Category: Media Freedom

  • ANALYSIS: By Valerie A. Cooper, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

    Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

    But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

    Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

    Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

    Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

    Public service or state propaganda?
    The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

    Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

    Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

    The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

    On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

    Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

    Leaving a void
    Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

    Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

    The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

    In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

    CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

    Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

    Staff member with sign protesting in front of Voice of America sign.
    A Voice of America staffer protests outside the Washington DC offices on March 17, 2025, after employees were placed on administrative leave. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Other voices get louder
    The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

    Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

    And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

    Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

    An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

    Switched off
    Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

    This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

    The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

    But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.The Conversation

    Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ANALYSIS: By Valerie A. Cooper, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    Of all the contradictions and ironies of Donald Trump’s second presidency so far, perhaps the most surprising has been his shutting down the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for being “radical propaganda”.

    Critics have long accused the agency — and its affiliated outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia — of being a propaganda arm of US foreign policy.

    But to the current president, the USAGM has become a promoter of “anti-American ideas” and agendas — including allegedly suppressing stories critical of Iran, sympathetically covering the issue of “white privilege” and bowing to pressure from China.

    Propaganda is clearly in the eye of the beholder. The Moscow Times reported Russian officials were elated by the demise of the “purely propagandistic” outlets, while China’s Global Times celebrated the closure of a “lie factory”.

    Meanwhile, the European Commission hailed USAGM outlets as a “beacon of truth, democracy and hope”. All of which might have left the average person understandably confused: Voice of America? Wasn’t that the US propaganda outlet from World War II?

    Well, yes. But the reality of USAGM and similar state-sponsored global media outlets is more complex — as are the implications of the US agency’s demise.

    Public service or state propaganda?
    The USAGM is one of several international public service media outlets based in Western democracies. Others include Australia’s ABC International, the BBC World Service, CBC/Radio-Canada, France Médias Monde, NHK-World Japan, Deutsche Welle in Germany and SRG SSR in Switzerland.

    Part of the Public Media Alliance, they are similar to national public service media, largely funded by taxpayers to uphold democratic ideals of universal access to news and information.

    Unlike national public media, however, they might not be consumed — or even known — by domestic audiences. Rather, they typically provide news to countries without reliable independent media due to censorship or state-run media monopolies.

    The USAGM, for example, provides news in 63 languages to more than 100 countries. It has been credited with bringing attention to issues such as protests against covid-19 lockdowns in China and women’s struggles for equal rights in Iran.

    On the other hand, the independence of USAGM outlets has been questioned often, particularly as they are required to share government-mandated editorials.

    Voice of America has been criticised for its focus on perceived ideological adversaries such as Russia and Iran. And my own research has found it perpetuates stereotypes and the neglect of African nations in its news coverage.

    Leaving a void
    Ultimately, these global media outlets wouldn’t exist if there weren’t benefits for the governments that fund them. Sharing stories and perspectives that support or promote certain values and policies is an effective form of “public diplomacy”.

    Yet these international media outlets differ from state-controlled media models because of editorial systems that protect them from government interference.

    The Voice of America’s “firewall”, for instance, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news”. Such protections allow journalists to report on their own governments more objectively.

    In contrast, outlets such as China Media Group (CMG), RT from Russia, and PressTV from Iran also reach a global audience in a range of languages. But they do this through direct government involvement.

    CMG subsidiary CCTV+, for example, states it is “committed to telling China’s story to the rest of the world”.

    Though RT states it is an autonomous media outlet, research has found the Russian government oversees hiring editors, imposing narrative angles, and rejecting stories.

    Staff member with sign protesting in front of Voice of America sign.
    A Voice of America staffer protests outside the Washington DC offices on March 17, 2025, after employees were placed on administrative leave. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Other voices get louder
    The biggest concern for Western democracies is that these other state-run media outlets will fill the void the USAGM leaves behind — including in the Pacific.

    Russia, China and Iran are increasing funding for their state-run news outlets, with China having spent more than US$6.6 billion over 13 years on its global media outlets. China Media Group is already one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, providing news content to more than 130 countries in 44 languages.

    And China has already filled media gaps left by Western democracies: after the ABC stopped broadcasting Radio Australia in the Pacific, China Radio International took over its frequencies.

    Worryingly, the differences between outlets such as Voice of America and more overtly state-run outlets aren’t immediately clear to audiences, as government ownership isn’t advertised.

    An Australian senator even had to apologise recently after speaking with PressTV, saying she didn’t know the news outlet was affiliated with the Iranian government, or that it had been sanctioned in Australia.

    Switched off
    Trump’s move to dismantle the USAGM doesn’t come as a complete surprise, however. As the authors of Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America described, the first Trump administration failed in its attempts to remove the firewall and install loyalists.

    This perhaps explains why Trump has resorted to more drastic measures this time. And, as with many of the current administration’s legally dubious actions, there has been resistance.

    The American Foreign Service Association says it will challenge the dismantling of the USAGM, while the Czech Republic is seeking EU support to keep Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty on the air.

    But for many of the agency’s journalists, contractors, broadcasting partners and audiences, it may be too late. Last week, The New York Times reported some Voice of America broadcasts had already been replaced by music.The Conversation

    Dr Valerie A. Cooper is lecturer in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    Global media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli occupation forces for assassinating two more Palestinian journalists covering the Gaza genocide, taking the media death toll in the besieged enclave to at least 208 since the war started.

    Journalist and contributor to the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher, Hossam Shabat, is the latest to have been killed.

    Witnesses said Hossam’s vehicle was hit in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya. Several pedestrians were also wounded, reports Al Jazeera.

    in a statement, Al Jazeera condemned the killings, saying Hossam had joined the network’s journalists and correspondents killed during the ongoing war on Gaza, including Samer Abudaqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Ismail Al-Ghoul, and Ahmed Al-Louh.

    Al Jazeera affirmed its commitment to pursue all legal measures to “prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists”.

    The network also said it stood in “unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza and reaffirms its commitment to achieving justice” by prosecuting the killers of more than 200 journalists in Gaza since October 2023.

    The network extended its condolences to Hossam’s family, and called on all human rights and media organisations to condemn the Israeli occupation’s systematic killing of journalists.

    Hossam was the second journalist killed in Gaza yesterday.

    House targeted
    Earlier, the Israeli military killed Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for the Beirut-based Palestine Today television, in an attack targeting a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

    A fellow journalist circulated a video clip of Mansour’s father bidding farewell to his son with heartbreaking words, putting a microphone in his son’s hand and urging the voice that once conveyed the truth to a deaf world.

    “Stand up and speak, tell the world, you are the one who tells the truth, for the image alone is not enough,” the father said through tears.

    Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), condemned the killings, describing them as war crimes.

    The CPJ called for an independent international investigation into whether they were deliberately targeted.

    “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.

    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour
    The two latest journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza . . . Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat (left) and Mohammad Mansour of Palestine Today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Nightmare has to end’
    “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour, whose killings may have been targeted.”

    Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a ceasefire that began on January 19.

    The occupation forces continued bombarding Gaza for an eighth consecutive day, killing at least 23 people in predawn attacks including seven children.

    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls "to stop this madness"
    Al Jazeera reports that the world ignores calls “to stop this madness” as Israel kills dozens in Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    A UN official, Olga Cherevko, said Israel’s unhindered attacks on Gaza were a “bloody stain on our collective consciousness”, noting “our calls for this madness to stop have gone unheeded” by the world.

    Gaza’s Health Ministry said 792 people had been killed and 1663 injured in the week since Israel resumed its war on the Strip.

    The total death toll since the war started on October 7, 2023, has risen to 50,144, while 113,704 people have been injured, it said.

    West Bank ‘news desert’
    Meanwhile, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the repression of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem had intensified in recent months despite the recent ceasefire in Gaza before it collapsed.

    In the eastern Palestinian territories, Israeli armed forces have shot at journalists, arrested them and restricted their movement.

    The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has detained Al Jazeera journalists.

    RSF warned of a growing crackdown, which was transforming the region into a “news desert”.

    One of the co-directors of the Palestinian Oscar-winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, has been detained by Israeli forces. It happened after he was attacked by a mob of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

    He was in an ambulance receiving treatment when the doors were opened and he was abducted by the Israeli military. Colleagues say he has “disappeared”.

    A number of American activists were also attacked, and video on social media showed them fleeing the settler violence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • By Christine Rovoi of PMN News

    A human rights group in Aotearoa New Zealand has welcomed support from several Pacific island nations for West Papua, which has been under Indonesian military occupation since the 1960s.

    West Papua is a region (with five provinces) in the far east of Indonesia, centred on the island of New Guinea. Half of the eastern side of New Guinea is Papua New Guinea.

    West Papua Action Aotearoa claims the Indonesian occupation of West Papua has resulted in serious human rights violations, including a lack of press freedom.

    Catherine Delahunty, the group’s spokesperson, says many West Papuans have been displaced as a result of Indonesia’s military activity.

    In an interview with William Terite on PMN’s Pacific Mornings, the environmentalist and former Green Party MP said most people did not know much about West Papua “because there’s virtually a media blackout around this country”.

    “It’s an hour away from Darwin [Australia], and yet, most people don’t know what has been going on there since the 1960s. It’s a very serious and tragic situation, which is the responsibility of all of us as neighbours,” she said.

    “They [West Papuans] regard themselves fully as members of the Pacific community but are treated by Indonesia as an extension of their empire because they have all these natural resources, which Indonesia is rapidly extracting, using violence to maintain the state.”

    Delahunty said the situation was “very disturbing”, adding there was a “need for support and change alongside the West Papuan people”.

    UN support
    In a recent joint statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the leaders of Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Sāmoa and Vanuatu called on the global community to support the displaced people of West Papua.

    A Free West Papua rally.
    A Free West Papua rally. Image: Nichollas Harrison/PMN News

    Delahunty said the Pacific island nations urged the UN Council to advocate for human rights in West Papua.

    She also said West Papua Action Aotearoa wanted Indonesia to allow a visit from a UN human rights commissioner, a request that Indonesia has consistently denied.

    She said Sāmoa was the latest country to support West Papua, contrasting this with the “lack of action from larger neighbours like New Zealand and Australia”.

    Delahunty said that while smaller island nations and some African groups supported West Papua, more powerful states provide little assistance.

    “It’s great that these island nations are keeping the issue alive at the United Nations, but we particularly want to shout out to Sāmoa because it’s a new thing,” she told Terite.

    “They’ve never, as a government, made public statements. There are many Sāmoan people who support West Papua, and I work with them. But it’s great to see their government step up and make the statement.”

    Benny Wenda, right, a West Papuan independence leader, with Eni Faleomavaega, the late American Sāmoan congressman,
    Benny Wenda (right), a West Papuan independence leader, with Eni Faleomavaega, the late American Sāmoan congressman, a supporter of the Free West Papua campaign. Image: Office of Benny Wenda/PMN News

    Historically, the only public statements supporting West Papua have come from American Sāmoan congressman Eni Faleomavaega, who strongly advocated for it until he died in 2017.

    Praise for Sāmoa
    Delahunty praised Sāmoa’s support for the joint statement but voiced her disappointment at New Zealand and Australia.

    “What’s not encouraging is the failure of Australia and New Zealand to actually support this kind of joint statement and to vigorously stand up for West Papua because they have a lot of power in the region,” she said.

    “They’re the big states, and yet it’s the leadership of the smaller nations that we see today.”

    In September 2024, Phillip Mehrtens, a pilot from New Zealand, was released by West Papua rebels after being held captive for 19 months.

    Mehrtens, 39, was kidnapped by West Papua National Liberation Army fighters in February 2023 and was released after lengthy negotiations and “critical’ diplomatic efforts by authorities in Wellington and Jakarta.

    New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters welcomed his release.

    NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens with West Papua Liberation Army
    New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens was kidnapped by militants in West Papua on 7 March 2023. He was released 19 months later. Image: TPNPB/PMN News

    Why is there conflict in West Papua?
    Once a Dutch colony, the region is divided into five provinces, the two largest being Papua and West Papua. It is separate from PNG, which gained independence from Australia in 1975.

    Papuan rebels seeking independence from Indonesia have issued threats and attacked aircraft they believe are carrying personnel and delivering supplies for Jakarta.

    The resource-rich region has sought independence since 1969, when it came under Indonesia’s control following a disputed UN-supervised vote.

    Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian authorities have been common with pro-independence fighters increasing their attacks since 2018.

    The Free Papua Movement has conducted a low-intensity guerrilla war against Indonesia, targeting military and police personnel, along with ordinary Indonesian civilians.

    Human rights groups estimate that Indonesian security forces have killed more than 300,000 West Papuans since the conflict started.

    But the Indonesian government denies any wrongdoing, claiming that West Papua is part of Indonesia and was integrated after the controversial “Act of Free Choice” in 1969.

    Manipulated process
    The Act of Free Choice has been widely criticised as a manipulated process, with international observers and journalists raising concerns about the fairness and legitimacy of the plebiscite.

    Despite the criticism, the United States and its allies in the region, New Zealand and Australia, have supported Indonesia’s efforts to gain acceptance in the UN for the pro-integration vote.

    Human rights groups, such as Delahunty’s West Papua Action Aotearoa, have raised “serious concerns” about the deteriorating human rights situation in Papua and West Papua.

    They cite alarming abuses against indigenous Papuans, including child killings, disappearances, torture, and mass displacement.

    Delahunty believes the hope for change lies with the nations of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa. She said it also came from the younger people in Indonesia today.

    “This is a colonisation issue, and it’s a bit like Aotearoa, in the sense that when the people who have been part of the colonising start addressing the issue, you get change. But it’s far too slow. So we are so disappointed.”

    Republished with permission from PMN News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Columbia Journalism School

    Freedom of the press — a bedrock principle of American democracy — is under threat in the United States.

    Here at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism we are witnessing and experiencing an alarming chill. We write to affirm our commitment to supporting and exercising First Amendment rights for students, faculty, and staff on our campus — and, indeed, for all.

    After Homeland Security seized and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, without charging him with any crime, many of our international students have felt afraid to come to classes and to events on campus.

    They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security.

    President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many.

    These actions represent threats against political speech and the ability of the American press to do its essential job and are part of a larger design to silence voices that are out of favour with the current administration.

    We have also seen reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport the Palestinian poet and journalist Mosab Abu Toha, who has written extensively in the New Yorker about the condition of the residents of Gaza and warned of the mortal danger to Palestinian journalists.

    There are 13 million legal foreign residents (green card holders) in the United States. If the administration can deport Khalil, it means those 13 million people must live in fear if they dare speak up or publish something that runs afoul of government views.

    There are more than one million international students in the United States. They, too, may worry that they are no longer free to speak their mind. Punishing even one person for their speech is meant to intimidate others into self-censorship.

    One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy. The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press.

    The President has sued CBS for an interview with Kamala Harris which Trump found too favourable. He has sued the Pulitzer Prize committee for awarding prizes to stories critical of him.

    He has even sued the Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a pre-election poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead at that point in the state.

    Large corporations like Disney and Meta settled lawsuits most lawyers thought they could win because they did not want to risk the wrath of the Trump administration and jeopardize business they have with the federal government.

    Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided that the paper’s editorial pages would limit themselves to pieces celebrating “free markets and individual liberties.”

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration insists on hand-picking the journalists who will be permitted to cover the White House and Pentagon, and it has banned the Associated Press from press briefings because the AP is following its own style book and refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

    The Columbia Journalism School stands in defence of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum. The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardise these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism.

    The Faculty of Columbia Journalism School
    New York

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recalled that 20 journalists were killed during the six-year Philippines presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, a regime marked by fierce repression of the press.

    Former president Duterte was arrested earlier this week as part of an International Criminal Court investigation into crimes against humanity linked to his merciless war on drugs. He is now in The Hague awaiting trial.

    The watchdog has called on the administration of current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom and combat impunity for the crimes against media committed by Duterte’s regime.

    “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Rodrigo Duterte said in his inauguration speech on 30 June 2016, which set the tone for the rest of his mandate — unrestrained violence against journalists and total disregard for press freedom, said RSF in a statement.

    During the Duterte regime’s rule, RSF recorded 20 cases of journalists killed while working.

    Among them was Jesus Yutrago Malabanan, shot dead after covering Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war for Reuters.

    Online harassment surged, particularly targeting women journalists.

    Maria Ressa troll target
    The most prominent victim was Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the news site Rappler, who faced an orchestrated hate campaign led by troll armies allied with the government in response to her commitment to exposing the then-president’s bloody war.

    Media outlets critical of President Duterte’s authoritarian excesses were systematically muzzled: the country’s leading television network, ABS-CBN, was forced to shut down; Rappler and Maria Ressa faced repeated lawsuits; and a businessman close to the president took over the country’s leading newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, raising concerns over its editorial independence.

    “The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is good news for the Filipino journalism community, who were the direct targets of his campaign of terror,” said RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani.

    RSF's Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani
    RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director Cédric Alviani . . . “the Filipino journalism community were the direct targets of [former president Rodrigo Duterte]’s campaign of terror.” Image: RSF
    “President Marcos and his administration must immediately investigate Duterte’s past crimes and take strong measures to fully restore the country’s press freedom.”

    The repression carried out during Duterte’s tenure continues to impact on Filipino journalism: investigative journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio has been languishing in prison since her arrest in 2020, still awaiting a verdict in her trial for “financing terrorism” and “illegal possession of firearms” — trumped-up charges that could see her sentenced to 40 years in prison.

    With 147 journalists murdered since the restoration of democracy in 1986, the Philippines remains one of the deadliest countries for media workers.

    The republic ranked 134th out of 180 in the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

    Source report from Reporters Without Borders. Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis

    New Zealand-based Canadian billionaire James Grenon owes the people of this country an immediate explanation of his intentions regarding media conglomerate NZME. This cannot wait until a shareholders’ meeting at the end of April.

    Is his investment in the owner of The New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB nothing more than a money-making venture to realise the value of its real estate marketing subsidiary? Has he no more interest than putting his share of the proceeds from spinning off OneRoof into a concealed safe in his $15 million Takapuna mansion?

    Or does he intent to leverage his 9.6 percent holding and the support of other investors to take over the board (if not the company) in order to dictate the editorial direction of the country’s largest newspaper and its number one commercial radio station?

    Grenon has said little beyond the barest of announcements that have been released by the New Zealand Stock Exchange. While he must exercise care to avoid triggering statutory takeover obligations, he cannot simply treat NZME as another of the private equity projects that have made him very wealthy. He is dealing with an entity whose influence and obligations extend far beyond the crude world of finance.

    While I do not presume for one moment that he reads this column each week, let me suspend disbelief for a moment and speak directly to him.

    Come clean and tell the people of New Zealand what you are doing and, more importantly, why.

    Over the past week there has been considerable speculation over the answers to those questions. Much of it has drawn on what little we know of James Grenon. And it is precious little beyond two facts.

    Backed right-wing Centrist
    The first is that he put money behind the launch of a right-wing New Zealand news aggregation website, The Centrist, although he apparently no longer has a financial interest in it.

    The second fact is that he provided financial support for conservative activists taking legal action against New Zealand media.

    When I contacted a well-connected friend in Canada to ask about Grenon the response was short: “Never heard of him . . . and there aren’t that many Canadian billionaires.”

    In short, the man who potentially may hold sway over the board of one of our biggest media companies has a very low profile indeed. That is a luxury to which he can no longer lay claim.

    It may be that his interest is, after all, a financial one based on his undoubted investment skills. He may see a lucrative opportunity in OneRoof. After all, Fairfax’s public listing and subsequent sale of its Australian equivalent, Domain, provided not only a useful cash boost for shareholders but the creation of a stand-alone entity that now has a market cap of about $A2.8 billion.

    Perhaps he wants a board cleanout to guarantee a OneRoof float.

    If so, say so.

    Similar transactions
    Although spinning off OneRoof could have dire consequences for the viability of what would be left of NZME, that is a decision no different to similar transactions made by many companies in the financial interests of shareholders.

    There is a world of difference, however, between seizing an investment opportunity and seeking to secure influence by dictating the editorial direction of a significant portion of our news media.

    If the speculation is correct — and the billionaire is seeking to steer NZME on an editorial course to the right — New Zealand has a problem.

    Communications minister Paul Goldsmith gave a lamely neoliberal response reported by Stuff last week: He was “happy to take some advice” on the development, but NZME was a “private company” and ultimately it was up to its shareholders to determine how it operated.

    Let me repeat my earlier point: NZME is an entity whose influence and obligations extend far beyond the crude world of finance (and the outworn concept that the market can rule). Its stewardship of the vehicles at the forefront of news dissemination and opinion formation means it must meet higher obligation than what we expect of an ordinary “private company”.

    The most fundamental of those obligations is the independence of editorial decision-making and direction.

    I became editor of The New Zealand Herald shortly after Wilson & Horton was sold to Irish businessman Tony O’Reilly. On my appointment the then chief executive of O’Reilly’s Independent News & Media, Liam Healy, said the board had only one editorial requirement of me: That I would not advocate the use of violence as a legitimate means to a political end.

    Only direction echoed Mandela
    Coming from a man who had witnessed the effects of such violence in Northern Ireland, I had no difficulty in acceding to his request. And throughout my entire editorship, the only “request” made of me by O’Reilly himself was that I would support the distribution of generic Aids drugs in Africa. It followed a meeting he had had with Nelson Mandela. I had no other direction from the board.

    Yes, I had to bat away requests by management personnel (who should have known better) to “do this” or “not do that” but, without exception, the attempts were commercially driven — they did not want to upset advertisers. There was never a political or ideological motive behind them. Nor were such requests limited to me.

    I doubt there is an editor in the country who has not had a manager asking for something to please an advertiser. Disappointment hasn’t deterred their trying.

    In this column last week, I wrote of the dangers of a rich owner (in that case Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos) dictating editorial policy. The dangers if James Grenon has similar intentions would be even greater, given NZME’s share of the news market.

    The journalists’ union, E tu, has already concluded that the Canadian’s intention is to gain right-wing influence. Its director, Michael Wood, issued a statement in which he said: “The idea that a shadowy cabal, backed by extreme wealth, is planning to take over such an important institution in our democratic fabric should be of concern to all New Zealanders.”

    He called on the current NZME board to re-affirm a commitment to editorial independence.

    Michael Wood reflects the fears that are rightly held by NZME’s journalists. They, too, will doubtless be looking for assurances of editorial independence.

    ‘Cast-iron’ guarantees?
    Such assurances are vital, but those journalists should look back to some “cast-iron” guarantees given by other rich new owners if they are to avoid history repeating itself.

    I investigated such guarantees in a book I wrote titled Trust Ownership and the Future of News: Media Moguls and White Knights. In it I noted that 20 years before Rupert Murdoch purchased The Times of London, there was a warning that the newspaper’s editor “far from having his independence guaranteed, is on paper entirely in the hands of the Chief Proprietors who are specifically empowered by the Articles of Association to control editorial policy”, although there was provision for a “committee of notables” to veto the transfer of shares into undesirable hands.

    To satisfy the British government, Murdoch gave guarantees of editorial independence and a “court of appeal” role for independent directors. Neither proved worth the paper they were written on.

    In contrast, the constitution of the company that owns The Economist does not permit any individual or organisation to gain a majority shareholding. The editor exercises independent editorial control and is appointed by trustees, who are independent of commercial, political and proprietorial influences.

    There are no such protections in the constitution, board charter, or code of conduct and ethics governing NZME. And it is doubtful that any cast-iron guarantees could be inserted in advance of the company’s annual general meeting.

    If James Grenon does, in fact, have designs on the editorial direction of NZME, it is difficult to see how he might be prevented from achieving his aim.

    Statutory guarantees would be unprecedented and, in any case, sit well outside the mindset of a coalition government that has shown no inclination to intervene in a deteriorating media market. Nonetheless, Minister Goldsmith would be well advised to address the issue with a good deal more urgency.

    He might, at the very least, press the Canadian billionaire on his intentions.

    And if the coalition thinks a swing to the right in our news media would be no bad thing, it should be very careful what it wishes for.

    If the Canadian’s intentions are as Michael Wood suspects, perhaps the only hope will lie with those shareholders who see that it will be in their own financial interests to ensure that, in aggregate, NZME’s news assets continue to steer a (relatively) middle course. For proof, they need look only at the declining subscriber base of The Washington Post.

    Postscipt
    On Wednesday, The New Zealand Herald stated James Grenon had provided further detail, of his intentions. It is clear that he does, in fact, intend to play a role in the editorial side of NZME.

    Just how hands-on he would be remains to be seen. However, he told the Herald that, if successful in making it on to the NZME board, he expected an editorial board would be established “with representation from both sides of the spectrum”.

    On the surface that looks reassuring but editorial boards elsewhere have also been used to serve the ends of a proprietor while giving the appearance of independence.

    And just what role would an editorial board play? Would it determine the editorial direction that an editor would have to slavishly follow? Or would it be a shield protecting the editor’s independence?

    Only time will tell.

    Devil in the detail
    Media Insider columnist Shayne Currie, writing in the Weekend Herald, stated that “the Herald’s dominance has come through once again in quarterly Nielsen readership results . . . ” That is perfectly true: The newspaper’s average issue readership is more than four times that of its closest competitor.

    What the Insider did not say was that the Herald’s readership had declined by 32,000 over the past year — from 531,000 to 499,000 — and by 14,000 since the last quarterly survey.

    The Waikato Times, The Post and the Otago Daily Times were relatively stable while The Press was down 11,000 year-on-year but only 1000 since the last survey.

    In the weekend market, the Sunday Star Times was down 1000 readers year-on-year to stand at 180,000 and up slightly on the last survey. The Herald on Sunday was down 6000 year-on-year to sit at 302,000.

    There was a little good news in the weekly magazine market. The New Zealand Listener has gained 5000 readers year-on-year and now has a readership of 207,000. In the monthly market, Mindfood increased its readership by 15,000 over the same period and now sits at 222,000.

    The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly continues to dominate the women’s magazine market. It was slightly up on the last survey but well down year-on-year, dropping from 458,000 to 408,000. Woman’s Day had an even greater annual decline, falling from 380,000 to 317,000.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. This article was published first on his Knightly Views website on 11 March 2025 and is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • OBITUARY: By Terence Malapa in Port Vila

    Vanuatu’s media community was in mourning today following the death on Monday of Marc Neil-Jones, founder of the Trading Post Vanuatu, which later became the Vanuatu Daily Post, and also radio 96BuzzFM. He was 67.

    His fearless pursuit of press freedom and dedication to truth have left an indelible mark on the country’s media landscape.

    Neil-Jones’s journey began in 1989 when he arrived in Vanuatu from the United Kingdom with just $8000, an early Macintosh computer, and an Apple laser printer.

    It was only four years after Cyclone Uma had ravaged the country, and he was determined to create something that would stand the test of time — a voice for independent journalism.

    In 1993, Neil-Jones succeeded in convincing then Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman to grant permission to launch the Trading Post, the country’s first independent newspaper. Prior to this, the media was under tight government control, and there had been no platform for critical or independent reporting.

    The Trading Post was a bold step toward change. Neil-Jones’s decision to start the newspaper, with its unapologetically independent voice, was driven by his desire to provide the people of Vanuatu with the truth, no matter how difficult or controversial.

    This was a turning point for the country’s media, and his dedication to fairness and transparency quickly made his newspaper a staple in the community.

    Blend of passion, wit and commitment
    Marc Neil-Jones’s blend of passion, wit, and unyielding commitment to press freedom became the foundation upon which the Vanuatu Trading Post evolved. The paper grew, expanded, and ultimately rebranded as the Vanuatu Daily Post, but Marc’s vision remained constant — to provide a platform for honest journalism and to hold power to account.

    His ability to navigate the challenges that came with being an independent voice in a country where media freedom was still in its infancy is a testament to his resilience and determination.

    Marc Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career
    Marc Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. Image: Del Abcede/Asia Pacific Report

    Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. His sense of fairness and his commitment to truth were unwavering, even when the challenges seemed insurmountable.

    His personal integrity and passion for his work left a lasting impact on the development of independent journalism in Vanuatu, ensuring that the country’s media continued to evolve and grow despite the odds.

    Marc Neil-Jones’ legacy is immeasurable. He not only created a platform for independent news in Vanuatu, but he also became a symbol of resilience and a staunch defender of press freedom.


    Marc Neil-Jones explaining how he used his radio journalism as a “guide” in the Secret Garden in 2016. Video: David Robie

    His work has influenced generations of journalists, and his fight for the truth has shaped the media landscape in the Pacific.

    As we remember Marc Neil-Jones, we also remember the Trading Post — the paper that started it all and grew into an institution that continues to uphold the values of fairness, integrity, and transparency.

    Marc Neil-Jones’s work has changed the course of Vanuatu’s media history, and his contributions will continue to inspire those who fight for the freedom of the press in the Pacific and beyond.

    Rest in peace, Marc Neil-Jones. Your legacy will live on in every headline, every report, and every story told with truth and integrity.

    Terence Malapa is publisher of Vanuatu Politics and Home News.

    Photojournalist Ben Bohane’s tribute
    Vale Marc Neil-Jones, media pioneer and kava enthusiast who passed away last night. He fought for and normalised media freedom in Vanuatu through his Daily Post newspaper with business partner Gene Wong and a great bunch of local journalists.

    Reporting the Pacific can sometimes be a body contact sport and Marc had the lumps to prove it. It was Marc who brought me to Vanuatu to work as founding editor for the regional Pacific Weekly Review in 2002 and I never left.

    The newspaper didn’t last but our friendship did.

    He was a humane and eccentric character who loved journalism and the botanical garden he ran with long time partner Jenny.

    Rest easy mate, there will be many shells of kava raised in your honour today.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • COMMENTARY: By Gavin Ellis

    Little more than a month into the new US presidency, The Washington Post’s owner dimmed the light on a motto that became a beacon for freedom during the first Trump administration.

    “Democracy dies in darkness” has appeared below Washington Post for the past eight years.

    Last month it was powdered in irony after the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, decreed in an email to staff that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome.

    Amazon founder Bezos had already sullied the Post’s reputation by refusing to allow it to endorse a candidate during the presidential election — an action capable of no other interpretation than support for Donald Trump.

    Since then, there has been a US$1 million Amazon contribution to Trump’s inauguration and, according to the Wall Street Journal, a US$40 million deal with First Lady Melania Trump for an authorised documentary to be run on Amazon’s streaming service.

    Now Bezos has openly bowed before the new emperor and dimmed The Washington Post’s lights.

    Martin Baron, editor of the Post when the democracy motto — the first in the newspaper’s 140-year history — was adopted, last month described Bezos’s directive as a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression”.

    Standing up to Trump
    Two years after the slogan appeared on the Post masthead, a former editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson, published a book titled Merchants of Truth. In it she praised Bezos (who had bought the Washington newspaper six years earlier) for his support of Baron in standing up to Donald Trump’s assaults on the media and his serial falsehoods.

    However, she also made a prediction.

    “Though it hadn’t yet happened, it seemed all but inevitable that the Post’s coverage would one day bring Bezos’s commitment to freedom of the press into conflict with Amazon’s commercial interests, given the company’s size and power as it competed with Apple to become America’s first trillion-dollar conglomerate.”

    That day has come.

    It is patently obvious that Jeff Bezos puts the interests of his US$2 trillion Amazon empire ahead of a newspaper that last year lost US$100 million. In the process he has trashed the Post and turned readers against it.

    In the 24 hours after last month’s email was revealed, it lost 75,000 online subscribers. It had already shed close to 300,000 when the refusal to endorse a presidential candidate was revealed (I was one of them).

    It is unsurprising that he puts an enormously profitable enterprise ahead of one that is costing him money. However, rather than risking the future of a fine newspaper, he could have sought a buyer for it.

    He could even afford to sell it for one dollar to staff or to an individual who has a stronger commitment to the principles of free speech than he can now muster. He has done neither.

    Chilling effect
    Instead, he is prepared to modify content to make The Washington Post more acceptable to the White House in order to protect — perhaps even enhance — his other interests. That will have a chilling effect on the journalists he employs.

    In an industry that has lost more than 8000 newsroom roles over the past three years, fear for your job can be a powerful inducement to conform.

    An analysis of Bezos’ current strategy by the Wall Street Journal (which paid more attention to commercial interests than journalistic principles) suggested that Bezos had already paid a very high price for being perceived by Trump as an enemy during his first term.

    “In 2019, the cost of crossing Trump and funding the Resistance became staggeringly clear to Bezos. Amazon lost out to rival Microsoft on a mammoth $10 billion cloud-computing contract issued by the Pentagon.

    “It was a surprising decision since Amazon Web Services was the industry leader in cloud computing and was judged by many to have presented a stronger bid. This time around, the risks to Bezos appear far greater. Trump 2.0 is faster, more ruthless and more skilled at pulling the levers of government power.

    “Amazon is vulnerable on many fronts — from antitrust to contracts.”

    An even higher price could be paid, however, by the people of the United States (and beyond) as Trump uses those levers to diminish the ability of news media to hold him to account.

    Press Corps manipulation
    His manipulation of the make-up of the White House Press Corps has been another example. The White House Correspondents Association has been stripped of its role in deciding which journalists have access to the president. Not only has this resulted in the ascendancy of Trump acolytes like Brian Glenn of Real America Voice but America’s pre-eminent wire service, the Associated Press, has been ejected from the Press Pool.

    Ostensibly, the ban was due to the AP refusing to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its copy. It is far more likely, however, that the wire service’s balanced coverage and quest for accuracy stands in the way of Trumpian disinformation.

    And, of course, his war on words even goes beyond the media to stripping government websites of words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate the administration’s views.

    I agree with a New York Times editorial that characterised these actions as Orwellian — protecting free speech requires controlling free speech. It said the approach was “deliberate and dangerous.” It labelled Trump’s moves to control not only the flow of information but the way it was presented as “an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavoured speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical (Trump and his supporters advocate a form of free speech absolutism) but also as un-American and unconstitutional”.

    These are strong words. Sadly, they have yet to result in a mass movement to restore sanity.

    And that leaves me at a loss to understand what in Hell’s name has happened to principled people in the United States. If I (and many like me) are affronted by what is happening far from here, why are we not hearing a mass of voices demanding a stop to actions that threaten not only the United States’ international reputation but the very fabric of its society?

    Orwell on truth
    In 1941, George Orwell made a radio broadcast on truthfulness that may have awful portents for Americans. In it he said:

    “Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. And it is important to realise that its control of thought is not only negative but also positive. It not only forbids you to express — even to think — certain thoughts but it dictates what you shall think, it creates an ideology for you, it tries to govern your emotional life as well as setting up a code of conduct. And as far as possible it isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison.”

    That, I suspect, would be music to Donald Trump’s ears. And Jeff Bezos’s dictating the limits of what is acceptable on The Washington Post’s op/ed pages is one tiny step it that direction.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. This article was published first on his Knightly Views website on 4 March 2025 and is republished with permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • By Susan Edmunds, RNZ News money correspondent

    The Aotearoa New Zealand union representing many of NZME’s journalists says it is “deeply worried” by a billionaire’s plans to take over its board.

    Auckland-based Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon is leading a move to dump the board of media company NZME, owners of The New Zealand Herald and NewsTalk ZB.

    He has told the company’s board he wants to remove most of the current directors, replace them with himself and three others, and choose one existing director to stay on.

    He took a nearly 10 percent stake in the business earlier in the week.

    Michael Wood, negotiation specialist at E tū, the union that represents NZME’s journalists, said he had grave concerns.

    “We see a pattern that has been incredibly unhealthy in other countries, of billionaire oligarchs moving into media ownership roles to be able to promote their own particular view of the word,” he said.

    “Secondly, we have a situation here where when Mr Grenon purchased holdings in NZME he was at pains to make it sound like an innocent manoeuvre with no broader agenda . . .  within a few days he is aggressively pursuing board positions.”

    What unsaid agendas?
    Wood said Grenon had a track record of trying to influence media discourse in New Zealand.

    “We are deeply concerned about this, about what unsaid agendas lie behind a billionaire oligarch trying to take ownership of one of our biggest media companies.”

    James Grenon.
    Canadian billionaire James Grenon . . . track record of trying to influence media discourse in New Zealand. Image: TOM Capital Management/RNZ

    “We are deeply concerned about this, about what unsaid agendas lie behind a billionaire oligarch trying to take ownership of one of our biggest media companies.”

    He said it would be important for New Zealand not to follow the example of the US, where media outlets had become “the mouthpiece for the rich and powerful”.

    E tū would consult its national delegate committee of journalists, he said.

    Grenon has been linked with alternative news sites, including The Centrist, serving as the company’s director up to August 2023.

    The Centrist claims to present under-served perspectives and reason-based analysis, “even if it might be too hot for the mainstream media to handle”.

    Grenon has been approached for comment by RNZ.

    Preoccupations with trans rights, treaty issues
    Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff and media commentator, said he was a reader of Grenon’s site The Centrist.

    “The main thing we know about him is that publication,” Greive said.

    “It’s largely news aggregation but it has very specific preoccupations around trans rights, treaty issues and particularly vaccine injury and efficacy.

    “A lot of the time it’s aggregating from mainstream news sites but there’s a definite feel that things are under-covered or under-emphasised at mainstream news organisations.

    “If he is looking to gain greater control and exert influence on the publishing and editorial aspects of the business, you’ve got to think there is a belief that those things are under-covered and the editorial direction of The Herald isn’t what he would like it to be.”

    Duncan Grieve
    The Spinoff founder and media commentator Duncan Greive . . . Investors “would be excited about the sale of OneRoof”. Image: RNZ News

    Greive said the move could be connected to the NZME announcement in its annual results that it was exploring options for the sale of its real estate platform OneRoof.

    “There are a lot of investors who believe OneRoof is being held back by proximity to the ‘legacy media’ assets of NZME and if it could be pulled out of there the two businesses would be more valuable separate than together.

    “If you look at the shareholder book of NZME, you don’t image a lot of these institutional investors who hold the bulk of the shares are going to be as excited about editorial direction and issues as Grenon would be . . .  but they would be excited about the sale of OneRoof.”

    Wanting the publishing side
    Greive said he could imagine a scenario where Grenon told shareholders he wanted the publishing side, at a reduced value, and the OneRoof business could be separated off.

    “From a pure value realisation, maximisation of shareholder value point of view, that makes sense to me.”

    Greive said attention would now go on the 37 percent of shareholders whom Grenon said had been consulted in confidence about his plans.

    “It will become clear pretty quickly and they will be under pressure to say why they are involved in this and it will become clear pretty quickly whether my theory is correct.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • SPECIAL REPORT: By Markela Panegyres and Jonathan Strauss in Sydney

    The new Universities Australia (UA) definition of antisemitism, endorsed last month for adoption by 39 Australian universities, is an ugly attempt to quash the pro-Palestine solidarity movement on campuses and to silence academics, university workers and students who critique Israel and Zionism.

    While the Scott Morrison Coalition government first proposed tightening the definition, and a recent joint Labor-Coalition parliamentary committee recommended the same, it is yet another example of the Labor government’s overreach.

    It seeks to mould discussion in universities to one that suits its pro-US and pro-Zionist imperialist agenda, while shielding Israel from accountability.

    So far, the UA definition has been widely condemned.

    Nasser Mashni, of Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, has slammed it as “McCarthyism reborn”.

    The Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) has criticised it as “dangerous, politicised and unworkable”. The NSW Council of Civil Liberties said it poses “serious risks to freedom of expression and academic freedom”.

    The UA definition comes in the context of a war against Palestinian activism on campuses.

    The false claim that antisemitism is “rampant” across universities has been weaponised to subdue the Palestinian solidarity movement within higher education and, particularly, to snuff out any repeat of the student-led Gaza solidarity encampments, which sprung up on campuses across the country last year.

    Some students and staff who have been protesting against the genocide since October 2023 have come under attack by university managements.

    Some students have been threatened with suspension and many universities are giving themselves, through new policies, more powers to liaise with police and surveil students and staff.

    Palestinian, Arab and Muslim academics, as well as other anti-racist scholars, have been silenced and disciplined, or face legal action on false counts of antisemitism, merely for criticising Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine.

    Randa Abdel-Fattah, for example, has become the target of a Zionist smear campaign that has successfully managed to strip her of Australian Research Council funding.

    Intensify repression
    The UA definition will further intensify the ongoing repression of people’s rights on campuses to discuss racism, apartheid and occupation in historic Palestine.

    By its own admission, UA acknowledges that its definition is informed by the antisemitism taskforces at Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University and New York University, which have meted out draconian and violent repression of pro-Palestine activism.

    The catalyst for the new definition was the February 12 report tabled by Labor MP Josh Burns on antisemitism on Australian campuses. That urged universities to adopt a definition of antisemitism that “closely aligns” with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition.

    It should be noted that the controversial IHRA definition has been opposed by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for its serious challenge to academic freedom.

    As many leading academics and university workers, including Jewish academics, have repeatedly stressed, criticism of Israel and criticism of Zionism is not antisemitic.

    UA’s definition is arguably more detrimental to freedom of speech and pro-Palestine activism and scholarship than the IHRA definition.

    In the vague IHRA definition, a number of examples of antisemitism are given that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, but not the main text itself.

    By contrast, the new UA definition overtly equates criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism and claims Zionist ideology is a component part of Jewish identity.

    The definition states that “criticism of Israel can be anti-Semitic . . . when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”.

    Dangerously, anyone advocating for a single bi-national democratic state in historic Palestine will be labelled antisemitic under this new definition.

    Anyone who justifiably questions the right of the ethnonationalist, apartheid and genocidal state of Israel to exist will be accused of antisemitism.

    Sweeping claims
    The UA definition also makes the sweeping claim that “for most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity”.

    But, as the JCA points out, Zionism is a national political ideology and is not a core part of Jewish identity historically or today, since many Jews do not support Zionism. The JCA warns that the UA definition “risks fomenting harmful stereotypes that all Jewish people think in a certain way”.

    Moreover, JCA said, Jewish identities are already “a rightly protected category under all racial discrimination laws, whereas political ideologies such as Zionism and support for Israel are not”.

    Like other aspects of politics, political ideologies, such as Zionism, and political stances, such as support for Israel, should be able to be discussed critically.

    According to the UA definition, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic “when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions”.

    While it would be wrong for any individual or community, because they are Jewish, to be held responsible for Israel’s actions, it is a fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former  minister Yoav Gallant for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    But under the UA definition, since Netanyahu and Gallant are Jewish, would holding them responsible be considered antisemitic?

    Is the ICC antisemitic? According to Israel it is.

    The implication of the definition for universities, which teach law and jurisprudence, is that international law should not be applied to the Israeli state, because it is antisemitic to do so.

    The UA’s definition is vague enough to have a chilling effect on any academic who wants to teach about genocide, apartheid and settler-colonialism. It states that “criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions”.

    What these are is not defined.

    Anti-racism challenge
    Within the academy, there is a strong tradition of anti-racism and decolonial scholarship, particularly the concept of settler colonialism, which, by definition, calls into question the very notion of “statehood”.

    With this new definition of antisemitism, will academics be prevented from teaching students the works of Chelsea WategoPatrick Wolfe or Edward Said?

    The definition will have serious and damaging repercussions for decolonial scholars and severely impinges the rights of scholars, in particular First Nations scholars and students, to critique empire and colonisation.

    UA is the “peak body” for higher education in Australia, and represents and lobbies for capitalist class interests in higher education.

    It is therefore not surprising that it has developed this particular definition, given its strong bilateral relations with Israeli higher education, including signing a 2013 memorandum of understanding with Association of University Heads, Israel.

    It should be noted that the NTEU National Council last October called on UA to withdraw from this as part of its Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution.

    All university students and staff committed to anti-racism, academic freedom and freedom of speech should join the campaign against the UA definition.

    Local NTEU branches and student groups are discussing and passing motions rejecting the new definition and NTEU for Palestine has called a National Day of Action for March 26 with that as one of its key demands.

    We will not be silenced on Palestine.

    Jonathan Strauss and Markela Panegyres are members of the National Tertiary Education Union and the Socialist Alliance. Republished from Green Left with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed support for Gaza’s media professionals and called on Israel to urgently lift the blockade on the territory.

    It said the humanitarian catastrophe was continuing in Gaza and hampering journalists’ work on a daily basis.

    The Israeli army had killed their colleagues and destroyed their homes and newsrooms, said RSF in a statement.

    Gaza’s remaining journalists, who had survived 15 months of intensive bombardment, continued to face immense challenges despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on 19 January 2025 with the first stage expiring last weekend.

    Humanitarian aid, filtered by the Israeli authorities, is merely trickling into the blockaded territory, and Israel continues to deny entry access to foreign journalists, forbidding independent outlets from covering the aftermath of the war and the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

    Exiled Palestinian journalists are also prevented from returning to the Gaza Strip.

    “We urgently call for the blockade that is suffocating the press in Gaza to be lifted,” said RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé.

    “Reporters need multimedia and security equipment, internet and electricity.

    “Foreign reporters need access to the territory, and exiled Palestinian journalists need to be able to return.

    “While the ceasefire in Gaza has put an end to an unprecedented massacre of journalists, media infrastructure remains devastated.

    “RSF continues to campaign for justice and provide all necessary support to these journalists, to defend a free, pluralist and independent press in Palestine.”

    Reporters face the shock of a humanitarian catastrophe

    • Working amid the rubble

    “The scale of the destruction is immense, terrifying,” said Islam al-Zaanoun of Palestine TV.

    “Life seems to have disappeared. The streets have become open-air rubbish dumps. With no place to work, no internet or electricity, I was forced to stop working for several days.”

    Journalists must also contend with a severe fuel shortage, making travel within the country difficult and expensive. Like the rest of Gaza’s population, reporters have to spend long hours in queues every day to obtain water and food.

    • Israeli fire despite the ceasefire

    “Entire areas are unreachable,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hani al-Shaer told RSF.

    “The situation remains dangerous. We came under Israeli fire in Rafah.”

    The journalist explained that due to an unrelenting series of crises, he was forced to choose which stories he covered.

    “The destroyed infrastructure? The humanitarian crisis? Abandoned orphans?” he wondered.

    • Witnesses and targets: the double trauma of reporters

    With at least 180 media professionals killed by the Israeli army in the course of 15 months of war, including at least 42 killed on the job, according to RSF figures, surviving journalists must face their trauma while continuing their news mission.

    Gaza media sources put the journalist death toll at more than 200.

    “We covered this tragedy, but we were also part of it. Often, we were the target,” stressed Islam al-Zaanoun.

    “We still can’t rest or sleep. We’re still terrified that the war will start again,” adds Hani al-Shaer.

    • The suspended lives of exiled journalists

    From Egypt to Qatar, journalists who managed to escape the horror continue to live with the consequences, unable to return to their loved ones and homes.

    “My greatest hope is to return home and see my loved ones again. But the border is closed and my house is destroyed, like those of most journalists,” lamented Ola al-Zaanoun, RSF Gaza correspondent, now based in Egypt.

    The Gaza bureau chief of The New ArabDiaa al-Kahlout is one of many who watched the Israeli Army destroy his house.

    “When they arrested me, they bombed and set fire to my house and car. I’ve lost everything I’ve earned in my career as a journalist, and I’m starting all over again,” he told RSF.

    A refugee in Doha, Qatar, he is still haunted by the abuse inflicted by Israeli forces during his month-long detention in December 2023, following his arbitrary arrest at his home in Beit Lahya, a city in the north of the Gaza Strip.

    “No matter how many times I tell myself that I’m safe here, that I’m lucky enough to have my wife and children with me, I have trouble sleeping, working, making decisions,” confided the journalist, whose brother was killed in the war.

    “I’m scared all the time,” he added.

    Asia Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Media Watch project collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Free Expression Legal Network, a new initiative dedicated to strengthening legal protections for free expression and media freedom, was launched at Webber Wentzel’s Sandton office on 18 February 2025, with more than 50 People in attendance. Developed by the SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef), the Press Council, the Campaign for Free Expression (CFE), and other organisations and legal experts, the network aims to ensure that individuals and organisations facing legal threats can access the support they need.

    Among those that this new initiative aims to support are journalists, smaller media outlets, community-based organisations and businesses that lack access to corporate or external legal representation. It aims to ensure co-ordination with several other international efforts of this kind to provide a stronger framework for defending free expression,

    The network will focus on several key areas to strengthen legal protections for free expression and media freedom. Media freedom is critical – ensuring that individuals and media organisations can report and impart information freely and hold power to account without fear of legal repercussions. Additionally, the network will support media viability by providing legal guidance to help media outlets navigate financial and operational challenges, ensuring their long-term sustainability. Another critical area is policy advocacy, where the network will assist with legal challenges related to media regulation and press freedom policies, helping to create a more supportive legal environment for journalism. Lastly, the initiative will prioritise small and community media, offering essential legal resources to newsrooms and organisations that often lack adequate legal support, ensuring they have the protection needed to operate effectively.

    But this initiative comes at a time of new and sinister threats to freedom of expression more generally. Unchecked and unprecedented powers to platform and platform certain voices and sources of information present pronounces threats to freedom of expression globally. It is intended that this network, enabling resources and expertise, is able to respond innovatively, nimbly and effectively in meeting these dangers.

    The keynote address was delivered by Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Judge of the International Criminal Court, and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Drawing from her extensive experience in international human rights law, she provided invaluable insight into the legal challenges surrounding free expression and the role of judicial systems in upholding these rights. Emphasising the power of collective action, she stated, “If you clap with a single hand, nobody yells for you. But if a lot of people form a network clap, they will be heard. So, I can only see success for an initiative like this, I encourage them to go for it here. 

    Anton Harber, Campaign for Free Expression Director, emphasised the importance of the new body in defending free speech, stating, “This new body will be a vital tool in preventing attacks on free speech and free media, bringing together a range of resources to respond quickly and strongly. It will help ensure that anyone whose free speech is threatened will be properly defended. It will also be proactive – pushing for change to laws that don’t defend free speech or the right to information. In the face of growing threats to free speech, we are building a strong defence“.

    Echoing this urgency, Nicole Fritz, Executive Director of Campaign for Free Expression, highlighted the global nature of these challenges, adding, “I think that the threats to free expression are especially intense at this time, not only in our country but in the world generally. It is especially important that those who have their rights to expression violated and threatened are offered expert support and legal assistance in order to counter those threats”.

    Dario Milo, a partner at Webber Wentzel and a leading expert in media law, emphasised the importance of this initiative, stating: “The Free Expression Legal Network is a significant step forward in ensuring that journalists, media organisations and other human rights defenders, particularly those with limited resources, have access to the legal guidance they need. At a time when media freedom is under increasing pressure, this initiative will play a crucial role in safeguarding free expression and upholding the public’s right to know.”

    For more information on the Free Expression Legal Network and how to get involved, please contact Anton Harber, Director, CFE, anton@harber.co.za 

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    A New Zealand-based community education provider, Dark Times Academy, has had a US Embassy grant to deliver a course teaching Pacific Islands journalists about disinformation terminated after the new Trump administration took office.

    The new US administration requested a list of course participants and to review the programme material amid controversy over a “freeze” on federal aid policies.

    The course presentation team refused and the contract was terminated by “mutual agreement” — but the eight-week Pacific workshop is going ahead anyway from next week.

    Dark Times Academy's Mandy Henk
    Dark Times Academy’s co-founder Mandy Henk . . . “A Bit Sus”, an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes on disinfiormation for Pacific media. Image: Newsroom

    “As far as I can tell, the current foreign policy priorities of the US government seem to involve terrorising the people of Gaza, annexing Canada, invading Greenland, and bullying Panama,” said Dark Times Academy co-founder Mandy Henk.

    “We felt confident that a review of our materials would not find them to be aligned with those priorities.”

    The course, called “A Bit Sus”, is an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes that teach key professions the skills needed to identify and counter disinformation and misinformation in their particular field.

    The classes focus on “prebunking”, lateral reading, and how technology, including generative AI, influences disinformation.

    Awarded competitive funds
    Dark Times Academy was originally awarded the funds to run the programme through a public competitive grant offered by the US Embassy in New Zealand in 2023 under the previous US administration.

    The US Embassy grant was focused on strengthening the capacity of Pacific media to identify and counter disinformation. While funded by the US, the course was to be a completely independent programme overseen by Dark Times Academy and its academic consultants.

    Co-founder Henk was preparing to deliver the education programme to a group of Pacific Island journalists and media professionals, but received a request from the US Embassy in New Zealand to review the course materials to “ensure they are in line with US foreign policy priorities”.

    Henk said she and the other course presenters refused to allow US government officials to review the course material for this purpose.

    She said the US Embassy had also requested a “list of registered participants for the online classes,” which Dark Times Academy also declined to provide as compliance would have violated the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

    Henk said the refusal to provide the course materials for review led immediately to further discussions with the US Embassy in New Zealand that ultimately resulted in the termination of the grant “by mutual agreement”.

    However, she said Dark Times Academy would still go ahead with running the course for the Pacific Island journalists who had signed up so far, starting on February 26.

    Continuing the programme
    “The Dark Times Academy team fully intends to continue to bring the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme and other classes to the Pacific region and New Zealand, even without the support of the US government,” Henk said.

    “As noted when we first announced this course, the Pacific Islands have experienced accelerated growth in digital connectivity over the past few years thanks to new submarine cable networks and satellite technology.

    “Alongside this, the region has also seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities.

    “This course will help participants from the media recognise common tactics used by disinformation agents and support them to deploy proven educational and communications techniques.

    “By taking a skills-based approach to countering disinformation, our programme can help to spread the techniques needed to mitigate the risks posed by digital technologies,” Henk said.

    Especially valuable for journalists
    Dark Times Academy co-founder Byron Clark said the course would be especially valuable for journalists in the Pacific region given the recent shifts in global politics and the current state of the planet.

    Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron C Clark
    Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron Clark . . . “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa.” Image: APR

    “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa, for example,” said Clark, author of the best-selling book Fear: New Zealand’s Underworld of Hostile Extremists.

    “With Pacific Island states bearing the brunt of climate change, as well as being caught between a geopolitical stoush between China and the West, a course like this one is timely.”

    Henk said the “A Bit Sus” programme used a “high-touch teaching model” that combined the current best evidence on how to counter disinformation with a “learner-focused pedagogy that combines discussion, activities, and a project”.

    Past classes led to the creation of the New Zealand version of the “Euphorigen Investigation” escape room, a board game, and a card game.

    These materials remain in use across New Zealand schools and community learning centres.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    Trump administration officials barred two Associated Press (AP) reporters from covering White House events this week because the US-based independent news agency did not change its style guide to align with the president’s political agenda.

    The AP is being punished for using the term “Gulf of Mexico,” which the president renamed “Gulf of America” in a recent executive order, reports the global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    The watchdog RSF condemned this “flagrant violation of the First Amendment” and demanded the AP be given back its full ability to cover the White House.

    “The level of pettiness displayed by the White House is so incredible that it almost hides the gravity of the situation,” said RSF’s USA executive director Clayton Weimers.

    “A sitting president is punishing a major news outlet for its constitutionally protected choice of words. Donald Trump has been trampling over press freedom since his first day in office.”

    News from the AP wire service is widely used by Pacific media.

    First AP reporter barred
    AP was informed by the White House on Tuesday, February 11, that its organisation would be barred from accessing an event if it did not align with the executive order, a statement from executive editor Julie Pace said.

    The news organisation reported that a first AP reporter was turned away Tuesday afternoon as they tried to enter a White House event.

    Later that day, a second AP reporter was barred from a separate event in the White House Diplomatic Room.

    “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment,” the AP statement said.

    Unrelenting attacks on the press
    Shortly after he was inaugurated on January 20, President Trump signed an executive order “restoring freedom of speech,” which proclaimed: “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that no Federal government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

    Yet the president’s subsequent actions have continually proved that this statement is hollow when it comes to freedom of the press.

    The White House
    The White House . . . clamp down on US government transparency and against the media. Image: RSF

    Prior to barring an AP reporter, the Trump administration launched Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigations into public broadcasters NPR and PBS as well as the private television network CBS.

    It has restricted press access to the Pentagon and arbitrarily removed freelance journalists from White House press pool briefings.

    In a startling withdrawal of transparency, it removed scores of government webpages and datasets and barred many agency press teams from speaking publicly.

    Also the president is personally suing multiple news organisations over their constitutionally protected editorial decisions.

    The United States is ranked 55th out of 180 countries and territories, according to the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

    Republished from Reporters Without Borders (RSF).


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In its eagerness to appease supporters of Israel, the media is happy to ride roughshod over due process and basic rights. It’s damaging Australia’s (and New Zealand’s?) democracy.

    COMMENTARY: By Bernard Keane

    Two moments stand out so far from the Federal Court hearings relating to Antoinette Lattouf’s sacking by the ABC, insofar as they demonstrate how power works in Australia — and especially in Australia’s media.

    The first is how the ABC’s senior management abandoned due process in the face of a sustained lobbying effort by a pro-Israel group to have Lattouf taken off air, under the confected basis she was “antisemitic”.

    Managing director David Anderson admitted in court that there was a “step missing” in the process that led to her sacking — in particular, a failure to consult with the ABC’s HR area, and a failure to discuss the attacks on Lattouf with Lattouf herself, before kicking her out.

    To this, it might be added, was acting editorial director Simon Melkman’s advice to management that Lattouf had not breached any editorial policies.

    Anderson bizarrely singled out Lattouf’s authorship, alongside Cameron Wilson, of a Crikey article questioning the narrative that pro-Palestinian protesters had chanted “gas the Jews”, as basis for his concerns about her, only for one of his executives to point out the article was “balanced and journalistically sound“.

    That is, by the ABC’s own admission, there was no basis to sack Lattouf and the sacking was conducted improperly. And yet, here we are, with the ABC tying itself in absurd knots — no such race as Lebanese, indeed — spending millions defending its inappropriate actions in response to a lobbying campaign.

    The second moment that stands out is a decision by the court early in the trial to protect the identities of those calling for Lattouf’s sacking.

    Abandoned due process
    The campaign that the group rolled out prompted the ABC chair and managing director to immediately react — and the ABC to abandon due process and procedural fairness. Yet the court protects their identities.

    The reasoning — that the identities behind the complaints should be protected for their safety — may or may not be based on reasonable fears, but it’s the second time that institutions have worked to protect people who planned to undermine the careers of people — specifically, women — who have dared to criticise Israel.

    The first was when some members — a minority — of a WhatsApp group supposedly composed of pro-Israel “creatives” discussed how to wreck the careers of, inter alia, Clementine Ford and Lauren Dubois for their criticism of Israel.

    The publishing of the identities of this group was held by both the media and the political class to be an outrageous, antisemitic act of “doxxing”, and the federal government rushed through laws to make such publications illegal.

    No mention of making the act of trying to destroy people’s careers because they hold different political views — or, cancel culture, as the right likes to call it — illegal.

    Whether it’s courts, politicians or the media, it seems that the dice are always loaded in favour of those wanting to crush criticism of Israel, while its victims are left to fend for themselves.

    Human rights lawyer and fighter against antisemitism Sarah Schwartz has been repeatedly threatened with (entirely vexatious) lawsuits by Israel supporters for her criticism of Israel, and her discussion of the exploitation of Australian Jews by Peter Dutton.

    Targeted by another News Corp smear campaign
    She’s been targeted by yet another News Corp smear campaign, based on nothing more than a wilfully misinterpreted slide. She has no government or court rushing to protect her.

    Meanwhile, Peter Lalor, one of Australia’s finest sports journalists (and I write as someone who can’t abide most sports journalism) lost his job with SEN because he, too, dared to criticise Israel and call out the Palestinian genocide. No-one’s rushing to his aide, either.

    No powerful institutions are weighing in to safeguard his privacy, or protect him from the consequences of his opinions.

    The individual cases add up to a pattern: Australian institutions, and especially its major media institutions, will punish you for criticising Israel.

    Pro-Israel groups will demand you be sacked, they will call for your career to be destroyed. Those groups will be protected.

    Media companies will ride roughshod over basic rights and due process to comply with their demands. You will be smeared and publicly vilified on completely spurious bases. Politicians will join in, as Jason Clare did with the campaign against Schwartz and as Chris Minns is doing in NSW, imposing hate speech laws that even Christian groups think are a bad idea.

    Damaging the fabric of democracy
    This is how the campaign to legitimise the Palestinian genocide and destroy critics of the Netanyahu government has damaged the fabric of Australia’s democracy and the rule of law.

    The basic rights and protections that Australians should have under a legal system devoted to preventing discrimination can be stripped away in a moment, while those engaged in destroying people’s careers and livelihoods are protected.

    Ill-advised laws are rushed in to stifle freedom of speech. Australian Jews are stereotyped as a politically convenient monolith aligned with the Israeli government.

    The experience of Palestinians themselves, and of Arab communities in Australia, is minimised and erased. And the media are the worst perpetrators of all.

    Bernard Keane is Crikey’s politics editor. Before that he was Crikey’s Canberra press gallery correspondent, covering politics, national security and economics. First published by Crikey.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    Papua New Guinea’s civic space has been rated as “obstructed” by the Civicus Monitor and the country has been criticised for pushing forward with a controversial media law in spite of strong opposition.

    Among concerns previously documented by the civil rights watchdog are harassment and threats against human rights defenders, particularly those working on land and environmental rights, use of the cybercrime law to criminalise online expression, intimidation and restrictions against journalists, and excessive force during protests.

    In recent months, the authorities have used the cybercrime law to target a human rights defender for raising questions online on forest enforcement, while a journalist and gender-based violence survivor is also facing charges under the law, said the Civicus Monitor in its latest report.

    The court halted a logging company’s lawsuit against a civil society group while the government is pushing forward with the controversial National Media Development law.

    Human rights defender charged under cybercrime law
    On 9 December 2024, human rights defender and ACT NOW! campaign manager Eddie Tanago was arrested and charged by police under section 21(2) of the Cybercrime Act 2016 for allegedly publishing defamatory remarks on social media about the managing director of the PNG Forest Authority.

    Tanago was taken to the Boroko Police Station Holding cell and released on bail the same afternoon. If convicted he could face a maximum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment.

    ACT NOW is a prominent human rights organisation seeking to halt illegal logging and related human rights violations in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

    According to reports, ACT NOW had reshared a Facebook post from a radio station advertising an interview with PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) staff members, which included a photo of the managing director.

    The repost included a comment raising questions about PNGFA forest enforcement.

    Following Tanago’s arrest, ACT NOW said: “it believes that the arrest and charging of Tanago is a massive overreach and is a blatant and unwarranted attempt to intimidate and silence public debate on a critical issue of national and international importance.”

    It added that “there was nothing defamatory in the social media post it shared and there is nothing remotely criminal in republishing a poster which includes the image of a public figure which can be found all over the internet.”

    On 24 January 2025, when Tanago appeared at the Waigani Committal Court, he was instead charged under section 15, subparagraph (b) of the Cybercrime Act for “identity theft”. The next hearing has been scheduled for February 25.

    The 2016 Cybercrime Act has been used to silence criticism and creates a chilling effect, said Civicus Monitor.

    The law has been criticised by the opposition, journalists and activists for its impact on freedom of expression and political discourse.

    Journalist and gender activist charged with defamation
    Journalist and gender activist Hennah Joku was detained and charged under the Cybercrime Act on 23 November 2024, following defamation complaints filed by her former partner Robert Agen.

    Joku was charged with two counts of breaching the Cybercrimes Act 2016 and detained in Boroko Prison. She was freed on the same day after bail was posted.

    Joku, a survivor of a 2018 assault by Agen, had documented and shared her six-year journey through the PNG justice system, which had resulted in his conviction and jailing in 2023.

    On 2 September 2024, the PNG Supreme Court overturned two of three criminal convictions, and Agen was released from prison.

    On 4 and 15 September 2024, Joku shared her reactions with more than 9000 followers on her Meta social media account. Those two posts, one of which featured the injuries suffered from her 2018 assault, now form the basis for the current defamation charges against her.

    Section 21(2) of the Cybercrimes Act 2016, which has an electronic defamation clause, carries a maximum penalty of up to 25 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to one million kina (NZ$442,000).

    The Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF) expressed “grave concerns” over the charges, saying: “We encourage the government and judiciary to review the use of defamation legislation to silence and gag the universal right to freedom of speech.

    “Citizens must be informed. They must be protected.”

    Court stays logging company lawsuit against civil society group
    In January 2025, an injunction issued against community advocacy group ACT NOW! to prevent publication of reports on illegal logging has been stayed by the National Court.

    In July 2024, two Malaysian owned logging companies obtained an order from the District Court in Vanimo preventing ACT NOW! from issuing publications about their activities and from contacting their clients and service providers.

    That order has now been effectively lifted after the National Court agreed to stay the whole District court proceedings while it considers an application from ACT NOW! to have the case permanently stayed and transferred to the National Court.

    ACT NOW! said the action by Global Elite Limited and Wewak Agriculture Development Limited, which are part of the Giant Kingdom group, is an example of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP).

    “SLAPPs are illegitimate and abusive lawsuits designed to intimidate, harass and silence legitimate criticism and close down public scrutiny of the logging industry,” said Civicus Monitor.

    SLAPP lawsuits have been outlawed in many countries and lawyers involved in supporting them can be sanctioned, but those protections do not yet exist in PNG.

    The District Court action is not the first time the Malaysian-owned Giant Kingdom group has tried to use the legal system in an attempt to silence ACT NOW!

    In March 2024, the court rejected a similar SLAPP style application by the Global Elite for an injunction against ACT NOW! As a result, the company discontinued its legal action and the court ordered it to pay ACT NOW!’s legal costs.

    Government pushes forward with controversial media legislation
    The government is reportedly ready to pass legislation to regulate its media, which journalism advocates have said could have serious implications for democracy and freedom of speech in the country.

    National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) of PNG reported in January 2025 that the policy has received the “green light” from cabinet to be presented in Parliament.

    The state broadcaster reported that Communications Minister Timothy Masiu said: “This policy will address the ongoing concerns about sensationalism, ethical standards, and the portrayal of violence in the media.”

    In July 2024, it was reported that the proposed media policy was now in its fifth draft but it is unclear if this version has been updated.

    As previously documented, journalists have raised concerns that the media development policy could lead to more government control over the country’s relatively free media.

    The bill includes sections that give the government the “power to investigate complaints against media outlets, issue guidelines for ethical reporting, and enforce sanctions or penalties for violations of professional standards”.

    There are also concerns that the law will punish journalists who create content that is against the country’s development objectives.

    Organisations such as Transparency International PNG, Media Council of PNG, Pacific Freedom Forum, and Pacific Media Watch/Asia Pacific Media Network among others, have asked for the policy to be dropped.

    The press freedom ranking for PNG dropped from 59th place to 91st in the most recent index published by Reporters without Borders (RSF) in May 2024.

    Civicus Monitor.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.

    In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.

    Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.

    South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”

    Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.

    Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.

    Large and smaller media NGOs affected
    The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.

    “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.

    President Donald Trump
    President Donald Trump . . . “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism,” says RSF. Image: RSF

    “President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.

    “The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”

    USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.

    Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.

    According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.

    The USAID website today
    The USAID website today . . . All USAID “direct hire” staff were reportedly put “on leave” on 7 February 2025. Image: USAID website screenshot APR

    Activities halted overnight
    The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.

    All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.

    “We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.

    In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.

    An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.

    An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.

    “Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.

    USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media
    In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.

    “At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.

    The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.

    “Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.

    RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.

    This is not the first instance of such disinformation.

    Finding alternatives quickly
    This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.

    According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”

    Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.

    As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.

    A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.

    Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.

    Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.

    This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.

    However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.

    Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.

    “Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.

    By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.

    For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.

    How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown
    How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown by the Trump administration. Image: Fijivillage News screenshot APR

    Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
    In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.

    According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.

    The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.

    The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.

    Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A investigative journalism programme — Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) — that has pubiished exposes about the South Pacific and has not been impacted on by the “freeze” of USAID funding has hit back in an editorial calling for support of independent media.

    EDITORIAL: By the OCCRP editors

    “OCCRP is a deep state operation.
    “OCCRP is connected to the CIA.
    “OCCRP was tasked by USAID to overthrow President Donald Trump.”

    How did we end up getting this kind of attention? Old fashioned investigative journalism.

    We wrote a simple story in 2019 about how Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine for some opposition research and ended up working with people connected to organised crime who misled him.

    Unbeknown to us, a whistleblower found the story online and added it to a complaint that was the basis of President Trump’s first impeachment. We also wrote a story about Hunter Biden‘s business partners and their ties to organised crime but that hasn’t received the same attention.

    Journalism has become a blood sport. It’s harder and harder to tell the truth without someone’s interests getting stepped on.

    OCCRP prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. No donor has any say in our reporting, but we often find ourselves under attack for our funding.

    It’s not just political interests but organised crime, businesses, enablers, and other journalists who regularly attack us. What’s common in all of these attacks is that the truth doesn’t matter and it will not protect you.

    Few attack the facts in our reporting. Instead we’re left perplexed by how to respond to wild conspiracy theories, outright disinformation, and hyperbolic hatred.

    At the same time, we’ve lost 29 percent of our funding because of the US foreign aid freeze. This includes 82 percent of the money we give to newsrooms in our network, many of which operate in places [Pacific Media Watch: Such as in the Pacific] where no one else will support them.

    This money did not only fund groundbreaking, prize-winning collaborative journalism but it also trained young investigative reporters to expose wrongdoing. It’s money that kept journalists safe from physical and digital attacks and supported those in exile who continued to report on crooks and dictators back in their home countries.

    OCCRP now has 43 less journalists and staff to do our work.

    No attack or funding freeze will stop us from trying to fulfill our mission. Just in the past week, OCCRP and its partners revealed how Russia’s shadow fleet sources its ships, how taxes haven’t been paid on Roman Abramovich’s yachts, and how Syrian intelligence spied on journalists.

    Next week, we’ll take on another set of powerful actors to defend the public interest. And another set the week after that.

    We are determined to stay in the fight and keep reporting on organised crime and the corrupt who enable and benefit from it. But it’s getting harder and we need help.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • COMMENTARY: By Eman Mohammed

    On December 28, 21-year-old student journalist Shatha Al-Sabbagh was assassinated near her home in Jenin. Her family accused snipers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) deployed in the camp of shooting her in the head.

    Al-Sabbagh had been active on social media, documenting the suffering of Jenin residents during the raids by Israel and the PA.

    Just a few days after Al-Sabbagh’s assassination, the authorities in Ramallah banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the occupied West Bank.

    The author Eman Mohammed
    The author Eman Mohammed . . . “Growing up in Gaza, I watched how my people were oppressed by Israeli forces and by the PA.” Image: APR

    Three weeks later, PA forces arrested Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamad Atrash.

    These developments come as the Israeli occupation has killed more than 200 media workers in Gaza and arrested dozens across the occupied Palestinian territories. It has also banned Al Jazeera and refused to allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza.

    The fact that the PA’s actions mirror Israel’s reveals a shared agenda to suppress independent journalism and control public opinion.

    To Palestinian journalists, that is hardly news. The PA has never been our protector. It has always been a complicit partner in our brutalisation. That is true in the West Bank and it was true in Gaza when the PA was in power there. I witnessed it myself.

    Collaboration with Israel
    Growing up in Gaza, I watched how my people were oppressed by Israeli forces and by the PA. In 1994, the Israeli occupation formally handed over the Strip to the PA to administer under the provisions of the Oslo Accords.

    The PA remained in power until 2007. During these 13 years, we saw more collaboration with the Israeli occupation than any meaningful attempt at liberation.

    For journalists, the PA’s presence was not just oppressive, it was life-threatening, as its forces actively stifled voices to maintain its fragile grip on power.

    As a journalism student in Gaza, I experienced this suppression firsthand. I walked the streets, witnessing PA security officers looting shops, their arrogance apparent in the brazen act of theft. One day, when I attempted to document this, a Palestinian officer violently grabbed me, ripped my camera from my hands, and smashed it to the ground.

    This wasn’t just an assault, it was an attack on my right to bear witness. The officer’s aggression only ceased when a group of women intervened, forcing him to retreat in a rare moment of restraint.

    I knew the risks of being a journalist in Gaza and like other media workers, I learned to navigate them. But the fear I felt near the PA forces’ ambush points was unlike anything else. That was because there was never logic to their aggressive actions and no way to anticipate when they might turn on you.

    Walking near the PA forces felt like stepping into a minefield. One moment, there was the illusion of safety, and the next, you faced the brutality of those who were supposedly there to protect you. This uncertainty and tension made their presence more terrifying than being on a battlefield.

    Dangerous but predictable
    Years later, I would cover the training sessions of Qassam Brigades under the constant hum of Israeli drones and the ever-looming threat of air strikes. It was dangerous but predictable — much more so than the actions of the PA.

    A group of Palestinian journalists protest in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council
    A group of Palestinian journalists protest in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council headquarters against the decision of the Palestinian Authority to close Bethlehem-based private TV channel Al-Roah in Gaza City in 1999. Image: AJ File

    Under the PA, we learned to speak in code. Journalists self-censored out of fear of retribution. The PA was often referred to as “cousins of Israeli occupation” – a grim acknowledgement of its complicity.

    As the PA was fighting to stay in power in Gaza after losing the 2006 elections to Hamas, its brutality escalated.

    In May 2007, gunmen in presidential guard uniforms killed journalist Suleiman Abdul-Rahim al-Ashi and media worker Mohammad Matar Abdo. It was an execution meant to send a clear message to those who witnessed it.

    When Hamas took over, its government also imposed restrictions on press freedoms, but its censorship was inconsistent. Once, while documenting the new policewomen’s division, I was ordered to show my photos to a Hamas officer so he could censor any image he deemed immodest.

    I often managed to bypass these restrictions by swapping my memory cards preemptively.

    The officers weren’t fond of anyone overriding their orders, but instead of outright punishment, they resorted to petty power plays — investigations, revoked access, or unnecessary provocations.

    Unlike the PA, Hamas did not operate within a system of coordination with Israeli forces to suppress journalism, but the restrictions journalists faced still created an environment of uncertainty and self-censorship.

    Swift international condemnation
    Any violation on their part, however, was met with swift international condemnation– something the PA rarely faced, despite its far more systematic repression.

    After losing control of Gaza, the PA shifted its focus to the West Bank, intensifying its campaign of media suppression. Detentions, violent crackdowns, and the silencing of critical voices became commonplace.

    Their collaboration with Israel was not passive; it was active. From surveillance to campaigns of violence, they play a crucial role in maintaining the status quo, stifling any dissent that challenges their power and the occupation.

    In 2016, the PA’s collusion became even more apparent when they coordinated with Israeli authorities in the arrest of prominent journalist and press freedom advocate Omar Nazzal, who had criticised Ramallah for how it handled the suspected murder of Palestinian citizen Omar al-Naif at its embassy in Bulgaria.

    In 2017, the PA launched a campaign of intimidation, arresting five journalists from different outlets.

    In 2019, the Palestinian Authority blocked the website of Quds News Network, a youth-led media outlet that has gained immense popularity. This was part of a wider ban imposed by the Ramallah Magistrate’s Court that blocked access to 24 other news websites and social media pages.

    In 2021, after the violent death of activist Nizar Banat in the PA’s custody sparked protests, its forces sought to crack down on journalists and media outlets covering them.

    In this context, the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza following the ceasefire agreement raises serious concerns for journalists who have already endured the horrors of genocide.

    For those who survived, this could mean a new chapter of repression that reflects the PA’s history of censorship, arrests and stifling of press freedoms.

    Despite the grave threats that Palestinian journalists face from Israel and from those who pretend to represent the Palestinian people, they persevere. Their work transcends borders, reflecting a shared struggle against tyranny. Their resilience speaks not only to the Palestinian cause but to the broader fight for liberation, justice and dignity.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NBC News in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea’s cabinet has officially given the green light to the PNG media policy, which will soon be presented to Parliament for formal enactment.

    Minster for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Timothy Masiu believes this policy will address ongoing concerns about sensationalism, ethical standards, and the portrayal of violence in the media.

    In an interview with NBC News in Port Moresby, Masiu outlined the urgent need for a shift in the nation’s media practices.

    “We must be more responsible in how we report and portray the issues that matter most to our country. It’s time for Papua New Guinea’s media to evolve and reflect the values that truly define us,” he said.

    “Sensational headlines, graphic images of violence, and depictions of suffering do nothing to build our national identity. They only hurt our reputation globally.”

    Minister Masiu said the policy aimed to regulate sensitive contents and shift towards “more constructive and informative” coverage.

    According to Masiu, the policy’s long-term goal was to protect the public from harmful content while empowering journalists to play a positive role in nation-building.

    “This policy isn’t about stifling press freedom. It’s about ensuring that media in Papua New Guinea serves the public good by upholding the highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” Masiu said.

    Meanwhile, the policy also acknowledged the media’s significant influence on public opinion and its role in national development.

    Masiu added that once the policy was passed into law, it would become a guiding framework for media institutions across the nation, laying the foundation for a new era of journalism in Papua New Guinea.

    Republished from NBC News.

    Persistent criticism
    Pacific Media Watch reports that the draft media policy law and consultation process have been controversial and faced persistent criticisms from journalists, the PNG Media Council (MCPNG) and Transparency international PNG.

    Version 5 of the policy is here, but it is not clear whether that is the version Masiu says is ready.

    PNG dropped 32 places to 91st out of 180 countries in the 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index and the Paris-based world press freedom watchdog RSF called on the Marape government to withdraw the draft law in February 2023.

    Civicus references an incident last August when a PNG journalist was barred from a press briefing by the visiting Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto and said this came “amid growing concern about the government’s plan to regulate the press under its so-called media development policy”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • This article was written before The Electronic Intifada’s founding editor Ali Abunimah was arrested in Switzerland on Saturday afternoon for “speaking up for Palestine”. He has since been released and deported.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Ali AbunimahIsrael smuggled one of its soldiers out of Cyprus, apparently fearing his detention on charges related to the genocide in Gaza, according to Dyab Abou Jahjah, the co-founder of The Hind Rajab Foundation.

    Abou Jahjah, a Belgian-Lebanese political activist and writer, told The Electronic Intifada livestream last week that his organisation was stepping up efforts all over the world to bring to justice Israeli soldiers implicated in the slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children over the last 15 months.

    You can watch the interview with Abou Jahjah and all of this week’s programme in the video above.


    Gaza Ceasefire Day 5. Video: The Electronic Intifada

    Speaking from Gaza, Electronic Intifada contributor Donya Abu Sitta told us how people there are coping following the ceasefire, especially those returning to devastated homes and finding the remains of loved ones.

    She shared a poem inspired by the hopes and fears of the young children she continued to teach throughout the genocide.

    Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in some parts of Gaza. That was among developments covered in the news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, along with the efforts to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation.

    Israel’s genocidal war has orphaned some 40,000 children in Gaza.

    Contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the latest ceasefire developments and the resistance operations in the period leading up to it.

    We also discussed whether US President Donald Trump will force Israel to uphold the ceasefire and what the latest indications of his approach are.

    And this writer took a critical look at Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

    She has been hailed as a hero for urging Donald Trump to respect the rights of marginalised groups, as the new president sat listening to her sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral.

    But over the last 15 months, Budde has parroted Israeli atrocity propaganda justifying genocide, and has repeatedly failed to condemn former President Joe Biden’s key role in the mass slaughter and did not call on him to stop sending weapons to Israel.

    Pursuing war criminals
    In the case of the soldier in Cyprus, The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint, and after initial hesitation, judicial authorities in the European Union state opened an investigation of the soldier.

    “When that was opened, the Israelis smuggled the soldier out of Cyprus,” Abou Jahjah said, calling the incident the first of its kind.

    “And when I say smuggling, I’m not exaggerating, because we have information that he was even taken by a private jet,” Abou Jahjah added.

    The foundation is named after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was in a car with members of her family, trying to escape the Israeli onslaught in Gaza City, when they were attacked.

    The story of Hind, trapped all alone in a car, surrounded by dead relatives, pleading over the phone for rescue, a conversation that was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent, is among the most poignant and brazen crimes committed during Israel’s genocide.

    According to Abou Jahjah, lawyers and activists determined to seek justice for Palestinians identified a gap in the efforts to hold Israel accountable that they could fill: pursuing individual soldiers who have in many cases posted evidence of their own crimes in Gaza on social media.

    The organisation and its growing global network of volunteers and legal professionals has been able to collect evidence on approximately 1000 Israeli soldiers which has been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    In addition to filing cases against Israeli soldiers traveling abroad, such as the one in Cyprus, and other recent examples in Brazil, Thailand and Italy, a main focus of the foundation is individuals who hold both Israeli and another nationality.

    “Regarding the dual nationals, we are not under any restraint of time,” Abou Jahjah explained. “For example, if you’re Belgian, Belgium has jurisdiction over you.”

    Renouncing their second nationality cannot shield these soldiers, according to Abou Jahjah, because courts will take into account their citizenship at the time the alleged crime was committed.

    Abou Jahjah feels confident that with time, war criminals will be brought to justice. The organisation is also discussing expanding its work to the United States, where it may use civil litigation to hold perpetrators accountable.

    Unsurprisingly, Israel and friendly governments are pushing back against The Hind Rajab Foundation’s work, and Abou Jahjah is now living under police protection.

    “Things are kind of heavy on that level, but this will not disrupt our work,” Abou Jahjah said. “It’s kind of naive of them to think that the work of the foundation depends on a person.”

    “We have legal teams across the planet, very capable people. Our data is spread across the planet,” Abou Jahjah added. “There’s nothing they can do. This is happening.”

    Resistance report
    In his resistance report, Elmer analysed videos of operations that took place before the ceasefire, but which were only released by the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, after it took effect.

    He also previewed Saturday, 25 January, when nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers.

    Will Trump keep Israel to the ceasefire?
    Pressure from President Trump was key to getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal it had rejected for almost a year. But will his administration keep up the pressure to see it through?

    There have been mixed messages, with Trump recently telling reporters he was not sure it would hold, but also intriguingly distancing himself from Israel. “That’s not our war, it’s their war.”

    We took a look at what these comments, as well as a renewed commitment to implementing the deal expressed by Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, tell us about what to expect.

    As associate editor Asa Winstanley noted, “this ceasefire is not nothing.” It came about because the resistance wore down the Israeli army, and statements from Witkoff hinting that the US may even be open to talking to Hamas deserve close attention.

    ‘Largely silent’
    By her own admission, Bishop Mariann Budde has remained “largely silent” about the genocide in Gaza, except when she was pushing Israeli propaganda or engaging in vague, liberal hand-wringing about “peace” and “love” without ever clearly condemning the perpetrators of mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, demanding that the US stop the flow of weapons making it possible, or calling for accountability.

    This type of evasion serves no one.

    You can watch the programme on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    Among his first official acts on returning to the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship”.

    Implicit in this vaguely written document: the United States is done fighting mis- and disinformation online, reports the Paris-based global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    Meanwhile, far from living up to the letter or spirit of his own order, Trump is fighting battles against the American news media on multiple fronts and has pardoned at least 13 individuals convicted or charged for attacking journalists in the 6 January 2021 insurrection.

    An RSF statement strongly refutes Trump’s “distorted vision of free speech, which is inherently detrimental to press freedom”.

    Trump has long been one of social media’s most prevalent spreaders of false information, and his executive order, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” is the latest in a series of victories for the propagators of disinformation online.

    Bowing to pressure from Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta platforms are already hostile to journalism, did away with fact-checking on Facebook, which the tech mogul falsely equated to censorship while throwing fact-checking journalists under the bus.

    Trump ally Elon Musk also dismantled the meagre trust and safety safeguards in place when he took over Twitter and proceeded to arbitrarily ban journalists who were critical of him from the site.

    ‘Free speech’ isn’t ‘free of facts’
    “Free speech doesn’t mean public discourse has to be free of facts. Donald Trump and his Big Tech cronies like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are dismantling what few guardrails the internet had to protect the integrity of information,” said RSF’s USA executive director Clayton Weimers.

    “We cannot ignore the irony of Trump appointing himself the chief crusader for ‘free speech’ while he continues to personally attack press freedom — a pillar of the First Amendment — and has vowed to weaponise the federal government against expression he doesn’t like.

    “If Trump means what he says in his own executive order, he could start by dropping his lawsuits against news organisations.”

    Trump recently settled a lawsuit out of court with ABC News parent company Disney, but is still suing the Des Moines Register and its parent company Gannett for publishing a poll unfavourable to his campaign, and the Pulitzer Center board for awarding coverage of his 2016 campaign’s alleged ties with Russia.

    Trump should immediately drop both lawsuits and refrain from launching others while in office.

    After a campaign where he attacked the press on a daily basis, Trump has continued to berate the media and dismissed its legitimacy to critique him.

    During a press conference the day after he took office, Trump reproached NBC reporter Peter Alexander for questions about Trump’s blanket pardons of the January 6th riot participants, saying, “Just look at the numbers on the election.

    “We won this election in a landslide, because the American public is tired of people like you that are just one-sided, horrible people, in terms of crime.”

    An incoherent press freedom policy
    The executive order also flies in the face of his violent rhetoric against journalists.

    The order asserts that during the Biden administration, “the Federal government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”

    It goes on to state, “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

    This stated policy, laudable in a vacuum, even if made redundant by the First Amendment, is rendered meaningless by Trump’s explicit threats to weaponise the government against the media, which have recently included threats to revoke broadcast licenses in political retaliation, investigate news organizations that criticise him, and jail journalists who refuse to expose confidential sources.

    Instead, the policy appears designed to amplify disinformation, which benefits a President of the United States who has proven willing to spread disinformation that furthered his political interests on matters small and large.

    “If Trump is serious about his stated commitment to free speech, RSF suggests he begin by ensuring his own actions serve to protect the free press, rather than censoring or punishing media outlets,” the watchdog said.

    “The United States has seen a steady decline in its press freedom ranking in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index over the past decade to a current ranking of 55th out of 180 countries, with presidents from both parties presiding over this backslide.

    “While Trump is not entirely responsible for the present situation, his frequent attacks on the news media have no doubt contributed to the decline in trust in the media, which has been driven partly by partisan attitudes towards journalism.

    “Trump’s violent rhetoric can also contribute to real-life violence — assaults on journalists nearly doubled in 2024, when his campaign was at its apex, compared to 2023.”

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    With a ceasefire in force in Gaza for a week, the Israeli army and settlers have intensified their attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog programme The Listening Post.

    Amid the exchange of captives, images showing legions of Hamas reinforcements puncture the narratives in Israeli media.

    Presenter Richard Gizbert, a Canadian broadcaster and creator of The Listening Post series, pays tribute to Palestinian journalists and critiques the failure of Western journalists to support their colleagues under fire in Gaza.

    “None of which bodes well for the Palestinians who have survived Israel’s vengeful war on Gaza, including journalists, some of whom symbolically shed their helmets and flak jackets when the ceasefire was announced — only to put them back on when Israel’s attacks resumed,” Gizbert says.

    “More than 200 of their colleagues have been killed, many of them targeted, a number that dwarfs the journalistic casualty figures in any other conflict in modern history.

    “And there has been a noticeable lack of outcry on that from Western media outlets, a large scale failure to show solidarity.

    “Of all the crimes committed against journalists during this war, the one-side pro-Israeli narratives coming out of capitals like Washington, London and Berlin, this one should stick.

    ‘Against the odds’
    “If journalists cannot even bring themselves to defend their own, what is the point?”

    Senior Palestine analyst Tahani Mustafa of the Crisis Group says: “Palestinian journalists have been indispensable, despite all the odds against them of the Israeli onslaught, or the lack of integrity of the Western media, the complete silence over the fact that their fellow journalists on the ground in Gaza are being targeted . . . ”

    “This just feels like a pause in the killing machine.”

    Executive director of Sarah Leah Whitson of Dawn says: “If I was working in Gaza as a journalist, I would not remove my helmet or my flak jacket. I have no doubt that  Israeli military forces in Gaza will continue to gun down journalists.”

    Associate professor Dalal Iriqat of the Arab American University Palestine says: “Their target is not really Hamas but the Palestinian people, the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian rights.

    “That’s why they have been targeting media, they have been targeting anybody who tells the truth.”

    Contributors:
    Dalal Iriqat – Associate professor, Arab American University Palestine
    Daniel Levy – President, US/Middle East Project
    Tahani Mustafa – Senior Palestine analyst, Crisis Group
    Sarah Leah Whitson – Executive director, DAWN


    The Listening Post programme of 25 January 2025.   Video: Al Jazeera


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    The Al Jazeera Network has condemned the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent by Palestinian security services as a bid by the Israeli occupation to “block media coverage” of the military attack on Jenin.

    Israeli soldiers have killed at least 12 Palestinians in the three-day military assault that has rendered the refugee camp “nearly uninhabitable” and forced displacement of more than 2000 people. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the Jenin operation was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights”.

    Al Jazeera said in a broadcast statement that the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent Muhammad al-Atrash by the Palestinian Authority (PA) could only be explained as “an attempt to block the media coverage of the occupation’s attack in Jenin”.

    “The arbitrary actions of the Palestinian Authority are unfortunately identical to the occupation’s targeting of the Al Jazeera Network,” it said.

    “We value the positions and voices that stand in solidarity and defend colleague Muhammad al-Atrash and the freedom of the press.”

    The network said the journalist was brought before a court in Hebron after being arrested yesterday while covering the events in Jenin “simply for doing his professional duty as a journalist”.

    “We confirm that these practices will not hinder our ongoing professional coverage of the facts unfolding in the West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s statement added.

    The Israeli occupation has been targeting Al Jazeera for months in an attempt to gag its reporting.

    Calling for al-Atrash’s immediate release, the al-Haq organisation (Protecting and Promoting Human Rights & the Rule of Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory) said in a statement: “Freedom of opinion and expression cannot be guaranteed without ensuring freedom of the press.”

    Rage over AJ ban
    Earlier this month journalists expressed outrage and confusion about the PA’s decision to shut down the Al Jazeera office in the occupied West Bank after the Israeli government had earlier banned the Al Jazeera broadcasting network’s operation within Israel.

    “Shutting down a major outlet like Al Jazeera is a crime against journalism,” said freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi.

    Also earlier this month, award-winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab criticised the Israeli government for targeting journalists and attempting to “cover up” the assassination of five Palestinian journalists last month.

    He said a December 26 press statement by the Israeli army attempted to “justify a war crime”.

    “It unabashedly admitted that the military incinerated five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked press vehicle outside al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip,” Kuttab said in an op-ed article.

    Many Western publications had quoted the Israeli army statement as if it was an objective position and “not propaganda whitewashing a war crime”, he wrote.

    “They failed to clarify to their audiences that attacking journalists, including journalists who may be accused of promoting ‘propaganda’, is a war crime — all journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, regardless of whether armies like their reporting or not.”

    Israel not only refuses to recognise any Palestinian media worker as being protected, but it also bars foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

    “It has been truly disturbing that the international media has done little to protest this ban,” wrote Kuttab.

    “Except for one petition signed by 60 media outlets over the summer, the international media has not followed up consistently on such demands over 15 months.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • COMMENTARY: By Steven Cowan, editor of Against The Current

    New Zealand’s One News interviewed a Gaza journalist last week who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

    For some 15 months, the Western media have framed Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza as a “legitimate” war.

    Pretending to provide an objective and impartial view of “the Gaza War”, the Western media has failed to report on the atrocities that the Israel has committed in Gaza. The true face of Israel’s genocidal assault has been hidden behind the Western media’s determination to sanitise genocide.


    Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed’s appeal to the world and the Western media. Video: Dawn News

    Even the deliberate targeting of journalists by the Israeli “Defence” Force (IDF), a war crime, has not moved the Western media to take action. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza and the Western media has remained silent.

    The New Zealand and Pacific media also have nothing to be proud of in their coverage of events in Gaza. They, too, have consistently framed Israel’s genocidal rampage as a legitimate war and swept Israel’s war crimes under the carpet.

    Some news outlets, like NZ’s Newstalk ZB, have gone as far as to defend Israel’s actions.

    With the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza last week, One News, for the first time since Israel began its murderous assault, chose to talk live to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. That journalist was 22-year-old Abubaker Abed.

    Ignored by Western media
    While One News introduced him as a reporter for the Associated Press, most of Abed’s reports have been for Palestinian news outlets like The Electronic Intifida.

    On January 11, Abed made a speech condemning the Western media’s complicity in genocide. While the speech has been widely circulated in the social media, it has been ignored by the Western media.

    In New Zealand, the important speech has failed to make it to the One News website.

    Abubaker Abed
    One News interviewing Gaza journalist Abubaker Abed who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

    This article was first published on Steven Cowan’s website Against The Current. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based world media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for international journalists to be given open access to the besieged Gaza Strip enclave and has reaffirmed its demand that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes the perpetrators of Israeli war crimes against journalists.

    RSF has already filed four complaints with the ICC and has declared it will continue its efforts to work for justice and support Palestinian journalism.

    In 15 months of the Israeli war on Gaza, the military has killed more than 150 Palestinian journalists — the Gazan Media office says more than 210 — including at least 41 who were killed while working.

    The ceasefire that began on Sunday has ended — for the moment — the war that turned Palestine into the “most dangerous territory” in the world for journalists, according to RSF’s 2024 Round-up.

    “For 15 months, journalists in Gaza have been displaced, starved, slandered, threatened, injured, and killed by the Israeli army,” said RSF’s director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “Despite these dangers, they have continued to inform their fellow citizens and the world while foreign journalists were denied access to the territory.

    “Gaza’s reporters are the pride of journalism. With the ceasefire agreement, the work of local and international reporters is more crucial than ever — it will go hand in hand with the work of the justice system.

    Independent access needed
    “To this end, international journalists must be given independent access to the besieged territory as quickly as possible.

    “To avoid increasing this war’s terrible death toll, the Israeli authorities must immediately authorise the hospitalisation of journalist Fadi al-Wahidi outside the Gaza Strip.”

    Bruttin said that RSF, which had filed four complaints with the ICC since 7 October 2023, called on the court once again to prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes against journalists in Gaza.”

    Al Jazeera journalist Fadi al-Wahidi, who was gravely injured on 9 October 2024 while reporting from the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is fighting for his life as the Israeli authorities continued to refuse his transfer to a hospital abroad, despite repeated calls from RSF.

    Also, two Palestinian photojournalists, Haytham Abdel Wahed and Nidal al-Wahidi, have been missing since 7 October 2023.

    Need to rebuild media
    Gazan journalists have been working in makeshift newsrooms in tents set up near hospitals in order to have access to electricity and internet.

    Despite their incredible hardship, they have continued to inform the world from a devastating landscape.

    “If the ceasefire agreement is to translate into lasting peace, considerable resources will need to be allocated to rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza’s media,” RSF said in a statement.

    This reconstruction cannot take place without concrete action against impunity for the crimes Israel continued committing for over a year.

    On 24 September 2024, RSF filed its fourth complaint with the ICC for war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza by the Israeli army; the first complaint was filed on 1 November 2023.

    Arrests in West Bank, pressure in Israel
    Overshadowed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the West Bank has been the target of multiple abuses by Israeli authorities and settlers that did not spare journalists and media outlets.

    According to RSF’s 2024 Round-up, the arrests of Palestinian journalists in the West Bank have made Israel one of the world’s largest jails for media professionals.

    The far-right Israeli government has used the state of war as an excuse to strengthen its grip on the media landscape.

    In an op-ed published in HaaretzThe Seventh Eye and Le Monde, RSF condemned draft laws that repress the media as well as the intimidation of Israeli journalists who criticise their government’s actions.

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Democracy Now!

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

    We turn now to Gaza, where Israel’s assault on the besieged strip continues despite ongoing talks over a possible ceasefire. Palestinian authorities say 5000 people are missing or have been killed in this first 100 days of Israel’s siege of north Gaza.

    Since Monday morning, 33 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, Al Jazeera Arabic reports, including five people who died in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.

    On Friday, Saed Abu Nabhan, a Palestinian journalist for the Cairo-based Al-Ghad TV, was killed by Israeli forces while reporting in the Nuseirat refugee camp, his funeral was held on Saturday. This is his colleague Mohammed Abu Namous:

    MOHAMMED ABU NAMOUS: [translated] It is clear that the Israeli occupation wants to target the journalist body that exposes its crimes, while the occupation had utiliSed its media to say that they only target the resistance and their weapons, until the Palestinian journalists have exposed the truth to the world, saying that this occupation targets children, women and unarmed civilians.

    AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate reports more than 200 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023. More than 400 others have been wounded or arrested.

    On Thursday, Palestinian journalists held a news conference outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they decried the hypocrisy and neglect of international media organisations. This is reporter Abubaker Abed:

    ABUBAKER ABED: We are just documenting a genocide against us. It’s enough, after almost a year and a half. We want you to stand foot by foot with us, because we are like any other journalists, reporters and media workers all across the globe, no matter the origin, the color or the race.

    Journalism is not a crime. We are not a target.

    AMY GOODMAN: For more, journalist Abubaker Abed joins us now from Gaza. He used to be a football — a soccer — commentator, but now he calls himself an “accidental” war correspondent. His new piece for Drop Site News is headlined “What It’s Truly Like to Sleep in a Damp, Frigid Tent: A Report From Gaza.”

    He’s joining us from Deir al-Balah, where that news conference was held.

    Abubaker Abed, thank you for joining us again. You’re 22 years old. You didn’t expect to be a war correspondent, but that’s what you are now. Talk more about what you were demanding on Thursday, surrounded by other Palestinian journalists, demanding of the Western media, of all international journalists.


    ‘Journalism is not a crime.’  Video: Democracy Now!

    ABUBAKER ABED: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

    So, what I demanded was very simple: just the basic human rights as any other people across the globe, particularly for journalists here, who have been subjected to sheer violence, brutality and barbarism over the past almost year and a half — particularly if we talk about, if we have a bit of a comparison between us and any other journalist across the globe.

    As I said in this press briefing, that we are working in makeshift tented camps and workplaces. I personally talk about myself here.

    I just spent long hours just trying to finalise a story, or finalise a report, just to tell people the truth, and sometimes we don’t have the internet connection.

    We have been through starvation. We have been through freezing temperatures. We have been taking shelter in dilapidated tents. We haven’t been given any sort of a human right at all.

    So, this is what I really demanded, because what I’ve been seeing for the past 14 months from international media outlets is absolutely enraging.

    Like, I do have the same rights. What if we were in another spot in the world? The world would absolutely be standing with us and giving us everything we wanted.

    But why, when it comes to Palestinians, it’s a completely different story? We understand, and we’ve been taught as a young man, I’ve been always taught, that the world cares about the human rights of every single person in the world.

    But I haven’t seen any of those human rights as a Palestinian. What have I got to do with this war so I was subjected to this scale of barbarism and this starvation and this cold and just all of these diseases?

    Right now while I’m talking you, Amy, I’ve been diagnosed with bronchitis. I’m still recovering from it. There are no proper medications inside any of the pharmacies here in Deir al-Balah, where more than a million people are taking shelter.

    Even if we’re talking about it in detail, the lack of medical supplies and aid inside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital here, which serves more than 1.5 million people in central Gaza, — apart from the everyday casualties — is literally insane.

    When we talk about that, when we talk about the Palestinian journalists, we’ve lost around 210. And even after the press briefing, another journalist was killed.

    So, you talk to an absolutely dead conscience of the world. You’re talking about — like … the world just keeps turning a blind eye and deaf ear to what is happening, as if we are talking to ourselves.

    It’s completely enraging and unacceptable, because, again, we are like any other reporters, media workers and journalists across the globe, and we have the right to be given access to all media equipment, access to the world, and our voices must be amplified, because, again, we are not any party to this war.

    And we must be protected by all international laws, because that’s what has been enshrined in international laws and human rights that have always been taught to the entire world.

    AMY GOODMAN: We should make clear that all media has access to journalists on the ground in Gaza.

    Our Democracy Now! viewers and listeners know we go regularly to Gaza, almost unheard of in the rest of the American corporate media. Yes, they are banned. And that should be raised every time they report on Israel and Gaza, that they are not allowed there.

    Abubaker Abed, what would it mean if there was more attention brought to the journalists on the ground in Gaza? According to a number of reports, well over 150 — nearly 250 —  journalists have been killed, most recently this weekend in Nuseirat, is that right, Abubaker?

    ABUBAKER ABED: Yes. I mean, like, the reports are always horrific. Even when we go to a particular place to report on a specific event in the continuously deteriorating humanitarian situation, we know that this might be the end.

    We know that even everything we’re doing right now to report on or anything we’re trying to tell, any story that we are trying to relate to the outside world, is going to cost our lives.

    But we want to tell the world. We want to live in dignity. We want to live in peace, in calm, because that’s what we really deserve, as any other people across the globe. You said it in the beginning, that I shouldn’t have been an accidental war correspondent, but that’s what I’ve evolved into, because this is my homeland, and this is something that I have to defend wholeheartedly.

    But, yes, even when I’m trying to do this, I’m not given the basic things. I’m not given the basic human rights.

    So, every journalist here, that is working tirelessly, that has been working relentlessly since the outbreak of this genocidal assault on Gaza, has faced unimaginable horrors. We have — I, myself, lost my very dearest friend, lost family members and lost many of my friends and many of my loved ones.

    But I still continue to hope. I still continue to endure the harsh, stark realities of living inside Gaza, because Gaza is now a hellscape. Absolutely, it’s the apocalyptic hellscape of the world. It’s not livable at all.

    Children particularly, because I’ve been talking to many children and reporting on them, we can see the children are painful, are barefoot. They are traumatised. Their clothes are ripped apart.

    And they are desperately needing just a sip of water and a bite of food, but that is not available because Israel continues, continues applying the collective punishment on all people of the Gaza Strip.

    And again, I just want to reaffirm that half of the Gaza population is children. So, what have these children got to do with such a genocidal assault on Gaza?

    They should have the right to educate because they have been deprived of their education for the past year and a half almost. They have been deprived of every basic right, even their their necessities and their childhood and everything about them.

    The same for us as young men. I should have completed my studies. Unfortunately, my university has been reduced to rubble. Everything about Gaza, everything about my dreams, my memories has also been razed to the ground and has also been reduced to ashes.

    Amid the growing news of a possible ceasefire on the line, on the horizon, I can tell you that from here, that we are very hopeful. There is a state of optimism in the anticipation for a ceasefire, because people, including me, want to heal, want to lick our wounds or stitch our wounds — heal up.

    And we want to really have one moment, only one moment, of not hearing the buzzing sounds of the drones and the hovering of warplanes, particularly during the night hours, because the tones are every single day, we are very much traumatised.

    We really need rehabilitation, to really get to our lives, to get to who we were before this war started.

    So, it’s a very much-needed thing, because people are really crying for it. People are really hopeful about it.

    And I hope that this will not dash their hopes, the continuous attacks on Gaza. And I hope that they will have their dreams coming true very, very soon, in the coming days.

    AMY GOODMAN: Abubaker Abed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a 22-year-old journalist, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah, Gaza. He used to be a soccer commentator, now as he calls himself, an “accidental” war correspondent.

    The article was first published by Democracy Now! and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Asia Pacific Report

    A former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Alon Liel, has warned over a “dangerous” attitude of younger generations in Israel towards the war on Gaza.

    “They’re accepting the fact that there is no alternative to fighting, and this is the majority, especially the young people today,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.

    He added that as part of the older generation in Israel, he could remember a time when even the right wing used to say they wanted peace.

    “Now young people . . . say we don’t want peace. We will not benefit from peace,” he said.

    Liel said that he believed it ws “a very dangerous attitude that is developing” and there needed to be “a very fundamental change in the thinking of Israel, and maybe a fundamental change in the attitude of the international community to the conflict, too”.

    He also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had so far failed to achieve his goals in the 15-month war — “destroying” Hamas and freeing the hostages.

    Israelis were frustrated that captives remained in Gaza and surprised that, in recent weeks, Israeli military activity there had intensified, Liel said.

    ‘Surprised’ over military intensity
    “Generally speaking, Israelis are quite surprised that the intensity of the military activity is growing. I think the general feeling here was a month or two ago that [the war] will fade away and slow down, but it is not,” he said.

    Two Israeli soldiers were killed and six wounded yesterday in further battles with the Palestinian resistance in northern Gaza.

    Netanyahu, meanwhile, still faced the problems of looking like he had no victory in the war, and that any prisoner exchange with Hamas could topple him, he added.

    “Any exchange will involve the release of many prisoners we have in our jails, and might — and probably will — topple his government,” Liel said.

    “So he’s trying to manoeuvre and trying to find the point in time in which we will not be seeing the Hamas people and their supporters dancing in Gaza when they get the prisoners back and describing the result as a victory.”

    Brazil court order over Israeli soldier
    Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, hailed a decision by a court in Brazil to order a probe against a visiting Israeli soldier, saying legal actions against Israelis suspected of crimes in Gaza were “necessary and overdue”.

    The remarks on X came in response to the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) announcing that a Brazilian court had acted on a complaint it had filed against Israeli solider Yuval Vagdani and ordered the country’s police to launch an investigation.

    Israeli media later reported that Vagdani had fled the South American country.

    The Hind Rajab Foundation was established to breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honouring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.

    Hind Rajab was a five-year-old girl murdered by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024 in a car in which six family members were also killed, and two would-be paramedic rescuers were also slaughtered. She died with 335 bullet wounds in her body.

    “Apartheid Israel will go to great lengths to shield its soldiers since a conviction abroad for crimes against Palestinians is a precedent it cannot afford,” Albanese wrote on X.

    “Yet, justice is unstoppable,” she said.

    Israeli plans to help accused soldiers
    The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Israel’s government was preparing to assist soldiers who may face arrest for participating in war crimes in Gaza when they travel abroad.

    So far, more than 50 complaints have been filed against Israeli soldiers in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Belgium, France and Brazil.

    Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on Al Jazeera is part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, say activists and analysts.

    The ban came almost a month after the PA launched a crackdown on a coalition of armed groups that call themselves the Jenin Brigades, reports Al Jazeera.

    The groups are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

    Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most of its residents in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.

    An Israeli apartheid placard at last Saturday's Auckland solidarity for Gaza health professionals
    An Israeli apartheid placard at last Saturday’s Auckland solidarity for Gaza health professionals . . . the crime against humanity includes the “intent to maintain domination of one racial group over another”. Image: APR

    indiscriminate Jenin tactics
    However, its indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and human rights groups told Al Jazeera.

    Critics have claimed that the PA crackdown due to pressure by the Israeli authorities which have also imposed recent bans on Al Jazeera.

    The PA originated with the Oslo Accords between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in 1993. It mandated that the PA recognise Israel and eliminate Palestinian armed groups in exchange for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by 1999.

    Israel, however, has used the last 30 years block statehood while to expanding illegal settlements on large swathes of stolen Palestinian land, nearly tripling the number of settlers in the occupied West Bank to 700,000.

    As an occupying power, it still controls most aspects of Palestinian life and frequently carries out raids, killings and arrests in the West Bank, even in areas where the PA is supposed to be in full control.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • By Maram Humaid in Deir el-Balah, Gaza

    Journalists gathered at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital expressed outrage and confusion about the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) decision to shut down Al Jazeera’s office in the occupied West Bank.

    “Shutting down a major outlet like Al Jazeera is a crime against journalism,” said freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi.

    “Al Jazeera coverage has documented Israeli crimes against Palestinians, especially during the ongoing genocide,” the 28-year-old journalist told Al Jazeera at the hospital, the most reliable internet connection in the Strip to file stories from.

    Yesterday, the PA temporarily suspended Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank for what they described as broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.

    The decision came after Fatah, the Palestinian faction which dominates the PA, banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the governorates of Jenin, Tubas and Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, citing its coverage of clashes between the Palestinian security forces and Palestinian armed groups in the area.

    Al Jazeera criticised the PA ban, saying the move is “in line with the [Israeli] occupation’s actions against its staff”.

    ‘Obscuring the truth’
    Since the beginning of the war, about 150 journalists have been working from the journalists’ tents at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, for 20 local, international and Arab media outlets.

    Journalists, including those from Al Jazeera, have been forced to work from hospitals after their headquarters and media offices were destroyed.


    PA decision ‘shocking but hardly surprising’.   Video: Al Jazeera

    Al-Aqsa TV correspondent Mohammed Issa said from the hospital that the PA’s ban contradicts international laws that guarantee journalistic freedom and could further endanger journalists.

    “The PA’s decision obscures the truth and undermines the Palestinian narrative, especially a leading network like Al Jazeera,” Issa said, adding that the ban reinforces Israel’s narrative that “justifies the targeting of Palestinian journalists”.

    Wafa Hajjaj
    Independent journalist Wafa Hajjaj . . . the PA’s move against Al Jazeera “worsens the situation” Image: Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera

    “All media workers in Gaza reject this decision that silences the largest Arab and global outlet during critical times in years.”

    Wafaa Hajjaj, an independent journalist working with TRT and Sahat, said the ban made her both “sad” and “disappointed”.

    “At a time when Israel is deliberately targeting and killing … journalists in Gaza, with our Jazeera colleagues at the forefront, with no international or institutional protection, the PA’s move in the West Bank comes to worsen the situation,” Hajjaj said as she and her team walked into the hospital to interview the wounded.

    Israel has killed at least 217 journalists and media workers in Gaza since the beginning of its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

    Four of them were Al Jazeera journalists: Samer Abudaqa, Hamza al-Dahdouh, Ismail al-Ghoul and Ahmed al-Louh.

    ‘Trust Al Jazeera will persist’
    Although frustrated, Hajjaj told Al Jazeera that she was hopeful the PA would drop its ban “as soon as possible”.

    “I trust Al Jazeera will persist despite all sanctions, as it has for years.”

    Yousef Hassouna, a photojournalist with 22 years of experience, also criticised the shutting of Al Jazeera along with “any other media outlet” targeted by such bans.

    “This is a violation against all of us Palestinian journalists,” he said, adding that Al Jazeera was “an essential platform” covering Israel’s war on Gaza.

    “Now more than ever, we Palestinian journalists need international support and protection, not limitations or restrictions,” Hassouna said.

    Ikhlas Qirnawi
    Freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi  . . . the closure of Al Jazeera in thde West Bank is a “crime against journalism”. Image: Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera

    ‘Critical mistakes’
    Ismail al-Thawabtah, spokesperson for the government media bureau in Gaza, said the Palestinian Authority had committed two serious mistakes over the past few weeks.

    “The first: the attack on Jenin and the resulting military confrontation with our honourable Palestinian people and the resistance forces, and the second: the closure of the Al Jazeera office,” he said, adding that the move represents “serious violations of freedom of the press”.

    Al-Thawabtah said both incidents required the PA to conduct a comprehensive review of policies and positions in line with supreme national interests and respect for the “rights of our Palestinian people and their basic freedoms”.

    As for the journalists gathered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, they were united in their call to end the ban.

    “We as journalists are completely against it. I hope that action will be taken to stop this decision immediately.” said the freelance journalist al-Qarnawi, adding that the ban hurts more than just journalists.

    “Our Palestinian people are the biggest losers.”

    Republished from Al Jazeera under Creative Commons.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.