NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pleased that a Sydney magistrate jailed protester Deanna “Violet” Coco on Friday. But he is out of step with international and Australian human rights and climate change groups and activists, who have quickly mobilised to show solidarity.

On Monday, protests were held in Sydney, Canberra and Perth calling for the release of Coco who blocked one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for half an hour during a morning peak hour in April.

She climbed onto the roof of a truck holding a flare to draw attention to the global climate emergency and Australia’s lack of preparedness for bushfires. Three other members of the group Fireproof Australia, who have not been jailed, held a banner and glued themselves to the road.

Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges, including disrupting vehicles, possessing a flare distress signal in a public place and failing to comply with police direction.

Magistrate Allison Hawkins sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months and fined her $2500. Her lawyer Mark Davis has lodged an appeal which will be heard on March 2, 2023.

Unusually for a non-violent offender, Hawkins refused bail pending an appeal against the sentence. Davis, who will again apply for bail in the District Court next week, said refusal of bail pending appeal was “outrageous”.

Climate change protester sentenced to jail over Sydney Harbour Bridge protest. Video: News 24

‘People shouldn’t be jailed for peaceful protest’
In Sydney, about 100 protesters gathered outside NSW Parliament House and then marched to the Downing Centre. The crowd included members of climate action groups Extinction Rebellion, Knitting Nannas and Fireproof Australia but also others who, while they might not conduct a similar protest themselves, believe in the right of others to do so.

One of the protest organisers, Knitting Nanna Marie Flood, was unable to attend due to illness. Her message called for the release of Coco and an end to the criminalisation and intimidation of climate activists.

It was read by another Knitting Nanna, Eurydice Aroney:

“Nannas have been on Sydney streets protesting about gas and coal mines for about 8 years now. Over that time we’ve had lots of interactions with the Sydney Events police, and not a lot of trouble.

“You could say we are known to the police. We were amused and surprised at the recent climate emergency rally at town hall, when one of the police said to some Nannas that he thought we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd!

“Looks like we better clear some things up.”

“We ARE the crowd who knows that climate action is urgent and it starts with stopping new gas and coal. We know the importance of public protests to bringing about social and political change.

“We will stand up against any move to take away the democratic right to protest. What is happening to Violet Coco is a direct result of the actions of the NSW government with the support of the ALP opposition.”

The message ended with a call to all climate activists: “Now is the time to BE THE CROWD — we can’t afford to fall for attempts to divide the climate movement. We all want to save the climate, and to do that we need to protect democracy.”

The Knitting Nannas have launched a challenge to the validity of the protest laws through the Environmental Defenders’ Office.

Snap rally at NSW Parliament and a march to the courts at the Downing Centre where climate activist Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months in prison last week.

We demand repeal of the draconian anti-protest laws, an end to new fossil fuel projects and serious climate action now! pic.twitter.com/F1Yxs8L0DG

— Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) December 5, 2022

One of those attending the protest was Josh Pallas, president of NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Civil Liberties has been defending the right to protest in NSW for more than half a century.

In a media release, he said: “Peaceful protest should never result in jail time. It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers.

“Protesters from Fireproof Australia and other groups have engaged in peaceful protest in support of stronger action on climate change, a proposition that is widely supported by many Australians across the political divide and now finding themselves ending up in prison.

“Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”

Deputy Lord Mayor and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore told the crowd that they had the support of the City of Sydney which recently passed a unanimous motion calling for the repeal of the NSW government’s draconian anti-protest laws.

“If you are a group of businesses in the City of Sydney and you want to close the street for a street party, this state government will give you $50,000. If you are a non-violent protester who cares about climate change and you are blocking one lane of traffic for 25 minutes, they will give you two years [in jail].

“We know these laws are designed to intimidate you… Thank you for being the front line in the fight. you are the ones to put your bodies on the line to protest about issues we all care about, ” she said.

Amnesty International support for democracy
Amnesty International spokesperson Veronica Koman emphasised how important it was to see the defence of democratic rights from a regional perspective. She said that Amnesty was concerned that severe repression of pro-independence activists in West Papua was spreading across to other parts of Indonesia.

She fears the same pattern of increasing repression taking hold in NSW.

Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeil, who has won many awards for her journalism, was another person who was quick to respond.

“Outrageous. Climate activist who blocked traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge jailed for at least eight months” she tweeted on Friday.

Since then she has followed the issue closely, criticising the ABC for failing to quote a human rights source in its coverage of the court case and speaking at a protest in Perth on Monday.

Today she posted this tweet with a short campaigning #FreeVioletCoco video that has already attracted nearly 13,000 views:

Authorities in #Australia are disproportionately punishing climate activists in violation of their basic rights to peaceful protest

Violet Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison

Her crime? A peaceful protest that lasted 25 minutes#FreeVioletCoco @hrw pic.twitter.com/5qhyCWs2fk

— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) December 5, 2022

‘If you’re reading this, you’ll know I am in prison’
In jailing Coco, Magistrate Hawkins went out of her way to diminish and delegitimise her protest. She described it as a “childish stunt’ that let an “entire city suffer” through her “selfish emotional action”.

Coco has been involved with climate change protests for more than four years and has been arrested in several other protests. On one occasion, she set light to an empty pram outside Parliament House.

Rather than fight on technicalities, she chosen to plead guilty, knowing that if the magistrate was hostile, she could be taken into custody at the end of Friday’s hearing.

Several steps ahead of her critics, she made a video and wrote a long piece to be published if she went to prison.

The piece begins: ”If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change.”

She describes how her understanding of the facts of climate science and the inadequacy of the current response led her to decide to give up her studies and devote herself to actions that would draw attention to the climate emergency.

“Liberal political philosopher John Rawls asserted that a healthy democracy must have room for this kind of action. Especially in the face of such a threat as billions of lives lost and possibly the collapse of our liveable planet.

“But make no mistake — I do not want to be protesting. Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent. They refuse to feed me, refused to give me toilet paper and have threatened me with sexual violence.

“I spent three days in the remand centre, which is a disgusting place full of sad people. I do not enjoy breaking the law. I wish that there was another way to address this issue with the gravitas that it deserves.”

She describes how she has already been forced to comply with onerous bail conditions:

“I was under 24 hour curfew conditions for 20 days in a small apartment with no garden. After 20 days effectively under house arrest, my curfew hours changed — at first I could leave the house for only 5 hours a day for the following 58 days, then 6 hours a day under house arrest for the following 68 days.

“This totalled 2017 hours imprisoned in my home for non-violent political engagement in the prevention of many deaths. Cumulatively, that is 84 days or 12 weeks of my freedom.”

Premier Perrottet says he does not object to protest so long as it does not interfere with “our way of life”.

If it does, individuals should have the “book thrown at them.”

His “way of life” is one in which commuters are never held up in traffic by a protest while endlessly sitting in traffic because of governments’ poor transport planning.

A way of life in which it is fine for governments to take years to house people whose lives are destroyed by fires and floods induced by climate change, to allow people to risk death from heat because they cannot afford air conditioners, open more coal and gas operations that will increase carbon emissions and turn a blind eye to millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.

It involves only protesting when you have permission and in tightly policed zones where passers-by ignore you.

Labor still backs anti-protest laws
Leader of the Opposition Chris Minns also says he has no regrets for supporting the laws which he says were necessary to stop multiple protests.

But laws don’t target multiple actions, they target individuals. He has not raised his voice to condemn police harassment of individual activists even before they protest and bail conditions that breach democratic rights to freedom of assembly.

There was no visible Labor presence at Sydney’s rally.

Perrottet and Minns may be making right wing shock jocks happy but they are out of line with international principles of human rights.

They also fail to acknowledge that many of Australia’s most famous protest movements around land rights, apartheid, Green Bans, womens’ rights, prison reform and environment often involved actions that would have led to arrest under current anti-protest laws.

They display an ignorance of traditions of civil disobedience. As UNSW Professor Luke Macnamara told SBS News: “[V]isibility and disruption have long been the hallmarks of effective protest.”

He believes disruption and protest need to go hand in hand in order to result in tangible change.

“There’s an inherent contradiction in governments telling protesters what are acceptable, passive, non-disruptive means of engaging in protests, when the evidence may well be that those methods have been attempted and have proven to be ineffective,” he said.

“It’s not realistic on the one hand to support the so-called ‘right to protest’, and on the other hand, expect the protest has no disruptive effects. The two go together.”

Wendy Bacon was previously a professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and is an editorial board member of Pacific Journalism Review. She joined the protest. This article was first published by City Hub and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The #HoldTheLine Coalition has urged President Marcos of the Philippines to end persecution of journalists and independent media by dropping all charges against Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Maria Ressa and her co-accused.

This week, the Philippine Court of Appeals rejected Ressa’s motion for a reconsideration of her 2020 conviction on a trumped-up charge of criminal cyber libel.

This means that after a two-year struggle to overturn her conviction, all that stands between Ressa’s freedom and a lengthy prison sentence is a final appeal to the Supreme Court, and the government’s political will.

“We call on President Marcos to show the world that he rejects the Duterte-era persecution and prosecution of journalists and independent media by immediately withdrawing all charges and cases against Ressa, her co-accused, and her Manila-based news outlet Rappler,” the #HoldTheLine Coalition steering committee said on behalf of more than 80 international organisations — including Reporters Without Borders — joining forces to defend Ressa and support independent media in the Philippines.

“President Marcos should begin by ending his government’s opposition to Ressa’s appeal against her conviction on spurious criminal cyber libel charges, which were pursued and prosecuted by the State despite the Philippine Supreme Court’s warning that the country’s criminalisation of libel is ‘doubtful’.”

There have been 23 individual cases opened by the state against Maria Ressa, Rappler and its employees since 2018.

The criminal cyber libel case is one of seven ongoing cases implicating Ressa. If she is successfully prosecuted in all cases, she theoretically faces up to 100 years in jail.

The criminal cyber libel conviction is the most urgent, with an increased sentence of up to six years and eight months handed down by the Philippine Court of Appeal in July 2022.

Ressa now has just two weeks to file a final appeal to the Philippine Supreme Court, which could then swiftly issue a written verdict, resulting in the enforcement of her prison sentence.

Concurrently, Rappler is also the subject of a shutdown order pursued by the Duterte administration.

— Julie Posetti (ICFJ), Rebecca Vincent (RSF), and Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (CPJ) on behalf of the #HoldTheLine Coalition.

The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organisations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual Coalition members or organisations. Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Amnesty International is calling on New Zealand’s Corrections Minister to ensure force is not used to end the impasse at Waikeria Prison – where 16 inmates are entering a sixth day of protest.

The human rights group said de-escalation techniques should be used to end the protest.

It said the protesters had already raised concerns about poor treatment, and the use of excessive force and withholding food and water would make things worse.

Sixteen inmates are now in their sixth day of a protest that began on Tuesday at the prison, near Te Awamutu.

Significant damage had been done to the “top jail” facility, after fires in several places during the protest.

Amnesty also wanted Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis to end what it described as “dehumanising practices” at Waikeria, and to launch an inquiry into the state of the country’s prison system.

Relatives of the men protesting have told RNZ the men are trying to raise awareness of conditions they describe as “inhumane’”, including brown drinking water, lack of toilet paper and clean bedding, and cramped overheated cells.

Significant damage
But Department of Corrections Incident Controller Jeanette Burns said the men’s actions were violent, and they had caused significant damage to buildings and property, and were making weapons to use against staff.

Attempts to negotiate their surrender had been made, but had not resolved the situation, and water would only be provided to them on their surrender, she said.

However, a former inmate of Waikeria told RNZ he feared that once the current protest was put down, the long term problems at the jail would not be addressed.

Billy McFarlane now runs the Puwhakamua Programme for high-risk offenders in Rotorua.

He said unrest had been brewing over prison conditions around the country for some while, and something had to give.

But he was worried for the men involved.

‘Suffer the wrath of the system’
“They’re all going to get charged, they’re probably all going to end up in maximum security, they’re probably all not going to get paroled,” he said.

“They’re going to suffer the wrath of the system and then slowly this whole problem will probably go under the mat again.”

McFarlane said he remembered complaining about the same thing himself, in the 1980s.

He felt New Zealand prisons do not do enough to rehabilitate prisoners or reintegrate them back into society.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Eleven prisoners have been shot dead in Papua New Guinea, one was recaptured and 33 others are still at large following yet another massive breakout at Buimo jail outside Lae city at the weekend.

Correctional Services and police officials say the breakout at the troublesome jail happened on Friday under the pretext of the prisoners seeking medical help for a sick prisoner.

The real cause of the escape is being investigated, and comes more than a week after the jail became the first in the country to report a confirmed case of covid-19.

Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis confirmed on Sunday that a total of 45 prisoners, comprising 35 remandees and 10 convicts, were involved in the escape.

He said they had gathered at the prison gate and shouted at a duty officer to allow them to take a sick prisoner to the clinic to seek medical attention.

“They then rushed in numbers to the gate when taking out the sick prisoner; they attacked the duty officer with a kitchen knife and ran out to the outer gate in the compound. Two officers standing there were outnumbered when they rushed out,” Pokanis said.

The prisoners ran out from the main prison compound and towards the officers’ accommodation quarters and off to the hill behind the quarters to Buimo mountain, Pokanis said.

Six officers on duty
He said six prison officers were on duty shift from 6am to 2pm when the incident occurred.

Pokanis said the alarm was raised and the Lae police sector patrol helped prison warders to search for the escapees, and in the process shot the 11 and recaptured one.

Lae metropolitan police commander Chris Kunyanban said the reasons for the mass breakout were not known and is under investigation.

“Police also began operations to recapture the escapees, checking public transport travelling out of Lae to ensure that they are confined to Lae so we can recapture them,” Kunyanban said.

“Some escapees are from rural areas and they will escape out of Lae so our appeal to the public is to assist police with any reliable information of the whereabouts of the inmates who escaped.”

Kunyanban said the escapees need to be recaptured and locked up because they will make life miserable for the people in the community, the public and the business houses.

Kunyanban said in another jail breakout in January this year, one prisoner was killed and 10 escaped and are still on the run so the responsible authorities must consider upgrading the capacity of the jail by having good facilities for the inmates to use and deter escapes.

Still searching for escapees
Correctional Services Minister Chris Nangoi confirmed the warders and police were still searching for the escapees, adding that the reason for their escape may be in fear of coronavirus since the jail already recorded its first case, which was a 53-year-old female warder.

Nangoi said the remandees were the ones behind the mass breakout and they are still waiting for the release of K7 million from the government to build a high capacity security fencing and accommodation for CS officers to boost manpower as currently there were not enough warders at the prison.

“Police and warders are working closely to find the 33 still on run, none of our officers were injured,” he said.

He said more information about the breakout and investigations would be available this week.

Marjorie Finkeo and Joan Bailey are reporters for the PNG Post-Courier.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former Papuan political prisoner Filep Karma says President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo promised to release Papuan political prisoners during his administration.

Widodo made this pledge, said Karma, to five of his fellow political prisoners in Jayapura, Papua, who were released in 2015, reports CNN Indonesia.

“When the Bapak [Mr] president released my five friends from prison in Jayapura, he told them, this is reconciliation and I will free all political prisoners,” said Karma, as quoted on the UK human rights group Tapol’s YouTube account on Friday.

READ MORE: Papuans Behind Bars – the facts

Now however, he said, the number of Papuan political prisoners had instead grown to 46 who were to this day still incarcerated in jail.

Karma said that he had personally made a request for their release with Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly. At the time, Karma asked Laoly to release four Papuan political prisoners who were incarcerated at the Nusa Kambangan penitentiary.

“He said that he would try to get them transferred from Nusa Kambangan to Ambon [North Maluku] and try to get them released. But to this day the four are still in prison,” he said.

Karma related how in Papua, a person could be arrested over free expression. They would be taken by the police to jail, detained and sentenced for years.

This, he said, began to improve when the international community put pressure on Indonesia and provided support to his group.

Later, however, Karma suspects that Indonesia has returned to handing out long sentences to Papuan political prisoners.

Voicing an opinion without suffering violence is not an easy thing for a Papuan person to do, he said. He claims to have once submitted a request for a permit to police to hold a Kamisan (Thursday) action in Papua, but it was rejected by the police.

Charged with treason
In February, seven Papuans were arrested and charged with makar (treason, subversion, rebellion) – Hengki Hilapok, Alexsander Gobai, Steven Itlay, Bucthar Tabuni, Irwanus Uropmabi, Fery Kombo and Agus Kossay.

All of them are being tried at the Balikpapan District Court in East Kalimantan on charges related to their alleged involvement in riots in Papua in late 2019.

In September 2015, President Widodo visited the Abepura Penitentiary in Kamkey, Kota Baru sub-district, Abepura.

There, he personally presented a letter of agreement granting clemency to five Papuan political prisoners. The five political prisoners who were released were Apotnalogolik Lokobal (sentenced to 20 years in prison), Numbungga Telenggen (life imprisonment), Kimanus Wenda (19 years in prison), Linus Hiluka (19 years) and Jefrai Murib (life imprisonment).

“On this day we have released five people, this is a whole-hearted effort by the government in the context of ending the stigma of conflict that exists in Papua,” said Widodo in his greetings as quoted in a release by the Cabinet Secretariat.

The president asserted that the clemency was an initial step in developing Papua without conflict.

“This is an initial [step], later after this it will be followed up by giving clemency or amnesty to other [prisoners] because there are around 90 people who are still in prison. Once again this is an initial start to the release [of prisoners],” said Widodo.

Discrimination towards Papuans
A human rights lawyer in Jayapura, Anum Siregar, believes that the government is discriminative and takes a different position towards Papuan people and other Indonesian citizens.

He said Papuans were easily arrested and charged with makar just because they flew the Morning Star independence flat or voiced their views. In one such case, those who were arrested were investigated without a lawyer and beaten.

“Meanwhile in Jakarta, people who talk about overthrowing the government, creating a new Parliament, a new country, are still not tried. There is discrimination between what happens in Papua and Jakarta,” he said.

Siregar said that repressive actions by the government would only worsen the situation in Papua. By continuing to arrest and detain political prisoners, he said, the government would instead create a greater desire for Papuan independence.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft. The original title of the article was “Filep Karma Ungkap Janji Presiden Bebaskan Tapol Papua.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Clifford Faiparik in Port Moresby

Repatriation of about 120 Papua New Guinea citizens from the Papua province of Indonesia to West Sepik under the Indonesian special covid-19 state of emergency (SOE) will start next week, says PNG’s Covid-19 SOE Controller David Manning.

Manning said the PNG citizens included prisoners serving various terms in Indonesian prisons – mostly in the West Papua region of two provinces –  for alleged drug-smuggling and illegal entry.

“The repatriation of 123 Papua New Guinea citizens from Jayapura will happen on either Wednesday or Thursday next week,” he said.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – WHO warns 190,000 could die in Africa

“The first lot of 39 Papua New Guinea citizens will be received at the border by PNG authorities from Vanimo.

“This group comprises 24 prisoners from Abepura jail in Jayapura who were serving various terms for illegal entry and 15 stranded PNG citizens with expired visas.”

Manning said that generally the situation across the country was quiet.

“But our recent focus on security is the 760km border between PNG and Indonesia,” he said.

240 confirmed cases
“And in Papua, there are 240 confirmed cases [of covid-19].

“The death toll remains at six and recoveries at 48.

“While the daily cases curve is flattening at 2.45 percent, we are taking all precautions at the border areas to ensure that this does not spread over into PNG.

“We have a strong presence of security forces in the northern and southern border provinces (Western and West Sepik) as well as the Gulf province.”

Meanwhile, Jayapura-based PNG Consul-General Geoffrey Wiri said West Sepik administrator Conrad Tilau had advised him to send the PNG citizens in batches of 30 and 40 due to their limited quarantine capacity.

“As I understand it, they have allocated a vacant property in West Tower area in Vanimo for quarantine and then the PNG citizens will be released after 14 days,” he said.

Wiri is also concerned that the PNG-Indonesian border has been shut since January 29.

‘Good bilateral relations’
“I need a copy of Manning’s emergency orders for me to inform the Papua provincial government authorities to open the gate since they are also under lockdown condition. But they are willing to open the gates because of our good bilateral relations.”

He said only the 24 Papua New Guinea prisoners jailed at Abepura Prison for illegal entry were being released.

“But not the remaining 74 prisoners serving various terms for drug-smuggling,” Wiri said.

“I understand that negotiations between PNG and Indonesian government for the repatriation for these convicted drug smugglers has not begun yet.”

Wiri said 66 prisoners were in the Doyo Baru narcotic prison in Papua province while seven were in the Bolangi narcotic prison in Sulawesi Province and one in a prison in Manokwari, West Papua province.

Clifford Faiparik is a reporter for The National newspaper.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There has been little real debate on an important Government announcement made last weekend. Justice Minister Andrew Little said the Government had decided to give the right to vote back to prisoners with sentences of three years or less.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that there was no great reaction. After all, the change affects so few prisoners – about 1900 – and is likely to have no real electoral impact. And, in fact, the Government was probably keen for as little publicity as possible, given their fear of any negativity from conservative voters about being too liberal on crime.

For the details, see Isaac Davison’s Prisoners serving sentences of less than three years to vote at 2020 election. And for a background to the issue, see my earlier roundups: Will the Government reverse the “fascist” ban on prisoner voting?, and Suffrage reality check – prisoners still can’t vote.

There was certainly something for progressives to celebrate in the Government’s decision. This announcement was the culmination of a long campaign by justice reformers, including some maverick prisoners – see Andrew Geddis’ The reversal of the prisoner voting ban is a big move, and especially sweet for two men.

The National Party sought to create a backlash over the issue, with leader Simon Bridges calling the decision “soft on crime” and promising to reverse the decision once in government. But, despite the rhetoric, there isn’t actually a huge difference between the major parties on the issue, as Labour has decided to retain the voting ban on prisoners with longer sentences. Essentially, they’ve agreed to revert to the pre-2010 situation in which only those prisoners with sentences of more than three years are prohibited from voting.

I’ve written about this today in the Guardian, arguing that this amounts to a half-measure, and is the bare minimum the Government could get away with given recent declarations against the ban from the Waitangi Tribunal and the Supreme Court – see: Ardern’s prisoner voting compromise exposes the cynicism of NZ politics.

I argue this compromise “solution” falls short of what progressives might really want: “Progressives – and possibly even most Labour MPs – support all prisoners being given the right to vote. But the government fears this would be too unpopular and so has compromised, hoping to appease progressive voters with an improvement, but not scare conservatives by retaining the voting ban for the worst criminals.”

Essentially the Labour-led Government is allowing the National Party to set the agenda on law and order issues, and it “doesn’t augur well for next year’s election campaign, which could descend into an auction of awfulness on crime and punishment.”

Other commentators have also lamented that the Government hasn’t been braver. Blogger No Right Turn says the decision “raises a number of questions. Most obviously, why they’re not going the whole way, and restoring voting rights to every prisoner, rather than just going back to the status quo ante? Because the arguments for short-term prisoners being able to vote apply just as powerfully to long-term ones. But Labour is the government of half-measures, so I guess that’s all we’ll ever get from them” – see: Erasing the infamy.

Former Alliance MP Liz Gordon has challenged the decision to re-introduce the three-year prison sentence as the threshold for voting rights: “While National can be criticised for its essentially nonsensical position, the Labour coalition really are not much better.  What the government has done is applied exactly the same test as National but simply drawn the line higher. Those people sentenced to more than three years in prison are beyond the pale. They should not be allowed to vote. Really? Why three years, and not two or four?” – see: Votes for all.

Gordon ponders whether Labour’s argument for excluding some prisoners from voting amounts to some sort of slippery slope: “Are ‘prisoners’ the only category we may want to exclude? How about ‘white supremacists’, for example, or men who watch child pornography. That’s the tricky thing about values – they are a slippery slope down which the principles of a universal suffrage can quickly disappear.”

Similarly, Gordon Campbell puts the case against the three-year “arbitrary” threshold for human rights: “Usually when the state imposes subsequent restrictions on rights in the wake of criminal sentences being served – eg on the future ability to own weapons, or to drive vehicles – there is a direct connection between the original offence and this subsequent restriction of rights. Cancelling the right to vote though, bears no such connection to the original offence. It seems utterly gratuitous” – see: On restoring prisoners’ right to vote.

Of course, it was a difficult decision for Labour. Writing prior to the announcement, the Herald’s Audrey Young explains that the party “has to balance its reforming instincts with the electoral reality” – see: Labour squeezed from all sides on prisoner voting ban, no one happy (paywalled).

A moderate path had to be found, because “the Labour Party again finds itself in a halfway house pleasing no one between the ‘hard on crime’ coalition partner New Zealand First and the ‘soft on crime’ confidence and supply partner in the Greens.”

Elaborating on this, the Otago Daily Times pointed out earlier that liberalising too much would be seen as “soft on law and order” and would not be “a winning strategy” – see the editorial, Prisoners and the right to vote.

The newspaper endorsed a compromise solution: “The middle road, that established before 2010, might not satisfy the purists on each end of the debate. But sometimes such approaches are pragmatic and as just as possible.”

The Herald appeared to take a similar position, believing that a middle road should be taken by reverting to the 2010 status quo – see the editorial, Voting ban on prisoners is all stick, no carrot (paywalled).

But is the issue even that important? Not according to talkback radio host Andrew Dickens, who says Anger over prisoner voting rights is a lot of hot air. He says both sides of the debate are engaging in “hollow virtue signalling” over something of little consequence – especially as few prisoners are likely to take up the opportunity to vote anyhow.

Similarly, columnist Martin van Beynen thinks it’s a non-issue: “The kerfuffle reflects a trend where a minor issue distracts from more important problems much more deserving of attention. Those relatively trivial issues then become like a scout badge for the bleeding heart left, another box to tick to prove their empathy with the oppressed” – see: Prisoners have forfeited the right to vote.

Van Beynen also succinctly explains why prisoners shouldn’t be allowed to vote: “Some have asked what purpose the disfranchisement serves. Pretty obvious, I would have thought. A prison sentence is essentially treating adults like naughty and sometimes dangerous toddlers.”

Liam Hehir gives a more theoretical explanation: “The basic premise of the social contract is that people exchange total freedom of action for the protection the rules the legitimate government. If you are found unwilling to adhere to those rules, being stripped of your right to influence them for the period of your ostracisation. After all, what is prison but a period of suspended freedom? When the prisoner is restored to the community, he or she is then, of course, permitted to participate in the act of governing once more. The return full democratic and civil rights is mark of the former prisoner’s restoration to society” – see: Prisoner voting ban: Not required; not not required.

But what does the public think about the issue? According to a recent Colmar Brunton survey, there’s a majority in favour of liberalisation: “The poll found 26 per cent of people believed all prisoners should vote and 28 per cent wanted just prisoners serving sentences with three years or less to be able to vote – pulling total support for sentences three years or less to 53 per cent. Forty-four per cent were against any prisoner voting” – see 1News’ Pressure to reinstate prisoner voting rights grows as 1News poll reveals over 50 per cent public backing.

What do the prisoners think? According to one report, there is a desire to participate – see Denise Piper’s Prisoners want to vote in council elections, general election.

One prisoner is quoted, making the case against the prisoner voting ban: “I’ve voted in every other election prior to coming to jail and I had hoped that my human rights would have been upheld… It raises the concern that if they’re willing to overlook our human rights, who’s next? People in the community – the disabled, mental health facilities – who else is at risk of losing their vote?”

Finally, with the general political climate on crime and punishment heating up, it’s worth looking at satire on the issue – see my blog post, Cartoons about the politics of law and order in NZ.

By Yovinus Guntur in Banyuwangi, Indonesia

An Indonesian court has convicted and sentenced an environmentalist to 10 months in prison on a charge of spreading communism by carrying a hammer-and-sickle banner at a protest last year.

The prosecutor at the Banyuwangi District Court, in East Java province, had sought a seven-year sentence for defendant 37-year-old Hari Budiawan (alias Budi Pego).

Communism has been outlawed in the country since the mid-1960s, when a bloody purge against suspected members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) occurred.

A panel of judges ruled on Tuesday that Budi was guilty of a charge against “those who publicly commit crimes verbally, written, or through other media, spread or develop communism, Marxism, Leninism in any attempt”.

“The prosecution proved convincingly that the defendant committed a criminal offence against the state,” chief judge Putu Endru Sonata ruled. “Therefore he must serve 10 months in prison.”

On September 4, 2017, Budi was taken into custody and charged with carrying a banner that displayed communist symbols during an anti-mining protest in East Java in April 2017, causing public unrest.

-Partners-

The court ruled on the lesser sentence because the defendant had never been involved in criminal acts.

Important evidence
The banner’s hammer and sickle logo – the symbol of the liquidated PKI – was important evidence leading to the conviction, Putu told BenarNews.

Budi expressed disappointment.

“I am innocent and cannot accept the verdict,” he said.

Lawyer Ahmad Rifai said the picture showing what looks like the PKI symbol on the banner could not be called a symbol of communism, adding that “the verdict has threatened democracy in Banyuwangi”.

Budi has seven days to decide if he will appeal.

Herlambang P. Wiratraman, the chief of the Centre for Human Rights Law Studies at Airlangga University in Surabaya, agreed with Rifai.

“The stigma of communism became the easiest tool to stop activists who resisted mining in Banyuwangi,” he said.

‘Judicial repression’
Amnesty International (AI) Indonesia also condemned the verdict, calling Budi a prisoner of conscience.

“This is a form of judicial repression against the constitutional rights of citizens to have opinions.

“A higher judicial authority” should immediately release Budi because he had “fought for the preservation of the environment and the rights of the people around Tumpang Pitu Mountain Protected Forest,” AI Indonesia director Usman Hamid said in a written statement.

“The judge should protect fundamental rights, namely the right of expression guaranteed by the constitution” by releasing Budi, Usman said.

In September, after Budi was arrested, fellow activist Agnes Dave questioned the authenticity of the banner.

“Local police and residents were also there. If the activists made such a banner displaying the hammer and sickle, they would have been aware. Police could have stopped the protest and arrested anyone joining in,” she said at the time.

Protesters gathered
While Budi was inside the courtroom learning his fate, hundreds of his supporters and anti-communist protesters gathered outside as police officers armed with a water cannon watched over them.

Members of the Anti-Communist Revival Movement (GAKK) said they supported the guilty verdict and sentencing.

“This is a proof that in Banyuwangi there is indeed a new style of communist revival,” said H. Abdillah Rafsanjani, an organiser of the GAKK protests.

Communism was declared illegal in Indonesia after PKI sympathizers allegedly killed 62 members of Ansor, the youth wing of the largest Indonesian Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, on October 18, 1965.

Human rights organisations estimate that between 500,000 and 1 million Indonesians died during nationwide killings that targeted suspected PKI members in 1965 and 1966.

Hari Budiawan (alias Budi Pego – in white shirt) is sentenced to 10 months in prison at the Banyuwangi District Court in East Java, Indonesia, on Tuesday after being found guilty of a charge of spreading communism. Image: Yovinus Guntur/BenarNews

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz