Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks prompted the US to invade Afghanistan, the Taliban announced they have taken the whole country again last week.

Journalists who remain there are at risk in spite of assurances media freedom will be respected.

Will proper journalism be possible under the Taliban? We ask a former foreign correspondent there who was once jailed by another repressive regime.

Anyone filling their lockdown downtime binge-watching the final series of US spy show Homeland might have found its fictionalised account of the US trying to get out of Afghanistan in a hurry pretty prescient.

“It’ll be Saigon all over again,” the gravelly-voiced Afghan president says as he warns the US that making peace with the Taliban will end in tears.

When the US troops left this month, it was indeed a case of “choppers at the embassy compound” once more.

And after that, getting other people out who feared the Taliban became a story all of its own.

RNZAF and NZDF forces dispatched to get out New Zealand citizens and visa holders provided the media with dramatic stories of improvised rescues.

One  exclusive in the New Zealand Herald described a grandmother in a wheelchair hauled out from the crowd via a sewage filled ditch, illustrated with NZDF images and footage.

But while the government said it got about 390 people out of the country, Scoop’s Gordon Campbell pointed out authorities here have not said how many were already New Zealand citizens — or Afghan citizens or contractors whose service put them and their family members in danger.

Afghan translator Bashir Ahmad — who worked for the NZDF in Bamiyan province and came to New Zealand subsequently — told RNZ’s Morning Report he knew of 36 more people still stuck there.

Sticking around

The end of 20 years of US occupation was witnessed by BBC’s veteran correspondent Lyse Doucet. She was also there in 1989 reporting for Canada’s CBC when the Soviet Union’s forces pulled out after its occupation that lasted almost a decade.

Back then she pondered how she would work when power changed hands to the Mujaheddin. Thirty-two years on, herself and others in Afghanistan — including New Zealander Charlotte Bellis who reports from Kabul for global channel Al Jazeera — are also wondering what the Taliban has in store for them.

The last time the Taliban were in charge — 1996 to 2001 — the media were heavily controlled and independent journalism was almost impossible.

Local and international media have flourished in Afghanistan after the US ousted the Taliban 20 years ago – but now their future is far from clear.

The Taliban have offered reassurances it will respect press freedoms. On August 21 they announced a committee including journalists would be created to “address the problems of the media in Kabul.”

But some have already reported harassment and confiscation of equipment. Five journalists from Etilaatroz, a daily newspaper in Kabul, were arrested and beaten by Taliban, the editor-in-chief said on Wednesday.

The #Taliban has arrested and badly beaten two journalists from @Etilaatroz . They journalists were covering demonstration in #Kabul. #Taliban_has_not_changed pic.twitter.com/gGZgWeXSFa

— Abdul Farid Ahmad (@FaridAhmad1919) September 8, 2021

Other local journalists got out while they could.

The day before the suicide attack outside Kabul airport the BBC’s Lyse Doucet found pioneering journalist Wahida Faizi — head of the women’s section of the Afghanistan Journalists Safety Committee — on the tarmac trying to get out. (Faizi has reportedly reached Denmark safely since then through the assistance of Copenhagen-based group  International Media Support.)

In the meantime, the Taliban have been getting to know reporters who are still there.

Charlotte Bellis told RNZ’s Sunday Morning she was sticking around to cover what happens next in Afghanistan and build relationships  with the Taliban — and even give them advice.

“I told them … if you’re going to run the country you need to build trust and you need to be transparent and authentic – and do as much media as you can to try and reassure people that they don’t need to be scared of you,” she said.

It helps that Al Jazeera is based in Qatar where the Taliban have a political office.

Earlier this month, the Taliban’s slick spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi told Charlotte Bellis they were grateful for New Zealand offering financial aid to Afghanistan.

But that money is for the UN agencies and the Red Cross and Red Crescent operations — and not an endorsement of the Taliban takeover.

That prompted the former chief of the UN Development Programme – Helen Clark – to call in to Newstalk ZB to say the media had been spun.

“They’ve cottoned on to the fact they can use social media for propaganda,” she told Newstalk ZB.

“When journalists run these stories it implies that governments are supporting the Taliban when nothing could be further from the truth,” Clark said.

How should the media deal with an outfit which turfed the recognised government out of power — and whose real intentions are not yet known?

The Taliban’s governing cabinet named last week has several hardliners — and no women.

Will reporters really be able to report under the Taliban from now on?

Peter Greste was the BBC’s correspondent in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s when the Taliban was poised to take over the first time — and he is now the UNESCO chair in journalism at the University of Queensland.

“We need to make it abundantly clear to the Taliban that they need to stick to their promises to protect journalists and media workers — and let them continue to work. The Taliban‘s words and actions don’t always align but at the very least we need to start with that,” Greste said.

“And we need to give refuge and visas to media workers who want to get out,” he said.

“Watching the way they treat journalists is going to be an important barometer of the way they plan to operate,” said Greste, who is working with the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom to monitor abuses and to create an online “Afghan media freedom tracker”.

“There’s been an obvious gap between the spokespeople who say they are prepared to let journalists operate and women continue to work — and the troubling reports of attacks by Taliban fighters on the ground, going door-to-door looking for journalists and their families,” he said.

“We need to maintain communications with them. We need to use all the tools we can to make sure we are across where all the people are. Afghanistan’s borders are like Swiss cheese. It’s not always easy to get across — but it is possible,” he said.

Peter Greste said the translators and fixers the international journalists rely on are absolutely critical to international media.

“Good translators don’t just translate the words– but help you understand the context. To simply give refuge just to the people who have their faces in their stories and names on bylines is not fair,” Greste said.

Greste was jailed for months in Egypt on trumped-up charges in 2014 along with local colleagues when the regime there decided it didn’t like their reporting for Al Jazeera.

It triggered a remarkable campaign in which rival media outlets banded together to demand their release under the slogan “Journalism is not a crime”.

Does he fear for journalists if the Taliban resort to old ways of handling the media?

Will we even know if they make life impossible for media and journalists outside the capital in the future?

“The country has mobile phone networks now it has social media networks. It is possible to find out what’s going on in those regions and it’s going to be difficult for the Taliban to uphold that mirage – if that’s what it is,” he said.

“I’m not prepared at this point to write them off as an workable and we need to acknowledge the realities of what just happened in Afghanistan,” he said.

When Greste first arrived in Afghanistan for the BBC in 1994 there was no reliable electricity supply even in the capital city — let alone local television like TOLO news.

“One of the great successes of the last decade or two has been the flowering of local media. Western organisations and donors and Afghans have understood that having a free media is one of the most important aspects of having a functioning society,” he said.

Afghans have really taken to that with real enthusiasm. The number of outlets and journalists has been phenomenal. You can’t put that genie back in his bottle without some serious consequences,” Greste told Mediawatch.

The regime in Egypt wasn’t afraid to imprison him and his colleagues back in 2014. Does he fear for international reporters like Charlotte Bellis and her colleagues?

“Al Jazeera will have a lot of security in place to make sure the operation is protected,” Greste said.

“But of course I worry for Charlotte — and also the staff at work with her. As a foreign correspondent though, I think you enjoy more protection than most other journos locally,” Greste said.

“If my name had been Mohammed and not Peter and if I’d been Egyptian and not Australian or a foreigner there wouldn’t have been anywhere near the kind of outrage and consequences for the government,” Greste said.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Media freedom defenders from Commonwealth countries have criticised many governments across the world that threaten and censor the work of journalists.

A virtual conference on media freedom in the Commonwealth was hosted by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS) in a webinar in London this week.

Three speakers condemned Chinese pressure “behind the scenes” on Pacific media and in Southeast Asia, the “backsliding” of media freedom in Australia, and raised the West Papua “self-determination” issue in the opening panel of the day-long webinar.

The speakers, UNESCO professor of journalism at the University of Queensland, Peter Greste, who was jailed in 2013 by the Egyptian regime while he was a foreign correspondent covering the Arab Spring for Al Jazeera English; Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie and editor of Pacific Journalism Review; and Reporters Without Borders East Asian bureau chief Cédric Alviani, who has lived in Asia since 1999, gave robust criticisms.

Media freedom has been taken up as a serious issue in Commonwealth nations, such as in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.

Conference facilitator Professor Philip Murphy, who is also director of the institute, said people from across the world were “using technology to bring in speakers from right across the Commonwealth – it is a fantastic opportunity”.

Panel chair Sue Onslow said a key objective of the institution had been exploring how serious the Commonwealth cared about media freedom.

Open dialogue on ‘free flow’
“The Commonwealth charter signed in 2013 affirmed the members’ commitments to a peaceful and open dialogue on the free flow of information, including free and responsible media,” said Murphy.

The opening speaker, Professor David Robie, who is also convenor of the Pacific Media Watch freedom project at Auckland University of Technology, said Pacific governments were becoming increasingly “authoritarian” in dealing with the media, making it difficult for journalists to work independently and securely.

He condemned the Solomon Islands government’s decision this week to ban Facebook because of “abusive language” and “character assassination” against politicians, saying that little thought had begin given to implementing such a draconian gag.

Dr Robie said Facebook and social media were vital for communication in the region and for many small media organisations that had integrated social media strategies into their news operations.

The Solomon Islands government itself was using Facebook for communicating with the public.

Dr Robie also criticised China for its media policies in the region, saying there had been “a trend in clamping down on Facebook in a number of countries in the Pacific” emulating a mainland Chinese lead.

He cited the Facebook threatening moves in Papua New Guinea and Samoa and the ban in Nauru as examples of Chinese influence.

China ‘undermining’ media norms
“China is undermining the long-established independent media freedom norms,” he said.

There was speculation behind the scenes about the influence from China over governments because of extraction industries, such as logging, in an attempt to force silence.

“So, there is a worry and I think an increasing worry in the region about this,” said Dr Robie.

He also criticised the lack of coverage in Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand about issues concerning Pacific nations such as the decolonisation issue for French Polynesia, New Caledonia – “and especially West Papua”.

“These issues are becoming increasingly critical issues for the Pacific media with a particularly strong proactive line on this around the Pacific about West Papua, a cause célèbre if you like.

“Of course, it’s difficult because it is regarded as part of Indonesia and sometimes the statistics around media freedom issues in West Papua are hidden across statistics in Indonesia as a whole,” Dr Robie said.

He said that despite the lack of coverage from mainstream media in the region, West Papua was increasingly an issue for the independent Pacific media.

West Papua will be ‘big issue’
“This will become a very big issue in the next few years,” he said.

“Globally, you get international news organisations like Al Jazeera covering West Papua while much of the mainstream media in Australia and New Zealand don’t. Pacific nations news media are taking it up it as a critical issue for them.”

Professor Peter Greste , who is also spokeperson for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said that the practice of journalism was now being “weaponised” with anti-terrorism laws such as introduced by the Australian government.

He recalled his experience while working in Egypt before he was jailed for 400 days over alleged “terrorism” and then deported.

Governments were increasingly taking national security legislation as an anti-terrorism law and using it to “come after the journalists”. Two of his Al Jazeera colleagues were still in jail in Cairo.

“I started to realise what was happening in Egypt was one of the greatest examples of the kind of things that were taking place all over the world. Not just in an authoritarian regime like Egypt or Turkey or China where journalists were being locked up with great impunity, but equally in liberal Western democracies, including here in Australia.”

However, Professor Greste said some progress had been made about reforming such laws.

Law reform progress in Australia
“We are seeing some progress here in Australia to change the law, at least getting some legislative reform. In Australia, there is an opportunity to move.”

Reporters Without Borders’ Cédric Alviani said that citizens had a fundamental right to information, it was not just an issue about media freedom for media owners.

“We have to insist that press freedom is the freedom of the people to receive quality information, and somehow it should be called Freedom of Information – or maybe under another name – but somehow it would be less confusing as it’s a right of the citizens. It is enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said.

“I believe we should start from the public spaces. Politicians or decision takers will only do this if it suits their interests, so I would say the public has to push for this. This is a right, and we have to push for our rights because every other person basically has an interest to remove this right.”

Alviani said that it was important for journalists to be accountable for their work as otherwise they would amplify disinformation and lead to a negative impact.

“Disinformation can boost the national security threat and only journalists can debunk fake news before it has become viral,” he said.

“If the journalists don’t do their job properly, they are going to amplify fake news, instead of debunking it.”

The seminar included panels on South Asia, Africa, Europe and Canada, the Caribbean with more than 16 journalists and media freedom defenders taking part, and with a large audience.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Today, October 16, marks the 45th anniversary of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based Australian, British and New Zealand – journalists murdered in East Timor in 1975. Their case remains unsolved.

Roger East, a former ABC journalist, was later murdered when in Timor-Leste investigating the earlier killings and running a Timorese news agency.

This was a marked moment in press freedom history in Australia, yet after investigations were launched to find those responsible and prosecute them, after 1868 days – according to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) – the AFP (Australian Federal Police) had not made one attempt to question the suspect identified by a prior inquest.

The investigation was subsequently dropped.

Since then, nine other Australian journalists have also been murdered, again with complete impunity, reports the Brisbane-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (AJF).

Globally, impunity in cases of journalist murders remains at almost 90 percent.

Professor Peter Greste, director and spokesperson of the AJF, said:

“This trajectory shows a broad and continuing failure of our judicial process, and a lack of political will to address one of the most egregious attacks on the media in our history.

“A liberal democracy stands on the shoulders of a sound legal system, a free press, transparent governance and security forces that protect both the people and the integrity of the system itself.

“Failure to hold those responsible for the Balibo Five murders and those subsequent to them is a failure of our democracy. If we hope to be a strong and flourishing country in the region in future, we must ensure this never happens again.”

Murdered were the three-man Channel Seven crew reporter Greg Shackleton, (29), New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham, 27; and 21-year-old sound recorder Tony Stewart; and the two-man Channel Nine crew Scottish-born reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28, and British cameraman Brian Peters.

Roger East opened a one-man news agency in Timor-Leste, stringing for both ABC Radio in Darwin and the AAP news agency in Sydney.

He filed reports on East Timor’s calls for international support and provided the first accounts of the killing of the five journalists at Balibo.

As the sole remaining foreign reporter in East Timor his stories described the approaching Indonesian forces and the plight of the civilian population.

Roger East’s final story for ABC Radio was heard on Correspondents Report on the afternoon of 7 December 1975.

The AJF promotes press freedom and the right of journalists to report the news in freedom and safety. This includes working with Australian governments to ensure legislation supports press freedom. Professor Peter Greste is a director of the AJF and is UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland (UQ).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Brisbane-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom calls for Chinese authorities to provide due process to Australian television journalist Cheng Lei and release her immediately pending any judicial proceedings – in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which China has signed).

It has also called on the authorities in China to ensure that any judicial
proceedings follow due process, reports the AJF.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed that her department had been
told on August 14 of Cheng’s detention in Beijing.

According to the ABC, she is being held under what is known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”.

In effect, she has been imprisoned without charge and under Chinese law could remain there for up to six months without access to lawyers or her family.

AJF spokesman Professor Peter Greste said: “We are deeply troubled by Cheng Lei’s unjustified detention. Nothing in her life suggests she is a spy, a terrorist or a criminal of any sort.

“In the absence of evidence, the only conclusion we can come to is that she is being used as a hostage in a wider diplomatic spat between Australia and China, or perhaps because of
some critical comments she may have made.

‘Simply unacceptable’
“Either way, it is simply unacceptable.

“Her detention without charge sends a very clear message to the rest of the world and
the media community in particular – that China has little respect for the role of journalists
in public debate and seems willing to use high profile figures for political and diplomatic
leverage.”

Cheng was born in China but grew up in Australia and studied at the University of
Queensland. For the past eight years, she has worked as an on-air anchor and reporter for
the English-language TV news service, CGTN.

Since her detention, her profile has disappeared from the network’s website and her videos have been taken down.

In a video released by the Australian Global Alumni, an international relations initiative by
the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Cheng said: “The beauty of an Australian
education is more about what it doesn’t teach.

“It doesn’t teach you to just follow orders.

‘Freedom to think’
“It allows you that freedom to think for yourself, to question even textbooks, even
professors, to judge for yourself, which is critical in journalism.”

The AJF believes that a free, vibrant media benefits everyone apart from those with
things to hide, and is fundamental to any functioning society regardless of its political
system.

The AJF campaigns for legislative reform and the freedom of journalists across
the Asia-Pacific region.

In Auckland, Pacific Media Watch convenor Professor David Robie said the detention of high profile Australian television anchor Cheng Lei sent a “chilling” message to journalists in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific over the lengths China was prepared to go to silence dissent.

Lei is reported to have authored or shared Facebook posts in February critical of the cover-up of the Wuhan covid-19 outbreak.

However, working for the state-run global network CGTN her reports have generally been regarded as celebratory of Chinese achievements and commentators have described her as an important “media bridge” between Australia and China.

“While citizen journalists regarded as critics were arrested earlier in the year, this latest move represents an attack on a major media icon highly respected in Australia and China for her work,” said Dr Robie.

“It is a reprehensible act. She should be allowed legal assistance and she must be released.”

Dr Robie said it was also a worrying development for Pacific journalists in the wake of behind-the-scenes efforts at censorship of sensitive information, especially at the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Port Moresby in late 2018.

Professor Peter Greste is a director of the AJF and is UNESCO chair in journalism
and communication at the University of Queensland.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak.

The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (APJ) for a media freedom law.

ABC’s managing director David Anderson said in a statement “The Afghan Files is factual and important reporting which exposed allegations about Australian soldiers committing war crimes in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom

“Its accuracy has never been challenged.”

Peter Greste, AJF’s spokesperson, said Australia urgently needed a Media Freedom Act.

“Australia is the only Five Eyes nation that has similar levels of national security protections, but no press freedom protections written into our legal code,” he said.

“To find balance between these two fundamental pillars of democracy, we urgently need a Media Freedom Act.

“The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom has been calling for a Media Freedom Act since May 2019, three weeks before the AFP’s raids on Annika Smethurst’s home and ABC’s Ultimo offices.

“The news that an Australian journalist who reported in the public interest is now at risk of being prosecuted by the Commonwealth DPP is a plain example that we need to strike this balance urgently, or risk further damaging our democracy.”

The AJF promotes press freedom and the right of journalists to report the news in freedom and safety. This includes working with Australian governments to ensure legislation supports press freedom.

The alliance also campaigns in the Asia-Pacific region, wherever journalists are censored, threatened, imprisoned or killed.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom has welcomed the decision by the Australian Federal Police to drop charges against Newscorp journalist Annika Smethurst and has renewed its call for a media freedom law.

The announcement, coming more than a year after the raids, underscores the need for unambiguous protections for press freedom in Australian law, the AJF said in a statement.

The AFP were searching for evidence of the source of a story she published revealing secret plans by the government to expand the powers of the nation’s international electronic eavesdropping agency, the Australian Signals Directorate.

READ MORE: Australia’s global media freedom status – ‘investigative journalism in danger’

The raid, and a similar one the following day on the offices of the ABC, highlighted the precarious position of Australian journalists who are fulfilling their democratic duty to keep watch over our government.

It also appeared to send a message to both journalists and their sources exposing abuses of government authority – the police are prepared to come after you.

The AJF believes the damage the case has done to journalism, to the AFP’s reputation, and to Australia’s international standing as a champion of democratic values, could have been avoided if press freedom was clearly enshrined in our legal code.

AJF spokesperson Professor Peter Greste, the UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, said: “This decision is the right one, but the controversy would never have happened if we had a law in place that protects journalism in the public interest, while giving the security agencies the tools they need to go after genuine threats to the country.

“We can do that with a Media Freedom Act. Such an act would clearly establish the relationship between journalists holding government to account, and the security agencies trying to keep us safe.

“A Media Freedom Act would enshrine the public’s right to know, but also help the security forces from damaging the very thing they aim to protect, namely the health of one of the world’s most successful democracies.”

The AAJF first called for a Media Freedom Act in May 2019, three weeks before the raids.

Australia is ranked 21st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch

More than 30 media freedom groups, journalists and academics have combined in an international statement today condemning the closure of the largest Philippine television network and calling on President Rodrigo Duterte to “urgently reinstate” the broadcaster.

In a statement by the Australian-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (AJF), director Peter Greste said the Filipino public “greatly needs reliable information” amid the global covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

“We cannot beat this virus without knowledge through transparency, and cooperation through communication,” he said.

READ MORE: Rappler’s Maria Ressa raps Duterte for ‘security’ violations

Professor Greste said closing the broadcaster ABS-CBN at this time was “unconscionable”.

The signatories include the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), Dart Centre Asia Pacific, Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA), Public Interest Journalism Initiative, RMIT, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, University of Melbourne’s Centre for Media and Communication Law; and Rappler, the leading digital news website of the Philippines.

The only New Zealand signatory was Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre.

Professor Greste, who is also UNESCO chair of journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, said in the statement:

The statement
“At times of crisis, reliable information is a key part of society’s ability to cope and respond. In the context of the Covid19 pandemic, the closure of broadcaster ABS-CBN is unconscionable.

“Lack of a free media makes democracy vulnerable, fractures societies and undermines trust in institutions – especially in Government.

“The Filipino public greatly needs reliable information. This is particularly the case given the well documented vulnerability of the Philippines to fake news spread through Facebook.

“We cannot beat this virus without knowledge through transparency, and cooperation through communication.

“Governments have a responsibility to maintain their democratic and social systems, and a free media plays an essential role within that.

“The closure of ABS-CBN makes the Philippines a less healthy society, and also undermines the ability of the region and the world to respond to this crisis.

“We, the undersigned journalists, press freedom groups and media organisations have come together to call on you to urgently reinstate ABS-CBN’s operating license and make an ongoing commitment to press freedom.

“Join us in maintaining a regional and global standard.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The Australian journalist and academic who spent more than a year in an Egyptian prison has welcomed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s recent boost for his media freedom cause but warned that Canberra should use its new United Nations human rights status to “gain leverage”.

Former Al Jazeera foreign correspondent Peter Greste, who was earlier this year appointed professor as the UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, last week launched a new independent body dedicated to campaigning for reporters whose “voices have been stifled” by authorities around the world.

His crusade for global press freedom received a boost from Foreign Minister Bishop when she made her first public statement on Myanmar’s jailing of two Reuters journalists, The Australian reports.

Bishop spoke for the first time about the journalists’ plight after being contacted by the newspaper following Greste’s call for the Australian government to muster all of its diplomatic might to influence its regional neighbours on the issue.

The Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom was established last week with a mission to advocate for press freedom in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Greste, who launched the new initiative while being awarded the Australian Press Council’s 2018 Press Freedom Medal on Thursday, told The Australian that while Ms Bishop would be advocating behind the scenes for the Reuters journalists, it was “important that she makes it publicly clear where she stands on this issue”.

-Partners-

“If we want to be taken seriously as a country that defends human rights and the principles of a liberal democracy, then we need to make sure that we publicly restate those positions and make sure that those people, those governments who we’re close to, follow the same principles,” he said, urging the minister to leverage Australia’s new-found position as a member of the UN Human Rights Commission.

‘Taken seriously’
“If the Australian government wants to be taken seriously — I know it will do — it needs to make sure that it applies those principles with all of those governments that it has leverage with, and that includes the Myanmar government.”

Bishop said in a statement to The Australian that the Australian embassy in Yangon had “registered Australia’s concerns” about the jailed Reuters journalists with the Myanmar government and that her officials were “pursuing other avenues to draw attention to their plight”.

“We continue to emphasise to the Myanmar government that a free and functioning media is an essential part of a modern democracy,” Bishop said, adding that embassy officials had “attended all court hearings as observers, to underline our interest in the case”.

Greste welcomed the comments as a positive step forward in the fight for the reporters, who were arrested last year after investigating an alleged act of genocide against a group of Rohingya people, a persecuted minority in Myanmar’s north.

He said global press freedom was at its lowest point in 13 years and was “trending downwards”, warning that Myanmar’s transition to democracy was at stake.

“Freedom of speech must surely underpin any functioning democracy, any functioning state; having the press as an independent watchdog is absolutely vital,” he said.

Philippines focus
Greste has also singled out the Philippines as a focus for lobbying by the AJF, citing “deeply troubling attacks on the press” by President Rodrigo Duterte, who banned two reporters from the presidential palace in February and has previously been accused of ordering journalists to be killed.

He also threw his support behind an Amnesty International campaign for the release of more than 120 journalists jailed in Turkey as part of a ruthless government crackdown.

Locally, Greste renewed calls for journalists and their sources to be protected from government intrusion.

“I’ve said many times before I’m really concerned that what we’re doing is allowing our obsession with national security to undermine press freedom,” Greste said, warning that media freedom was being “chipped away” by legislation aimed at fighting terrorism.

He welcomed the federal government’s decision to revisit its proposed espionage legislation, urging legislators to “go back to first principles” of openness and transparency.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz