tolerates no press freedom.
His repressive methods include spying and threats that have sometimes led to abduction, torture and other unthinkable acts. Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific murder exposed a predatory method that is simply barbaric.
The new entrants also include predators of a very different nature such as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose aggressive and crude rhetoric about the media has reached new heights since the start of the pandemic, and a European prime minister, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the self-proclaimed champion of “illiberal democracy” who has steadily and effectively undermined media pluralism and independence since being returned to power in 2010.
Women predators The first two women predators are both from Asia. One is Carrie Lam, who heads a government that was still democratic when she took over.
The chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since 2017, Lam has proved to be the puppet of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and now openly supports his predatory policies towards the media.
They led to the closure of Hong Kong’s leading independent newspaper, Apple Daily, on June 24 and the jailing of its founder, Jimmy Lai, a 2020 RSF Press Freedom laureate.
The other woman predator is Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister since 2009 and the daughter of the country’s independence hero. Her predatory exploits include the adoption of a digital security law in 2018 that has led to more than 70 journalists and bloggers being prosecuted.
Historic predators Some of the predators have been on this list since RSF began compiling it 20 years ago. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, were on the very first list, as were two leaders from the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, whose recent predatory inventiveness has won him even more notoriety.
In all, seven of the 37 leaders on the latest list have retained their places since the first list RSF published in 2001.
Three of the historic predators are from Africa, the region where they reign longest. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 79, has been Equatorial Guinea’s president since 1979, while Isaias Afwerki, whose country is ranked last in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, has been Eritrea’s president since 1993.
Paul Kagame, who was appointed Rwanda’s vice-president in 1994 before taking over as president in 2000, will be able to continue ruling until 2034.
For each of the predators, RSF has compiled a file identifying their “predatory method,” how they censor and persecute journalists, and their “favourite targets” –- the kinds of journalists and media outlets they go after.
The file also includes quotations from speeches or interviews in which they “justify” their predatory behaviour, and their country’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index.
RSF published a list of Digital Press Freedom Predators in 2020 and plans to publish a list of non-state predators before the end of 2021.
Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch collaborate with the Paris-based RSF.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has staged parallel protests outside the Chinese embassies in Paris and Berlin, holding funeral-style processions to denounce the “killing” of Apple Daily by the Hong Kong government, and to raise alarm of the threats posed by the Beijing regime to press freedom globally.
Arriving at the Chinese embassy following a hearse, RSF representatives in Paris staged a mock funeral procession, delivering a coffin and funeral flowers with a placard inscribed “Apple Daily (1995-2021).”
In Berlin, RSF representatives staged a parallel action, “burying” the daily newspaper which was one of the last major independent Chinese-language media critical of the Beijing regime.
RSF condemns the killing of the outlet perpetrated by Chief Executive Carrie Lam by order of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and calls for the immediate release of all detained Apple Daily employees as well as the media outlet’s founder Jimmy Lai, RSF 2020 Press Freedom Prize laureate.
“We have gathered today to raise alarm about the urgent risk of death to press freedom in Hong Kong,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire told reporters gathered outside the Chinese embassy in Paris.
“Democracies cannot continue to stand idly by while the Chinese regime systematically erodes what’s left of the country’s independent media, as it has already done in the rest of the country.
International community ‘must act’
“Today’s funeral is for Apple Daily, but tomorrow’s may be for press freedom in China. It’s time for the international community to act in line with their own values and obligations and defend what’s left of the free press in Hong Kong, before China’s model of information control claims another victim.”
Deloire also called out China’s Ambassador to France Lu Shaye, who last week gave an interview labelling media critical of the Chinese regime a “media machine” and journalists criticising Chinese authorities as “mad hyenas”.
Lu Shaye believes there is no need for a plurality of media: “With two or three groups and a few people, we can become the vanguard of the war of public opinion and we can coordinate this war well.”
Lu Shaye has previously been critical of French media, stating last year at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemics: “I’m not saying the French media always tell lies about China, but much of their reporting on China is not true.”
Earlier this week, RSF submitted an urgent appeal asking the UN to “take all necessary measures” to safeguard press freedom in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, once a bastion of press freedom, has fallen from 18th place in 2002 to 80th place in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
The People’s Republic of China, for its part, has stagnated at 177th out of 180.
Pacific Media Watch works in association with Reporters Without Borders.
