The Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair is taking place at the ExCeL centre in London. Meanwhile, activists and campaigners have already been robustly protesting it – causing some major disruption along the way. However, one group has revealed the extent of the Israeli state’s death and destruction that’s being represented at DSEI. It includes over 40 arms companies from the country selling their weapons there.
Stop the arms fair
The Canary has been documenting this year’s resistance to DSEI. It’s a huge arms fair that hosts over 2,800 companies profiting from death, destruction, and surveillance. DSEI happens every two years – and so do the protests to it. Stop The Arms Fair (STAF) has been organising resistance. So far, it’s held a peace walk, a workshop on removing militarisation from education, and a ‘policing and prisons’ day – focusing on how these arms of the state intersect with DSEI:
Today is policing and prisons day at the #StopDSEI protests. As well as weapons, DSEI is a one stop shop for militarised policing and the equipment and tech to repress populations.
There was also a Faith Day on Thursday 7 September. This was where people from all denominations (or those with none) held vigils, but also blocked deliveries to DSEI. Cops arrested nine people – as they usually do. Then, Climate Day on Friday 8 September saw people lock-on to delivery lorries:
Lock-on in front of a truck during climate day at #StopDSEI.
We can’t tackle the climate crisis without confronting the fact that the world’s militaries are also some of the world’s biggest polluters.
The climax of the first week of protests was STAF’s Festival of Resistance on Saturday 9 September. It included music and guest speakers:
Set list for the Festival of Resistance at #StopDSEI today. Join us at the Peace Camp near Prince Regent DLR! We hear 20 Critical Mass cyclists are now on the way. pic.twitter.com/8isZXDLRdg
People once again blocked roads into the ExCeL centre to stop deliveries – while dancing, no less:
Campaigners dance in the road outside ExCel East gate as no arms trade vehicles can go through to set up the DSEI arms fair; very quiet at ExCel west too. #StopDSEIpic.twitter.com/IboazgQE3i
There was a heavy police presence – but, curiously, they didn’t arrest anyone on 9 September:
We are following with great interest the actions happening now to stop the DSEI arms show from being able to get set up in London given the plans for a Canada Pavilion inside the ExCel convention centre. For an overview of #StopDSEI events: https://t.co/wZ2GIrxSQF#ShutDownCANSECpic.twitter.com/XwKmE7sLUT
— Peace Brigades International – Canada (@PBIcanada) September 9, 2023
STAF have more actions happening, too – including a Migrant Justice Day:
TWO WEEKS OF RESISTANCE is planned to disrupt and stop the world's largest arms fair. #StopDSEI
Join us for performances, talks, protests and more!!
However, against this backdrop of protest, a campaign group has revealed just how well-represented Israeli arms companies are at DSEI.
Israeli arms companies making a killing at DSEI
Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) research shows that over 40 Israeli arms companies – including Elbit Systems – have stalls at DSEI. The Canary has documented Elbit’s toxic work. It includes ‘battle testing‘ equipment on Palestinians. As Tom Anderson previously wrote:
Elbit manufactures around 85% of Israel’s drones which have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.
For example – during Israel’s 51 day attack on Gaza in 2014 – Israeli drones killed 840 Palestinians. Drones were alsoused extensively in Israel’s 11 day attack on Gaza in 2021.
Elbit’s Ferranti factory in Oldham manufactured imaging and surveillance systems for Israel’s Hermes drones, which have been used to kill Palestinians in Gaza. Elbit is also responsible for manufacturing small calibre ammunition for the Israeli army.
It’s not just in Palestine that Israeli arms manufacturers enable death and destruction. As Middle East Eye reported, government-owned Israel Aerospace Industries has been exporting arms to Myanmar. This is despite making promises to the contrary. The UN described the situation in Myanmar as “genocidal” in 2017, after 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh.
Former Canary editor Emily Apple is CAAT’s media coordinator. She said in a statement:
Israel is an apartheid state, and it is disgusting that the UK is not only selling weapons to Israel but encouraging Israeli arms companies to sell their weapons in London.
Deals done at DSEI will cause misery across the world, causing global instability, and devastating people’s lives. Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.
Arms dealers do not care about peace or security. They care about perpetuating conflict, because conflict increases profits for their shareholders. Meanwhile this government has shown repeatedly that it cares more about the money made from dodgy deals with dictators than it does about the people whose lives will be ruined by the sales made at DSEI.
Whether it’s Elbit, Israel, or Saudi Arabia, once again DSEI – and the UK government – is complicit in the promotion of the arms industry. Meanwhile, it’s people in place like Palestine, Myanmar, and Yemen who suffer while the ExCeL centre sees millions traded off the back of their misery.
The Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair is taking place at the ExCeL centre in London. Meanwhile, activists and campaigners have already been robustly protesting it – causing some major disruption along the way. However, one group has revealed the extent of the Israeli state’s death and destruction that’s being represented at DSEI. It includes over 40 arms companies from the country selling their weapons there.
Stop the arms fair
The Canary has been documenting this year’s resistance to DSEI. It’s a huge arms fair that hosts over 2,800 companies profiting from death, destruction, and surveillance. DSEI happens every two years – and so do the protests to it. Stop The Arms Fair (STAF) has been organising resistance. So far, it’s held a peace walk, a workshop on removing militarisation from education, and a ‘policing and prisons’ day – focusing on how these arms of the state intersect with DSEI:
Today is policing and prisons day at the #StopDSEI protests. As well as weapons, DSEI is a one stop shop for militarised policing and the equipment and tech to repress populations.
There was also a Faith Day on Thursday 7 September. This was where people from all denominations (or those with none) held vigils, but also blocked deliveries to DSEI. Cops arrested nine people – as they usually do. Then, Climate Day on Friday 8 September saw people lock-on to delivery lorries:
Lock-on in front of a truck during climate day at #StopDSEI.
We can’t tackle the climate crisis without confronting the fact that the world’s militaries are also some of the world’s biggest polluters.
The climax of the first week of protests was STAF’s Festival of Resistance on Saturday 9 September. It included music and guest speakers:
Set list for the Festival of Resistance at #StopDSEI today. Join us at the Peace Camp near Prince Regent DLR! We hear 20 Critical Mass cyclists are now on the way. pic.twitter.com/8isZXDLRdg
People once again blocked roads into the ExCeL centre to stop deliveries – while dancing, no less:
Campaigners dance in the road outside ExCel East gate as no arms trade vehicles can go through to set up the DSEI arms fair; very quiet at ExCel west too. #StopDSEIpic.twitter.com/IboazgQE3i
There was a heavy police presence – but, curiously, they didn’t arrest anyone on 9 September:
We are following with great interest the actions happening now to stop the DSEI arms show from being able to get set up in London given the plans for a Canada Pavilion inside the ExCel convention centre. For an overview of #StopDSEI events: https://t.co/wZ2GIrxSQF#ShutDownCANSECpic.twitter.com/XwKmE7sLUT
— Peace Brigades International – Canada (@PBIcanada) September 9, 2023
STAF have more actions happening, too – including a Migrant Justice Day:
TWO WEEKS OF RESISTANCE is planned to disrupt and stop the world's largest arms fair. #StopDSEI
Join us for performances, talks, protests and more!!
However, against this backdrop of protest, a campaign group has revealed just how well-represented Israeli arms companies are at DSEI.
Israeli arms companies making a killing at DSEI
Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) research shows that over 40 Israeli arms companies – including Elbit Systems – have stalls at DSEI. The Canary has documented Elbit’s toxic work. It includes ‘battle testing‘ equipment on Palestinians. As Tom Anderson previously wrote:
Elbit manufactures around 85% of Israel’s drones which have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.
For example – during Israel’s 51 day attack on Gaza in 2014 – Israeli drones killed 840 Palestinians. Drones were alsoused extensively in Israel’s 11 day attack on Gaza in 2021.
Elbit’s Ferranti factory in Oldham manufactured imaging and surveillance systems for Israel’s Hermes drones, which have been used to kill Palestinians in Gaza. Elbit is also responsible for manufacturing small calibre ammunition for the Israeli army.
It’s not just in Palestine that Israeli arms manufacturers enable death and destruction. As Middle East Eye reported, government-owned Israel Aerospace Industries has been exporting arms to Myanmar. This is despite making promises to the contrary. The UN described the situation in Myanmar as “genocidal” in 2017, after 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh.
Former Canary editor Emily Apple is CAAT’s media coordinator. She said in a statement:
Israel is an apartheid state, and it is disgusting that the UK is not only selling weapons to Israel but encouraging Israeli arms companies to sell their weapons in London.
Deals done at DSEI will cause misery across the world, causing global instability, and devastating people’s lives. Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.
Arms dealers do not care about peace or security. They care about perpetuating conflict, because conflict increases profits for their shareholders. Meanwhile this government has shown repeatedly that it cares more about the money made from dodgy deals with dictators than it does about the people whose lives will be ruined by the sales made at DSEI.
Whether it’s Elbit, Israel, or Saudi Arabia, once again DSEI – and the UK government – is complicit in the promotion of the arms industry. Meanwhile, it’s people in place like Palestine, Myanmar, and Yemen who suffer while the ExCeL centre sees millions traded off the back of their misery.
Fiji’s government has taken the local leader of an influential South Korean doomsday sect into immigration custody after he and several other members of the Grace Road Church were declared “prohibited migrants” based on charges filed in 2018.
Fiji had announced last Thursday that it was taking steps to deport Daniel Kim and the other sect members who had been detained.
The passports of the sect members had been annulled by the Korean government in 2021, and Interpol “red notices” were issued against them.
Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua revealed that all of this had been ignored by the previous repressive Fiji government led by former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama, according to Fijivillage News and other local media.
Tikoduadua said two sect members had already been deported while the deportations of another two were temporarily halted by a court order.
One more member was still at large.
OCCRP investigated Grace Road and its close ties to the Bainimarama regime last year. Kim and others had managed to evade a 2018 INTERPOL red notice until the new government acted. https://t.co/i4d0XtVLYS
A joint investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP) and KICJ-Newstapa last year exposed how the secretive Grace Road became an economic powerhouse in Fiji during the 16-year rule of Bainimarama, who lost power in elections last December.
Reporters discovered that the church was able to thrive in Fiji despite Kim and other key members being wanted on international warrants.
The investigation also uncovered how the church expanded its empire, which included a farm, restaurants, petrol stations, and supermarkets, all while receiving millions in state-backed loans.
Grace Road’s spiritual leader, Kim’s mother Ok-joo Shin, was arrested at Seoul’s international airport in 2018 and imprisoned for offences, including assault, child abuse, and imprisoning church members.
Around the same time, South Korean police attempted to bring Kim and other church members back on similar charges in Fiji but were forced to return empty-handed after a court blocked their removal.
Republished with permission from the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP).
The press statement was clear enough — that the Interpol Red Notice described these individuals as “Fugitive wanted for Prosecution”. pic.twitter.com/EjqJcyVVwv
SUNDAY TIMES EDITORIAL:By The Fiji Times editor Fred Wesley
If there is a rise in robberies in some of Fiji’s urban areas, then something must be triggering it. Unless this is the norm, and robberies are part and parcel of life in these urban centres, something is amiss, and we need to get to the bottom of what’s causing it.
Residents along Raiwaqa’s Falvey Rd, we learn, are living in fear as robberies in the area have become an almost daily occurrence. Biren Pal, 61, a resident of the area for more than six decades, claimed robberies and assaults were a norm.
Last Sunday, Mr Pal was robbed and, in the process, was severely injured in the face when thieves mobbed him before fleeing with his mobile phone. He was walking to a friend’s house when he was pushed to the ground and knocked unconscious.
He only regained consciousness when his friends took him to the hospital. Southern Police Commander SSP Wate Vocevoce confirmed receiving a complaint from Mr Pal.
He said in the past four months crimes committed in the area included four cases of assault, one of burglary and property damage and one case of theft.
In the Lagilagi area in the past six months, police recorded 14 cases of assault, one case each of theft, assault, intimidation, and trespass and two cases of property damage. Now such robberies and assaults on people are harmful for many reasons.
Aside from the pain and suffering it causes people like Mr Pal, there is the negative impact on life itself for those living in the area for instance.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt
There is fear, uncertainty and doubt cast over the area because of the actions of thugs.
The ripple effect on businesses in the area is felt by everyone connected to it.
And we are talking about stores operating in the area, shoppers, staff of these stores and residents living in the area.
There is a sense of fear that may stick to the area because of the robberies.
People will eventually hesitate to travel through the area, to shop there, or visit family and friends for instance. It breeds doubt, with only the brave who are willing to take their chances, visiting it.
When High Court judge Justice Daniel Goundar sentenced a 19-year-old casual labourer for stealing a mobile phone recently, he mentioned that muggings were prevalent.
In the Western Division, we learn that theft, assault, and burglary were among the most reported crimes in the division in the month of August.
Decrease in overall crime
Divisional police commander West senior superintendent of police (SSP) Iakobo Vaisewa said while these criminal acts were at the top of the list, their division has noted a decrease in the overall crime rate though.
“Even if the smallest item is stolen, they are investigated,” he said.
Now that’s a good thing because how else are we supposed to fight this? We look up to the police force to put in place measures that will empower people to assist it in the war against crime.
Fiji needs people who are willing to put their hands up and accept responsibility for their actions. In saying that, we look up to the powers that be to lead the way.
However, it is obvious that we need a united front.
The flip side to that is more crime, and more uncertainty, insecurity, fear and doubt! And those who assault and rob people need to get a life!
This editorial was published in Fiji’s Sunday Times today under the title “We need to work together”. Republished with permission.
Black communities around Mississippi have long raised concerns about suspicious deaths of young Black men, especially when law enforcement is involved.
Curley Clark, vice president of the Mississippi NAACP at the time of Reveal’s reporting, called Billey Joe Johnson Jr.’s case an example of “Mississippi justice.”
“It means that they still feel like the South should have won the Civil War,” Clark said. “And also the laws for the state of Mississippi are slanted in that direction.”
Before Johnson died during a traffic stop with a White sheriff’s deputy, friends say police had pulled him over dozens of times. And some members of the community raised concerns that police had been racially profiling Black people.
Reveal investigates Johnson’s interactions with law enforcement and one officer in particular.
This episode was originally broadcast in November 2021.
As Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) sets up at the ExCeL centre in London, activists have begun resisting it. Not far behind them are the cops – with nine arrests already, even before this notorious arms fair begins properly.
DSEI arms fair: dealing in death
The Canaryhasbeendocumenting the build-up to this year’s DSEI, an arms fair which happens every two years – as do the protests against it. As former Canary editor Emily Apple previously wrote:
supported by the UK government, and organised by Clarion Events – DSEI is a massive event for arms dealers. One of its primary functions is to allow arms companies to network with representatives from some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Companies will encourage delegates from human-rights-abusing nations such asBahrain, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to buy the latest weapons to suppress their own populations and/or to wage war against others.
There is no pretense. DSEI exists to connect buyers and sellers. It exists to make deals that will devastate people’s lives.
So, as DSEI began to set up on Tuesday 5 September, activists started resisting it. For example, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) held a “vigil”. It was over arms manufacturers and governments selling weapons to the apartheid state of Israel – which it then uses to kill Palestinians:
People are gathering for the Stop the DSEI Arms Fair vigil in Cundy Park, London.
The global trade in weapons, including this event, fuels attacks against indigenous and racialised communities across the world, including Palestinians.#stoparmingisraelpic.twitter.com/DGuYEdPsyZ
This evenings vigil organised by @PSCupdates making the connection between weapons sold at DSEI and oppression of Palestinian people. But also sharing positive messages of hope, creativity and resistance. pic.twitter.com/g5wqvk4SAt
PSC said in a statement that the vigil and its attendees:
condemned the presence of Israeli military officials and Israeli arms companies, which develop and use weapons in violence against Palestinians, before selling them as ‘battle-tested’ to other states. This year alone, Israel has killed over 200 Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory, including in military invasions, bombing campaigns, and assassinations.
Vigil attendees joined calls for London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has previously stated his opposition to the fair, to act to bring a halt to the event. Protesters also turned their fire on the British government, which helps organise the event through the Ministry of Defence and UK Defence and Security Exports, part of the Department for International Trade.
Then, on Wednesday 6 September, people held a “peace walk” – plus a workshop on removing militarisation from education also went on:
Images from today’s #StopDSEI peace walk from Stratford to ExCel, where the DSEI arms fair will be taking place; plus wreathes laid in the dock in memory of all those killed by wars and the arms trade. pic.twitter.com/Y0jBE3tFhK
Ded_ucation (Demilitarise Education) teach-in today outside the set up of the DSEI arms fair, talking about the links between the arms trade and the Higher Education sector. They were joined by activists from the Free Assange campaign. #StopDSEIpic.twitter.com/gecgh4udaN
However, while all these events passed off without incident, that wasn’t the case on Thursday 7 September.
Faith Day is met with cops
It was Faith Day outside DSEI – where people of all denominations (and none) come together to call for peace, and denounce militarisation (and the arms fair).
Faith Day begins at the #StopDSEI protests at ExCel in London, as people of all faiths and none gather to say no to the DSEI arms fair, which is being set up the week. pic.twitter.com/fU423QIu2v
People congregated on the road leading into the ExCeL to sing and stop vehicles entering it:
Long queue of arms fair vehicles outside ExCel as road remains filled with singing No Faith in War peace campaigners #StopDSEIpic.twitter.com/D8WwZhBA3C
Truckloads of equipment for the huge DSEI arms fair are being turned back as Quakers and others gather and sing in the road. The UK is one of the biggest exporters of weapons globally. Is this really who we want to be as a nation? #stopDSEI#fightforpeacepic.twitter.com/2Y09eQpZe7
Historically, Faith Day has been a flashpoint at DSEI protests. In 2019, cops arrested over 30 Quakers. Apple previously reported:
Quakers were sitting in silence – a key part of their act of worship – when police officers began moving through the crowd to warn people they could be arrested if they didn’t move.
Head of worship & witness for Quakers in Britain Oliver Robertson spoke to an inspector about the decision to move the police in while this was taking place. He expressed his “disappointment” in the police’s actions and that:
“it’s a spiritual endeavour. It’s the same as in the middle of a church service”.
The inspector apologised and said they:
“will take that as a learning point”.
Clearly, cops haven’t learned – as they arrested nine people during Faith Day this year:
Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) told the Canary:
On Thursday, people of all faiths and none put their bodies in the way of this trade in death and destruction. The religious services held at the gates were powerful testaments to people’s commitment to the principles of their faith and the need to act against this deadly trade.
Deals done at DSEI will cause misery across the world, causing global instability, and devastating people’s lives. Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.
Arms dealers do not care about peace or security. They care about perpetuating conflict, because conflict increases profits for their shareholders. Meanwhile this government has shown repeatedly that it cares more about the money made from dodgy deals with dictators than it does about the people whose lives will be ruined by the sales made at DSEI.
War starts with the deals done at the ExCeL centre. Campaigners are showing that we have the power to stop those deals before they take place.
All this is before DSEI has actually even begun. On Saturday 9 September, Stop The Arms Fair has organised its Festival of Resistance – an event which has in the past seen widespread disproportionate policing. So, in the coming days expect more heavy-handedness from cops, amid more protests from people committed to stopping DSEI.
Grace Road group Fiji president Daniel Kim is currently in Fiji immigration custody as he has been declared a prohibited immigrant, according to Immigration Minister Pio Tikoduadua.
Speaking to Fijivillage News this afternoon, Tikoduadua confirmed that Kim had been located and that he was a prohibited immigrant.
He said there was a court order that stopped Kim from being removed from Fiji now but the government was appealing against the court decision.
Tikoduadua confirmed yesterday that Daniel Kim was on the run after his passport was nullified by the South Korean government, and the Fiji government stated that it was unable to locate him.
Tikoduadua said seven other people from Grace Road in Fiji were wanted by the Korean government and this included acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Jin Sook Yoon, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.
Also on the run is Jin Sook Yoon.
Tikoduadua confirmed that the government of South Korea communicated through diplomatic channels on 21 September 2018 that they had nullified the passports of the seven individuals connected with the Grace Road cult.
Passports nullified
He said these individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid and a warrant issued for their arrest.
The Fiji Immigration Minister said that in July 2018, “red notices’ were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as “fugitives wanted for prosecution”.
He said all of these notices were ignored by the former government.
Tikoduadua said that using his discretion as Minister under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared Prohibited Immigrants making their presence in Fiji unlawful.
He said yesterday that a task force, consisting of police and immigration officers, began the removal of these individuals.
Kim had called a press conference at Grace Road Navua yesterday afternoon challenging claims by Tikoduadua that he was on the run and he had demanded an apology from the minister.
Kim also confirmed that two Grace Road members, namely Byeong Joon Lee and Boemseop Shin, had been removed from the country without the group’s knowledge or information about the removal process.
Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.
Northern Governor Gary Juffa has joined Papua New Guinea’s police chief and the Prime Minister in calling for Papua New Guineans to lay down arms and cease acts of local terrorism.
“I stand with the Commissioner of Police, David Manning, and Prime Minister James Marape to apply the full force of the law to quell all forms of local terrorism in PNG and, particularly, in Northern Province.
“I am particularly concerned as a few weeks ago my Oro Bay RPSC [rural police station commander] Sergeant Terry Giwaya was ruthlessly gunned down only a few kilometres away from his station,” Governor Juffa said.
“I commend Commissioner Manning and his ACP Southern Clement Dalla for their swift action in responding to our plight, seeing through the proficient capture of the alleged thugs and the recovery of an alleged police firearm.
“The success of this operation is attributed also to the provincial police command, our local Northern police personnel,” Juffa said
“All gloves off” was not an order given lightly by any police commissioner or prime minister but with “our ignorance of the rule of law” and the disrespect to its enforcement machinery — the RPNGC — such an order was “timely and very necessary”.
Law and order priority
Juffa added that law and order in Northern Province would always be a priority on a par with health, infrastructure and education and had seen the Northern provincial government spending close to 1 million kina (about NZ$463,000) to date.
“Every citizen has a right to move freely without fear and to engage in commerce with the full covering of the laws of our country,” Juffa said.
“I stand with my prime minister and our police commissioner to clamp down on local terrorism and elements that fuel the atrocities.”
Governor Juffa indicated plans were afoot to take the body of Sergeant Giwaya back home, including an official programme scheduled to take place after the September 16 independence celebrations next weekend.
The High Court in Lautoka yesterday issued orders to the Fiji police and the Immigration Department not to remove four members of the controversial South Korean religious cult Grace Road from Fiji.
They are Beomseop Shin, Byeongjoon Lee, Jung “Daniel” Yong Kim and Jinsook Yoon.
The interim injunction was issued restraining the Director of Immigration, Commissioner of Police, Airports Fiji Ltd, Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji, Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services from removing these individuals from Fiji.
The High Court has adjourned the case to September 18 at 9am for hearing.
The restraining order was obtained by Gordon and Company of Lautoka.
Earlier, Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua had called on members of the public to reach out to the authorities if they had information on the whereabouts of Grace Road president “Daniel” Jung Yong Kim and Jin Sook Yoon, reports The Fiji Times’ Meri Radinibaravi.
An International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) red notice was issued for Kim, Yoon and five other South Korean individuals in July 2018, which Tikoduadua said had been “ignored by the former government”.
Red notices
The seven individuals are Kim, Yoon, acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.
“In July 2018, red notices were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as ‘fugitives wanted for prosecution’. All of these were ignored by the former government,” Tikoduadua told the media yesterday.
“Using my discretion as minister, under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared prohibited immigrants — making their presence in Fiji unlawful.
“In that regard, may I just use this opportunity to reach out to these other two who, in my view perhaps, are trying not to be seen or noticed by anybody.
“We’re unable to reach them, the police obviously, and the relevant authorities are looking for them. Let me remind the general public that it is an offence to actually harbour people who are wanted, it’s against the law to do that.
“So, please, we welcome information with regard to their location as they are prohibited immigrants in Fiji.”
Tikoduadua said that while Kim and Yoon were still at large, Joon Lee and Shin had been successfully transported back to Korea, accompanied by a South Korean Embassy interpreter and four Fiji police personnel who “will return to Fiji after a brief stay in South Korea”.
Passports nullified
“These individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid by the South Korean government which had issued a warrant for their arrest.
“During the removal process, Fiji Airways declined to transport Sung Jin Lee and Nam Suk Choi due to a High Court order. The Solicitor-General (Ropate Green) has received this court order for review.
“Ms Lee and Ms Choi have been released and are currently at the Grace Road farm in Navua.
“Additionally, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration is exploring legal options under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1997 and the Extradition Act 2003, given that these individuals are subject to an Interpol red notice.”
Tikoduadua said that yesterday, Green had indicated plans to appeal the court order.
Anish Chandis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
The Human Rights Lawyers Association (PAHAM) Papua has demanded a “thorough and impartial” investigation into the death of Michelle Kurisi, a civilian involved in gathering information about a New Zealand pilot held hostage by West Papuan pro-independence fighters.
She was tragically killed on August 28 in Kolawa District, Lanny Jaya Regency, in the Mountainous Papua Province.
Following Kurisi’s killing, a statement claiming responsibility for the act was made by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) spokesperson, Sebby Sambom.
The TPNPB alleged that the victim had collaborated with security forces and had engaged in spying activities during her visit to Nduga, where she was collecting data on refugees, including information related to the release of the New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held hostage by a TPNPB group since February 7.
Gustaf R. Kawer, chair of PAHAM Papua, said that the focus of the investigation should not be to find a scapegoat or advance a politically motivated narrative.
Instead, it should prioritise an independent inquiry that delved into the victim’s daily life, her occupation, work-related relationships, and her mission to Nduga, including identifying the institutions or parties she was collaborating with.
He said it was crucial to determine who was with her until she met her tragic end.
‘Close ties with police officers’
“Based on PAHAM Papua’s digital tracing and monitoring efforts,” Gustaf Kawer said in a media release, “it appears that the victim had close ties with several high-ranking police officers in Papua and was actively involved in various conflicts in the region.”
Therefore there was a pressing need for an in-depth, impartial investigation into Michelle Kurisi’s death by a neutral entity.
This would help prevent claims and narratives driven by political interests.
Kawer stressed the importance of gathering witnesses and evidence — including the victim’s digital footprint — her recent activities, and communications with various parties, particularly during her trip to Nduga.
These elements were critical in unravelling the motive behind her murder, he said.
Furthermore, the victim’s participation in a a webinar titled “Indonesia Walk Out Why?” hosted by Bishop Joshua Tewuh was noteworthy.
During this event, she expressed support for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) delegation and criticised the Indonesian government strongly.
Speculation about motive
Given her recent track record, there was speculation about the motive behind her murder, Kawer said.
It was possible that her death was not solely orchestrated by the TPNPB but could involve groups with vested interests in Papua, aiming to silence her for her statements or to manipulate the narrative surrounding the Papua conflict.
In light of these circumstances, Gustaf Kawer urged the Indonesian government to establish an independent team, through the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), to investigate cases of extrajudicial killings thoroughly.
This action was essential to prevent unfounded claims and protect civilians in Papua, whether by the TPNPB or the security forces,he said.
Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) is one of the world’s largest arms fairs. It’s taking place at the ExCeL Centre in London between 12 and 15 September. The biannual event is always met with resistance from campaign groups and activists, who are then equally met by heavy-handed treatment by the cops. Already, it looks like this year will be no different – as police targeted activists before anything had even begun.
DSEI: stop the arms fair
As the Canary previously reported, DSEI takes place every two years. Thousands of arms dealers and defence and security suppliers gather at the ExCeL centre to court repressive regimes:
This year, over 2,800 defence and security suppliers will be courting deals. However, every time DSEI takes place, activists also descend on the ExCeL centre and its locality to protest it. Stop the Arms Fair (STAF) organises the resistance – and the Canary has repeatedly reported on this bi-annual horror show.
This year, protests began on 5 September and will run for two weeks:
TWO WEEKS OF RESISTANCE is planned to disrupt and stop the world's largest arms fair. #StopDSEI
Join us for performances, talks, protests and more!!
During the first week, activists will target the setting up of the arms fair. However, police are already disrupting protesters’ right to go about their business.
Police refused to allow the delivery of portable toilets to the protest camp saying it’s private property – even though campaigners have permission for them and it’s really none of the police’s business. The usual petty restrictions on the right to demonstrate, in other words
Moreover, cops have already been following CAAT activists – even before they reached the ExCeL centre:
Day 1 of the DSEI protests, and the police are already harassing people. These police officers clocked CAAT staff members while we were having lunch and followed us for several hours, including getting the DLR with us. #StopDSEI#ResistDSEI#DefendDissentpic.twitter.com/NOZBZmiCqO
Campaigners have suffered from excessive and violent policing at previous DSEIs. This has included cops using blanket stop-and-search powers, making arrests, disproportionate surveillance, harassment, and deploying spycops. Previous DSEI protests have also shown the institutional and systemic racism that is rife in the police. Protests by marginalised communities faced excessive police violence and harassment.
Former Canary editor Emily Apple, in her capacity as CAAT’s media coordinator, told us:
Time and again at DSEI we’ve seen the police protect the arms dealers, and repress our right to protest against this abhorrent fair. DSEI is a marketplace in death and destruction with deals done at the ExCeL centre causing global misery and devastating people’s lives.
Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.
Arms dealers do not care about peace or security because conflict increases profits for their shareholders. Meanwhile this government has shown repeatedly that it cares more about the money made from dodgy deals with dictators than it does about the people whose lives will be ruined by the sales made at DSEI.
Yet despite the violence perpetrated inside the ExCeL centre, the police view protesters as the problem, not arms dealers. But this year we’re also sending the police a message. You will be watched and you will be held accountable for repressive policing.
Cat and mouse policing
Netpol will be central to the monitoring of police at the arms fair. It’s already made it clear it wants to hear from any activists targeted by cops:
The group’s campaigns coordinator Kevin Blowe told the Canary :
There is often a huge gulf between police promises to “respect human rights” at protests and campaigners’ experiences of aggressive policing, racial profiling, intrusive police surveillance and mistreatment at the hands of officers.
This year’s opposition to the DSEi arms fair, however, is taking place in the aftermath of a growing state intolerance towards protesters and increasingly restrictive anti-protest legislation. Not all the new powers given to the police are in place yet, but the Home Secretary has decided that the definition of “serious disruption” means anything causing more than a minor hindrance, and Netpol believes this is more likely to lead to arrests in the week before the arms fair begins, when in previous years the ExCeL centre has been blockaded by demonstrators.
It is already easier for the police to impose strict conditions on a demonstrations, but we do not yet know if the Metropolitan Police will become the first to make arrests for the new criminal offences of locking-on and going equipped to lock-on. These offences target the methods by which disruption might potentially take place, rather than focusing on the actual degree of disruption a protest could lead to.
Netpol believe new police powers exist primarily to further criminalise the right to dissent and to intimidate people into not joining protest movements that the police recognise are likely to grow. That is why we are monitoring the impact of policing on the right to freedom of assembly during DSEI and are urging campaigners to tell us about their experiences.
Bear in mind that this was on the first day when cops followed activists, and blocked the entry of their toilets. With STAF organising numerous events, including a ‘Festival of Resistance’ on Saturday 9 September, the police response is likely to be more disproportionate than ever. Saturday’s event has historically seen the most repressive policing. Not that this will deter activists – it never did in previous years.
On 2 September, home secretary Suella Braverman commissioned a review into “activism and impartiality in the police”. However, if you were at all worried that this means the government will take the culture of far-right extremism in the police seriously, you can rest easy.
Hell, she’s not even talking about issues like homophobia and racism in the force. Quite the opposite, in fact. Braverman specifically listed critical race theory, gender identity politics, and even climate activism as areas where the police need to appear more impartial. Of course, she also put scare quotes around “gender identity”.
Anyone remember Casey?
Not that anybody needs reminding, but the Casey Review of the Met came out in March 2023. It followed the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer. Casey found the Met to be institutionally racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. She also stated, unambiguously, that:
The Met can now no longer presume that it has the permission of the people of London to police them.
But what has Braverman, in her infinite wisdom, decided is the problem with our police? Not the cultures of “blindness, arrogance and prejudice” cited by Casey, no. Rather, the home secretary clearly thinks the police are losing public faith because some of them take the knee or use trans people’s pronouns.
In her letter to HMCI Andy Cooke, Braverman stated her expectation that the police should focus on crime, rather than involving themselves in political matters. So, she commissioned His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to review police involvement in such activities, and how this affects the legitimacy of policing in England and Wales.
Maintaining ‘neutrality’
In particular, Braverman pointed to cases where she felt like public confidence had been damaged by police engaging in contentious issues. Specifically, she mentioned policing “gender critical” views on social media, and participation in social campaigns.
The HMICFRS review will cover:
Policies and processes that go beyond Equality Act 2010 obligations.
The neutrality of training on such policies and processes, and the organisations delivering it.
The selection and expressions of groups consulted on revisions to policy, and “what “consideration is given to other groups that may be impacted as a result”.
The involvement of staff networks in policy development, and these networks’ involvement in “contested political matters”.
The communication of these issues with the public.
The home secretary expects the report by March 2024. Coincidentally, this is exactly one year after the Casey report was published. I’m not sure exactly what Braverman is expecting to happen here – there hasn’t been some great reversal in police prejudice over the last twelve months. We can’t be expected to believe that, actually, police are now too friendly towards black and queer causes, surely.
Braverman: virtue signalling
However, that’s not Braverman’s motivation here either, is it? For all that her letter hand-wrings about accusations of virtue-signaling in the police, she’s doing some signaling of her own. She wrote:
The British people expect their police to focus on cutting crime and protecting communities – political activism does not keep people safe, solve crimes or support victims, but can damage public confidence.
The review I’ve commissioned will explore whether the police getting involved in politically contentious matters is having a detrimental impact on policing.
There is a very specific facet of the public whose confidence in the police is damaged when an officer dances at a Pride parade or kneels as a symbolic gesture against racism (ignoring, for a moment, the people who are annoyed at police making these gestures because they’re two-faced snakes in the grass). It is the same facet who are not opposed to racism and who are angered by those Pride parades.
Braverman is signaling, and quite unsubtly at that, to these members of the public that she is on their side. As ever, the cries for neutrality aren’t neutral – they’re for the side of the status quo; that is, prejudice.
A world of her own
Beyond this, Braverman’s letter points to a larger problem with our government. It will commission endless reports and reviews in a vain attempt to prove that the world acts precisely as the Tories want it to. When the reports come back stating that the public have lost confidence in the police because of their racism and misogyny, well, the government knows just what to do. We’ll have another report, asking ‘Are the police too woke?’
This is a transparent attempt to manipulate the narrative around police failures. For a year, we’ll have breathless mainstream media reports on cops getting too friendly towards activists – and never mind the beatings. We’ll hear that, in order to maintain neutrality, the police must break away from organisations like Stonewall, and root out Black Lives Matter sympathisers. The cynic in me wants to say that it might even work.
However, even I’m not sure that could happen this time. Braverman is living in a world of her own if she thinks that we’ll just roll over and forget the prejudice and fascism in the force. She might persuade her supporters and client journalists, but there are too many people beyond them who have had enough this time. They will not be silenced so easily.
Standing silently, the 8-year-old girl in Papua New Guinea could only watch as her mother was stripped and tortured until she succumbed to her injuries, catching her last breath in front of her daughter last Wednesday.
The woman, identified as Lorna Nico, 39, from Kira LLG in the Sohe district, was married to a man from Mumeng and moved to Bulolo to be with the husband and start a family.
Lorna Nico died after being tortured in front of her daughter after a so-called “prayer warrior” accused her of having satanic powers and being a witch, bringing bad luck into the community.
She was tortured so badly that salt was used to pour into her wounds causing her more pain while her daughter watched her die.
The bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reverend Jack Urame, condemned the actions of the community in Mumeng, saying that the mixing of religion and sorcery was “not what the Bible taught”.
He said there was “a shift in people using Christianity to identify suspected sorcerers which was now being used to destroy families and commit murders”.
“Using Christianity as a means to enact killings against those accused of sorcery is an idea condemned by the churches. I as the head of the Lutheran Church do not promote such
acts and I condemn the actions taken against the innocent family,” Reverend Urame said.
‘Prayer warrior’ accused
Morobe Rural police commander Superintendent David Warap said that the use of the “prayer warrior” pushed the community to commit the torture and the killing.
“The prayer warrior, using the name of the Lord, started performing a prayer ritual and was describing and naming people in the village who she claimed had satanic powers and were killing and causing people to get sick, have bad luck and struggle in finding education, finding jobs and doing business,” Superintendent Warap said.
“Upon the woman’s announcement, youths and villagers agreed to kill Lorna and when the village councillors and mediation group tried to stop them, they threatened the group,” he added.
Lorna Nico saw the group coming and told her family to run.
“She had with her, her 8-year-old who she was trying to drag and run,” Superintendent Warap said.
“She looked ahead to her older children and told them to run for their lives. The group of men quickly surrounded Lorna, dragged her and her daughter back to the village and proceeded with the torture.”
Children fled in fear
After Lorna Nico died, the group of men left her out in the sun and then they dug a hole and threw her in, covering her body with a canvas.
The children, in fear of their lives, left the village and walked with several other villagers to the nearest police station.
Police got to the scene and removed the body and took the body to Angau Hospital morgue in Lae where the corpse will be examined.
The family have now petitioned the Bulolo MP Sam Basil Jr to ensure the police investigate the case and arrests are made.
The petition also states that the woman who was brought in as a “prayer warrior” should be identified and dealt with by police for falsely accusing their mother.
They have also demanded that the rule of law must prevail and they would not accept any form of compensation for their loss.
Police are continuing their investigation.
Sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV) in Papua New Guinea is a growing social crisis.
Taking place every two years – supported by the UK government, and organised by Clarion Events – DSEI is a massive event for arms dealers. One of its primary functions is to allow arms companies to network with representatives from some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Companies will encourage delegates from human-rights-abusing nations such asBahrain, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to buy the latest weapons to suppress their own populations and/or to wage war against others.
There is no pretense. DSEI exists to connect buyers and sellers. It exists to make deals that will devastate people’s lives.
This year, over 2,800 defence and security suppliers will be courting deals. However, every time DSEI takes place, activists also descend on the ExCeL centre and its locality to protest it. Stop the Arms Fair (STAF) organises the resistance – and the Canary has repeatedly reported on this bi-annual horror show. As we reported in 2017:
Demonstrations happened throughout the week, with people performing ‘lock ons’ to lorries, blockading roads and camping out. Groups working alongside STAF included legal observers from Green and Black Cross, the Network for Police Monitoring (NetPol) and the British Quakers.
That year, STAF organised a ‘Carnival of Resistance’. However, as is usually the case, the protests and events were marred by over-the-top and heavy-handed policing from the cops:
This year, protests will begin on Monday 4 September, lasting for two weeks. The first week will target the setting up of the arms fair. STAF is coordinating the fortnight of resistance, with other groups organising specific events or days. These days will highlight the intersections of the arms trade and the different areas and communities it impacts, including migrant justice, arms sales to Israel, the climate crisis, policing and prisons, and more. You can find a full lost of STAF’s events here:
TWO WEEKS OF RESISTANCE is planned to disrupt and stop the world's largest arms fair. #StopDSEI
Join us for performances, talks, protests and more!!
Former Canary journalist Emily Apple is Campaign Against Arms Trade’s media coordinator. She said:
DSEI is a marketplace in death and destruction. Deals done at DSEI will cause misery across the world, causing global instability, and devastating people’s lives. Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.
Arms dealers do not care about peace or security. They care about perpetuating conflict, because conflict increases profits for their shareholders. Meanwhile this government has shown repeatedly that it cares more about the money made from dodgy deals with dictators than it does about the people whose lives will be ruined by the sales made at DSEI.
It’s therefore down to all of us to take action to resist DSEI and to shut this arms fair down for good.
The events will include a ‘Festival of Resistance’ on Saturday 9 September. STAF says this will be:
A day of music and mayhem. A day for the creative celebration of all our resistance… If you’re a performer, a singer, a clown or a just down funny guy and you’d like to share your skills and celebrate our resistance, reach out.
The Canary will be covering this year’s resistance to DSEI, as we have always done. It is crucial that STAF’s organising is supported – as DSEI is a microcosm of the violence the colonial capitalist system metes out.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones decried the “authoritarianism” of House Republicans on Monday after they voted to silence him for the remainder of the day’s floor session, using newly enacted chamber rules aimed at shutting down members who are deemed out of order. The Tennessee House’s GOP supermajority barred Jones (D-52) — a member of the so-called ” Tennessee Three” — from speaking for the…
Police Commissioner David Manning has warned Papua New Guinea’s security force staff and partners not to let their guard down as hostilities remain simmering in the Highlands with a risk of violent confrontations.
He said that a stronger approach was needed by the security forces against troublemakers, and increased engagement between stakeholders was yielding results.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Operations Phillip Mitna has announced that more than 200 security personnel will be deployed with two armoured vehicles to curb a recent spike of killings and tribal fighting in Enga province.
The deployment will consist of more than 120 PNG Defence Force soldiers who are already on the ground, with an additional two Mobile Squad units who are on standby to be deployed soon.
Deputy Commissioner Mitna also announced that the Police Commissioner had given the green light to establish a Special Police Unit, similar to the Airborne Tactical Unit (ATU), which would be dedicated solely towards dealing with domestic terrorism in the country.
“The commissioner has announced the formation of the Kumul 23 Police tactical unit, but further details will be revealed later on,” he said.
“They will report directly to the Commissioner of Police.
Rapid deployment unit
“This will be a rapid deployment unit, tasked to respond to violent crimes like domestic terrorism and domestic threats,” he said.
“The unit will be spearheaded by the Police but we will have support from the Defence Force as well. “We hope to increase its numbers as high as 1000 personnel.”
He said multiple search warrants had also been issued to apprehend several hired gunmen and their accomplices.
This included sponsors and connections who were supplying arms and funding tribal warfare in the province.
“Search warrants have been issued, some have been executed and some are yet to be executed.
“We are taking a proactive and reactive approach to the situation,” he said.
“We have information on several leaders ‘in general’ being involved and are currently working on issuing search warrants.
Pending approval
“Some of these warrants are pending approval from the court magistrates.”
Deputy Commissioner Mitna said the police would not stop until these instigators of violence faced justice.
He explained that drastic measures had been taken to promptly and safely ensure law and order was returned to normal as the Lagaip Open byelection was approaching.
The priority areas include Wapenamanda, Lagaip and Porgera.
“As part of our proactive strategy, we will be deploying Engan-based senior Police officers from NCD back to the province so that they can talk to their own people,” Deputy Commissioner Mitna said.
But this approach needed the support of the wider community, including business houses, church groups and community leaders who would provide additional support to settle the situation.
Intel officers
“Our reactive approach will include our intel officers, who will move on the ground to conduct investigations into identifying those involved to arrest and prosecute them,” he said.
He said the public was advised not to believe everything that had been spread on social media because most of what was shared online was false and inaccurate.
“We have both Wapenamanda and Pogera contained, but we have isolated cases of particularly several hired gunmen being killed,” Deputy Commissioner Mitna said.
“Other than that, we are stepping up operations and the entire area is currently under our microscope,” he said.
Deputy Commissioner Mitna said that rival factions were using “hit and run” and “guerrilla type” warfare, obstructing police from identifying and arresting perpetrators.
Theophiles Singhis a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
August 28 marks the 68th anniversary of the horrific lynching of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy who was kidnapped, beaten and murdered following malicious and false accusations that he made sexual advances toward a white woman in Mississippi. Despite Till’s youth and innocence, his murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury, and his accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham, died this April at 88…
At Buiebi, between noon and 1pm “about 49 prisoners made a run for the main gate and took with them a pastor and duty warder as hostages,” said Commissioner Pokanis.
“Forty four managed to escape while five were shot dead.
“The prisoners held a pastor and duty warder and escaped through the main gate.”
Commissioner Pokanis said: “Police and the PNG Defence Force are working together with the Correctional Services officers to look for the escapees.
Second lunchtime escape
“I can also confirm that the second escape of 10 men at Barawagi Correctional Institution was at lunch time too. Seven were recaptured while 3 were still on the run,” he added.
These are the third and fourth prisoner breakouts in PNG this year after earlier breakouts in West New Britain and Western Highlands.
On April 23, at Lakiemata prison in West New Britain, about 16 prisoners were shot dead with investigations still ongoing.
At Baisu, Western Highlands, 27 prisoners are still on the run with two caught.
“We will ensure these prisoners are caught and brought back to the prisons,” Commissioner Pokanis said.
The battle to stop the destruction in Australia of critical koala habitats in state forests in Northern NSW has escalated in recent weeks. Wendy Bacon reports on the campaign from daring lock-ons and vigils in the depth of forests to rallies, parliament and courts in Sydney which has led to a halt to logging in Newry State Forest.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon
Back in Feburary this year, campaigners celebrated as the then shadow Environmental Minister Penny Sharpe announced Labor’s support for a Great Koala National Park (GKNP), stretching along the Mid-North coast from Kempsey to Coffs Harbour.
The purpose of the park, which was first proposed more than a decade ago, is to protect critical habit for the koala and other threatened species.
Koala numbers in NSW plummeted by more than half between 2000 and 2020 due to logging, land clearing, drought and devastating bushfires. A NSW Parliamentary Inquiry in 2020 heard scientific evidence that koalas could be extinct by 2050 unless there are dramatic changes.
NSW is the only mainland state not to have a plan to stop logging of native forests, essential koala habitats.
Hopes raised by Labor’s narrow election win in March this year were quickly dashed. Hope has now turned to anger with 200 people marching in protest in the mid-north NSW city of Coffs Harbour earlier this month and nation-wide rallies.
NSW Forestry Corporation steps up logging When she received a petition calling for a moratorium on logging within the GKNP in June, Minister for Environment Penny Sharpe reiterated her commitment to the Park but confirmed that logging would not stop.
Instead the government-owned, NSW Forestry Corporation (NSWFC) has stepped up its logging inside the proposed GKNP, including in areas containing long-lasting koala hubs, carting off huge tree trunks and leaving devastated land in its wake. These operations are losing millions each year.
The campaign consists of a network of local community groups, such as the Friends of Orara East Forest, some of which conduct weekly vigils; the Belligen Activist Network and the Knitting Nannas, as well as larger environmental groups such as the National Parks Association.
It is supported by the NSW Greens, Animal Justice and some Independent MPs including MP for Sydney Alex Greenwich. Further north, the North East Forest Alliance has taken legal action to stop the NSWFC logging 77 percent of the Braemar forest, part of the proposed Sandy Creek National Park where koalas survive despite long standing koala communities being reduced by 70 percent in the 2019/2020 bush fires.
On June 28, a broad-based group of MPs and NGOS advocating for the park held a press conference calling on politicians across all parties to support a moratorium on the ongoing destruction of the GKNP and immediately start to work on transition plans for timber workers and development of the Park, including with local First Nations people.
But Minister Sharpe reiterated her intention to allow logging to continue.
A few days later, logging began in the Orara East and Boambee Forests, both of which are inside the Great Koala National Park. Vigils and petitions were clearly not working.
Civil disobedience begins On July 7, three HSC students on school holidays locked on to heavy machinery and a full barrel of cement in Orara East Forest. At the same time in Boambee Forest, two Knitting Nannas locked onto heavy machinery. Another protester occupied a tree. In all, logging was delayed by 10 hours.
Seventeen-year-old Mason said: “I’m here on behalf of myself and my 14-year-old brother. The rate at which our government is auctioning off natural forests is frightening, and I feel powerless to do anything about it.
“We’ve tried protesting, and we can’t vote, which is why we feel driven to take this action against these machines ripping our trees down. The government can stop this and we just need them to take notice.”
The three students were arrested but released from custody with cautions and no charges laid.
On the same day, two Knitting Nannas Christine Degan and Susan Doyle were arrested in the Boambee State Park. Both are veterans of vigils and protests aimed at stopping logging and for action on climate change.
“Shame … shame … shame” banners in Orara State Forest. Image: Chris Deagan/CityHub
In desperation, they took a further step. They slept overnight in a home near the perimeter of the State Park.
Before day break, Degan and Doyle and supporters walked up a steep hill, using torches to find their way through the bush to the logging camp. There they were met by an angry security guard who burst into an aggressive tirade, accusing them of being terrorists.
While two supporters calmed him down, the two women were locked onto equipment. There they sat in two small beach chairs in drizzling rain and cold for eight hours until the NSW police arrived and arrested them.
A bulldozer in Orara State Forest. Image: Chris Deagan/CityHub
The two friends were released on condition that they did not contact each other, except through a lawyer, or go near any forests were logging was underway.
Earlier this month, they were each fined a total of $500 for entering and refusing to leave a forest.
Battle moves to Newry Forest A vigil camp is now in its third week in the Upper reaches of the Kalang River where other sites have recently been made “active” for logging.
Nearer the coast, the the battle front has moved to the Newry Forest near Belligen. For nine months in 2021, the community had joined the local Gumbaynggir elders in a blockade that successfully delay logging operations.
Although Newry is a core part of the GKNP, the NSWFC approved 2500 hectares of the forest for logging in May this year. In July, the listing went from “approved” to “active,” leading the Bellingen action group to organise a workshop to upgrade their direct action tactics.
On July 31, local Gumbaynggirr Elders, Traditional Custodians and supporters established a peaceful protest camp on sacred land within the forest. They were met with armed police and steel gates preventing the public from entering the forest.
A Gumbarnggirr spokesperson told the National Indigenous Times that the NSW Forestry Corporation (NSWFC) was endangering koala and possum gliders that are their totem animals.
“The values of Newry to the Gumbaynggirr people are precious, priceless and absolutely irreplaceable. …There is a desperate need for these appalling industrial logging operations to be stopped or we simply won’t have koalas left and priceless and irreplaceable Gumbaynggirr values and cultural heritage will be destroyed.”
“Hands off country” . . . protesters locked on in Newry Forest. Image: CityHub
Gumbaynggirr elder arrested after locking on
On the second day of logging, two younger protesters locked onto machinery. On the third day, Wilkarr Kurikuta, a Ngemba, Wangan and Jangalingou man, locked-on to a harvester.
“I’m here for my old people and my sister, a proud Gumbaynggirr woman, to exercise my sovereign right to protect country,” he said.
He told the NSW government that it should expect resistance until an end is put to the destruction of his people’s land and waters. He was violently removed, charged and held overnight in a cell.
The next day, two more young people locked onto industrial logging machinery in Newry Forest, again halting logging. They were arrested, charged and released. Logging had so far been disrupted on six days.
On August 2, Greens MP Sue Higginson moved a motion in the NSW Legislative Council to confirm the NSW government’s intention to protect critical koala habitat, noting that the Newry State Forest was “identified for protection in 2017 as having three koala hubs” and that a three-day survey had found five threatened plant species, evidence of koalas and high quality habitat for threatened koalas, the Glossy Black Cockatoo and Greater Glider.
She described the “industrial scale logging operation” as happening under “martial law”.
First Nations elders were integral to the protest at Newry Forest. Image: Bellingen Activist Network/Facebook/CityHub
“The community on the front line are not doing this because it is fun or because they want to, or because they dislike forestry workers or police,” she told Parliament.
“They are doing it as an act of hope in the democratic process in which they believe — the genuine hope that they will be seen and heard and that their actions will lead to political outcomes that protect this forest, which the government has promised to protect but is currently destroying.”
Labor opposed the motion with the Minister for the Environment Sharpe moving amendments which removed any reference to the factual core of the motion described above. Her amendments were passed with Liberal National Party support.
A reduced anodyne motion recording commitment to protect the koala was then passed.
In her response Penny Sharpe referred to “internal work” being done to proceed with the Park. She said she was working closely with the Minister for Forestry Tara Moriarty.
This will further concern forest campaigners because in Moriarty’s speech in support of Sharpe’s amendments, she supported the current logging operations as being done in line with sustainable ecologically sound forest management, with the NSW Environmental Protection Authority ensuring compliance with all policies.
This is the very issue that is being contested by the movement to save the forests. It suggests that Moriarty may not accept the findings of a recent NSW Auditor-General’s report which found that both the NSW Forest Corporation and the NSW Environmental Protection Authority were insufficiently resourced, trained and empowered to enforce compliance and that NSWFC’s voluntary efforts did not extend to satisfactorily ensuring contractors do not breach regulations and policies.
This issue is already before the courts. The North Eastern Alliance, which has previously taken successful court actions during the 34 year period it has been campaigning to protect forests, is arguing that the NSW Land and Environment Court should set aside approvals to log sections of the Braemar and Myrtle Forests further north at the Sandy Creek State Park which is also a proposed national park in the Richmond Valley.
The NSWFC has agreed to halt logging in these forests which are home to koalas and more than 23 threatened species, until the case is decided. The Alliance will be represented by the Environmental Defenders’ Office.
Alliance President Dailan Pugh, who has 44 years experience in protecting forests, said that “Myrtle and Braemar State forests are both identified as Nationally Important Koala Areas that were badly burnt in the 2019/20 wildfires, killing many of their resident koalas.
“Despite this, recent surveys have proved that most patches of preferred koala feed trees are still being utilised by Koalas. Logging of more than 75% of the larger feed trees … that koalas need to rebuild their numbers will be devastating for populations already severely impacted by the fires.”
Protesters hold a banner on cleared ground. Image: Bellingen Activist Network/Facebook/CityHub
The Environmental Defenders’ Office is arguing that the logging operations are unlawful for several reasons: because the operations are not ecologically sustainable, because Forestry Corp failed to consider whether they would be ecologically sustainable, and because the proposed use of “voluntary conditions” is in breach of the logging rules.
NEFA is asking the court to declare the logging approvals invalid and to restrain NSWFC from conducting the operations.
Pugh said: “We have been asking the NSW Government for independent pre-logging surveys on State forests to identify and protect core Koala habitat and climate change refugia, and protection of Preferred Koala Feed Trees (select species >30 cm diameter) in linking habitat. Our requests are falling on deaf ears, we hope this will make them listen.”
While Labor politicians insist that the logging is consistent with protecting biodiversity, the situation looks different to campaigners on the ground. Degan describes seeing crushed casuarinas which provide habitat for the Glossy Black Cockatoo when she visited the Newry Forest for the first time in four weeks.
“It’s just a vast area with trash that’s a metre deep, that no footed animal can get across. I couldn’t get across and I’d break an ankle or shoulder falling over. There’s no way that animals on foot could traverse that debris that’s left behind. It may be regrowth native forest but after 50 years it provides substantial decent habitat.”
Down in Hobart, another forest activist Collette Hamson is spending three months in prison because she broke conditions of a suspended sentence. Before she went to prison she said:
“The reason I commit these offences [is] because I am terrified of the worsening climate crisis. I am not a menace to society, yet here I am facing a jail term . . . I am not giving a finger to the entire judicial system, I am standing up for the forests, for takayna, a safer planet and if that makes me a dangerous criminal then I think we are going to need bigger prisons.”
Labor plans lengthy consultation While the Minister for Environment Penny Sharpe may be able to remove any mention of protests in a parliamentary motion, it is another thing to deal with the wave of civil disobedience that is likely to continue until native forest logging is halted. Sharpe says that A$80 million has been set aside for GKNP and planning is underway.
City Hub asked the Department of Environment to confirm that no consultation was yet underway and on what date one consultation would begin.
A National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesperson replied, stating that development of the park “will be informed by expert scientific advice, an independent economic assessment of impacts on jobs and the local community, and an inclusive consultation process with stakeholdes . . .
“Consultation with stakeholders will occur in the future, with specific timings still to be determined.”
This lengthy process could take most of NSW Labor’s term in government ending in 2027. Unless logging is halted while planning occurs, the proposed National Park along with threatened species it is supposed to protect could be decimated before it arrives.
Wendy Bacon was previously professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and supported the Greens in this year’s NSW election. This article was first published by CityHub on August 15 and is republished with permission. Wendy Bacon’s investigative journalism blog.
Papua New Guineans engaged in tribal fights will face life imprisonment once Parliament has its way with the amendment of the Tribal Fights Act in October.
And the PNG government is looking at amending laws to also give police additional powers and immunity under special operations to protect the lives of policemen and women.
The “restlessness” in Enga over the last couple of days has been labelled as “domestic terrorism”, which the security forces will be addressing under the special police unit and force that has been instructed to be set up.
Prime Minister James Marape enroute to Wabag, Enga Province and then onto Port Vila, Vanuatu, fpor the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders’ summit yesterday said the October Parliament Session would deal with amending the Tribal Fights Act to stop these “horrific fights” throughout the country.
Under he PNG Constitution there is an Inter-group Fighting Act 1977 with a purpose to discourage fighting between groups of Papua New Guineans by providing for:
The creation of offences in relation to such fighting;
The imposition of severe penalties for such offences;
The collective punishment of the leaders of groups involved in fighting; and
The imprisonment of group leaders for non-payment of penalties imposed on them as a result of their group’s participation in such fighting.
Severe penalties
The Tribal Fights Act, now under a policy directive to be enacted, will be severe and is expected to deal specifically with life imprisonment among other punishments.
“Next October when we go to Parliament, we will be amending the Tribal Fights Act,” Marape said.
“Those who start tribal fights will be receiving life imprisonment, not just for Enga but right across the country.
“We don’t want people to get engaged in tribal fights, those who cause tribal fights we will give them life imprisonment and that is the policy direction my government has given with the necessary legal change happening and being drafted as we speak.
“For now, police have been instructed to look into stepping up their operations.”
Police Commissioner David Manning had put in place an operational order and re-structure to enable the military and police to cooperate — “we try to get a specific command, a high-ranking police officer,” Marape said.
“I will be stepping into Wabag today and will address our people out there . . . and will be appealing to the people out there.
It was not the entire Enga Province involved, it was about four tribal fights based on police intelligence.
“We know who the ring leaders of the tribal fights are,” Marape said.
“In respect to restlessness in our country we are labelling this restlessness as domestic terrorism and so a special police unit being organised will go in full power to specific hotspot areas.”
Three black men jailed under joint enterprise law, which is often based on ‘dubious evidence’ of gang membership, says Liberty
The human rights campaign group Liberty has backed three black men who are contesting their murder convictions on the grounds of institutional racism by Greater Manchester police and the criminal justice system.
Liberty has made its own submission to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to support the application made in May by the three men, Durrell Goodall, Reano Walters and Nathaniel “Jay” Williams, who are serving life sentences.
Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”
Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.
In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.
No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.
Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup waiting to be matched up with a crime.
It’s getting harder to hide, even if you think you’ve got nothing to hide.
Armed with unprecedented access to DNA databases amassed by the FBI and ancestry websites, as well as hospital newborn screening programs, police are using forensic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database, to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.
By submitting your DNA to a genealogical database such as Ancestry and 23andMe, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not you or they ever agreed to be part of such a database.
Indeed, relying on a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, genetic genealogists are able to sidestep privacy rules that allow people to opt out of sharing their genetic information with police. The end result? Police are now able to identify and target those very individuals who explicitly asked to keep their DNA results private.
In this way, merely choosing to exercise your right to privacy makes you a suspect and puts you in the police state’s crosshairs.
That simple transaction—a spit sample or a cheek swab in exchange for getting to learn everything about one’s ancestral makeup, where one came from, and who is part of one’s extended family—is the price of entry into the Suspect State for all of us.
In this way, “guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in a technological age in which one is just a DNA sample away from being considered a person of interest in a police investigation.
Indeed, the government has been relentless in its efforts to get hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America, by warrantlessly accessing our familial DNA shared with genealogical services such as Ancestry and 23andMe, or through the collection of our “shed” or “touch” DNA.
All 50 states now maintain their own DNA government databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. Increasingly, many of the data from local databanks are being uploaded to CODIS, the FBI’s massive DNA database, which has become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.
The ramifications of this kind of DNA profiling are far-reaching.
At a minimum, these DNA databases do away with any semblance of privacy or anonymity.
These genetic databases and genomic technology also make us that much more vulnerable to creeps and cyberstalkers, genetic profiling, and those who would weaponize the technology against us.
Unfortunately, the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—continues to lag far behind the government and Corporate America’s encroachments on our rights.
What this amounts to is a scenario in which we have little to no defense against charges of wrongdoing, especially when “convicted” by technology, and even less protection against the government sweeping up our DNA in much the same way it sweeps up our phone calls, emails and text messages.
A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board submitted a filing on Monday accusing Amazon of illegally calling the police on workers and other unlawful union-busting tactics during its effort to crush an organizing campaign at a warehouse near Albany, New York. In the complaint, first reported by Bloomberg, the NLRB official writes that Amazon “has been interfering with, restraining…
Tibet’s centuries-old yogurt festival has been marred this year by huge police presence and tight restrictions on Tibetans, sources from China’s western region said.
Yogurt occupies a special place in Tibetan culture and religion. Made from yak milk instead of cow milk, it has a history in Tibet going back thousands of years.
The festival, one of the most popular in Tibet, which runs from Aug. 16-22, began as an observance in the 17th century during which Tibetans offered yogurt to Buddhist monks who had completed their annual religious retreats.
Followers of Tibetan Buddhism viewed a 500-square-meter (5,382-square-meter) embroidered thangka portrait of the Buddha displayed at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, and later at Sera Monastery, the sources said.
But a large number of Chinese police watched the crowds and set up inspection booths along the streets in Lhasa to check devotees’ identity cards amid the celebrations, they said.
The heavy surveillance comes as Chinese authorities are maintaining a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity.
Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.
Along with religious observances, the festival also features performances of traditional Tibetan opera, ethnic songs and dances, cultural exhibitions, and picnics.
Also, an official directive has barred government employees in Lhasa from attending religious activities related to the festival and taking part in any gatherings, and has ordered them to not engage in activities that disregard China’s communist government.
Government retirees are also barred from engaging in religious activities and visiting local monasteries. The directive states that they must educate their children about remaining loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and to value its socialist principles.
Translated by RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kalden Lodoe for RFA TIbetan.
When players are piled on top of each other after a mad scramble for a loose ball, it’s a free-for-all. There are no rules. Anything goes. That’s because there’s nobody in the pile to monitor what’s going on.
— Mike Thomas, sports editor, Sportscasting, November 9, 2020
What is playing out before our eyes right now should be familiar to any fan of football: it’s called the pile on, a brutal, frenzied, desperate play to seize control and gain power while crushing the opposition.
In this particular analogy, “we the people” are trapped at the bottom of that pile, buried under a mountain of bread-and-circus distractions, economic worries, environmental disasters, power plays, power grabs, police raids, indictments and circus politics.
The Maui wildfires. The Trump indictments. Hunter Biden’s legal troubles. The looming 2024 presidential election. The Ukraine-Russia conflict.
In the midst of this pile on of woes, worries and semi-manufactured crises falling with sledgehammer-like frequency, monopolizing the media narrative and eclipsing all other news, it’s difficult to stay focused on what’s really going on, and yet something is brewing.
Pay attention.
Caught up in the partisan boxing match that is politics today, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s real.
The indictments against Trump, the investigation of Hunter Biden, and the chatter of the political classes aren’t real; they are more sound and fury, signifying nothing in the end.
As Aldous Huxley observed in Brave New World Revisited:
Non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation… Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures.
So what is real?
What’s real is the $5,000 fine and five-year jail sentence that could be levied against anyone found driving an illegal immigrant in their car in the state of Florida.
What’s real is what happened in Marion, Kansas, on Friday August 11, 2023, when police raided the office of the Marion County Record, blowing past the constitutional safeguards intended to safeguard the freedom of the press.
Are you starting to get the picture yet?
The manufactured media spectacles, piled on one after another, have a very real purpose, which is to distract us from the government’s constant encroachments on our freedoms.
In the larger scheme of things, these individual incidents—the police raid of a small-town newspaper, a state ban on who gets to be inside your car, an outrageous fine for feeding the destitute, a politician’s use of an enemies list to silence critics—might easily go unremarked, yet they are all part of the police state’s tendency to pile on: pile on the distractions, pile on the retribution, pile on the show of force in order to completely eviscerate anything that even remotely resembles opposition.
The police state has embarked on a ruthless, take-no-prisoners, all-out assault on anyone who even questions its authority, let alone challenges its chokehold on power.
“We the people”—the proverbial nails to the police state’s heavy-handed tactics—will be hammered into compliance, intimidated into subservience, and terrorized into silence.
It doesn’t matter which party dominates in Congress or the White House: all of us are in danger from these fear-inducing, mind-altering, soul-destroying, smash-your-face-in tactics.
In this way, anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.
Day after day, the government’s crimes against the citizenry grow more egregious, more treacherous and more tragic. And day after day, the prison walls holding the American people captive become ever more inescapable.
The upcoming election and its aftermath will undoubtedly keep the citizenry divided and at each other’s throats, so busy fighting each other that they never manage to present a unified front against tyranny in any form.
Yet the winner has already been decided.
As American satirist H.L. Mencken predicted almost a century ago:
You cannot have a republican form of government—nor a democratic one, for that matter—when the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution.
A chilling new report by a German-based human rights watchdog has exposed indiscriminate attacks by Indonesian security forces on indigenous West Papuan villages, highlighting an urgent need for international action.
Satellite imagery and on the ground analysis by researchers shows the destruction of eight villages in 2021 and 2022 — Mangoldogi, Pelebib, Kiwi, Oknanggul, Delmatahu, Spamikma, Delpem and Lolim.
A total of 206 buildings, including residential homes, churches and public building buildings have been destroyed in the raids, forcing more than 2000 Ngalum villagers to seek refuge as internally displaced people (IDPs) in the surrounding forest in destitute circumstances.
In a statement, the Human Rights Monitor said the report — released today — provided a “meticulous and scientific analysis” of the Indonesian forces’ attacks on the villages.
“This report sheds light on the gravity and extent of violations in the Kiwirok region and measures them against international law,” the statement added.
Eliot Higgins, director at Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group specialising in fact-checking and open-source intelligence, said: “This in-depth report provides evidence of security force raids carried out in the Kiwirok District, impacting on both indigenous villages and public properties.
‘Harrowing picture’
“It paints a harrowing picture of more than 2000 villagers displaced and forced to live in subhuman conditions, without access to food, healthcare services, or education.
“The main findings of this report include instances of violence deliberately perpetrated
against indigenous Papuan civilians by security forces, leading to loss of life and forced
displacement which meet the Rome Statute definition of crimes against humanity.”
Some of the Indonesian mortar shells, grenades and other weapons used on the Papuan villagers . . . gathered by the people themselves. Image: HRM
The report says that the armed conflict in West Papua has become “significantly aggravated since December 2018, as TPNPB [West Papua National Liberation Army] members killed at least 19 road workers in the Nduga Regency.
“That incident marks the re-escalation of the armed conflict in West Papua. The conflict statistics show a continuous increase in violence over the past three years, reaching a new peak in 2022. The number of civilian fatalities related to the conflict rose from 28 in 2021 to 43 in 2022,” added the report.
Usman Hamid, Amnesty International’s Indonesia director said: “Impunity for violence by the security forces is a major concern from both a human rights and a conflict perspective.
“This report provides the necessary information for the National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, to take up the case.
“Without accountability for the perpetrators, the chances of a lasting solution to the conflict in Papua are slim,” he added.
Mangoldogi village in the Kiwirok district . . . before and after the Indonesian military raids. The photo on the left was on 29 September 2021 and on the right shows the devastation of the village, 30 April 2021. Satellite images: European Space Imaging (EUSI)/HRM
‘Hidden crisis’
Peter Prove, director for international affairs at the World Council of Churches, said:
“The World Council of Churches has been monitoring the conflict in West Papua — and its
humanitarian, human rights and environmental impacts — for many years.
“But it remains a hidden crisis, largely forgotten by the international community — a situation that suits the Indonesian government very well. This report helps shine a small but telling beam of light on one specific part of the conflict, but from which a larger picture can be extrapolated.
“Indonesia — which is currently campaigning for election to the UN Human Rights Council — must provide more access and transparency on the situation in the region, and the
international community must respond appropriately to the increasing gravity of the crisis.”
In light of the findings, Human Rights Monitor has called on the international community,
governments, and relevant stakeholders to:
Immediately ensure humanitarian access for national and international humanitarian
organisations and government agencies to the Kiwirok District. Humanitarian aid
should be provided without involving security force members to ensure that IDPs can
access aid without fearing reprisals;
Instruct the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham) to investigate
allegations of serious human rights violations in the Kiwirok District between 13
September and late October 2021;
Immediately withdraw non-organic security force members from the Kiwirok District,
allowing the IDPs to return and re-build their villages without having to fear reprisals
and further raids;
Ratify the Rome Statute;
Be open to a meaningful engagement in a constructive peace dialogue with the
United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP); and
Allow international observers and foreign journalists to access and work in West
Papua
Human Rights Monitor is an independent, international non-profit project promoting
human rights through documentation and advocacy. HRM is based in the European Union
and active since 2022.
Focused on West Papua, HRM states: “We document violations; research institutional, social and political contexts that affect rights protection and peace; and share the conclusions of evidence-based monitoring work.”
West Papuan villagers in their forest home in the Kiwirok district while seeking safety . . . they became internally displaced people (IDPs) because of the Indonesian military raids on their villages. Image: HRM
Papua New Guinea police officers have been issued with a Commissioner’s Circular on the approved use of force in the execution of their duties to protect lives from domestic terrorist and other criminal activities.
With the escalation of violence in the Highlands and other parts of PNG, Police Commissioner David Manning said officers must be clear on the extent of their powers.
And criminals needed to be warned of likely outcomes if they used weapons.
“Today, I issued a Commissioner’s Circular on the use of force against criminals to reinforce the lawful authority of police personnel,” he said.
“This is not a circular issue I issue lightly, but it is necessary and done so with the full support of the government in order to quell violence, particularly in the Highlands region.
“I have directed RPNGC personnel to be prepared to deploy lethal force where this is required and reasonable commanders are instructed to incorporate this directive into respective operational orders,” Manning said.
He said as part of this, RPNGC members were reminded when using force and lethal force to act in good faith and sound judgment in accordance with PNG’s laws.
Commissioner Manning said reports of criminals armed with weapons terrorising people — particularly in Enga Province — would not be tolerated.
“Police and PNGDF personnel are responding to criminal elements that commit violent acts on law-abiding and vulnerable communities.”
The Commissioner’s Circular issued today provides clear direction as to when and how lethal force is applied.
In simple terms, if a person was brandishing a gun, an explosive device, or other weapons, — such as a bush knife or catapult — force would be escalated to protect the public and police.
Domestic terrorists and other criminals had now been given more than fair warning, and they could expect no tolerance by security forces responding to crimes.
Last week, two gang leaders in East New Britain felt the full force of the law when they confronted police with firearms. Both gang leaders were killed and their associates arrested.
At least 20 people were wounded when police used batons, water cannon and tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who joined rallies in Indonesia’s West Papua region on the 61st anniversary of an agreement that made the territory part of Indonesia, news agencies report.
The US-brokered 1962 New York Agreement allowed Indonesia to annex the Christian-majority region after the end of Dutch colonial rule, according to a report in the UCA News.
Riot police attacked peaceful demonstrators in three locations near the provincial capital Jayapura yesterday, alleged Emmanuel Gobay, a Catholic and an official of the Papua Legal Aid Institute.
The demonstrators called on the international community to review the agreement and take action to end ongoing violence and repression in the region, said the report.
“In fact, they only held peaceful demonstrations,” said Gobay, who joined one of the rallies.
He stated that more than 20 people were beaten, with one of them later being treated in hospital.
“One person was seriously injured and was immediately transported to the hospital for treatment,” he said.
Listening to speeches
Videos and photos obtained by UCA News showed police attacked with water canons and fired tear gas while people were listening to speeches from leaders of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), the protest organiser.
Gobay said that although the authorities viewed the KNPB as a “separatist — pro-independence — group “they should have the right to express their opinion” as guaranteed in the nation’s constitution.
“Moreover, they submitted an official letter notifying police about the programme beforehand,” he added.
He condemned the use of water cannon and tear gas on demonstrators.
These should only be for anarchic demonstrations — “not peaceful demonstrations,” he said.
The bloodied face of a protester brutally beaten by Indonesian police yesterday. Image: Tabloid Jubi
Gobay alleged that police committed criminal offences by torturing and beating protesters, and called on the Papuan police chief to immediately prosecute the perpetrators so that there was a deterrent effect, said the UCA News report.
Father Bernard Baru from the Jayapura Diocese’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission said that this repressive action was a repetition of the discriminatory treatment of Papuans by the state.
Brutal police action ‘normal’
“In Papua, police actions like this are considered normal. This only deepens discrimination against Papuans,” he said.
Police officials were not available for comment.
KNPB spokesman Ones Sahuniap issued a statement to condemn the police brutality and claimed those who were beaten suffered serious head injuries and bled profusely.
Suhuniap said the police used rattan and batons to beat and break up the demonstration.
The KNPB simultaneously held demonstrations in Papua and in other parts of Indonesia, asking the United Nations to review the 1962 New York Agreement.
During the rallies, KNPB leaders called the New York Agreement “a violation of human rights of Papuans” sponsored by Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States and the United Nations.
Not party to agreement
As per the agreement, later added to the agenda of UN General Assembly, the Netherlands agreed to transfer the control of West Papua New Guinea to Indonesia, pending an UN-administered referendum.
The Papuans were not party to the agreement and it paved the way for the 1969 Act of Free Choice, an independence referendum favoring Indonesian rule in Papua whuch was largely regarded as a sham.
Indonesia’s annexation of Papua and use to force to crush dissent sparked an armed pto-indeoendence movement.
Thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced due to the conflict in the easternmost region in the past decades.
The legal director of the Kansas ACLU called the action against Eric Meyer’s Marion County Record “one of the most aggressive police raids of a news organization or entity in quite some time” (AP, 8/13/23).
As the police raided Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer’s home August 11 (Committee to Protect Journalists, 8/12/23; AP, 8/13/23; New York Times, 8/13/23), his 98-year-old mother was aghast, watching the cops rummage through her things. “She was very upset, yelling about ‘Gestapo tactics’ and ‘where are all the good people?’” Meyer told FAIR. He said that after the raid she “was beside herself, she wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep and finally went to bed about sunrise.” Meyer’s mother, a co-owner of the paper, eventually told her son that the whole affair was “going to be the death of me.”
And it was. She died the next afternoon. And Meyer blames the police (Daily Beast, 8/12/21).
By that afternoon, Meyer had been fielding calls all day with lawyers and journalists, as the raid on the paper’s offices and his home suddenly made his small-town Kansas paper world-famous. He spoke to FAIR from his office line, because his cellphone had been seized, along with other equipment.
The raid was “authorized by a search warrant that alleged identity theft and unlawful use of a computer,” the Guardian (8/12/23) reported, leading authorities to take “publishing and reporting materials that the newspaper relied on to publish their next edition.”
The reason, according to news reports, seems fairly petty, sparked by the complaints of local restaurateur Kari Newell, who had demanded that Meyer and a reporter be removed from an event with area Congressmember Jake LaTurner (R.-Kansas). She alleged later that the paper had unlawfully obtained personal records showing that she, according to the Guardian, had allegedly been “convicted of drink-driving and continued using her vehicle without a license,” but that “the paper never published anything related to it.”
But that’s not what Meyer thinks this is really about. Meyer explained that current town police chief Gideon Cody—a retiree of the Kansas City, Missouri, police department—has harbored animosity toward the paper ever since it started asking uncomfortable questions about his hiring (Handbasket, 8/12/23; Washington Post, 8/13/23). Meyer’s paper, after hearing anonymous allegations about his tenure, questioned town leaders as to whether they vetted Cody before hiring him (the paper never published any of the allegations, Meyer said). This led to a confrontation between the paper and the chief, and Meyer believes that the restaurateur’s antics were merely an excuse to exert power over the paper.
Silencing critical journalism
A local restaurant owner who was a subject of the Record‘s reporting (8/9/23) was cited in the search warrant that authorized the newsroom raid.
When an anti-corruption newspaper in Guatemala gets shut down and its publisher is thrown in jail (Washington Post, 5/15/23), or a Hong Kong publisher known for opposing the expanding powers of police is imprisoned (AP, 10/25/22), Americans might be outraged but figure that these are the tribulations of less open and democratic societies. The Marion County Record case is a reminder that the United States is no stranger to local powers using their authority to silence what is left of critical journalism.
Consider how officials in Delaware County in the Catskills region of New York reacted to the critical reporting of a local paper, the Reporter. “The county stripped the newspaper of a lucrative contract to print public notices,” the New York Times (6/18/23) reported, noting that the county admitted to the Reporter that the “decision was partly based on ‘the manner in which your paper reports county business.’” This hit the paper where it hurts, as the “move cost the Reporter about $13,000 a year in revenue.” This kind of retaliation has occurred in several states, the Times said.
Missouri has seen several attempts to intimidate or impede journalists. In St. Louis, a judge forbade “the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from publishing material from the mental health evaluation of a man accused of killing a police officer” (Riverfront Times, 5/25/23), an apparently unconstitutional prior restraint on the press. Missouri’s then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt, now a Republican senator, “filed a request in June [2022] asking for three years of emails sent and received by…professors while they worked at the Columbia Missourian” (AP, 9/2/22), a clear intimidation tactic towards journalists whose publications are attached to public universities. The state’s governor also pursued a criminal investigation into a Post-Dispatch reporter who found security breaches on a government website, although no charges were ultimately filed (USA Today, 2/12/22).
The city of Los Angeles sued both a Knock LA reporter and a police accountability group for publishing information about Los Angeles Police Department officers (KTLA, 4/6/23); the LA Times (5/7/23) and other outlets came to the reporter and group’s defense.
And FAIR has covered the prosecution (and an eventual acquittal) of a Des Moines Register reporter who was covering a Black Lives Matter protest (FAIR.org, 3/16/21), and the trespassing convictions of two Asheville Blade reporters who were covering the police clearing of a homeless encampment (FAIR.org, 6/8/23).
National bad examples
New York Times (6/18/23): “Retaliation…appears to be occurring more frequently now, when terms like ‘fake news’ have become part of the popular lexicon.”
Officials rationalize many of these actions against news outlets by the fact that journalists received information or witnessed something they weren’t supposed to. But that is, in fact, what journalism is. The point of reporting is not to rewrite press releases or glue official statements together, but to cultivate a trusted network of sources within government agencies, businesses, civic organizations and other halls of power who pass on the real story because the public deserves to hear it.
Meyer sees the raid on his paper as part of the current moment when “respect for the media is at an all time low.” A lot of that has to do with Trumpism’s hatred of a free press and the branding of all journalistic criticism as “fake news”; Republican voters now use Nazi phrases to attack the free press (Time, 10/25/16) and even attack reporters physically (Guardian, 5/24/17). Trump’s election was followed by a spate of assaults on journalists who had the temerity to ask questions of elected officials and politicians (FAIR.org, 5/25/17).
But this sentiment within state power predates the Trump administration. The “War on Terror” gave the second Bush administration an excuse to threaten whistleblowers, and the Obama administration escalated those threats into prosecutions of leakers (Extra!, 9/11). Corporate media often took the side of the government when it silenced leaks to protect state power, especially after Edward Snowden revealed evidence of widespread National Security Agency spying on the US public (FAIR.org, 10/6/16).
It might seem quaint to equate the predicament of the Marion County Record with the case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (New York Times, 12/21/20), whose reporting based on Chelsea Manning’s leak exposed potential US war crimes. But the Kansas case shouldn’t be dismissed as provincial. Small local newspapers really are the main source challenging the sheriffs, county executives and business leaders who call the shots in a great deal of the United States.
As the Kansas City Star (8/12/23) said, Meyer and the rest of his paper “represent one of the green shoots sprouting in a nation of expanding news deserts.” They are the “watchdogs of communities too small or too remote to attract the attention of big metropolitan dailies or TV stations.”
The urge to silence high-level, national security leakers like Snowden or Manning is the same impulse that led a police raid into Meyer’s home and his paper’s office. And the ability of police in prominent news settings like Washington, DC, to arrest journalists for covering protests without provoking widespread condemnation from media power centers (FAIR.org, 9/26/17) sends a signal to authorities in less-visible venues that critics in the press are fair game. The temptation to swat the gadfly is so powerful at every level that journalists and press advocates have to constantly fight to keep from losing ground.
Meyer is doing just that, and promises to bring litigation. “We’re suing, not to get our stuff back. We want it back, but it’s not crucial,” he told FAIR, noting that this fight was about principles. “The big thing is, I don’t want to set a precedent and fold on this.” He added, “I don’t want anyone to go through this crap.”
When asked what he hopes will come out of this case, he laughed and said, “I’d like to see some people lose their jobs.”
Featured Image: Police raiding the offices of the Marion County Record (via CBS News, 8/14/23).
A town’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies raided a small newspaper in Kansas, the Marion County Record, seizing computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the newspaper’s office, its reporters, and the publisher’s home. “This looks like the latest example of American law enforcement officers treating the press in a manner previously associated with authoritarian…
TWO WEEKS OF RESISTANCE
Check out the full list of events:https://t.co/gTkwThEoa0 pic.twitter.com/ePQzuftK28
