By Agnese Boffano in London

As Meta, TikTok, Instagram and X continue to dominate online social spaces, a new platform called UpScrolled has entered the scene.

It is not built around dances or memes, but instead positions itself as a space promising fewer shadowbans and greater freedom of political expression, particularly for pro-Palestinian voices.

So, what is it exactly, and why are users switching?

UpScrolled was launched in July 2025 by Palestinian-Australian app developer Issam Hijazi.

At first glance, the platform feels familiar. It features an up and down scrolling video feed reminiscent of TikTok, alongside profile pages, comments and direct messaging features similar to Instagram.

The similarities, however, appear to end there. Unlike major platforms where opaque algorithms determine which content is amplified and which is buried, UpScrolled claims to operate differently.

The platform describes itself as a space where “every voice gets equal power”, promising to operate without “shadowbans, algorithmic games, or pay-to-play favouritism”, according to its website.

In an interview with Rest of World, Hijazi said the motivation behind the launch was the overwhelmingly pro-Israel content he saw being promoted on more established platforms following 7 October 2023.

Working for what he described as big tech companies at the time, Hijazi expressed deep frustration.

“I could not take it anymore. I lost family members in Gaza, and I did not want to be complicit. So I was like, I am done with this, I want to feel useful,” he said.

The Tech for Palestine incubator, an advocacy project that funds technology initiatives supporting the Palestinian cause, has publicly backed the platform.

Moderation without the black box
Hijazi said UpScrolled’s content moderation process differs from other social media platforms in that it does not selectively censor particular groups or viewpoints.

Content deemed illegal, such as the sale of narcotics or prostitution, is removed, but when it comes to free speech, the approach is rooted in transparency, ethics and equal treatment.

According to 7amleh, the Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media, major tech platforms such as Meta have consistently engaged in a “systemic and disproportionate censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian content”. This includes the removal of posts, restrictions on account visibility and, in some cases, permanent bans.

Throughout the war on Gaza, numerous Palestinian organisations, activists, journalists, media outlets and content creators were targeted over their pro-Palestine views.

Bisan Owda, an award-winning Gaza-based journalist with more than 1.4 million followers on TikTok, is among the most prominent recent examples, whose account was reportedly permanently banned earlier this week — but has now been reinstated after a global outcry.

Critics argue that censorship concerns extend beyond the Palestinian issue, affecting other sensitive topics, including criticism of US government policies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

High profile commentators critical of the Trump administration have reported what they describe as a systematic effort to remove or suppress their videos and content.

It’s Bisan from Gaza . . . why the truth is so dangerous.     Video: AJ+

Users flock to UpScrolled
Users frustrated with big tech’s control over online narratives have increasingly turned to the new platform.

UpScrolled has reached number one in the social networking category of Apple’s App Store in both the US and the UK.

As of Tuesday, the app had been downloaded around 400,000 times in the US and 700,000 times globally since its launch. An estimated 85 percent of those downloads occurred after January 21 alone, according to data from marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

The Palestinian-founded app has also seen a surge in downloads following the recent acquisition of TikTok by American billionaire Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle.

Ellison is a prominent supporter of Israel and maintains close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also financially backed the Israeli military, including a $16.6 million donation made during a 2017 gala organised by the Friends of the Israeli Forces.

The timing of UpScrolled’s rise has therefore not gone unnoticed. The platform appears to have capitalised on widespread frustration and anger over biased content moderation, offering an alternative built around transparency and user control.

The app remains a work in progress, with users having reported crashes and server overloads amid its rapid growth over the past week.

Still, UpScrolled poses a challenge to dominant platforms and highlights a growing appetite for social media spaces that give users greater control over what they see and share.

Republished from the Middle East News Agency (MENA) and The New Arab.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Is this the IDF in Gaza or the West Bank, or the US military in Afghanistan or Iraq, or ICE in Minneapolis?

The answer is that this is ICE in Minneapolis.

But the fact that it’s hard to tell whether it’s the IDF or the US Army or ICE is the whole story.

Both the United States and Israel are imperialist and settler colonial projects which support each other.

The United States spends trillions to be a hegemonic power and tests its weapons in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It also sends billions of dollars in aid and military equipment to Israel to suppress Palestinians and to be an outpost of Western empire in Southwest Asia.

Israel develops cutting edge surveillance technology and repressive tactics used against Palestinians that are then exported back to the United States and to many other countries.

The tactics of occupation and the blurring of lines between the military and the police in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine are all reflected in the appearance, weapons, and tactics of ICE.

And let’s not forget: Israel is still engaged in kidnapping, imprisoning, torturing, detaining, killing, and expelling Palestinians during the so-called Gaza ceasefire.

At least 477 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was declared on October 10, and the total death toll since the war on Gaza began in October 2023 is more than 71,000, mostly women and children.

Both US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for crimes against humanity — and their far right supporters are intent on ethnic cleansing and terrorising whoever remains.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

What happened at New Zealand human rights campaigner John Minto’s home? Let me tell you.

Let me tell you that he wrote about it and Facebook took it down. Yep. Wrong after wrong.

Minto, national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocacy and protest group, has been arrested at least 23 times for standing against racism.

A couple of nights ago two Palestinian flags were stolen from the Christchurch Ōtautahi home of John and his partner, Bronwen. “Nazi scum” was spray-painted in large letters on his footpath.

The sign “make poverty history” ripped off the fence and the Te Tiriti sign spray-painted.

But John, who has been a leader in New Zealand protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza which has killed at least 71,000 people since October 2023, has been unable to report this because Facebook removed his original post about this crime.

Why? Because white supremacists and their allies want to win this round, their complaints are supported by oppressive social media mechanisms.

Human rights are under threat. A genocide in Gaza is supported by our New Zealand government. Propaganda is rife. And the Treaty that represents partnership, that should uphold the rights of the tangata whenua is being pushed to the gutter.

And speaking of gutter. Here you see it.

People who feel entitled to storm private property and tear down signs that stand against extermination and exile.

Facebook is blocking shares about the details about the vandalism. Censorship! To thwart the censorship, share this commentary if you wish to share the truth and disempower those who want supreme power.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. Republished from a social media post with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I am alarmed by reports that Filipino journalists were flown in by the Israeli government to participate in what is essentially a whitewashing campaign for the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

At least two articles, atrocious excuses for journalism, have come out of this trip.One is a piece by Wilson Lee Flores for The Philippine Star, entitled “Israel beyond the headlines: Where ancient stones speak.”

By attempting to divert attention from the massacre of Palestinian civilians to “the Old City’s labyrinthine alleys,” Flores acts as an apologist for war crimes, akin to writing a travel blog about Nazi Germany.

In a Facebook post, Flores further parrots Israel’s propaganda by highlighting how the brutal IDF employs both men and women to carry out atrocities, a cynical weaponisation of “feminism.”

Even more repulsive is the piece from the Daily Tribune about “Gaza’s Fake Famine” from Vernon Velasco. It is a parody of a story, overly simplifying the famine of Gaza to a matter of food truck logistics, and uncritically quoting an IDF Officer.

Fittingly, the article contains three photos of shipping containers but not a single photo of a human being.

This runs counter to facts laid out by UN officials, including Joyce Msuya, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, who points out how half a million people face “starvation, destitution, and death”.

‘Moral failure’ over Gaza
A study published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet points to the “moral failure” as 1-2 million people live in the most extreme food insecurity level (phase 5 or catastrophe famine) according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

This famine unfolds as shameless journalists make food vlogs kilometres away.

The facts are clear. At least 63,000 people have been killed and 150,000 injured, with women and children making up a significant portion of the casualties. The UN has also reported that nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s population (around 1.9 million people) has been displaced.

Widespread destruction has left over 70 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed, including more than 94 percent of hospitals either damaged or destroyed. No amount of narrative spin or “complexity” can sanitise this genocide.

As we celebrate National Press Freedom Day, I implore friends in the press to not fall for the lies of the murderous Zionist regime.

It would be tragic for journalists to provide cover for a regime that has murdered at least 240 of their peers.

Filipino journalists must shed the unhealthy culture of silence and non-intervention, and not hesitate to criticise errant colleagues.

They must make it clear that these recipients of Zionist gold are a disgrace to Philippine journalism. The Philippine government must look into the activities of the Israeli Embassy and their manipulation of local media narratives to sanitise their genocide.

Filipino journalists must stand in solidarity with their slain colleagues abroad, not with their killers.

Walden Bello is a Filipino academic and analyst of Global South issues who was awarded Amnesty International Philippines’ Most Distinguished Defender of Human Rights Award in 2023. He has also served as a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand Green Party co-leader suspended over criticising government MPs over a “spineless” stance over Gaza has called for action.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said in an interview with Al Jazeera that public pressure was mounting on governments to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The politician continues to push for recognition of Palestinian statehood and sanctions on Israel, despite being ejected from New Zealand’s Parliament for a week for her remarks.

She refused to apologise in the House last week, telling Al Jazeera that New Zealand must “stand on the right side of history”.

“We in Aotearoa New Zealand have a long proud history of standing typically on the right side of things, whether that be our anti-nuclear stance or our stance against apartheid in South Africa,” she said.

“So it really is a question for this current government whether they are now willing to do the right thing and stand on the right side of history, and that was precisely the point that we were making last week in Parliament.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Protesters demonstrated outside several major US media outlets in Washington this week condemning their coverage of the genocide in Gaza, claiming they were to blame over misinformation and the worsening catastrophe.

Banging pots and pans to spotlight the starvation crisis, they accused the media of “complicity in genocide”.

Banners and placards proclaimed “Stop media complicity in genocide” and “US media manufactures consent for Israel’s crimes”, as the protesters demonstrated outside media offices that included NBC News and Fox News.

But the irony was that while the protests appeared to have been ignored or overlooked by national media in the US – and certainly in New Zealand, they were strongly reported by at least one global news agency, Turkey’s Anadolu Agensi.

The protests echoed a series of statements by various news media organisations, such as Agence France-Presse concerned about the safety of their journalists from both under fire and the risk of starvation, and media freedom advocacy groups.

The Doha-based global television news network Al Jazeera, that has been producing arguably the best and most honest news coverage of Gaza and the occupied West Bank – which earned it being banned last year by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority from reporting inside their territory — called for global action to protect Gaza’s journalists.

It said in a statement that Isael’s forced starvation of the besieged enclave that threatened Gaza’s entire population, including those “risking their lives to shed light on Israel’s atrocities”.

Death toll passes 60,000
On Tuesday this week, the world noted a grim milestone in Gaza, with the Health Ministry announcing that the death toll had surpassed 60,000 (this does not include the tens of thousands of people buried under the rubble and missing, presumed dead).

Put in perspective, that is one in every 36 people in Gaza killed, and more than 90 people on average slaughtered every day.

Also, 1157 people have been killed near the notorious Israel and US-backed Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation food depots condemned as “death traps”, while 154 people have died from starvation, 89 of them children with the numbers rising.

Israel’s genocide – ‘Everyone in Gaza is starving’       Video: Al Jazeera

An episode of the weekly media watch programme, The Listening Post, took up the theme as well, criticising the failure of many high profile Western news services from adequately reporting the horror of Israel’s devastating and cruel policies.

“When trying to stave off starvation becomes part of the job. What it means to be a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. The stories they are determined to tell, the incredible risks they are prepared to take,” said host Richard Gizbert when introducing the programme. He wasted no time firing a few caustic shots.

“What is unfolding in Gaza now has the appearance of a final solution, orchestrated by Israel and the United States, Israel’s other ally: The transformation of parts of the Gaza strip into starvation and concentration camps, a place where famine has been turned into a weapon of war,” he said.

“Reporting on the reality of this genocide can amount to a death sentence. Palestinian journalists can easily identify with the suffering they are documenting since they too are going hungry.

“They have been targeted because for [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, like other genocidal leaders before him, starving a population is much easier to do when no one is watching.

Perpetrator ‘left out’
“Across Western mainstream media, news outlets have been unable to ignore this story of mass starvation in Gaza. But in report after report, they have made a habit of leaving out a key detail – naming the perpetrators of the famine, Israel.

“The missing actors, the sanitised language, the use of the passive grammatical voice, it is all part of the playbook for far too many international news outlets and that is exactly what the few Palestinian journalists still standing are out to tell the world.”

Gizbert explained that “journalists in Gaza already have the world’s toughest assignment”:
“Job one for almost 22 months now has been survival; job two, telling heartbreaking stories; documenting a genocide while under fire.”

Like, for example, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Anas al-Sharif who was reporting live from outside Al Shifa medical complex when a woman behind him collapsed at the hospital’s gate.

Al-Sharif, who had reported on the genocide of his own people for more than 650 days without rest or complaint, through Israeli occupation airstrikes, drone attacks, and countless “scenes resembling hell”, suddenly could not take it anymore.

He broke down: “People are falling to the ground from the severity of hunger,” al-Sharif said through his tears. “They need one sip of water. They need one loaf of bread.”

Al-Sharif has also been threatened by the Israeli military, accusing him of being a “Hamas militant”, an accusation strongly denied by Al Jazeera, denouncing what it called Tel Aviv’s “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip.

Discredited for bias
Many Western mainstream media – including BBC, CNN, Sky, ITN, and Australia’s public broadcaster ABC — have been repeatedly discredited for their “pro-Israel bias” by scores of journalists who have acted as whistleblowers about the actions of their own news organisations.

According to a Declassified UK report, for example, the journalists working for a range of outlets from across the political spectrum have “painted a consistent picture of the obstacles faced by reporters who want to humanise Palestinians or scrutinise Israeli government narratives”. The US media is also under attack and has been putting up a lame defence.

Last week, more than 100 aid groups warned of “mass starvation” throughout Gaza — predictably denied by Israeli government in the face of overwhelming evidence — with their staff severely impacted by shortages and serious implications for journalists already being threatened with targeting by the Israeli military.

Israel faces growing global pressure over the enclave’s dire humanitarian crisis, where more than two million people have endured 22 months of war. UN Security Council member France has led a group of countries announcing that they plan to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN in September, with United Kingdom, Canada, Malta and Finland among those following with the total number now almost 150 of the 193 UN member states.

A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”. The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reported from Amman that the Israeli government had accused the UK of supporting the establishment of a “jihadi” state and of derailing efforts to reach a ceasefire.

“But really,” she said, “the Israeli media, for example, is describing this as a political tsunami, a realisation of how significant the tide is, and how improbable it is to turn it back to countries withholding recognition because Israel said it doesn’t want it.”

Calling for sanctions
She also noted how 31 high-profile Israelis, including the former speaker of the Knesset, a former attorney general, and several recipients of Israel’s highest cultural award, were calling on world governments to impose crippling sanctions on Israel to stop the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and their expulsion

“This was taboo just a few days ago and has never really been done before, certainly not at this level of prominence of the signatories,” Odeh added.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) added its voice to the appeal by aid agencies to call for an end to Israel’s starvation of journalists and other civilians in Gaza, backing the plea for states to “save lives before there are none left to save.”

In a statement on its website, the CPJ accused Israel of “starving journalists into silence”.

“Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence. They are not just reporters, they are frontline witnesses, abandoned as international media were pulled out and denied entry,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

“The world must act now: protect them, feed them, and allow them to recover while other journalists step in to help report. Our response to their courageous 650 plus-days of war reporting cannot simply be to let them starve to death.”

‘Bearing witness’ videos
Also, last week the CPJ launched a “bearing witness” series of videos from Gaza giving voice to the challenges the journalists have been facing. In the first video, Moath al Kahlout described how his cousin had been shot dead while awaiting humanitarian aid.

As Israel partially eased its 11-week total blockade of Gaza that began in May, CPJ published the testimony of six journalists who described how “starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness” had threatened their ability to report.

Among highlights cited by the CPJ:
• On June 20, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif — the journalist cited earlier in this article — posted online: “I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment . . .  Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
• Sally Thabet, correspondent for Al-Kofiya satellite channel, told CPJ that she fainted consciousness after doing a live broadcast on July 20 because she had not eaten all day. She regained consciousness in Al-Shifa hospital, where doctors gave her an intravenous drip for rehydration and nutrition. In an online video, she described how she and her three daughters were starving.
• Another Palestinian journalist, Shuruq As’ad said Thabet had been the third journalist to collapse on air from starvation that week, and posted a photograph of Thabet with the drip in her hand.
• During a live broadcast on July 20, Al-Araby TV correspondent Saleh Al-Natour said: “We have no choice but to write and speak; otherwise, we will all die.”

Little of this horrendous state of affairs has made it onto the pages of newspapers, websites of the television screens in the New Zealand mainstream media which seems to have a pro-Israel slant and rarely interviews Palestinian journalists or analysts for balance.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Join us for this guided “virtual tour” around the Rainbow Warrior III in Auckland Harbour on the afternoon of 10 July 2025 — the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original flagship.

The Rainbow Warrior is a special vessel — it’s one of three present-day Greenpeace ships.

The Rainbow Warrior works on the biggest issues affecting the future of our planet. It was the first ship in our fleet that was designed and built specifically for activism at sea.

Virtual tour of the Rainbow Warrior.        Video: Greenpeace

It also represents a continuation of the legacy of the previous two Rainbow Warriors.

On this anniversary day we explored the ship and talked to key people about the current campaign to protect the world’s oceans.

Programmes director Niamh O’Flynn presented the tour, starting on Halsey Wharf.

Thanks to third mate Adriana, oceans campaigner Ellie; author David Robie, who sailed on the original Rainbow Warrior on the 1985 Rongelap relocation mission and whose new anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior is being launched tonight, radio engineer Neil and Captain Ali!

Watch the commemoration ceremony this morning on 10 July 2025.

More information and make donations.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The International Press Institute (IPI) has joined calls for urgent action to halt the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza as global news organisations warn that their journalists there are experiencing starvation.

Israel must immediately allow life-saving food aid to reach journalists and other civilians in Gaza, IPI said in a statement today.

“The international community must also put effective pressure on Israel to allow all journalists to enter and exit the territory and to document the ongoing catastrophe,”it said.

In an unprecedented joint statement this week, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, BBC News, and Reuters — four of the world’s leading news agencies — said their journalists on the ground “are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families”.

The news outlets added: “Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in warzones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them.”

Separately, Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement that journalists on the ground “now find themselves fighting for their own survival” due to mass starvation.

Harrowing accounts
AFP and Al Jazeera journalists shared harrowing accounts of conditions on the ground.

One AFP photographer was quoted as saying, “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”

Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent said he was “drowning in hunger”.

In an interview with NPR, AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd said that the news agency had been working to evacuate its remaining contributors from Gaza, which requires Israeli permission.

The dramatic warnings come as more than 100 international humanitarian organisations said that mass starvation in Gaza was now threatening the lives of humanitarian aid workers themselves, while the civilian death toll continues to rise.

Gaza under siege — a journalist reports on daily survival   Video: Al Jazeera

Meanwhile, Israel continues to refuse to allow international reporters into Gaza to report and cover the war and humanitarian situation independently, obstructing the free flow of news and limiting coverage of the humanitarian crisis.

The ongoing conflict has taken a devastating toll on journalists and media outlets in Gaza.

Highest media death toll
Since October 2023, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza — Al Jazeera puts the figure as at least 230 — the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, according to monitoring by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

This is the largest number of journalists to be killed in any armed conflict in this span of time.

Independent investigations such as those conducted by Forbidden Stories have found more than a dozen cases in which journalists were intentionally targeted and killed by the Israeli military — which constitutes a war crime under international law.

IPI has made repeated calls, in conjunction with its partners, urging the international community to take immediate measures to protect journalists and allow unimpeded access to the strip from international media.

Today, IPI has strongly and urgently reiterated these calls, as humanitarian conditions in Gaza rapidly deteriorate and as journalists and other civilians face man-made starvation.

The international community must use all diplomatic means at its disposal to pressure Israel to ensure the safe flow of food aid to journalists and other civilians, said IPI in a statement.

“The response by the international community in this critical moment could be the difference between life and death. There is no more time to lose,” IPI said.

Jamie Wiseman is a journalist of the Vienna-based International Press Institute.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

United States immigration and deportation enforcement continues to ramp up, impacting on Marshallese and Micronesians in new and unprecedented ways.

The Trump administration’s directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and deport massive numbers of potentially illegal aliens, including those with convictions from decades past, is seeing Marshallese and Micronesians swept up by ICE.

The latest unprecedented development is Marshallese and Micronesians being removed from the United States to the offshore detention facility at the US Navy base in Guantánamo Bay — a facility set up to jail terrorists suspected of involvement in the 9/11 airplane attacks in the US in 2001.

Marshall Islands Ambassador to the US Charles Paul this week confirmed a media report that one Marshallese was currently incarcerated at Guantánamo, which is also known as “GTMO”.

The same report from nationnews.com said 72 detainees from 26 countries had been sent to GTMO last week, including from the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

A statement issued by the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE operations, concerning detention of foreigners with criminal records at GTMO said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was using “every tool available to get criminal illegal aliens off our streets and out of our country.”

But the action was criticised by a Marshallese advocate for citizens from the Compact countries in the US.

‘Legal, ethical concerns’
“As a Compact of Free Association (COFA) advocate and ordinary indigenous citizen of the Marshallese Islands, I strongly condemn the detention of COFA migrants — including citizens from the Republic of the Marshall Islands — at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay,” Benson Gideon said in a social media post this week.

“This action raises urgent legal, constitutional, and ethical concerns that must be addressed without delay.”

Since seeing the news about detention of a Marshallese in this US facility used to hold suspected terrorists, Ambassador Paul said he had “been in touch with ICE to repatriate one Marshallese being detained.”

Paul said he was “awaiting all the documents pertaining to the criminal charges, but we were informed that the individual has several felony and misdemeanor convictions. We are working closely with ICE to expedite this process.”

Gideon said bluntly the detention of the Marshallese was a breach of Compact treaty obligations.

“The COFA agreement guarantees fair treatment. Military detention undermines this commitment,” he said.

Gideon listed the strong Marshallese links with the US — service in high numbers in the US military, hosting of the Kwajalein missile range, US military control of Marshall Islands ocean and air space — as examples of Marshallese contributions to the US.

‘Treated as criminals’
“Despite these sacrifices, our people are being treated as criminals and confined in a facility historically associated with terrorism suspects,” he said.

“I call on the US Embassy in Majuro to publicly address this injustice and work with federal agencies to ensure COFA Marshallese residents are treated with dignity and fairness.

“If we are good enough to host your missile ranges, fight in your military, and support your defence strategy, then we are good enough to be protected — not punished. Let justice, transparency, and respect prevail.”

There were 72 immigration detainees at Guantánamo Bay, 58 of them classified as high-risk and 14 in the low-risk category, reported nationnews.com.

The report added that the criminal records of the detainees include convictions for homicide; sexual offences, including against children; child pornography; assault with a weapon; kidnapping; drug smuggling; and robbery.

Civil rights advocates have called the detention of immigration detainees at Guantanamo Bay punitive and unlawful, arguing in an active lawsuit that federal law does not allow the government to hold those awaiting deportation outside of US territory.

In other US immigration and deportation developments:

• The delivery last month by US military aircraft of 18 Marshallese deported from the US and escorted by armed ICE agents is another example of the ramped-up deportation focus of the Trump administration. Since the early 2000s more than 300 Marshall Islanders have been deported from the US. Prior to the Trump administration, past deportations were managed by US Marshals escorting deportees individually on commercial flights.
• According to Marshall Islands authorities, there have not been any deportations since the June 10 military flight to Majuro, suggesting that group deportations may be the way the Trump administration handles further deportations.
• Individual travellers flying into Honolulu whose passports note place of birth as Kiribati are reportedly now being refused entry. This reportedly happened to a Marshallese passport holder late last month who had previously travel
• led in and out of the US without issue.

Most Marshallese passport holders enjoy visa-free travel to the US, though there are different levels of access to the US based on if citizenship was gained through naturalisation or a passport sales programme in the 1980s and 1990s.

US Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Laura Stone said, however, that “the visa-free travel rules have not changed.”

She said she could not speak to any individual traveller’s situation without adequate information to evaluate the situation.

She pointed out that citizenship “acquired through naturalisation, marriage, investment, adoption” have different rules. Stone urged all travellers to examine the rules carefully and determine their eligibility for visa-free travel.

“If they have a question, we would be happy to answer their enquiry at ConsMajuro@state.gov,” she added.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“If words shape our consciousness, then the media holds the keys to minds.”

This sentence is not merely a metaphor, but a reality we live daily in the coverage of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, where the crimes of the occupation are turned into “acts of violence”, the siege targeting civilians into “security measures”, and the legitimate resistance into “terrorist acts”.

This linguistic distortion is not innocent; it is part of a “systematic mechanism” practised by major Western media outlets, through which they perpetuate a false image of a “conflict between two equal sides”, ignoring the fact that one is an occupier armed with the latest military technology, and the other is a people besieged in their land for decades.

Here, the ethical question becomes urgent: how does the media shift from conveying truth to becoming a tool for justifying oppression?

Western media institutions promote a colonial narrative that reproduces the discourse of Israeli superiority, using linguistic and legal mechanisms to justify genocide.

But the rise of global awareness through social media platforms and documentaries like We Are Not Numbers, produced by youth in Gaza, exposes this bias and brings the Palestinian narrative back to the forefront.

Selective coverage . . .  when injustice becomes an opinion
“Terrorism”, “self-defence”, “conflict” . . . are all terms that place the responsibility for violence on Palestinians while presenting Israel as the perpetual victim. This linguistic shift contradicts international law, which considers settlements a war crime (according to Article 8 of the Rome Statute), yet most reports avoid even describing the West Bank as “occupied territory”.

More dangerously, the issue is reduced to “violent events” without mentioning their contexts: how can the Palestinian people’s resistance be understood without addressing 75 years of displacement and the siege of Gaza since 2007? The media is like someone commenting on the flames without mentioning who ignited them.

The Western media coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza represents a blatant model of systematic bias that reproduces the Israeli narrative and justifies war crimes through precise linguistic and media mechanisms. Below is a breakdown of the most prominent practices:

Stripping historical context and portraying Palestinians as aggressor

Ignoring the occupation: Media outlets like the BBC and The New York Times ignored the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1948 and focused on the 7 October 2023 attack as an isolated event, without linking it to the daily oppression such as home demolitions and arrests in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Misleading terms: The war has often been described as a “conflict between Israel and Hamas”, while Gaza is considered the largest open-air prison in the world under Israeli siege since 2007. Example: The Economist described Hamas’s attacks as “bloody”, while Israeli attacks were called “military operations”.

Dehumanising Palestinians
Language of abstraction: The BBC used terms like “died” for Palestinians versus “killed” for Israelis, according to a quantitative study by The Intercept, weakening sympathy for Palestinian victims.

Victim portrayal: While Israeli death reports included names and family ties (like “mother” or “grandmother”), Palestinians were shown as anonymous numbers, as seen in the coverage of Le Monde and Le Figaro.

Israeli political rhetoric: Media outlets reported statements by Israeli leaders such as dismissed defence minister Yoav Gallant, who described Palestinians as “human animals”, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who called them “children of darkness”, without critically analysing this rhetoric that strips them of their humanity.

Distorting resistance and linking it to terrorism
Misleading comparisons: The October 7 attack was compared to “9/11” and described as a “terrorist attack” in The Washington Post and CNN, reinforcing the “war on terror” narrative and justifying Israel’s excessive response.

Fake news: Papers like The Sun and Daily Mail promoted the story of “beheaded Israeli babies” without evidence, a story even adopted by US president Joe Biden, only to be disproven later by videos showing Hamas’ humane treatment of captives.

Selective coverage and suppression of the Palestinian narrative
Silencing journalists: Journalists such as Zahraa Al-Akhras (Global News) and Bassam Bounni (BBC) were dismissed for criticising Israel or supporting Palestine, while others were pressured to adopt the Israeli narrative.

Defaming Palestinian institutions: The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal claimed the Palestinian death toll figures were “exaggerated”, ignoring UN and human rights organisations’ reports that confirmed their accuracy.

Manipulating legal and ethical terms
Denying war crimes: Deutsche Welle stated that Israeli attacks are “not considered war crimes”, despite the destruction of hospitals and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians.

Legal misinformation: The BBC referred to Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “disputed territories”, despite the UN declaring them illegal.

The Israeli military joins settlers in attacks because terrorizing Palestinians is state policy. But Western media doesn’t report it that way.

This is what decades of occupation looks like. pic.twitter.com/PwHxad4vCV

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) July 18, 2025

Double standards in conflict coverage
Comparison with Ukraine: Western media linked support for Ukraine and Israel as “victims of aggression”, while ignoring that Israel is an occupying power under international law. Terminology shifted immediately: “invasion”, “war crimes”, “occupation” were used for Ukraine but omitted when speaking of Palestine.

According to a 2022 study by the Arab Media Monitoring Project, 90 percent of Western reports on Ukraine used language blaming Russia for the violence, compared to only 30 percent in the Palestinian case.

This contradiction exposes the underlying “racist bias”: how is killing in Europe called “genocide”, while in Gaza it is termed a “complicated conflict”? The answer lies in the statement of journalist Mika Brzezinski: “The only red line in Western media is criticising Israel.”

False neutrality: Sky News claimed it “could not verify” the Baptist Hospital massacre, despite video documentation, yet quickly adopted the Israeli narrative.

Consequences: legitimising genocide and marginalising Palestinian rights
Western media practices have contributed to normalising Israeli violence by portraying it as “legitimate defence”, while resistance is labelled as “terrorism.”

Deepening Palestinian isolation: By stripping them of the right to narrate, as shown in an academic study by Mike Berry (Cardiff University), which found emotional terms used exclusively to describe Israeli victims.

Undermining international law: By ignoring reports from organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which confirm Israel’s commission of war crimes.

Violating journalistic ethics . . .  when the journalist becomes the occupation’s lawyer
Journalistic codes of ethics — such as the charter of the “International Federation of Journalists” — unanimously agree that the media’s primary task is “to expose the facts without fear”. But the reality proves the opposite:

In 2023, CNN deleted an interview with a Palestinian survivor of the Jenin massacre after pressure from the Israeli lobby (according to an investigation by Middle East Eye).

The Guardian was forced to edit the headline of an article that described settlements as “apartheid” after threats of legal action.

This self-censorship turns journalism into a “copier of official statements”, abandoning the principle of “not compromising with ruling powers” emphasised by the “International Journalists’ Network”.

Toward human-centred journalism
Fixing this flaw requires dismantling biased language: replacing “conflict” with “military occupation”, and “settlements” with “illegal colonies”.

Relying on international law: such as mentioning Articles 49 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention when discussing the displacement of Palestinians.

Giving space to victims’ voices: According to an Amnesty report, 80% of guests on Western TV channels discussing the conflict were either Israeli or Western.

Holding media institutions accountable: through pressure campaigns to enforce their ethical charters (such as obligating the BBC to mention “apartheid” after the HRW report).

Conclusion
The war on Gaza has become a stark test of media ethics. While platforms like Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye have helped expose violations, major Western media outlets continue to reproduce a colonial discourse that enables Israel. The greatest challenge today is to break the silence surrounding the crimes of genocide and impose a human narrative that restores the stolen humanity of the victims.

“Occupation doesn’t just need tanks, it needs media to justify its existence.” These were the words of journalist Gideon Levy after witnessing how his camera turned war crimes into “normal news”.

If Western media is serious about its claim of neutrality, it must start with a simple step: call things by their names. Words are not lifeless letters, they are ticking bombs that shape the consciousness of generations.

Refaat Ibrahim is the editor and creator of The Resistant Palestinian Pens website, where you can find all his articles. He is a Palestinian writer living in Gaza, where he studied English language and literature at the Islamic University. He has been passionate about writing since childhood, and is interested in political, social, economic, and cultural matters concerning his homeland, Palestine. This article was first published at Pearls and Irritations social policy journal in Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonian politicians who inked their commitment to a deal with France last weekend will be offered special police protection following threats, especially made on social media networks.

The group includes almost 20 members of New Caledonia’s parties — both pro-France and pro-independence — who took part in deal-breaking negotiations with the French State that ended on 12 July 2025, and a joint commitment regarding New Caledonia’s political future.

The endorsed document envisages a roadmap in the coming months to turn New Caledonia into a “state” within the French realm.

It is what some legal experts have sometimes referred to as “a state within the state”, while others say this was tantamount to pushing the French Constitution to its very limits.

The document is a commitment by all signatories that they will stick to their respective positions from now on.

The tense but conclusive negotiations took place behind closed doors in a hotel in the small city of Bougival, near Paris, under talks driven by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and a team of high-level French government representatives and advisers.

It followed Valls’ several unsuccessful attempts earlier this year to reach a consensus between parties who want New Caledonia to remain part of France and others representing the pro-independence movement.

The pro-French parties, for instance, have had to endorse the notion of a State of New Caledonia or that of a double French-New Caledonian nationality.

Pro-independence parties have had to accept the plan to modify the rules of eligibility to vote at local elections so as to allow more non-native French nationals to join the local electoral roll.

They also had to postpone or even give up on the hard-line full sovereignty demand for now.

Over the past five years and after a series of three referendums (held between 2018 and 2021) on self-determination, both camps have increasingly radicalised.

This resulted in destructive and deadly riots that broke out in May 2024, resulting in 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in damage, thousands of jobless and the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Over one year later, the atmosphere in New Caledonia remains marked by a sense of tension, fear and uncertainty on both sides of the political chessboard.

Since the deal was signed and made public, on July 12, and even before flying back to New Caledonia, all parties have been targeted by a wide range of reactions from their militant bases, especially on social media.

Some of the reactions have included thinly-veiled death threats in response to a perception that, on one side or another, the deal was not up to the militants’ expectations and that the parties’ negotiators are now regarded as “traitors”.

Since signing the Paris agreement, all parties have also recognised the need to “sell” and “explain” the new agreement to their respective militants.

Most of the political parties represented during the talks have already announced they will hold meetings in the coming days, in what is described as “an exercise in pedagogy”.

“In a certain number of countries, when you sign compromises after hundreds of hours of discussions and when it’s not accepted [by your militants], you lose your reputation. In our country . . . you can risk your life,” said moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble leader Philippe Gomès told public broadcaster NC La Première on Wednesday.

Pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou was the first to face negative repercussions back in New Caledonia.

Tjibaou’s fateful precedent
“To choose this difficult and new path also means we’ll be subject to criticism. We’re going to get insulted, threatened, precisely because we have chosen a different path,” he told a debriefing meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

In 1988, Tjibaou’s father, pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, also signed a historic deal (known as the Matignon-Oudinot accords) with pro-France’s Jacques Lafleur, under the auspices of then Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

The deal largely contributed to restoring peace in New Caledonia, after a quasi-civil war during the second half of the 1980s.

The following year, he and his deputy, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné, were both shot dead by Djubelly Wéa, a hard-line member of the pro-independence movement, who believed the signing of the 1988 deal had been a “betrayal” of the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for sovereignty and independence.

‘Nobody has betrayed anybody’
“Nobody has betrayed anybody, whichever party he belongs to. All of us, on both sides, have defended and remained faithful to their beliefs. We had to work and together find a common ground for the years to come, for Caledonians. Now that’s what we need to explain,” said pro-France Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach.

In an interview earlier this week, Valls said he was very aware of the local tensions.

“I’m aware there are risks, even serious ones. And not only political. There are threats on elections, on politicians, on the delegations. What I’m calling for is debate, confrontation of ideas and calm.

“I’m aware that there are extremists out there, who may want to provoke a civil war . . . a tragedy is always possible.

“The risk is always there. Since the accord was signed, there have been direct threats on New Caledonian leaders, pro-independence or anti-independence.

“We’re going to act to prevent this. There cannot be death threats on social networks against pro-independence or anti-independence leaders,” Valls said.

Over the past few days, special protection French police officers have already been deployed to New Caledonia to take care of politicians who took part in the Bougival talks and wish to be placed under special scrutiny.

“They will be more protected than (French cabinet) ministers,” French national public broadcaster France Inter reported on Tuesday.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australian-Lebanese journalist and commentator Antoinette Lattouf’s unfair dismissal case win against the public broadcaster ABC in the Federal Court on Wednesday is a victory for all those who seek to tell the truth.

It is a breath of fresh air, after almost two years of lies and uncritical reporting about Israel’s genocide from the ABC and commercial media companies.

Lattouf was unfairly sacked in December 2023 for posting on her social media a Human Rights Watch report that detailed Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

Justice Darryl Rangiah found that Lattouf had been sacked for her political opinions, given no opportunity to respond to misconduct allegations and that the ABC breached its Enterprise Agreement and section 772 of the Fair Work Act.

The Federal Court also found that ABC executives — then-chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, editor-in-chief David Anderson and board chair Ita Buttrose — had sacked Lattouf in response to a pro-Israel lobby pressure campaign.

The coordinated email campaign from Zionist groups accused Lattouf of being “antisemitic” for condemning Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The judge awarded Lattouf A$70,000 in damages, based on findings that her sacking caused “great distress”, and more than $1 million in legal fees.

‘No Lebanese’ claim
Lattouf had alleged that her race or ethnicity had played a part in her sacking, which the ABC had initially responded to by claiming there was no such thing as a “Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern Race”, before backtracking.

The court found that this did not play a part in the decision to sack Lattouf.

The ABC’s own reporting of the ruling said “the ABC has damaged its reputation, and public perceptions around its ideals, integrity and independence”.

Outside the court, Lattouf said: “It is now June 2025 and Palestinian children are still being starved. We see their images every day, emaciated, skeletal, scavenging through the rubble for scraps.

“This unspeakable suffering is not accidental, it is engineered. Deliberately starving and killing children is a war crime.

“Today, the court has found that punishing someone for sharing facts about these war crimes is also illegal. I was punished for my political opinion.”

Palestine solidarity groups and democratic rights supporters have celebrated Lattouf’s victory.

An ‘eternal shame’
Palestine Action Group Sydney said: “It is to the eternal shame of our national broadcaster that it sacked a journalist because she opposed the genocide in Gaza.

“There should be a full inquiry into the systematic pro-Israel bias at the ABC, which for 21 months has acted as a propaganda wing of the Israeli military.”

Racial justice organisation Democracy in Colour said the ruling “exposes the systematic silencing taking place in Australian media institutions in regards to Palestine”.

Democracy in Colour chairperson Jamal Hakim said Lattouf was punished for “speaking truth to power”.

“When the ABC capitulated to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby . . .  they didn’t just betray Antoinette — they betrayed their own editorial standards and the Australian public who deserve to know the truth about Israel’s human rights abuses.”

Noura Mansour, national director for Democracy in Colour, said the ABC had been “consistently shutting down valid criticism of the state of Israel” and suppressing the voices of people of colour and Palestinians. She said the national broadcaster had “worked to manufacture consent for the Israeli-US backed genocide”.

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Erin Madeley said: “Instead of defending its journalists, ABC management chose to appease powerful voices . . . they failed in their duty to push back against outside interference, racism and bullying.”

Win for ‘journalistic integrity’
Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters said the ruling was a win for “journalistic integrity and freedom of speech” and that “no one should be punished for speaking out about Gaza”.

Green Left editor Pip Hinman said the ruling was an “important victory for those who stand on the side of truth and justice”.

“It is more important than ever in an increasingly polarised world that journalists speak up and report the truth without fear of reprisal from the rich and powerful.

“Traditional and new media have the reach to shape public opinion. They have had a clear pro-Israel bias, despite international human rights agencies providing horrific data on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people around Australia continue to call for an end to the genocide in Gaza in protests every week. But the ABC and corporate media have largely ignored this movement of people from all walks of life. Disturbingly, the corporate media has gone along with some political leaders who claim this anti-war movement is antisemitic.

“As thousands continue to march every week for an end to the genocide in Gaza, the ABC and corporate media organisations have continued to push the lie that the Palestine solidarity movement, and indeed any criticism of Israel, is antisemitic.

“Green Left also hails those courageous mostly young journalists in Gaza, some 200 of whom have been killed by Israel since October 2023.

“Their livestreaming of Israel’s genocide cut through corporate media and political leaders’ lies and today makes it even harder for them to whitewash Israel’s crimes and Western complicity.

“Green Left congratulates Lattouf on her victory. We are proud to stand with the movement for justice and peace in Palestine, which played a part in her victory against the ABC management’s bias.”

Republished from Green Left Magazine with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

BEARING WITNESS: By Cole Martin in occupied Bethlehem

Kia ora koutou,

I’m a Kiwi journo in occupied Bethlehem, here’s a brief summary of today’s events across the Palestinian and Israeli territories from on the ground.

Israeli forces killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza over the last 48 hours, injuring over 1037. Countless more remain under the rubble and in unreachable zones. 450 killed seeking aid, 39 missing, and around 3500 injured at the joint US-Israeli humanitarian foundation “death traps”.

Forty one  killed by Israeli forces since dawn today, including three children in an attack east of Gaza City. Gaza’s Al-Quds brigades destroyed a military bulldozer in southern Gaza.

*

Settlers, protected by soldiers, violently attacked Palestinian residents near the southern village of Susiya last night, including children. The West Bank siege continues with Israeli occupation forces severely restricting movement between Palestinian towns and cities. Continued military/settler assaults across the occupied territories.

*

Iranian strikes targeted Ben Gurion airport and several military sites in the Israeli territories. Israeli regime discuss a 3.6 billion shekel defence budget increase.

*

400 killed and 3000 injured by Israel’s attacks on Iran, in the nine days since Israel’s aggression began. Iranian authorities have arrested dozens more linked to Israeli intelligence, and cut internet for the last three days to prevent internal drone attacks from agents within their territories.

Israeli strikes have targeted a wide range of sites; missile depots, nuclear facilities, residential areas, and reportedly six ambulances today.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Big Picture Podcast host, New Zealand-Egyptian journalist and author Mohamed Hassan, interviews Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst about the rapidly unfolding war between Israel and Iran, why the West supports it, and what it threatens to unleash on the global order.

What does Israel really want to achieve, what options does Iran have to deescalate, and will the United States stop the war, or join it as is being hinted?

Hearst says the war is “more dangerous than we imagine” and notes that while most Western leadership still backs Israel, there has been a strong shift in world public opinion against Tel Aviv.

He says Israel has lost most of the world’s support, most of the Global South, most African states, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia.

Hearst says the world is witnessing the “cynical tailend of the colonial era” among Western states.

The era of peace is over.             Video: Middle East Eye

Iran ‘unlikely to surrender’
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says Iran is unlikely to “surrender to American terms” and that there is a risk the war on Iran could “bring the entire region down”.

Vaez told Al Jazeera in an interview that US President Donald Trump “provided the green light for Israel to attack Iran” just two days before the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was due to meet with the Iranians in the Oman capital of Muscat.

Imagine viewing, from the Iranian perspective, Trump giving the go-ahead for the attack while at the same time saying that diplomacy with Tehran was still ongoing, Vaez said.

Now Trump “is asking for Iranian surrender” on his Truth Social platform, he said.

“I think the only thing that is more dangerous than suffering from Israeli and American bombs is actually surrendering to American terms,” Vaez said.

“Because if Iran surrenders on the nuclear issue and on the demands of President Trump, there is no end to the slippery slope, which would eventually result in regime collapse and capitulation anyway.”

pic.twitter.com/QcySkOWWGN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2025

Most Americans oppose US involvement
Meanwhile, a new survey has reported that most Americans oppose US military involvement in the conflict.

The survey by YouGov showed that some 60 percent of Americans surveyed thought the US military should not get involved in the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran.

Only 16 percent favoured US involvement, while 24 percent said they were not sure.

Among the Democrats, those who opposed US intervention were at 65 percent, and among the Republicans, it was 53 percent. Some 61 percent of independents opposed the move.

The survey also showed that half of Americans viewed Iran as an enemy of the US, while 25 percent said it was “unfriendly”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Taieri MP Ingrid Leary reflected on her years in Fiji as a television journalist and media educator at a Fiji Centre function in Auckland celebrating Fourth Estate values and independence at the weekend.

It was a reunion with former journalism professor David Robie — they had worked together as a team at the University of the South Pacific amid media and political controversy leading up to the George Speight coup in May 2000.

Leary, a former British Council executive director and lawyer, was the guest speaker at a gathering of human rights activists, development advocates, academics and journalists hosted at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub, the umbrella base for the Fiji Centre, Auckland Rotuman Fellowship, Asia Pacific Media Network and other groups.

She said she was delighted to meet “special people in David’s life” and to be speaking to a diverse group sharing “similar values of courage, freedom of expression, truth and tino rangatiratanga”.

“I want to start this talanoa on Friday, 19 May 2000 — 13 years almost to the day of the first recognised military coup in Fiji in 1987 — when failed businessman George Speight tore off his balaclava to reveal his identity.

She pointed out that there had actually been another “coup” 100 years earlier by Ratu Cakobau.

“Speight had seized Parliament holding the elected government at gunpoint, including the politician mother, Lavinia Padarath, of one of my best friends — Anna Padarath.

Hostage-taking report
“Within minutes, the news of the hostage-taking was flashed on Radio Fiji’s 10 am bulletin by a student journalist on secondment there — Tamani Nair. He was a student of David Robie’s.”

Nair had been dispatched to Parliament to find out what was happening and reported from a cassava patch.

“Fiji TV was trashed . . . and transmission pulled for 48 hours.

“The university shut down — including the student radio facilities, and journalism programme website — to avoid a similar fate, but the journalism school was able to keep broadcasting and publishing via a parallel website set up at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The pictures were harrowing, showing street protests turning violent and the barbaric behaviour of Speight’s henchmen towards dissenters.

“Thus began three months of heroic journalism by David’s student team — including through a period of martial law that began 10 days later and saw some of the most restrictive levels of censorship ever experienced in the South Pacific.”

Leary paid tribute to some of the “brave satire” produced by senior Fiji Times reporters filling the newspaper with “non-news” (such as about haircuts, drinking kava) as an act of defiance.

“My friend Anna Padarath returned from doing her masters in law in Australia on a scholarship to be closer to her Mum, whose hostage days within Parliament Grounds stretched into weeks and then months.

Invisible consequences
“Anna would never return to her studies — one of the many invisible consequences of this profoundly destructive era in Fiji’s complex history.

“Happily, she did go on to carve an incredible career as a women’s rights advocate.”

“Meanwhile David’s so-called ‘barefoot student journalists’ — who snuck into Parliament the back way by bushtrack — were having their stories read and broadcast globally.

“And those too shaken to even put their hands to keyboards on Day 1 emerged as journalism leaders who would go on to win prizes for their coverage.”

Speight was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned in 2024.

Leary said that was just one chapter in the remarkable career of David Robie who had been an editor, news director, foreign news editor and freelance writer with a number of different agencies and news organisations — including Agence France-Presse, Rand Daily Mail, The Auckland Star, Insight Magazine, and New Outlook Magazine — “a family member to some, friend to many, mentor to most”.

Reflecting on working with Dr Robie at USP, which she joined as television lecturer from Fiji Television, she said:

“At the time, being a younger person, I thought he was a little bit crazy, because he was communicating with people all around the world when digital media was in its infancy in Fiji, always on email, always getting up on online platforms, and I didn’t appreciate the power of online media at the time.

“And it was incredible to watch.”

Ahead of his time
She said he was an innovator and ahead of his time.

Dr Robie viewed journalism as a tool for empowerment, aiming to provide communities with the information they needed to make informed decisions.

“We all know that David has been a champion of social justice and for decolonisation, and for the values of an independent Fourth Estate.”

She said she appreciated the freedom to develop independent media as an educator, adding that one of her highlights was producing the groundbreaking 1999 documentary Maire about Maire Bopp Du Pont, who was a Tahitian student journalist at USP and advocate for the Pacific community living with HIV/AIDs.

She became a nuclear-free Pacific campaigner in Pape’ete and was also founding chief executive of  the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation (PIAF).

Leary presented Dr Robie with a “speaking stick” carved from an apricot tree branch by the husband of a Labour stalwart based in Cromwell — the event doubled as his 80th birthday.

In response, Dr Robie said the occasion was a “golden opportunity” to thank many people who had encouraged and supported him over many years.

Massive upheaval
“We must have done something right,” he said about USP, “because in 2000, the year of George Speight’s coup, our students covered the massive upheaval which made headlines around the world when Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour-led coalition government was held at gunpoint for 56 days.

“The students courageously covered the coup with their website Pacific Journalism Online and their newspaper Wansolwara — “One Ocean”.  They won six Ossie Awards – unprecedented for a single university — in Australia that year and a standing ovation.”

He said there was a video on YouTube of their exploits called Frontline Reporters and one of the students, Christine Gounder, wrote an article for a Commonwealth Press Union magazine entitled, “From trainees to professionals. And all it took was a coup”.

Dr Robie said this Fiji experience was still one of the most standout experiences he had had as a journalist and educator.

Along with similar coverage of the 1997 Sandline mercenary crisis by his students at the University of Papua New Guinea.

He made some comments about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior voyage to Rongelap in the Marshall islands and the subsequent bombing by French secret agents in Auckland.

But he added “you can read all about this adventure in my new book” being published in a few weeks.

Biggest 21st century crisis
Dr Robie said the profession of journalism, truth telling and holding power to account, was vitally important to a healthy democracy.

Although media did not succeed in telling people what to think, it did play a vital role in what to think about. However, the media world was undergoing massive change and fragmentation.

“And public trust is declining in the face of fake news and disinformation,” he said

“I think we are at a crossroads in society, both locally and globally. Both journalism and democracy are under an unprecedented threat in my lifetime.

“When more than 230 journalists can be killed in 19 months in Gaza and there is barely a bleep from the global community, there is something savagely wrong.

“The Gazan journalists won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize collectively last year with the judges saying, “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”

“The carnage and genocide in Gaza is deeply disturbing, especially the failure of the world to act decisively to stop it. The fact that Israel can kill with impunity at least 54,000 people, mostly women and children, destroy hospitals and starve people to death and crush a people’s right to live is deeply shocking.

“This is the biggest crisis of the 21st century. We see this relentless slaughter go on livestreamed day after day and yet our media and politicians behave as if this is just ‘normal’. It is shameful, horrendous. Have we lost our humanity?

“Gaza has been our test. And we have failed.”

Dr Robie praised the support of his wife, social justice activist Del Abcede, and family members.

Other speakers included Whānau Hub co-founder Nik Naidu, one of the anti-coup Coalition for Democracy in Fiji (CDF) stalwarts; the Heritage New Zealand’s Antony Phillips; and Multimedia Investments and Evening Report director Selwyn Manning.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz