Fiji human rights activists have paid tribute in a Suva vigil this week to the more than 100 journalists — most of them Palestinian — killed in Israel’s War on Gaza.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) staged a #ThursdaysInBlack vigil to remember the dead journalists, but only one local Fiji reporter turned up (from The Fiji Times).

The coalition had invited local journalists to attend and share their views. However, according to coalition coordinator Shamima Ali (of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre), Fiji media is reluctant to engage with the global crisis over the war.

“Within the media outlets, we have Zionists themselves, so there is reluctance to report (on the Gaza conflict),” she said.

In Australia and New Zealand, there is an ongoing controversy over some journalists and editors having been on junkets to Israel and then attempting to “silence” fair and balanced reporting on the war enabling a Palestinian voice.

South Africa has taken Israel before the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, alleging breaches of the Genocide Convention

One media outlet, Crikey, has been publishing a public list “outing” the names of journalists “influenced” by Israeli media or government management — more than 77 names so far.  No similar list so far exists in New Zealand although there have been calls for one.

Part of the Fiji vigil featured Australian journalist Alex McKinnon, who shared insights into his life as a reporter covering the conflict and the censorship involved in silencing the Palestinian voice.

Heavy death toll
The coalition said more than 100 journalists, videographers and media workers had been killed in Gaza since the current war broke out last October 7, adding more journalists had been killed in three months of Israel’s War on Gaza than in all of World War Two (69) or the Vietnam War (63).

New investigations on U.S. and UK media bias have exposed chilling double standards by Western media when it comes to reporting on killings of Israelis compared to killings of Palestinians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/uQ0I7cT340

— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 10, 2024

The high death toll in Gaza comes despite journalists being protected under international law — making attacks on them a war crime.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that an unprecedented number of reporters were killed in the first 10 weeks of the genocide. It currently lists 82 confirmed killed, but it is verifying additional numbers.

Gaza’s media office has documented the killing of at least at least 110 media workers since the genocide started.

Last May, the CPJ published “Deadly Pattern,” a report that found members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had killed at least 20 journalists over the previous 22 years and that no one had ever been charged or held accountable for their deaths.

The Israeli government has prevented independent entry to foreign journalists seeking to cover the genocide from within the Gaza Strip.

On December 22, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders watchdog filed a second complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging probable war crimes by Israel soldiers in the deaths of seven Palestinian reporters during the eight weeks ending December 15.

It has since been advised that the ICC would include the killings of journalists in its investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times. The latest assassination of an Al Jazeera photojournalist yesterday while documenting atrocities has prompted a leading analyst to appeal to global journalists to “take a stand” to protect the profession.

The killing of Hamza Dahdoud, the 27-year-old eldest son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, along with freelancer Mustafa Thuraya, has taken the death toll of Palestinian journalists to 109 (according to Al Jazeera sources while global media freedom watchdogs report slightly lower figures).

Emotional responses and a wave of condemnation has thrown the spotlight on the toll faced by reporters and their families.

Wael Dahdouh, 52, lost his wife, daughter, grandson and 15-year-old son on October 25 in an earlier Israeli air raid that hit the house they were sheltering in. After mourning for several hours, Dahdouh senior was back on the job documenting the war.

Just under 20 months ago, Al Jazeera’s best known correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, was fatally shot by an Israeli sniper while reporting on the Occupied West Bank on 11 May 2022 in what Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned by saying this “systematic Israeli impunity is outrageous.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists protested about the killing of Hamza Dahdoud and Thuraya, saying it “must be independently investigated, and those behind their deaths must be held accountable”.

But few journalists would accept that this is anything other a targeted killing, as most of the deaths of Palestinian journalists in the latest Gaza war have been – a war on Palestinian journalism in an attempt to suppress the truth.

‘Nowhere safe in Gaza’
Certainly, Al Jazeera’s Palestinian-Israeli political affairs analyst and Marwan Bishara, who was born in Nazareth, has no doubts.

Speaking on the 24-hour Qatari world news channel, with at least 22,835 people killed in Gaza – 70 percent of them women and children — he said: “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and no journalists are safe . . . That tells us something.

“Killing the messenger”: Marwan Bishara’s interview with Al Jazeera — more tampering over the message? There is nothing “sensitive” in this clip.

“It is understood they are war journalists. But still the fact that more than 100 journalists were killed within three months is breaking yet another record in terms of killing children, and destruction of hospitals and schools, and the killing of United Nations staff.

“And now with 109 journalists killed this definitely requires a certain stand on the part of our colleagues around the world. Not just in a higher up institution.

“I am talking about journalists around the world – those who came to cover the World Cup in Doha for labour rights, or whatever. Those who are shedding tears in the Ukraine, those who are trying to cover Xinjiang in China [persecution of the Uyghur people], those who are claiming there are genocides happening right, left and centre – from China to Ukraine, to elsewhere.

“The same journalists who see in plain sight what is happening in Gaza should – regardless if we disagree on Israel’s motives, or Israel’s objectives in this war – must agree that the protection of journalists and their families is indispensable for our profession. And for their profession,” Bishara said.

“Journalists, and journalism associations and syndicates around the world – especially in those countries with influence on Israel, as in Europe, or the United States; journalists need to take a stand on what is going on in Gaza.

‘Cannot go unanswered’
“This cannot continue and go on unanswered. What about them?

“They’re going to be from various media outlets deploying journalists in war-stricken areas. They will have to call for the defence of journalists and their lives and their protection.

“This cannot go on like this unabated in Gaza,” Bishara added, as Israeli defence officials have warned the fighting could go on for another year.

The South African genocide case filed against Israel in the International Court of Justice seeking an interim injunction for a ceasefire and due for a hearing later this week could pose the best chance for an end to the war.

Bishara has partially blamed Western news networks for failing to report the war on Gaza accurately and fairly, a criticism he has made in the past and his articles about Israel are insightful and damning.

His call for a stand by journalists has in fact been echoed in some quarters where “media bias” has been challenged, opening divisions among media groups about fairness and balance that have become the most bitter since the climate change and covid pandemic debates when media “deniers” and “bothsideism” threatened to undermine science.

In November, more than 1500 journalists from scores of US media organisations signed an open letter calling for integrity in Western media’s coverage of “Israeli atrocities against Palestinians”.

Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in Gaza have been hit in the past month.

Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale suppression of speech.

In the United Kingdom, eight BBC journalists wrote an open letter in late November to Al Jazeera accusing the British broadcaster of bias in its coverage of Gaza.

A 2300-word letter claimed that the BBC had a “double standard” and was failing to tell the Israel-Palestine conflict accurately, “investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage”.

What is next? He lost everyone!!! Literally!!! #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/1LVh4eruIt

— Palestine News (@palestine) January 7, 2024

In Australia, another open letter by scores of journalists and the national media union MEAA called for “integrity, transparency and rigour” in the coverage of the war and joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), RSF and others condemning the Israeli attacks on journalists and journalism.

Leading Australian newspaper editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and the Nine network hit back by banning staff who had signed the letter. According to the independent Crikey, a senior Nine staff journalist resigned and readers were angrily cancelling their newspaper subscriptions over the ban.

Crikey later exposed many editors and journalists who had made junket trips to Israel and is currently keeping an inventory of these “influenced” media people — at least 77 have been named so far.

In The Daily Blog, editor Martyn Bradbury has also questioned how many New Zealand journalists have also been influenced by Israeli media massaging. Bradbury wrote:

“If Israel has sunk that much time and resource charming Australian journalists and politicians, the question has to be asked, [has] the pro-Israel lobby sent NZ journalists and politicians on these junkets and if they have, who are they?”

He wrote to the NZ Press Gallery, the “journalist union” and media companies requesting a list of names.

Pacific journalists ought to be also added to the list.

I have just returned from a two-month trip in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Australia. After a steady diet of comprehensive and well backgrounded reporting from global news channels such as TRT World News and Al Jazeera (which contrasted sharply in quality, depth and fairness with stereotypical Western coverage such as from BBC and CNN), I was stunned by the blatant bias of much of the Australian news media, particularly News Corp titles such as The Australian and The Advertiser in Adelaide.

Some examples of the bias and my commentaries can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.

A pithy indictment of much of the Western reporting — including in New Zealand — can be read in the Middle East Eye and other publications.

Exposing much of the Israeli propaganda and fabricated claims since October 7 (and even from time of The Nakba in 1948), award-winning columnist Peter Osborne wrote:

“I am haunted by one other consideration. It is not just that Western commentators, columnists and chat show hosts often don’t know what they are talking about. It’s not even that they pretend they do.

“It’s the comfort of their lives. They sit in warm, pleasant studios where they earn six-figure sums for their opinions. They take no risks and convey no truths.”

A polar opposite from the Gaza carnage and the risks that courageous Palestinian journalists face daily to bear witness. They are an inspiration to the rest of us.

Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, has been killed along with another journalist in an Israeli air strike west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the news channel reports.

The 27-year-old photojournalist was killed when a missile directly hit the vehicle he was travelling in to “document new atrocities” in the latest Israel attack.

Gaza’s media office condemned the killing of two more Palestinian journalists, describing it as a “heinous crime” committed by the “Israeli occupation army against journalists”.

Hamza Dahdouh and colleague Mustafa Thuraya, who has worked as a journalist for Agence France-Presse news agency, were in the car at the time it was targeted, Al Jazeera reports.

Thuraya also died.

Wael Dahdouh, 52, lost his wife, daughter, grandson and 15-year-old son in October in an Israeli air raid that hit the house they were sheltering in.

Dozens of journalists have been killed in the Israeli strikes since the war began on October 7 and Al Jazeera reports that a total of 109 Palestianian journalists have died.

Journalists ‘being targeted’
Interviewed live on Al Jazeera, another AJ correspondent, Hani Mahmoud, described the work of Dahdouh and other Palestinians journalists documenting the war.

He said “journalists are being targeted and killed for telling the true story” as an Israeli drone hovered overhead during the interview.

Hamza and his colleagues were doing fieldwork, documenting the level of destruction that was caused by an overnight airstrike targeting a residential zone near the road that connects Khan Younis with Rafah.

Reporting from Rafah, Mahmoud said that Hamza and his colleagues had been doing fieldwork, documenting the level of destruction caused by an overnight airstrike targeting a residential zone near the road connecting Khan Younis with Rafah.

“Every airstrike has an aftermath — it does not only cause a great deal of damage to the targeted home but also to the surrounding area,” he said.

“So they were documenting these crimes — destruction, displacement, and people under the rubble — when they were targeted.”

An Al Jazeera news executive compared the war on Gaza and on Palestinians with the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War, saying “it is genocide”.

Israel aims to “intimidate journalists in a failed attempt to obscure the truth and prevent media coverage”, the Gaza media office said.

It also demanded “the occupation to stop the genocidal war against our defenceless people in the Gaza Strip”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Murder charges have been reinstated against the man suspected of killing French Polynesian journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as “JPK” — his byline, who vanished in 1997.

Francis Stein, a former head of the territory’s archive service, was first charged in 2019 but France’s highest court accepted his appeal last year that investigative magistrates had breached rules during his questioning.

The investigative magistrates have now revived their probe against Stein and Miri Tatarata, who was JPK’s partner.

The pair are both accused of killing JPK, an investigative journalist who was editor-in-chief of the French-language newspaper Les Nouvelles de Tahiti, whose body has never been found.

An investigation was first opened in 2004 after a former spy claimed that JPK had been abducted and killed by the government’s GIP militia, which allegedly dumped him at sea between Moorea and Tahiti.

Murder charges against two members of the now disbanded GIP were dismissed eight years ago, but kidnapping charges have been upheld.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Mazin Qumsiyeh

It is so hard for me to write today — too many tears. The US-supported Israeli occupation forces’ crimes continue daily but some days are harder than others.

Shireen Abu Akleh, wearing a blue helmet and vest with “PRESS” written over it has been assassinated by Israeli occupation forces.

All journalists on the scene explained how Israeli snipers simply targeted journalists. The first three bullets were a miss, then a hit on one male journalist (in the back). Then when Shireen shouted that he was hit, she was killed with a bullet beneath the ear.

Shireen was also a US citizen (she was a Bethlehemite Christian who lived in Jerusalem). But that is no protection.

Rachel Corrie was run over by an Israeli military bulldozer and killed intentionally in Rafah two decades ago and the killers were rewarded. Both killings happened as the world was distracted by other conflicts (Iraq and now Ukraine).

The US government cares nothing about its own citizens because politicians are under the thumb of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Thousands of others were killed and the murderers still roam free and are funded by US taxpayers.

War crimes and crimes against humanity continue daily here. The US government is a partner in crime (just note how the US Ambassador simply hoped for an investigation — why not send the FBI to investigate the murder of countless US citizens). The events and the reaction in Western corporate (“mainstream”) media and Western governments makes us so mad.

Same day murder of teenager
If you are not outraged to act, you are not human. In the same day today the apartheid forces murdered 15-year-old Thaer Alyazouri as he was returning from school.

As we pointed out before, Palestine remains the fulcrum and the litmus test and it exposes hypocrisy and collusion.

It is actually the achilles heel for Western propaganda. Like with South Africa under apartheid, Western leaders’ empty rhetoric of human rights and democracy is exposed by their direct support for apartheid and murder.

May this intentional murder of a journalist finally be the straw that breaks the back of hypocrisy, Zionism and imperialism.

Millions of people mourn this brave journalist murdered by a fascist racist regime. Millions will rededicate themselves to challenge Western hypocrisy and US-supported Israeli crimes against humanity.

The Nakba atrocities
My 90-year-old mother born before the Nakba told me about the atrocities done since 1948 and before by the terrorist Zionist militias in their quest to colonise Palestine. From the first terrorist attack (and yes, Zionists were first to use terrorism like bombing markets or hijacking airplanes) to the 33 massacres during the 1948-1950 ethnic cleansing of Palestine (Tantura, Deir Yassin etc).

We will not forget nor forgive. Justice is key to peace here and justice begins with ending the nightmare called Zionism and prosecuting its leaders and collaborators and funders in real fair trials.

Only then will Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all others flourish in this land of Palestine. Palestine will then retun to be a multiethnic, multicultural, and multireligious society instead of a racist apartheid state of Israel.

It is inevitable but we can accelerate it with our actions.

We honour Shireen, Rachel and more than 110,000 martyrs by acting as they did: telling truth, challenging evil deeds, working for justice (which is a prerequisite for peace).

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities. He and his wife returned to Palestine in 2008, starting a number of institutions and projects such as a clinical genetics laboratory that serves cancer and other patients. Qumsiyeh has been harassed and arrested for non-violent actions but also received a number of awards for these same actions.

Veteran Al Jazeera journalist killed by Israeli forces: Live news https://t.co/5B5gkk1MKI

— El_Grillo (@El_Grillo1) May 11, 2022

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Journalism Research and Education Association of Australia (JERAA) has urged the Australian government to make a strong commitment to supporting journalists and media personnel in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of international forces.

JERAA said in a statement today it had endorsed the calls of Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) for urgent action to provide humanitarian visas and other support to those attempting to flee the country.

In the current upheaval, it is difficult to obtain figures on how many journalists have been attacked, but the Afghan Independent Journalist Association and Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union express grave concerns for the well-being of journalists and media personnel.

Nai, an Afghan organisation supporting independent media, released figures indicating that by late July, at least 30 media workers had been killed, wounded or tortured in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2021.

UNESCO has recorded five deaths of journalists in Afghanistan in 2021, making it the country with the world’s greatest number of journalists’ deaths this year. Four have been women, reflecting the higher risk of attacks on female journalists.

Current figures are likely to be incomplete due to the challenges of obtaining information. They do not include deaths of professionals in related industries, such as the murder of the Head of Afghan government Media and Information Centre on August 6.

The Taliban has a long-established pattern of striking out against journalists.

A Human Rights Watch report, released in April 2021, in the lead up to the United States and NATO troop withdrawal, noted that Taliban forces had already established a practice of targeting journalists and other media workers.

Journalists are intimidated, harassed and attacked routinely by the Taliban, which regularly accuses them of being aligned with the Afghan government or international military forces or being spies.

Female journalists face a higher level of threats, especially if they have appeared on television and radio.

International Press Institute figures, released in May 2021 at the start of the troop withdrawals, also showed that Afghanistan had the highest rate of deaths of journalists in the world.

The IPI expressed concern about an intensification of attacks on journalists and the future of the news media in Afghanistan.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

More journalists are being killed in countries considered to be “at peace.”

In 2016, 58 percent of media fatalities took place in war zones. Now only 32 percent of the fatalities are in war-torn countries such as Syria or Yemen or in countries with low or medium-intensity conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

In other words, 68 percent (more than two thirds) of the fatalities are in countries “at peace,” above all Mexico (with eight journalists killed), India (four), the Philippines (three) and Honduras (three).

Of all the journalists killed in connection with their work in 2020, 84 percent were knowingly targeted and deliberately murdered, as compared to  63 percent in 2019.

Barbaric murders
Some were murdered in a particularly barbaric manner.

In Mexico, Julio Valdivia Rodríguez, a reporter for the daily El Mundo, was found beheaded in the eastern state of Veracruz, while Víctor Fernando Álvarez Chávez, the editor of the local news website Punto x Punto Noticias, was cut to pieces in the western city of Acapulco.

In India, Rakesh “Nirbhik” Singh, a reporter for the Rashtriya Swaroop newspaper, was burned alive in December after being doused with a highly flammable, alcohol-based hand sanitiser in his home in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh by men sent by a local official whose corrupt practices he had criticised, while Isravel Moses, a TV reporter in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, was hacked to death with machetes.

In Iran, it was the state that acted as executioner. Rouhollah Zam, the editor of the Amadnews website and Telegram news channel, was hanged after being sentenced to death in an unfair trial.

Although executions are common in Iran, it was the first time in 30 years that a journalist has been subjected to this archaic and barbaric practice.

“The world’s violence continues to be visited upon journalists,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Some may think that journalists are just the victims of the risks of their profession, but journalists  are increasingly targeted when they investigate or cover sensitive subjects. What is being attacked is the right to be informed, which is everyone’s right.”

Most dangerous stories
As in the past, the most dangerous stories are investigations into cases of local corruption or misuse of public funds (10 journalists killed in 2020) or investigations into the activities of organised crime (four killed). In a new development in 2020, seven journalists were killed while covering protests.

In Iraq, three journalists were killed in exactly the same way: by a shot to the head fired by unidentified gunmen while they were covering protests. A fourth was killed in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region while trying to flee from clashes between security forces and demonstrators.

In Nigeria, two journalists fell victim to the climate of violence accompanying protests, especially protests against the brutality of a police unit tasked with combating crime.

In Colombia, a reporter for a community radio station was fatally shot while covering an indigenous community protest against the privatisation of local land that was violently dispersed by regular police, riot police and soldiers.

In the 2020 annual round-up of journalists who are detained, held hostage or missing at the end of the year, published on 14 December, RSF reported that 387 journalists are currently detained in connection with their work.

This is virtually the same as a year ago and means the number of journalists detained worldwide is still at a historically high level.

2020 has also seen a 35 percent increase in the number of women journalists arbitrarily  detained, and a fourfold increase in arrests of journalists during the first three months of covid-19’s spread around the world.

Fourteen journalists who were arrested in connection with their coverage of the pandemic are still being held.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Philippine authorities should independently investigate the circumstances surrounding the killing of journalist Ronnie Villamor and hold those responsible to account, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In the afternoon of November 14, Philippine Army soldiers shot and killed Villamor, a contributor to the local independent Dos Kantos Balita weekly tabloid, outside a military checkpoint in Milagros, a town in Masbate province in the central Philippines.

He was on his way to cover a disputed land survey, according to press reports.

The troops, led by Second Lieutenant Maydim Jomadil, were investigating reports of armed men in the area, according to local broadcaster ABS-CBN.

Major Aldrin Rosales, the local police chief, alleged that the troops ordered Villamor to stop his motorcycle, and opened fire when the journalist drew a firearm, according to that report.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines denied that version of events, saying that soldiers stopped Villamor and four surveyors he was accompanying despite the group having coordinated with police to be in the area.

When the five decided to call local police to assist them in passing through the army checkpoint, the soldiers opened fire and killed Villamor, the statement said.

‘Swift, independent investigation’ needed
“Authorities must conduct a swift and independent investigation into the killing of journalist Ronnie Villamor, and ensure that any soldiers who acted unlawfully are brought to justice,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative.

“Soldiers cannot simply gun down a journalist without fear that their actions will be thoroughly investigated and any wrongdoing punished. Prosecution of the perpetrators is the only way the cycle of impunity will be broken in the Philippines.”

Local English-language outlet Butalat reported that the army and police claimed Villamor was a member of the New People’s Army (NPA), an anti-government armed insurgent group active in the region.

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, a government body tasked with resolving journalist killings, did not reply to CPJ’s repeated emailed requests for its assessment of Villamor’s killing and information on the status of any investigations into the case.

Villamor covered land disputes and other political issues for Dos Kantos Balita, according to the NUJP. The tabloid covers many hard-hitting issues, including illegal logging, drug trafficking, and illegal fishing in the region, according to a CPJ review of the publication’s Facebook page.

The Philippine Army did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the circumstances surrounding Villamor’s killing.

In October, CPJ published its annual Global Impunity Index, a ranking of nations where journalists are slain and their killers go free – the Philippines ranked seventh, with at least 11 unsolved journalist killings.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A radio journalist has been shot dead outside his home by two gunmen on a motorcycle, Philippines police said – four years after the provincial broadcaster survived a similar attempt to kill him.

Virgilio Maganes, 62, who lived northwest of Manila in the province of Pangasinan, was shot six times yesterday and died at the scene, police said, reports Al Jazeera.

Maganes is the 18th journalist to have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, and the 190th since Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown in 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).

Few of the perpetrators are ever brought to justice.

Maganes survived the previous attempt on his life by pretending to be dead.

“We demand that authorities work fast to solve his death, which could be related to the botched attempt on his life on November 8, 2016, when motorcycle-riding gunmen fired at him as he rode a tricycle,” the NUJP said.

On that occasion, the gunmen left a note at the scene saying: “I’m a drug pusher, don’t emulate me.”

Such messages were common in extrajudicial killings during the height of Duterte’s war on drugs that led to thousands of deaths.

Police said they had not established a motive for the attack on Maganes. At least two other journalists have been killed for doing their work in 2020, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and both cases remain unsolved.

Reporters Without Borders said in a Tweet it was “terrible news” and called for an independent investigation to “find the culprits of this gruesome murder”.

?? Terrible news! In the #Philippines, radio journalist Virgilio Maganes was shot six times this morning in front of his house in Pangasinan (North). He was killed immediately. @RSF_inter calls for an independent investigation to find the culprits of this gruesome murder. @nujp pic.twitter.com/ASHkZFKnt8

— RSF (@RSF_inter) November 10, 2020

The Presidential Task Force on Media Security, which was set up to tackle media murders, described the killing as “an act of cowardice” and vowed to hunt down those responsible, while Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said both Maganes’s murder and the 2016 attack would be investigated to establish whether they were linked to his work as a journalist.

Media under pressure
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist and the media has found itself under increasing pressure since Duterte was elected president.

ABS-CBN, the country’s largest broadcaster, was ordered to close after the regulator failed to renew the channel’s 25-year operating licence while veteran editor Maria Ressa and her online news site Rappler, are facing numerous court cases on charges ranging from tax evasion to defamation.

Both ABS-CBN and Rappler have been critical of Duterte’s drug war and his government’s policies.

The country’s largest newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which has also published stories critical of the drug war, was pressured to be sold to Ramon Ang, an ally of the president, after Duterte threatened its owners with legal consequences.

The newspaper also reported on Duterte’s alleged hidden wealth in the run-up to the 2016 election.

The Duterte administration denies targeting media for its reporting.

Index on Censorship, which campaigns for freedom of expression, condemned Maganes’s killing.

“Press freedom has nosedived under Duterte who heads a constant campaign of harassment,” the organisation said on Twitter. “The world must come together in rage against these awful attacks.”

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

Pacific Media Watch

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged the Philippine authorities to appoint a special independent team to investigate yesterday’s “shocking murder” of an investigative radio journalist with a reputation for covering corruption.

He was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in Dumaguete City, the capital of the central province of Negros Oriental, reports RSF.

Cornelio Pepino, known to his listeners as Rex Cornelio, was shot five times at close range at around 8.30 pm as he was driving home after presenting his programme Pokpokin Mo Baby! (Hit it baby!) on dyMD Energy FM 93.7. He died on the spot.

READ MORE: Top Philippines TV network told to close under Duterte pressure

Lieutenant Allen June Germondo, the police office in charge of the investigation, said he was examining the hypothesis that Pepino was killed in connection with his journalism.

As well as being a well-known radio show host, Pepino had a solid reputation as an investigative reporter in Negros Oriental.

He had exposed several cases of corruption, bribery and illegal mining. Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo sued him for defamation in 2014, but he was finally acquitted in 2017.

“There is every reason to suspect that Cornelio Pepino was deliberately silenced because people were annoyed by his journalism,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“We urge the Presidential Task Force on Media Security to take charge of the investigation and to appoint an independent team to carry it out. The vicious cycle of crimes of violence against journalists and impunity must stop.”

16 journalists slain
Two other radio journalists have been gunned down in a similar manner by hitmen on motorcycles in the past two years in Dumaguete City. One was Dindo Generoso, a radio commentator who criticised a popular local form of gambling and the associated corruption.
He was shot eight times last November.

The other was Edmund Sestoso, who was shot in May 2018. He was well known for explaining local political conflicts in Negros Oriental.

The current Philippine administration boasts of having created a Presidential Task Force on Media Security as soon as Rodrigo Duterte became president in 2016. Nonetheless, if confirmed, Pepino will be the 16th journalist to have been killed in connection with their work since then.

Pepino was slain on the same day that the National Telecommunications Commission ordered the country’s biggest TV and radio network, ABS-CBN, to stop operating with immediate effect.

ABS-CBN’s TV channels and radio stations did indeed stop broadcasting yesterday evening.

The Philippines is ranked 136th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index, two places lower than in 2019.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NEWS REVIEW: Robert Baird

The Australian lawyer who helped uncover the Timor-Leste bugging scandal says Australia had direct, advanced knowledge of the threat that faced the murdered Balibo Five journalists, with a report describing the men as a “hurdle to be got over” in keeping clandestine activities secret.

Bernard Collaery has published what he describes as a “a survey of failed Australian policy” towards its much smaller neighbour. In Oil Under Troubled Water, he describes seven decades of “grim” history, including the Indonesian occupation years he pointedly labels “genocide”.

“I’ve not called it a holocaust, I wouldn’t use that term… [but] when there is a reckless starvation of people, it is close to, and [it] is genocide,” he told Tatoli.

The release of the book comes as Collaery and the former Australian Special Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer known as Witness K face criminal prosecution for their role in exposing the bugging of Timor-Leste’s cabinet rooms during sensitive oil and gas treaty negotiations in 2004.

The claims about Australia’s high-level knowledge of the impending Balibo attack come in a report which Collaery uncovered in the UK National Archives, where he spent some time researching the book. It highlights the information-sharing between Australia and Indonesia’s intelligence agency, then known as Bakin, in the lead up to the December 1975 invasion.

In his report, Britain’s then-Ambassador to Indonesia, John Ford, writes “the only limitation on clandestine activity now appears to be of its exposure”.

“A particular hurdle to be got over is a plane load of Australian journalists and politicians who are due to visit Timor… to investigate allegations of Indonesian intervention,” Ford writes. “The information from the Australians is sensitive and should not be played back to them or repeated to other missions.”

For Collaery, who advised the East Timor resistance for more than 30 years and has represented the families of the murdered Balibo Five, this was a “shocking” candour.

“[The Whitlam government] could hardly warn the Australians… that Indonesian special forces were a danger to them without conceding that they were aware that clandestine activities were happening inside Portuguese Timor,” he writes.

“So, rather than save lives, they saved the relationship with the Indonesian intelligence service, clearly.”

The report undermines the official version of events leading up to the Balibo attack. A 2002 Parliamentary report found another intelligence agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, did not have “intelligence material that could have alerted the government to the possibility of harm to the newsmen” and that “there was no holding back or suppression of data”.

‘We will not press you on the issue’: Kissinger
Collaery also quotes a US State Department transcript of a meeting between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Indonesian General Suharto on December 6, 1975 he said betrays a “profound breach” of the United Nations charter.

“We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action [in Timor],” General Suharto said.

“We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have,” Secretary Kissinger replied.

The day after the conversation, Indonesia invaded Dili and began its 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste.

Collaery says the conversation is evidence Indonesia acted with “unprovoked aggression“.

“[And] it’s a breach of the code by the United States as an accessory to that series of war crimes,” he says. Australia, as “a more silent witness”, was also complicit, he adds.

‘It’s ruined my law practice… they would have known that’
The book carefully skirts around the criminal proceedings Collaery faces for legal reasons.

“It’s not a memoir,” he says. “That comes later”.

A well-known Canberra barrister, former ACT Attorney-General and diplomat, Collaery took the former ASIS agent Witness K on as a client in 2013. After learning of the bugging operation, Collaery had arranged for his client to give evidence at a confidential overseas hearing.

But after news of the bugging operation was reported in the Australian media, the country’s domestic spy agency, ASIO, raided the lawyer’s home, seizing documents and data. ASIO also raided the home of his client, and had his passport cancelled, preventing Witness K from attending the hearing.

In protest, Timor-Leste unilaterally withdrew from the 2004 CMATS Treaty and took the case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, with Collaery representing them. The case was subsequently withdrawn, and the two countries resolved the dispute through mandatory conciliation in early 2018.

Months after the treaty was signed, Collaery and Witness K were charged under the Intelligence Services Act of 2001. The Act criminalises the unauthorised disclosure of certain information about ASIS, Australia’s foreign spy agency.

Collaery is frank about how the prolonged case has affected his life.

“It’s ruined my law practice… I live on borrowed money, I can’t practice as an advocate in court, I’ve had to let my staff go. That’s all predictable and [prosecutors] would have known that,” he says.

Serious legal risks
Celestino Gusmão from L’ao Hamutuk, a Dili-based human rights organisation, has extensively researched the long-running maritime border dispute. He says Timor-Leste has shown great support to Collaery and Witness K.

“Through their love, their solidarity with the Timorese people, they put the people of Timor ahead [of their own lives],” he says.

Gusmão says he appreciates the serious legal risks the pair ran in exposing the bugging operation.

“I think Bernard Collaery and Witness K [were] prepared for this, but [they] should not be used as a deterrent,” he says.

• Bernard Collaery (2020). Oil Under Troubled Water, Melbourne University Press. This news review was first published in Tatoli, the Timor-Leste News Agency website.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

For decades, the feared Ampatuan clan held sway in the impoverished province of Maguindanao in Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Through a ruthless private army and a reported “propensity for beheadings”, the clan cultivated a culture of impunity. Now, however, reports David Robie, a courageous judge has challenged the horror by jailing the masterminds of the 2009 Ampatuan massacre for life.

SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie in Manila

The families of the 58 victims – 32 of them journalists or media workers – had waited for 10 years for justice in the Philippines.

After so long, what is another couple of hours?

The Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao on 22 November 2009 was the world’s worst single attack on journalists and the worst elections-related violence in a country notorious for electoral mayhem.

READ MORE: The Ampatuan massacre – what happened and why

The 101 accused (although three were missing and cited for possible contempt of court) for the heinous crime, dressed in yellow jail tees, were housed in in a barred cage sandwiched between lawyers and some 200 heavily armed police guards and waiting.

The lawyers for both prosecution and defence were waiting.

The media crews for the CNN Philippines live broadcast anchored by celebrity Pinky Webb were waiting.

Live television
The public, glued to their television sets or live streaming from CNN and the state-run People’s Television, were waiting.

In the end, the historic judgment took only 52 minutes.

Many of the victims’ families burst into spontaneous applause for the jailing of the ringleaders; others wept for joy with the convictions. While other families of some of the accused were relieved with the acquittals.

Judge Joycelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon Trial Court Branch 221 announced to the court that she could deliver the shortened verdict rather than the full 761-page judgement or “it could take all day”.

In fact, broadcaster Peter Musngi reckoned it would have taken “43 uninterrupted days” to read the full judgement. Both prosecution and defence lawyers agreed to the short reading with the full judgment being made available online – read it here on Rappler.

Guilty verdicts for the masterminds of the 2009 Ampatuan massacre. Image: CNN Philippines screenshot/David Robie

Judge Solis-Reyes sentenced the 28 principal accused – including three brothers of the powerful Ampatuan warlord clan from Mindanao – to life in prison without parole and ordered them to pay a total of more than 155 million pesos (almost NZ$5 million) in changes to the heirs of 57 victims killed in the massacre.

The judge reduced the “official” death toll from 58 to 57 because the body of photojournalist Reynaldo Momay was never found. This means that the Momay family was not granted compensation even though it was commonly known that he was with the journalists who were killed and never been seen since. There was also dental evidence linking him found at the multiple murder scene.

Appealing sentences
Some of those jailed announced last week that they are appealing against their sentences, and the prosecution is also appealing over the acquittals and the judge’s Momay finding.

While it has been a long wait for justice for the victims, it had also been a long wait for the judge herself. Judge Solis-Reyes had shelved her own plans for career advancement so that she could see the notorious case through to judgment.

She was forced to brave death threats and political pressure over the case. At least three witnesses were killed during the course of the trial.

The judge had earlier admitted in interviews that she had wanted to pursue a career in broadcast media and had studied journalism at the Lyceum of the Philippines.

Describing the atmosphere in the courtroom with 400 people packed in to hear the verdict of the century” on December 19, Tempo columnist Jullie Y. Daza wrote that the judge “deserves the nation’s gratitude for her dedication and deportment”.

“All I can say is,” she added, “you’re priceless, Your Honour.”

Judge Solis-Reyes broke down her summary into 1. Those guilty beyond reasonable doubt; 2. Accessories; 3. Those released on the basis of reasonable doubt; 4. Those facing arrest warrants.

FLASHBACK: Then ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan (left) and his brother Andal Ampatuan Jr. (face covered), when the latter was turned over to Secretary Jesus Dureza at the compound of the provincial capital in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, on 26 November 2009. Image: Mindanews

Police officers acquitted
Forty-three people, including leaders of the Ampatuan clan, were convicted of mass murder or being accessories, and 58 other accused – many of them police officers – were acquitted in the infamous case.

The Ampatuan power matrix. Image: CNN Philippines freeze frame

Sentenced to reclusion perpetua, or up to 40 years in prison without parole – effectively life – on 57 counts of murder were prominent clan members Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr; his brothers, former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Datu Zaldy “Puti” Ampatuan Sr, and Anwar Ampatuan Sr, former mayor of Shariff Aguak town.

Another brother was acquitted. Two other prominent members of the clan – nephews Anwar Ampatuan Jr and Anwar Sajid Ampatuan – and 23 others were also found guilty of the multiple murders.

Fifteen other accused – almost all of them policemen – were convicted as accessories to murder and sentenced to between six and 10 years in prison.

The Ampatuan accused in the courtroom cage. Image: CNN Philippines screenshot/David Robie

It took 10 years, 424 trial days, to hear the testimonies of 357 witnesses against 197 who were originally charged.

During the long-running trial, six accused were acquitted and the clan patriarch, Andal Ampatuan Sr, also accused, died in prison from a sudden heart attack in 2015, aged 74.

One of his daughters, Rebecca, told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that her father had six wives and 40 children. The PCIJ closely followed the case for a decade with a series of special reports in The Maguindanao Chronicles.

Ampatuan massacre … wheels of justice. Graphic: CNN Philippines News

The killings in 2009 sent shockwaves around the world because of the brazenness of the attack. The victims, including 20 women, were kidnapped and clubbed before they were executed, mutilated and buried in shallow graves.

FLASHBACK: Bodies of the Ampatuan massacre victims being exhumed from the freshly dug mass graves in November 2009. Image: Mindanews

Mass graves
The backhoe digger, using a government machine, who excavated and filled the mass graves, was among the convicted accessories.

The ambushed electoral convoy had been taking the registration papers to enable challenger Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu to contest the governorship of Maguindanao in defiance of threats by the Ampatuans. He was not with the convoy, but his wife, Genalyn, was shot 17 times: “They shot her on her breasts, her private parts. Such unimaginable cruelty.”

Congressman Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu … his wife was killed in the Ampatuan massacre. Image: CNN Philippines screenshot/David Robie

He subsequently won the election in a landslide in 2010 and has since been elected to the Philippine national Congress.

The mass murders were widely condemned around the world by governments, global media freedom organisations and human rights groups. The US ambassador at the time, Kristie Kenney, described the killings as “barbaric” and then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the brutal political violence in the southern Philippines.

The Malacañang presidential palace welcomed the convictions last month, saying the rule of law had prevailed in closing one of the darkest chapters of Philippine history.

“The Maguindanao massacre marks a dark chapter in recent Philippine history that represents merciless disregard for the sacredness of human life, as well as the violent suppression of press freedom,” said presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo, who ironically was once one of the lawyers for the Ampatuans.

“This savage affront to human rights should never have duplication in this country’s history.”

Philippine press responses to the Ampatuan guilty verdicts. Image: David Robie/PMC

Editorial opinions cautious
However, most editorial opinion in the nation’s media and human rights groups greeted the “historic” judgment with caution.

“Justice at last, but …” summed up the headline on a Philippine Star editorial, warning “a victory has been achieved, but the pursuit of justice is far from over”. Said the Star:

“Amid the rejoicing are the disappointments and concerns about what might happen next. With 56 defendants cleared, including two members of the Ampatuan clan, there are valid concerns raised by the victims’ families that violence remains a serious threat in the clan’s turf.

“Most of the guns believed owned by the Ampatuans and their private army remain unaccounted for. The claim is believed to continue enjoying control over substantial funds and other assets.

“Harassment of witnesses, victims’ relatives and prosecution lawyers are possible. At least three witnesses were killed in the course of the trial.

“There are 80 suspects still to be brought to justice, and an appeals process that could take another decade to complete. There is the equally complicated task of going after the assets of the Ampatuan clan.

“There are other criminal cases – about 200 of them – still being pursued, including complaints for corruption and obstruction of justice, as well as cases related to the murders and disappearances of witnesses.”

‘Terrible crime’
The Philippine Daily Inquirer noted in an editorial that this daily newspaper – along with other media – had “faithfully reported on the terrible crime that thrust the Philippines squarely on the map for the single deadliest attack on journalists in the world.

“In bearing witness, we strived mightily to ‘piece together the bloody shards of the crime’, and to find the words to ‘approximate the horror’.”

But the Inquirer added that there were significant lessons to be learned – and acted upon – in spite of the hope stirred by Judge Solis-Reyes’ guilty verdicts, such as the “endless delay” caused by defence motions that reflected the “dismaying state of the judicial system”.

“And journalists and media workers remain in peril in the fast-shrinking democratic space.”

Philippine Star columnist Ana Marie Pamintuan described the Ampatuan clan as “Monsters Inc.” and was candid in a wide-ranging article about the challenges ahead after the judgment.

One challenge is to “catch the 80 suspects who remain at large and bring them to justice”. Another is the expected “spirited fight for their acquittal” on appeal for those who were convicted.

“Let’s hope the road to final judgment won’t take another 10 years,” warned Pamintuan.

Another huge challenge is the legal fight to have the Ampatuans’ massive wealth forfeited by the state, and payment of civil damages to the victims’ families.

Property freeze orders
Freeze orders have been issues by the courts on bank accounts, real estate property and other identified assets of the Ampatuan clan.

“Prosecutors believe, however, that substantial amounts of cash have been stashed away by the clan the old fashioned way – not in banks where there is a paper trail, but perhaps in boxes, chests or baul [a Tagalog word meaning a traditional clothes trunk], buried somewhere or concealed within walls the way South American narcos do with their mountains of dirty money,” says Pamintuan.

“In one of the poorest regions in the country, the Ampatuans thrived, driving around in convoys of luxury vehicles with their private armies, living it up in fortified mansions. How do local executives in third-class municipalities and impoverished provinces, with their modest salaries, manage to accumulate that kind of wealth?”

The last challenge – and probably the toughest – is how to “eliminate the environment that creates monsters and breeds impunity”?

Etta Rosales, former chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, described the Mindanao environment as like the “wild, wild west”, warning it remained “compromised injustice” until the private armies and political dynasties were rooted out.

While the Ampatuan massacre remains the worst example of this environment, there are many other regions of the Philippines where the local population are ruled by patronage and fear.

The implications for press freedom in the Philippines have not been lost on students and tertiary journalism schools.

‘Already afraid’
Writing on Rappler, Diwa Donato, a political science graduate from Saint Louis University, Baguio City, who has dedicated 13 years of her life to campus journalism as an advocate for youth empowerment, press freedom and democracy, says she will never forget the day of the massacre.

She was aged 10 at the time – and she was “already afraid to continue my dream of pursuing journalism”.

“The Philippines remains one of the deadliest countries for journalists in Southeast Asia,” she says.

“The fight of professional journalism will always be the fight of campus journalism. We celebrate the Ampatuan massacre verdict, hope for justice, and continue to address the struggles of press freedom.

“For now, democracy and press freedom have won. But we do not fight to win, we fight to be free. There is more to be done.”

NUJP chair Nonoy Espina talks to CNN Philippines in a live interview. Image: CNN Philippines screenshot/David Robie

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chair Nonoy Espina also fears for the future.

“The culture of impunity for crimes against journalists means that massacres like the one in Ampatuan can happen again,” he says. “Without justice, the bloodshed will continue.”

The NUJP played a key role in independent investigations and keeping a watch on government, also sponsoring family members of slain journalists to get to Manila for the trial.

Ruthless warlords
The Ampatuans were the warlords of Maguindanao and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“Even Andal Ampatuan Jr’s ruthlessness and sociopathic violence served a purpose,” admits Pamintuan. “Cops and soldiers who were assigned to the ARMM talk of the Islamic separatists being terrified of incurring the ire of Andal Jr because of his reported propensity to decapitate and mutilate anyone who crossed him.”

“There are other political warlords still out there – running their own fiefdoms like gangsters, naming streets and villages and government projects after their family members, freely using public money for private purposes and controlling every aspect of the local criminal justice system.”

Yes, a victory, but the fight to end impunity in the Philippines has just begun.

Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, has been in the Philippines on a research sabbatical.

• The Maguindanao Chronicles: Shamefully rich, clan has 35 houses, fleet of wheels
• National Union of Journalists of the Philippines on the Ampatuan massacre 10 years on – before the judgment
• Children bear the brunt 10 years since the Ampatuan massacre

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2020/01/16/ampatuan-massacre-justice-aftermath-with-more-fear-of-warlords-corruption/ Thu, 16 Jan 2020 07:15:54 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2020/01/16/ampatuan-massacre-justice-aftermath-with-more-fear-of-warlords-corruption/

The Rappler video feed on the Ampatuan convictions last month.

For decades, the feared Ampatuan clan held sway in the impoverished province of Maguindanao in Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Through a ruthless private army and a reported “propensity for beheadings”, the clan cultivated a culture of impunity. Now, however, reports David Robie, a courageous judge has challenged the horror by jailing the masterminds of the 2009 Ampatuan massacre for life.

SPECIAL REPORT: By David Robie in Manila

The families of the 58 victims – 32 of them journalists or media workers – had waited for 10 years for justice in the Philippines.

After so long, what is another couple of hours?

The Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao on 22 November 2009 was the world’s worst single attack on journalists and the worst elections-related violence in a country notorious for electoral mayhem.

READ MORE: The Ampatuan massacre – what happened and why

– Partner –

With the judge almost two hours late in arriving at the fortified special courtroom in Camp Bagong Diwa, a police barracks with a jail annex in Manila’s satellite Taguig City, fears were expressed for her safety.

The 101 accused (although three were missing and cited for possible contempt of court) for the heinous crime, dressed in yellow jail tees, were housed in in a barred cage sandwiched between lawyers and some 200 heavily armed police guards and waiting.

The lawyers for both prosecution and defence were waiting.

The media crews for the CNN Philippines live broadcast anchored by celebrity Pinky Webb were waiting.

The CNN Philippines live newsfeed on the Ampatuan judgment.

Live television
The public, glued to their television sets or live streaming from CNN and the state-run People’s Television, were waiting.

In the end, the historic judgment took only 52 minutes.

Many of the victims’ families burst into spontaneous applause for the jailing of the ringleaders; others wept for joy with the convictions. While other families of some of the accused were relieved with the acquittals.

Judge Joycelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon Trial Court Branch 221 announced to the court that she could deliver the shortened verdict rather than the full 761-page judgement or “it could take all day”.

In fact, broadcaster Peter Musngi reckoned it would have taken “43 uninterrupted days” to read the full judgement. Both prosecution and defence lawyers agreed to the short reading with the full judgment being made available online – read it here on Rappler.

Judge Solis-Reyes sentenced the 28 principal accused – including three brothers of the powerful Ampatuan warlord clan from Mindanao – to life in prison without parole and ordered them to pay a total of more than 155 million pesos (almost NZ$5 million) in changes to the heirs of 57 victims killed in the massacre.

The judge reduced the “official” death toll from 58 to 57 because the body of photojournalist Reynaldo Momay was never found. This means that the Momay family was not granted compensation even though it was commonly known that he was with the journalists who were killed and never been seen since. There was also dental evidence linking him found at the multiple murder scene.

Appealing sentences
Some of those jailed announced last week that they are appealing against their sentences, and the prosecution is also appealing over the acquittals and the judge’s Momay finding.

While it has been a long wait for justice for the victims, it had also been a long wait for the judge herself. Judge Solis-Reyes had shelved her own plans for career advancement so that she could see the notorious case through to judgment.

She was forced to brave death threats and political pressure over the case. At least three witnesses were killed during the course of the trial.

The judge had earlier admitted in interviews that she had wanted to pursue a career in broadcast media and had studied journalism at the Lyceum of the Philippines.

Describing the atmosphere in the courtroom with 400 people packed in to hear the verdict of the century” on December 19, Tempo columnist Jullie Y. Daza wrote that the judge “deserves the nation’s gratitude for her dedication and deportment”.

“All I can say is,” she added, “you’re priceless, Your Honour.”

Judge Solis-Reyes broke down her summary into 1. Those guilty beyond reasonable doubt; 2. Accessories; 3. Those released on the basis of reasonable doubt; 4. Those facing arrest warrants.

Police officers acquitted
Forty-three people, including leaders of the Ampatuan clan, were convicted of mass murder or being accessories, and 58 other accused – many of them police officers – were acquitted in the infamous case.

Sentenced to reclusion perpetua, or up to 40 years in prison without parole – effectively life – on 57 counts of murder were prominent clan members Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr; his brothers, former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Datu Zaldy “Puti” Ampatuan Sr, and Anwar Ampatuan Sr, former mayor of Shariff Aguak town.

Another brother was acquitted. Two other prominent members of the clan – nephews Anwar Ampatuan Jr and Anwar Sajid Ampatuan – and 23 others were also found guilty of the multiple murders.

Fifteen other accused – almost all of them policemen – were convicted as accessories to murder and sentenced to between six and 10 years in prison.

It took 10 years, 424 trial days, to hear the testimonies of 357 witnesses against 197 who were originally charged.

During the long-running trial, six accused were acquitted and the clan patriarch, Andal Ampatuan Sr, also accused, died in prison from a sudden heart attack in 2015, aged 74.

One of his daughters, Rebecca, told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that her father had six wives and 40 children. The PCIJ closely followed the case for a decade with a series of special reports in The Maguinado Chronicles.

The killings in 2009 sent shockwaves around the world because of the brazenness of the attack. The victims, including 20 women, were kidnapped and clubbed before they were executed, mutilated and buried in shallow graves.

Mass graves
The backhoe digger, using a government machine, who excavated and filled the mass graves, was among the convicted accessories.

The ambushed electoral convoy had been taking the registration papers to enable challenger Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu to contest the governorship of Maguindanao in defiance of threats by the Ampatuans. He was not with the convoy, but his wife, Genalyn, was shot 17 times: “They shot her on her breasts, her private parts. Such unimaginable cruelty.”

He subsequently won the election in a landslide in 2010 and has since been elected to the Philippine national Congress.

The mass murders were widely condemned around the world by governments, global media freedom organisations and human rights groups. The US ambassador at the time, Kristie Kenney, described the killings as “barbaric” and then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the brutal political violence in the southern Philippines.

The Malacañang presidential palace welcomed the convictions last month, saying the rule of law had prevailed in closing one of the darkest chapters of Philippine history.

“The Maguindanao massacre marks a dark chapter in recent Philippine history that represents merciless disregard for the sacredness of human life, as well as the violent suppression of press freedom,” said presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo, who ironically was once one of the lawyers for the Ampatuans.

“This savage affront to human rights should never have duplication in this country’s history.”

Editorial opinions cautious
However, most editorial opinion in the nation’s media and human rights groups greeted the “historic” judgment with caution.

“Justice at last, but …” summed up the headline on a Philippine Star editorial, warning “a victory has been achieved, but the pursuit of justice is far from over”. Said the Star:

“Amid the rejoicing are the disappointments and concerns about what might happen next. With 56 defendants cleared, including two members of the Ampatuan clan, there are valid concerns raised by the victims’ families that violence remains a serious threat in the clan’s turf.

“Most of the guns believed owned by the Ampatuans and their private army remain unaccounted for. The claim is believed to continue enjoying control over substantial funds and other assets.

“Harassment of witnesses, victims’ relatives and prosecution lawyers are possible. At least three witnesses were killed in the course of the trial.

“There are 80 suspects still to be brought to justice, and an appeals process that could take another decade to complete. There is the equally complicated task of going after the assets of the Ampatuan clan.

“There are other criminal cases – about 200 of them – still being pursued, including complaints for corruption and obstruction of justice, as well as cases related to the murders and disappearances of witnesses.”

‘Terrible crime’
The Philippine Daily Inquirer noted in an editorial that this daily newspaper – along with other media – had “faithfully reported on the terrible crime that thrust the Philippines squarely on the map for the single deadliest attack on journalists in the world.

“In bearing witness, we strived mightily to ‘piece together the bloody shards of the crime’, and to find the words to ‘approximate the horror’.

But the Inquirer added that there were significant lessons to be learned – and acted upon – in spite of the hope stirred by Judge Solis-Reyes’ guilty verdicts, such as the “endless delay” caused by defence motions that reflected the “dismaying state of the judicial system”.

“And journalists and media workers remain in peril in the fast-shrinking democratic space.”

Philippine Star columnist Ana Marie Pamintuan described the Ampatuan clan as “Monsters Inc.” and was candid in a wide-ranging article about the challenges ahead after the judgment.

One challenge is to “catch the 80 suspects who remain at large and bring them to justice”. Another is the expected “spirited fight for their acquittal” on appeal for those who were convicted.

“Let’s hope the road to final judgment won’t take another 10 years,” warned Pamintuan.

Another huge challenge is the legal fight to have the Ampatuans’ massive wealth forfeited by the state, and payment of civil damages to the victims’ families.

Property freeze orders
Freeze orders have been issues by the courts on bank accounts, real estate property and other identified assets of the Ampatuan clan.

“Prosecutors believe, however, that substantial amounts of cash have been stashed away by the clan the old fashioned way – not in banks where there is a paper trail, but perhaps in boxes, chests or baul [a Tagalog word meaning a traditional clothes trunk], buried somewhere or concealed within walls the way South American narcos do with their mountains of dirty money,” says Pamintuan.

“In one of the poorest regions in the country, the Ampatuans thrived, driving around in convoys of luxury vehicles with their private armies, living it up in fortified mansions. How do local executives in third-class municipalities and impoverished provinces, with their modest salaries, manage to accumulate that kind of wealth?”

The last challenge – and probably the toughest – is how to “eliminate the environment that creates monsters and breeds impunity”?

Etta Rosales, former chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, described the Mindanao environment as like the “wild, wild west”, warning it remained “compromised injustice” until the private armies and political dynasties were rooted out.

While the Ampatuan massacre remains the worst example of this environment, there are many other regions of the Philippines where the local population are ruled by patronage and fear.

The implications for press freedom in the Philippines have not been lost on students and tertiary journalism schools.

‘Already afraid’
Writing on Rappler, Diwa Donato, a political science graduate from Saint Louis University, Baguio City, who has dedicated 13 years of her life to campus journalism as an advocate for youth empowerment, press freedom and democracy, says she will never forget the day of the massacre. She was aged 10 at the time – and she was “already afraid to continue my dream of pursuing journalism”.

“The Philippines remains one of the deadliest countries for journalists in Southeast Asia,” she says.

“The fight of professional journalism will always be the fight of campus journalism. We celebrate the Ampatuan massacre verdict, hope for justice, and continue to address the struggles of press freedom.

“For now, democracy and press freedom have won. But we do not fight to win, we fight to be free. There is more to be done.”

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chair Nonoy Espina also fears for the future.

“The culture of impunity for crimes against journalists means that massacres like the one in Ampatuan can happen again,” he says. “Without justice, the bloodshed will continue.”

The NUJP played a key role in independent investigations and keeping a watch on government, also sponsoring family members of slain journalists to get to Manila for the trial.

Ruthless warlords
The Ampatuans were the warlords of Maguindanao and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“Even Andal Ampatuan Jr’s ruthlessness and sociopathic violence served a purpose,” admits Pamintuan. “Cops and soldiers who were assigned to the ARMM talk of the Islamic separatists being terrified of incurring the ire of Andal Jr because of his reported propensity to decapitate and mutilate anyone who crossed him.”

“There are other political warlords still out there – running their own fiefdoms like gangsters, naming streets and villages and government projects after their family members, freely using public money for private purposes and controlling every aspect of the local criminal justice system.”

Yes, a victory, but the fight to end impunity in the Philippines has just begun.

Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre, was recently in Vinzons, Camarines Norte, Philippines, on a research sabbatical.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2019/11/06/journalists-fighting-oil-palm-plantation-found-stabbed-to-death-in-sumatra/ Tue, 05 Nov 2019 23:16:12 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2019/11/06/journalists-fighting-oil-palm-plantation-found-stabbed-to-death-in-sumatra/

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Two Indonesian journalists who had reported on an illegal oil palm plantation in Sumatra have been found stabbed to death.

According to environmental news site Mongabay, the body of Maraden Sianipar was found on October 30 in a ditch in the concession of palm grower PT Sei Alih Berombang (SAB).

The body of Martua Siregar, 42, was found the next day in the bushes nearby.

Both men worked for a weekly publication, Pindo Merdeka, based in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province.

Witnesses said the journalists had also been involved with a community dispute with the plantation company in which the community was attempting to take control of the oil palm once the local forestry office had ruled that the company’s expansion onto forested land was illegal.

While Mongabay reports that SAB’s concession was sealed off by authorities a year ago after it was found to have cleared 750 hectares of forest to plant oil palms, the plantation still maintained a detail of security guards who were known to violently confront locals seeking to harvest the palm fruit.

– Partner –

Witnesses said that the journalists had gone to the plantation on October 29 with a group of locals to harvest the palm fruit. According to one witness, he had warned Maraden that plantation guards armed with machetes were waiting for them.

Two people have since been arrested in Labuhan Batu in relation to the murders and police are hunting down another four, reports The Jakarta Post.

Labuhan Batu police chief detective Jama Kita Purba said the motive behind the murder was “revenge over a land dispute.”

While it is unclear whether the murders were a direct response to the men’s journalistic work or their activism work with the community, The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) have weighed in, condemning the killings and called on authorities to further investigate the case.

In an editorial, The Jakarta Post wrote that: “Indonesia has become an increasingly dangerous place for journalists, and the consequences of this disturbing trend could be dire for the world’s third-largest democracy.”

“Regardless of the results of the investigation, the incident has again rung the alarm bell on the state of press freedom in the country.”

“We can’t afford to let this go on. To quote United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, ‘when journalists are targeted, societies as a whole, pay a price’.”

The murders come a month after another Indonesian activist, Golfrid Siregar was found dead in similar circumstances in Sumatra.

A human rights lawyer an activist for Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, or Walhi, Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Siregar was a tireless advocate of communities threatened by oil palm plantations.

He had been engaged in a lawsuit against North Sumatra’s governor over his 2017 approval for the construction of the Batang Toru hydroelectric dam in the only know habitat of Indonesia’s critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.

A cab driver found Siregar unconscious on a street in Medan and took him to a local hospital where he later died on October 6.

He had suffered multiple injuries and his wallet and other personal effects were missing.

Police ruled Siregar’s death the result of a drunken-driving crash, despite the contradictory nature of the injuries, his undamaged motorbike and testimony from his family that he hadn’t drunk alcohol that evening.

The cab driver and two others have since been arrested for robbing Siregar of his possessions.

Walhi colleagues said that Siregar had received several threats since they had filed the lawsuit against the Batang Toru dam.

According to Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch, the death and its investigation should ring alarm bells.

“All those concerned about Indonesia’s environment will be watching the authorities to ensure that a credible investigation occurs and that any crime associated with his death is appropriately prosecuted.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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