The Singapore cargo ship Dali chartered by Maersk, which collapsed the Baltimore bridge in the United States last month, was carrying 764 tonnes of hazardous materials to Sri Lanka, reports Colombo’s Daily Mirror.

The materials were mostly corrosives, flammables, miscellaneous hazardous materials, and Class-9 hazardous materials — including explosives and lithium-ion batteries — in 56 containers.

According to the Mirror, the US National Transportation Safety Board was still “analysing the ship’s manifest to determine what was onboard” in its other 4644 containers when the ship collided with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it, on March 26.

The e-Con e-News (ee) news agency reports that prior to Baltimore, the Dali had called at New York and Norfolk, Virginia, which has the world’s largest naval base.

Colombo was to be its next scheduled call, going around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, taking 27 days.

According to ee, Denmark’s Maersk, transporter for the US Department of War, is integral to US military logistics, carrying up to 20 percent of the world’s merchandise trade annually on a fleet of about 600 vessels, including some of the world’s largest ships.

The US Department of Homeland Security has also now deemed the waters near the crash site as “unsafe for divers”.

13 damaged containers
An “unclassified memo” from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said a US Coast Guard team was examining 13 damaged containers, “some with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and/or hazardous materials [HAZMAT] contents.

The team was also analysing the ship’s manifest to determine if any materials could “pose a health risk”.

CISA officials are also monitoring about 6.8 million litres of fuel inside the Dali for its “spill potential”.

Where exactly the toxic materials and fuel were destined for in Sri Lanka was not being reported.

Also, it is a rather long way for such Hazmat, let alone fuel, to be exported, “at least given all the media blather about ‘carbon footprint’, ‘green sustainability’ and so on”, said the Daily Mirror.

“We can expect only squeaky silence from the usual eco-freaks, who are heavily funded by the US and EU,” the newspaper commented.

“It also adds to the intrigue of how Sri Lanka was so easily blocked in 2022 from receiving more neighbourly fuel, which led to the present ‘regime change’ machinations.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election in Aotearoa New Zealand, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.

He says the levels of vitriol and conspiratorial discourse this past week or two are worse than anything he has seen during the past two years of the pandemic — including during the Parliament protest — but he is not aware of any public work to counteract it.

“There is no policy, there’s no framework, there’s no real regulatory mechanism, there’s no best practice, and there’s no legal oversight,” Dr Hattotuwa told RNZ News.

He says urgent action should be taken, and could include legislation, community-based initiatives, or a stronger focus on the recommendations of the 15 March 2019 mosque attacks inquiry.

Highest levels of disinformation, conspiratorialism seen yet
Dr Hattotuwa said details of the project’s analysis of violence and content from the past week — centred on the visit by British activist Posie Parker — were so confronting he could not share it.

“I don’t want to alarm listeners, but I think that the Disinformation Project — with evidence and in a sober reflection and analysis of what we are looking at — the honest assessment is not something that I can quite share, because the BSA (Broadcasting Standards Authority) guidelines won’t allow it.

“The fear is very much … particularly speaking as a Sri Lankan who has come from and studied for doctoral research offline consequences of online harm, that I’m seeing now in Aotearoa New Zealand what I studied and I thought I had left behind back in Sri Lanka.”

The new levels of vitriol were unlike anything seen since the project’s daily study began in 2021, and included a rise in targeting of politicians specifically by far-right and neo-Nazi groups, he said.

But — as the SIS noted in its latest report this week — the lines were becoming increasingly blurred between those more ideologically motivated groups, and the newer ones using disinformation and targeting authorities and government.

“You know, distinction without a difference,” he said. “The Disinformation Project is not in the business of looking at the far right and neo-Nazis — that’s a specialised domain that we don’t consider ourselves to be experts in — what we do is to look at disinformation.

“Now to find that you have neo-Nazis, the far-right, anti-semitic signatures — content, presentations and engagement — that colours that discourse is profoundly worrying because you would want to have a really clear distinction.

No Telegram ‘guardrail’
“There is no guardrail on Telegram against any of this, it’s one click away. And so there’s a whole range of worries and concerns we have … because we can’t easily delineate anymore between what would have earlier been very easy categorisation.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she had been subjected to increasing levels of abuse in recent weeks with a particular far-right flavour.

“The online stuff is particularly worrying but no matter who it’s directed towards we’ve got to remember that can also branch out into actual violence if we don’t keep a handle on it,” she said.

“Strong community connection in real life is what holds off the far-right extremism that we’ve seen around the world … we also want the election to be run where every politician takes responsibility for a humane election dialogue that focuses on the issues, that doesn’t drum up extra hate towards any other politician or any other candidate.”

Limited protection as election nears
Dr Hattotuwa said it was particularly worrying considering the lack of tools in New Zealand to deal with disinformation and conspiratorialism.

“Every institutional mechanism and framework that was established during the pandemic to deal with disinformation has now been dissolved. There is nothing that I know in the public domain of what the government is doing with regards to disinformation,” Dr Hattotuwa said.

“The government is on the backfoot in an election year — I can understand in terms of realpolitik, but there is no investment.”

He believed the problem would only get worse as the election neared.

“The anger, the antagonism is driven by a distrust in government that is going to be instrumentalised to ever greater degrees in the future, around public consultative processing, referenda and electoral moments.

“The worry and the fear is, as has been noted by the Green Party, that the election campaigning is not going to be like anything that the country has ever experienced … that there will be offline consequences because of the online instigation and incitement.

“It’s really going to give pause to, I hope, the way that parties consider their campaign. Because the worry is — in a high trust society in New Zealand — you kind of have the expectation that you can go out and meet the constituency … I know that many others are thinking that this is now not something that you can take for granted.”

Possible countermeasures
Dr Hattotuwa said countermeasures could include legislation, security-sector reform, community-based action, or a stronger focus on implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques.

“There are a lot of recommendations in the RCOI that, you know, are being just cosmetically dealt with. And there are a lot of things that are not even on the government’s radar. So there’s a whole spectrum of issues there that I think really call for meaningful conversations and investment where it’s needed.”

National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said the party did not have any specific campaign preparations under way in relation to disinformation, but would be willing to work with the government on measures to counteract it.

“If the goverment thinks we should be taking them then we’d be happy to sit down and have a conversation about it,” he said.

“Obviously we condemn violent rhetoric and very sadly MPs and candidates in the past few years have been subject to more of that including threats made to their physical wellbeing and we condemn that and we want to try to avoid that as much as possible.”

Labour’s campaign chair Megan Woods did not respond to requests for comment.

Ardern’s rhetoric not translating to policy
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke during her valedictory farewell speech in Parliament on Wednesday about the loss of the ability to “engage in good robust debates and land on our respective positions relatively respectfully”.

“While there were a myriad of reasons, one was because so much of the information swirling around was false. I could physically see how entrenched it was for some people.”

Ardern is set to take up an unpaid role at the Christchurch Call, which was set up after the terror attacks and has a focus on targeting online proliferation of dis- and mis-information and the spread of hateful rhetoric.

Dr Hattotuwa said Ardern had led the world in her own rhetoric around the problem, but real action now needed to be taken.

“Let me be very clear, PM Ardern was a global leader in articulating the harm that disinformation has on democracy — at NATO, at Harvard, and then at the UN last year. There has been no translation into policy around that which she articulated publicly, so I think that needs to occur.

“I mean, when people say that they’re going to go and vent their frustration it might mean with a placard, it might mean with a gun.”

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

Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.https://t.co/LUVAbALjGD

— RNZ (@radionz) April 8, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Since the attacks on the United States by 15 Saudi Arabian Islamic fanatics on 11 September  2001 — now known as 9/11 —  the world has been divided by a “war on terror” with any protest group defined as “terrorists”.

New anti-terror laws have been introduced both in the West and elsewhere in the past 20 years and used extensively to suppress such movements in the name of “national security”.

It is interesting to note that the 9/11 attacks came at a time when a huge “global justice” movement was building up across the world against the injustices of globalisation.

Using the internet as the medium of mobilisation, they gathered in Seattle in 1999 and were successful in closing down the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting.

They opposed what they saw as large multinational corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets, facilitated by governments.

Their main targets were the WTO, International Monetary Fund (IMF), OECD, World Bank, and international trade agreements.

The movement brought “civil society” people from the North and the South together under common goals.

Poorest country debts
In parallel, the “Jubilee 2000” international movement led by liberal Christian and Catholic churches called for the cancellation of US$90 billion of debts owed by the world’s poorest nations to banks and governments in the West.

Along with the churches, youth groups, music, and entertainment industry groups were involved. The 9/11 attacks killed these movements as “national security” took precedence over “freedom to dissent”.

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, a former vice-president of the UN Human Rights Council and a Sri Lankan political scientist, notes that when “capitalism turned neoliberal and went on the rampage” after the demise of the Soviet Union, resistance started to develop with the rise of the Zapatistas in Chiapas (Mexico) against NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and culminating in the 1999 Seattle protests using a term coined by Cuban leader Fidel Castro “another world is possible”.

“All that came crashing down with the Twin Towers,” he notes. “With 9/11 the Islamic Jihadist opposition to the USA (and the war on terror) cut across and buried the progressive resistance we saw emerging in Chiapas and Seattle.”

Geoffrey Robertson QC, a British human rights campaigner and TV personality, warns: “9/11 panicked us into the ‘war on terror’ using lethal weapons of questionable legality which inspired more terrorists.

“Twenty years on, those same adversaries are back and we now have a fear of US perfidy—over Taiwan or ANZUS or whatever. There will be many consequences.”

But, he sees some silver lining that has come out of this “war on terror”.

Targeted sanctions
“One reasonably successful tactic developed in the war on terror was to use targeted sanctions on its sponsors. This has been developed by so-called ‘Magnitsky acts’, enabling the targeting of human rights abusers—31 democracies now have them and Australia will shortly be the 32nd.

“I foresee their coordination as part of the fightback—a war not on terror but state cruelty,” he told In-Depth News.

When asked about the US’s humiliation in Afghanistan, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, founder of the International Movement for a Just World told IDN that the West needed to understand that they too needed to stop funding terror to achieve their own agendas.

“The ‘war on terror’ was doomed to failure from the outset because those who initiated the war were not prepared to admit that it was their occupation and oppression that compelled others to retaliate through acts of terror.” he argues.

“Popular antagonism towards the occupiers was one of the main reasons for the humiliating defeat of the US and NATO in Afghanistan,” he added.

Looking at Western attempts to introduce democracy under the pretext of “war on terror” and the chaos created by the “Arab Spring”, a youth movement driven by Western-funded NGOs, Iranian-born Australian Farzin Yekta, who worked in Lebanon for 15 years as a community multimedia worker, argues that the Arab region needs a different democracy.

“In the Middle East, the nations should aspire to a system based on social justice rather than the Western democratic model. Corrupt political and economic apparatus, external interference and dysfunctional infrastructure are the main obstacles for moving towards establishing a system based on social justice,” he says, adding that there are signs of growing social movements being revived in the region while “resisting all kinds of attacks”.

Palestinian refugee lessons
Yekta told IDN that while working with Palestinian refugee groups in Lebanon he had seen how peoples’ movements could be undermined by so-called “civil society” NGOs.

“Alternative social movements are infested by ‘civil society’ institutions comprising primarily NGO institutions.

“‘Civil society’ is effective leverage for the establishment and foreign (Western) interference to pacify radical social movements. Social movements find themselves in a web of funded entities which push for ‘agendas’ drawn by funding buddies,” noted Yekta.

Looking at the failure of Western forces in Afghanistan, he argues that what they did by building up “civil society” was encouraging corruption and cronyism that is entangled in ethnic and tribal structures of society.

“The Western nation-building plan was limited to setting up a glasshouse pseudo-democratic space in the green zone part of Kabul.

“One just needed to go to the countryside to confront the utter poverty and lack of infrastructure,” Yekta notes.

”We need to understand that people’s struggle is occurring at places with poor or no infrastructure.”

Social movements reviving
Dr Jayatilleka also sees positive signs of social movements beginning to raise their heads after two decades of repression.

“Black Lives Matter drew in perhaps more young whites than blacks and constituted the largest ever protest movement in history. The globalised solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza, including large demonstrations in US cities, is further evidence.

“In Latin America, the left-populist Pink Tide 2.0 began with the victory of Lopez Obrador in Mexico and has produced the victory of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

“The slogan of justice, both individual and social, is more globalised, more universalised today, than ever before in my lifetime,” he told IDN.

There may be ample issues for peoples’ movements to take up with TPP (Transpacific Partnership) and RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) trade agreements coming into force in Asia where companies would be able to sue governments if their social policies infringe on company profits.

But Dr Jayatilleka is less optimistic of social movements rising in Asia.

Asian social inequities
“Sadly, the social justice movement is considerably more complicated in Asia than elsewhere, though one would have assumed that given the social inequities in Asian societies, the struggle for social justice would be a torrent. It is not,” he argues.

“The brightest recent spark in Asia, according to Dr Jayatilleka, was the rise of the Nepali Communist Party to power through the ballot box after a protracted peoples’ war, but ‘sectarianism’ has led to the subsiding of what was the brightest hope for the social justice movement in Asia.”

Robertson feels that the time is ripe for the social movements suppressed by post 9/11 anti-terror laws to be reincarnated in a different life.

“The broader demand for social justice will revive, initially behind the imperative of dealing with climate change but then with tax havens, the power of multinationals, and the obscene inequalities in the world’s wealth.

“So, I do not despair of social justice momentum in the future,” he says.

Republished under Creative Commons partnership with IDN – In-Depth News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In this week’s security podcast, Dr Paul G. Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss:

• three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-style attacks;
• legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves;
• and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attack that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attack occurred last Friday, 3 September 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Samsudeen, who was fatally shot by special tactics police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Refugee who sought asylum
Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought political asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by Islamic State (ISIS), and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Dr Buchanan and Manning examine questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and considered New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• The Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Dr Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

Republished in partnership with EveningReport.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s Department of Corrections has revealed more details about the LynnMall terrorist’s violent behaviour while he was remanded in prison.

Thirty-two-year-old Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen was shot dead by police after stabbing six people inside Countdown LynnMall in West Auckland.

He had spent almost three years on remand in prison and at the time of the attack had only been out for seven weeks.

He had been living at Masjid-e-Bilal in the Auckland suburb of Glen Eden.

The Department of Correction’s National Commissioner Rachel Leota said that while in prison Samsudeen was “non-compliant, with multiple incidents of threats and abuse toward staff”.

This included numerous times when he threw urine and faeces at staff as well as threatening violence and assaulting them.

In one instance at Mt Eden Prison, Corrections said he was unlocked for exercise but began arguing with staff and his behaviour escalated and he hit two officers.

Behaviour escalated again
“When being moved to the management unit his behaviour became escalated again, with threats made toward staff. He then assaulted staff again before force was used and he was secured in a cell in the management unit,” Leota said.

For his last year behind bars Samsudeen was moved to the maximum security Auckland Prison with oversight from the Persons of Extreme Risk Directorate.

This is the same unit set up to manage Christchurch mosque attacker Brenton Tarrant.

The directorate looks after offenders identified as presenting an extreme and ongoing risk of serious harm and/ or having the capability and intent to seriously threaten the safety of prisons and the community.

Because Corrections identified Samsudeen as having “potentially violent extremist views” it got advice from the Countering Violent Extremism forum as to how to best support and rehabilitate the prisoner.

“Attempts were made to provide him with mental health support while he was in prison, however, he refused to engage. He also refused to meet with a Corrections psychologist while in prison.”

The Countering Violent Extremism forum and Corrections then decided to contact the local Muslim community.

Did not engage
The department wanted him to meet with an imam and talk about his spiritual beliefs. This happened twice, but Corrections said he did not engage in a meaningful way.

Prior to Samsudeen’s release from prison the department, police and partner agencies created a plan to keep the community and staff safe from the extreme risk that his violent extremist ideology presented – this included where he might live on release.

The terrorist told Corrections he did not have family, friends or support people able to assist him and would require help, but that he had previously lived at a mosque, although was unwilling to consider it again.

Public housing was not available because of the current demand and Samsudeen eventually said he would consider a mosque.

Leota said Corrections met with police and the Masjid-e-Bilal manager who was told the context around his charges, his risk profile and the conditions he would have when released into the community.

The mosque’s manager told Corrections he would consider it, but wanted to meet Samsudeen first.

The pair met while he was in prison and the address was approved.

Regular communication
During the seven weeks Samsudeen was in the community, Corrections said it had regular communication with the manager at Masjid-e-Bilal and his lawyer.

The department had also started an application to the High Court for strengthened restrictions due to concerns about his escalating risk.

It also looked at charging him for the lack of engagement with both a private and Corrections psychologist, but was told it was not sufficient enough to be considered a breach of his conditions.

Leota said she was confident that Community Corrections staff were using every lawful avenue available to monitor, assess, mitigate, and manage his risk.

“He was a very, very difficult person to manage, and was increasingly openly hostile and abusive toward probation staff.

“Despite this, staff continued to work hard to engage him in his sentence, and attempt to have him participate in treatment and activities aimed at reducing his risk of violence, which he consistently refused.”

Leota said she believed Community Corrections’ contact with him exceeded the minimum level for someone subject to supervision and staff worked exceptionally hard to prevent the potential for serious harm to be caused by this person.

“They, and all of us, will always ask what more could have been done to prevent the horrific offending that occurred on Friday,” Leota said.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An Australian criminologist who deemed the New Zealand shopping mall attacker “low risk” in 2018 believes there were missed opportunities to steer him away from violent extremism.

Ahamed Samsudeen was described as a high risk to the community when he was sentenced in July for possessing Islamic State propaganda — with the means and motivation to commit violent acts.

However, three years earlier, Australian National University criminologist Dr Clarke Jones told the High Court Ahamed did not appear to be violent and did not fit the profile of a young Muslim person who had been radicalised.

At the time Dr Jones suggested “a carefully designed, culturally sensitive and closely supervised intervention programme in the Auckland Muslim community”.

Now, he said, it was unclear how much rehabilitation actually took place.

“People can change, sometimes quickly, sometimes over a longer period of time. But back in 2018, we didn’t think that he was violent,” he explained.

At the time Samsudeen appeared to feel marginalised and disconnected, Dr Clarke said, like he couldn’t “get his foot up” in society.

‘Rigid life views’
“Some of the material he was reading was of concern and he had fairly rigid views around religion and around life in general. But he’d also had some experience in difficult times and was, I would argue, deeply depressed.”

On Friday, Samsudeen walked into a Countdown supermarket in LynnMall, picked up a knife and stabbed at least shoppers, leaving some of them critically injured, before he was shot dead by tactical force police tailing him.

In the High Court in July, Samsudeen had admitted two charges of using a document for pecuniary advantage, two charges of knowingly distributing restricted material and one charge of failing to assist the police in their exercise of a search power.

Another expert was consulted — forensic psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Skipworth — who echoed Dr Clarke’ concerns.

“Dr Skipworth said that any form of home detention would tend to further exacerbate your mental health concerns, and that your successful community reintegration is likely to be assisted by cornerstones, such as stable housing, personal support, appropriate employment and medical care,” reads Justice Wylie’s sentencing notes.

Justice Wylie imposed a sentence of supervision, with special conditions, including a psychological assessment and a rehabilitation programme with a service called Just Community.

Dr Jones said he really would like to know more about what support Samsudeen was actually given in Corrections.

‘Was he responsive?’
“Was he responsive to that treatment, if he was receiving any treatment at all, or was the focus more on on the security side and the monitoring and the surveillance?”

Asked if the terrorist had enough support to “get better”, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said there had been attempts to change the man’s mind — and none of them were successful.

But in a family statement released after the attack, Samsudeen’s brother said he sometimes listened.

“He would hang up the phone on us when we told him to forget about all of the issues he was obsessed with. Then he would call us back again himself when he realised he was wrong.

“Aathil was wrong again [on Friday]. Of course we feel very sad that he could not be saved. The prisons and the situation was hard on him and he did not have any support. He told us he was assaulted there.”

Dr Clarke said, “I would say that we haven’t got the balance right. In this case there was too much focus on the counter-terrorism or counter violent extremism narrative, rather than actually getting to the core of what was wrong with Mr Samsudeen.”

“We can always improve the way we do things to have have greater preventative sort of mechanisms within government, police and communities.”

Dr Clarke said what happened in LynnMall was a tragedy and a terrible situation.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Name suppression for the man responsible for yesterday’s New Zealand terror attack at a west Auckland supermarket has been revoked, but his name cannot be published yet.

The High Court has given his family who live overseas at least 24 hours to seek further suppression orders.

The Sri Lankan national was shot dead by police after stabbing six people inside Countdown in LynnMall.

Suppression orders prevented details about his identity and background from being made public.

The government filed an urgent application last night to have the court orders lifted, so details about the man’s identity and background could be made public.

In a judgment last night, Justice Wylie said there was no longer any proper basis for the suppression orders.

But he said the man’s family live overseas and lawyers needed time to contact them to take instructions.

He said he could consider extending the 24-hour period if needed.

Isis propaganda
However, it can be revealed the man was sentenced in July to one year of supervision after he was found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Auckland of two charges of possessing Isis propaganda that promoted terrorism.

He was found guilty of another charge of failing to comply with a search, but he was acquitted of a third charge of possession of objectionable material and a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.

The state had sought to charge him under the Terrorism Suppression Act, but failed after a High Court judge ruled that planning a terror attack was not an offence under the law.

Because he had already spent three years in custody awaiting trial, he did not receive a further prison term for his offending.

Despite that, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said he had been under surveillance since 2016, because of his support for a violent ideology inspired by Islamic State.

The man was being so closely monitored by a surveillance and tactical team that police shot him within 60 seconds of the attack starting.

On the radar of authorities
He arrived in New Zealand in October 2011.

He first came to the attention of authorities in 2016, when police formally warned him about posting anti-Western, pro-Isis, extremist content on the internet.

The man had also at some point told a worshipper at an Auckland mosque that he wanted to go to Syria to fight for Isis.

In a July 2020 judgment, Justice Downs said in May 2017, he had booked a one-way flight to Singapore but was arrested at Auckland Airport.

When police searched his apartment, they found a large hunting knife under the mattress on the floor and secure digital cards containing fundamentalist material, including propaganda videos and photos of the man posing with a firearm.

He was remanded in custody and in June 2018, he pleaded guilty to distributing restricted publications. In August 2018, he was sentenced to supervision, Justice Downs’ 2020 judgment said.

But the day after his sentencing, he went and bought the same model of hunting knife that police had earlier found under his mattress.

Arrested again
He was arrested again and another search found a large he had a large amount of violent Isis material, including one video about how to kill “non-Muslims”.

This time, the state sought to charge the man under the Terrorism Suppression Act, for planning a terrorist act.

But Justice Downs said that in itself was not an offence under the law.

In his decision, Justice Downs said: “Terrorism is a great evil. ‘Lone wolf’ terrorist attacks with knives and other makeshift weapons, such as cars or trucks, are far from unheard of.

“Recent events in Christchurch demonstrate New Zealand should not be complacent. Some among us are prepared to use lethal violence for ideological, political or religious causes.

“The absence of an offence of planning or preparing a terrorist act … could be an Achilles heel.”

Justice Downs said it was not for the courts to create such an offence.

“The issue is for Parliament,” he said.

A copy of Justice Downs’ judgment was provided to the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Law Commission.

High Court trial
The man finally stood trial in the High Court at Auckland in May this year, on lesser charges.

A jury found him guilty of two charges of possessing Isis propaganda that promoted terrorism and one charge of failing to comply with a search.

He was acquitted of a third charge of possessing objectionable material and a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.

The man was sentenced in July.

In her sentencing notes, Justice Fitzgerald said the two publications on which he was found guilty were “nasheeds” – religious hymns.

Both were classified by the Censor as objectionable and contained Isis imagery and lyrics.

Justice Fitzgerald did not accept the explanation that he was listening to them to improve his Arabic language skills.

“Rather, I accept that the broader context to your possession of these nasheeds, which included a range of other materials relating to Isis or Isil, suggests that you have an operative interest in Isis.

“In other words, I do not accept that you might have simply stumbled across these and other Isis-related materials in your research of Islam or the historic Islamic State,” she said.

Report raised further flags
A pre-sentencing report raised further flags.

“The report writer suggests that you support the goals and methods of Isis,” Justice Fitzgerald said.

“The report writer concludes that the risk of you reoffending in a similar way to the present charges is high.

“It suggests that you have the means and motivation to commit violent acts in the community and, despite not having violently offended to date, as posing a very high risk of harm to others.”

Given he had already spent three years in custody awaiting trial, the man was sentenced to one-year supervision.

There were restrictions on his use of electronic devices, the internet and social media.

“The Police and Community Corrections clearly have concerns that you pose a not insignificant risk to the broader community,” Justice Fitzgerald said in her sentencing notes.

“I do not know whether those concerns are right and I sincerely hope that they are not, though having regard to all of the materials available to the court, I can say that they are not wholly fanciful.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says an attack at Auckland’s New Lynn Countdown supermarket today was a terrorist attack carried out by a violent extremist.

The prime minister and Police Commissioner Andrew Coster addressed media after the man was shot dead at a west Auckland mall this afternoon.

It is understood six people – all shoppers at the mall – have been wounded in the incident at LynnMall in New Lynn.

A St John Ambulance spokesperson said three patients in a critical condition and one patient in a serious condition had been taken to Auckland City Hospital; one patient in a moderate condition had been taken to Waitakere hospital; and one patient in a moderate condition had been taken to Middlemore Hospital.

Ardern revealed the terrorist was a Sri Lankan national who had arrived in New Zealand in October 2011 and he became a person of national security interest from 2016.

The reasons he was known to agencies was subject to suppression orders, but Ardern said it was her view that it was in the public interest to share as much information as possible.

The prime minister did say the terrorist held a violent ideology inspired by the Islamic State, but it would be wrong to direct any frustration at anyone other than this individual.

Personally aware
She said she was personally aware of the terrorist before today’s attack.

Ardern said it was a senseless attack and she was sorry it had happened.

“What happened today was despicable. It was carried out by an individual.”

Ardern said the individual was under constant monitoring, and he was shot and killed within 60 seconds of the attack starting.

The police team who was monitoring shot and killed him.

Commissioner Coster said the man had been under heavy surveillance because of concerns about his ideology.

He had entered the store and obtained a knife from within the store before starting the attack.

When the man approached police with the knife he was shot and killed.

Surveillance teams ‘close’
Coster said the surveillance teams were “as close as they possibly could be without compromising the surveillance”.

“I acknowledge that this situation raises questions about whether police could have done more, whether police could have intervened more quickly. I’m satisfied based on the information available to me that the staff involved did not only what we expect they would do in this situation, but did it with great courage,” he said.

“The reality is, that when you are surveilling someone on a 24/7 basis, it is not possible to be immediately next to them at all times. The staff intervened as quickly as they could and they prevented further injury in what was a terrifying situation,” Coster said.

Ardern said all legal and surveillance power had been used to try to keep people safe from this individual.

“What I can say is that we have utilised every legal and surveillance power available to us to try and keep people safe from this individual. Many agencies and people were involved and all were motivated by the same thing – trying to keep people safe.”

Coster said there had been nothing that would tell police the extent of his intentions, or that he intended to do this today.

He said the individual was very surveillance-conscious, and surveillance teams needed to maintain a distance to be effective.

intervened ‘in 60 seconds’
“There was nothing to prevent him being in the community and we were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly — in roughly 60 seconds — shows just how closely we were watching him.”

Ardern said the local Muslim community had been “nothing but helpful and supportive. It would be wrong to direct any frustration to anyone beyond this individual. That is who is culpable, that is who is responsible — no one else”.

She said his past behaviour and action did not reach the threshold to have him in in prison, which was why he was being constantly monitored.

An eyewitness told RNZ she had seen a man running around armed with a knife and heard many people screaming.

Another shopper who was in the supermarket at the time heard someone scream before shoppers started running towards the door.

Heavily armed police and ambulances remain at the scene.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

While the covid-19 pandemic’s relentless cyclone continues across the globe wreaking havoc on economies and social systems, this book sheds light on the adversarial reporting culture of the media, and how it impacts on racism and politicisation driving the coverage.

It explores the global response to the covid-19 pandemic, and the role of national and international media, and governments, in the initial coverage of the developing crisis.

With specific chapters written mostly by scholars living in these countries, Covid-19, Racism and Politicization: Media in the Midst of a Pandemic examines how the media in Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the United States have responded to the pandemic, and highlights issues specific to these countries, such as racism, Sinophobia, media bias, stigmatisation of victims and conspiracy theories.

This book explores how the covid-19 coverage developed over the year 2020, with special focus given to the first six months of the year when the reporting trends were established.

The introductory chapter points out that the media deserve scrutiny for their role in the day-to-day coverage that often focused on adversarial issues and not on solutions to help address the biggest global health crisis the world has seen for more than a century.

In chapter 2, co-editor Dr Kalinga Seneviratne, former head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) takes a comprehensive look at how the blame game developed in the international media with a heavy dose of Sinophobia, and how between March and June 2020 a global propaganda war developed.

He documents how conspiracy theories from both the US and China developed after the virus started spreading in the US and points out some interesting episodes that happened in the US in 2019 that may have vital relevance for the investigation of the origins of the virus.

Attacks on WHO
The attacks on the World Health Organisation (WHO), particularly by the former Trump administration, are well documented with a timeline of how WHO worked on investigating the virus in its early stages with information provided from China.

The chapter also discusses the racism that underpinned the propaganda war, especially from the West, which led to the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s controversial call for an “independent” inquiry into the origins of the pandemic that riled China.

“The covid-19 pandemic has exposed the inadequacies and inequalities of the globalised world. In an information-saturated society, it has also laid bare many political economy issues especially credibility of news, dangers of misinformation, problems of politicisation, lack of media literacy, and misdirected government policy priorities,” argues co-editor Sundeep Muppidi, professor of communications at the University of Hartford in the US.

“This book explores the implications of some of these issues, and the government response, in different societies around the world in the initial periods of the pandemic.”

In chapter 3, Muppidi examines specifically the US media coverage of covid-19 and he explores the “othering” of the blame related to failures and non-performances from politicians, governments and media networks themselves.

Yun Xiao and Radika Mittal, writing about a study they have done on the coverage in The New York Times during the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, argue that unsubstantiated criticism of governance measures, lack of nuance and absence of alternative narratives is indicative of a media ideology that strengthens and embeds the process of “othering”.

Ankuran Dutta and Anupa Goswani from Gauhati University in Assam, India, analyse the coverage of the covid-19 crisis in five Indian newspapers using 10 key words. They argue that the Indian media coverage could be seen as what constitutes “Sinophobia” with some mainstream media even calling it the “Wuhan Virus”.

Historical background
They trace the historical background to India’s anti-China nationalism, and show how it has been reflected in the covid-19 coverage, especially after India became one of the world’s hotspots.

“This Sinophobia hasn’t much impacted on the government policy; rather it has tightened its nationalist sentiments promoting Indian vaccines over the Chinese.” They say the Indian media’s Sinophobia has abated after the delta variant hit India.

“The narrative concerning covid-19 has taken a sharp turn bringing out the loopholes of the government’s inability to sustain its vigilance against the virus,” he notes, adding, ‘considering the global phobia concerning the delta variant put India in a tight spot and India has to defend itself from its newfound identity of being the primary source of this seemingly untameable variant.”

Zhang Xiaoying from the Beijing Foreign Studies University and Martin Albrow from the University of Wales explain what they call the “Moral Foundation of the Cooperative Spirit” in chapter 4.

Drawing on Chinese philosophical traditions—Confucianism, Daoism and Mohism—they argue that the “cooperative spirit” enshrined in these philosophies is reflected in the Chinese media’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages. Taking examples from the Chinese media—Xinhua, China Daily, Global Times and CGTN—they emphasise that the Chinese media has promoted international cooperation rather than indulge in blame games or politicising the issue.

This chapter provides a good insight into Chinese thinking when it comes to journalism.

Chapters on Sri Lanka and New Zealand examine how positive coverage in the local media of the governments’ initially successful handling of the covid-19 pandemic has contributed to emphatic election victories for the ruling parties.

Hit on NZ media industry
David Robie, founding director of Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, explains in his chapter how New Zealand’s magazine sector was devastated by the pandemic lockdowns and economic downturn, although enterprising buy-outs and start-ups contributed to a recovery.

He points out that a year later, in April 2021, Media Minister Kris Faafoi, himself a former journalist, announced a NZ$50 million plan to help the media industry deal with its huge drop in income, because, as he says, Facebook and Google were instrumental in drawing advertising revenue away from local media players.

The chapter from Bangladesh offers a depressing picture of the social issues that came up as the virus spread, such as the stigmatisation and rejection of returning migrant worker who have for years provided for families back home, and how old people were abandoned by their families when they were suspected of having contacted the virus.

The chapter gives a clear illustration of how the adversarial reporting culture of the media impacts negatively on the community and its social fabrics.

But, the chapter’s author, Shameem Reza, communications lecturer at Dhaka University, says that when the second outbreak started in March 2021, he observed a shift in the media coverage of covid-19 pandemic.

Now, the stories are more about harassment and discrimination, such as migrant workers facing hurdles to access vaccine; uncertainty over confirming air tickets and flights for their return; and facing risk of losing jobs and becoming unemployed. Thus, now the media coverage particularly includes ordinary peoples’ suffering.

Reza believes that the initial stigmatisation of victims, had influenced social media coverage of harassment, and “changed agendas in the public sphere”.

Lack of skills, knowledge
The authors argue in the chapter on the Philippines that the covid-19 coverage exposed the “lack of skills and knowledge in reporting on health issues”. Said a senior newspaper editor, “in the past, whenever there were training opportunities on science or health reporting, we’d send the young reporters to give them the chance to go out of the newsroom. Now we know we should have sent editors and senior reporters.”

In the concluding chapter, Seneviratne and Muppidi discuss various social and economic issues that should be the focus of the coverage as the world recovers from the covid-19 pandemic that reflects the inequalities around the world. These include not only vaccine rollouts, but also the vulnerability of migrant labour and their rights, the plight of casual labour in the so-called “gig economy”, priority for investments on health services, the power of Big Tech and many others.

This book is an attempt to raise the voices of the “Global South” in discussing the media’s role in the coverage of the covid-19 crisis, explain Seneviratne and Muppidi, pointing out that there cannot be a return to the “normal” when that is full of inequalities that have been exposed by the pandemic.

“There are many issues that the media should be mindful of in reporting the inevitable recovery from the covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and beyond.”

Krishan Dutta is a freelance journalist writing for IDN – News (In-Depth News). An earlier version of this review was first published by IDN-News under the title “New book explores how adversarial reporting culture drives politicised covid-19 coverage and this version is republished from Pacific Journalism Review.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I was in Victoria, Canada over Easter weekend in 2019. On Easter Sunday I returned to my hotel, to the shocking news of a set of coordinated suicide bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

267 people died that day, and at least 500 others were injured. The target groups were Christian churchgoers, and western tourists. The perpetrators were jihadists. My immediate reaction was that this was utu for the Christchurch mosque shooting, just one month earlier. My partner’s reaction was the same.

I have heard nothing at all about the matter since returning to New Zealand in June 2019, neither in the New Zealand media nor the international media. While no other credible reason for the Easter Sunday massacre has come to light, I have heard it suggested that an accumulation of weaponry before March 2019 by the Sri Lankan jihadists represents evidence that they were already planning an anti-Christian mass killing for April 2019, an act of terrorism with no motive.

The important and obvious, but often overlooked, feature of the Christchurch 15 March terror attack was that this was an international event that happened to take place on New Zealand soil. The perpetrator was someone who belonged to an international community, and who played to an international audience. He happened to be living in New Zealand at the time, and New Zealand – for reasons perhaps more good than bad – represented a softish venue for such an atrocity. The terrorist’s target group was also an international group, members of one of the largest faith communities in the world. From the terrorist’s point of view the fact that many of the victims were citizens or permanent residents of New Zealand was incidental; so was the fact that almost certainly none of the people who would pray at those mosques that day had ever been perpetrators of violent crime. To the terrorist, they were simply members of a global target group who were relatively accessible.

These same comments are equally applicable to the Colombo bombings. In Sri Lanka, Islam is the third biggest faith group, and Christianity is the fourth biggest. Sri Lanka is no stranger to ethnic and sectarian violence, including suicide bombings; it’s just that the violence has generally been between the two biggest ethnic/faith groups, the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamils.

Antipathy by Sinhalese towards Muslims almost certainly was inflamed by the terrorist attack in Lahore (Pakistan) on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009. There were significant anti-Muslim pogroms by Sinhalese Buddhist groups in 2018. Hence the reason why Islamic groups were accumulating weapons before March 2019. These Sri Lankan groups were well placed to retarget Christians, following the Christchurch killings.

The small Christian community in Sri Lanka has not before been a focus there of group hate. This was an international event that happened in Sri Lanka, and was able to happen there for essentially the same reason that the Christchurch attack was able to take place in New Zealand; namely, Sri Lanka was just about the last place in the world that Christians would expect to be attacked because they were Christians. By understanding both events as essentially global rather than national events, it makes perfect sense to understand one as being utu for the other.

For us in New Zealand, Sri Lanka is not really on our radar (except when there is a cricket World Cup). However, New Zealand certainly is on Sri Lanka’s radar. People in Sri Lanka are generally more aware of New Zealand events than people of New Zealand are of Sri Lankan events. Sri Lankans understand that both countries are small island nations with much larger neighbours. Sri Lanka strongly values its sporting ties with New Zealand, buys lots of food imports from New Zealand, and has been an important source of international students in New Zealand for a long time; ie going back to the Colombo Plan days in the 1960s. Over the last decade there have been various reports of refugee boat people trying to get to New Zealand (example). All of these ‘boat people’ reports that I am aware of are reports about people from Sri Lanka.

Because we New Zealanders are citizens of the world, we should feel able to (indeed feel obliged to) express sympathy and condolences to the victims of the Sri Lanka massacre; just as we rightly express sympathy and condolences towards the victims of the smaller event in Christchurch. While the jury may still be out on the precise motivation (or motivations) of the Sri Lankan jihadists, on the balance of probability the Colombo tragedy would not have happened if the Christchurch shootings a month earlier had not happened. 318 people – 310 innocent people – lost their lives. The good news is that no ongoing chain of revenge attacks has been set in motion. RIP.

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

About 60 people from the Sri Lankan community and human rights advocates gathered in Auckland’s Aotea Square today in a solidarity vigil for the survivors of the Easter Sunday bombings.

More than 320 people were killed in the Sri Lankan atrocities.

Today’s vigil was organised by the Federation of Tamil Associations in NZ (FTANZ).

Meanwhile, the New Zealand and Sir Lankan governments are treating with caution reports that the suicide bombings of three Christian churches and three tourist hotels in three cities across Sri Lanka were carried out by Islamic State (ISIS) in retaliation for the Christchurch mosques terror attacks on March 15.

The terrorist group’s Amaq news agency says ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings.

It is the deadliest overseas operation claimed by ISIS since it proclaimed its “caliphate” almost five years ago, and would suggest it retains the ability to launch devastating strikes around the world despite multiple defeats in the Middle East, reports The Guardian.

Auckland Sri Lankans and human rights advocates at the vigil in Aotea Square today. Image: David Robie/PMC Federation of Tamil Associations of New Zealand (FTANZ) coordinator Dr Siva Vasanthan at the Auckland vigil today. Image: David Robie/PMC RNZ Checkpoint’s Alex Perrottet interviewing FTANZ president George Arulanantham at the Auckland vigil today. Image: David Robie/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

Papua New Guinea’s government is under mounting pressure to account for a purchase of 40 luxury vehicles for next month’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the capital of Port Moresby.

Shipments of the Maserati sedans from Italy arrived in Port Moresby last week, to be used for ferrying around APEC leaders and other dignitaries at the summit on November 17-18.

APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko said the Maseratis were “being committed to be paid for by the private sector” where demand was so keen they would sell “like hot cakes”.

READ MORE: Facts triumph PNG government spin in Maserati furore

Putting the value of each car at a little over US$100,000 (NZ$150,000), Tkatchenko initially said the Maseratis were being paid for with “no overall cost to the state”.

Amid a public outcry about the Maseratis, the opposition Madang MP Bryan Kramer said the deal could be illegal if the vehicles have been bought by the private sector without any cost to the government.

-Partners-

With PNG’s Public Finance Management Act requiring any state assets to be acquired or disposed of by calling for public tender, Kramer said the government must reveal when the public tender was called.

He has linked the purchase to an invoice for US$6,357,684 to PNG’s government from a Sri Lanka-based auto spare parts and sales company, Ideal Choices.

Since his earlier statement, the minister admitted to Australian media that the government paid a deposit for the purchase. But he has not explained how it would recover its costs after on-selling cars at what is expected to be a depreciated price tag.

Meanwhile, as the jigsaw around the costs of this opaque deal falls into place, the company which transported the cars, Air Bridge Cargo, confirmed its freight planes were chartered by PNG’s government.

Strike looms
Opposition MPs have called for a nationwide strike later this week in protest against the government’s Maserati deal, which has been criticised as being excessively extravagant for a government struggling to fund basic health services.

“While the country faces a polio outbreak, failing health and education systems, systemic corruption, and escalating law and order issues, prime minister (Peter) O’Neill appears to be more concerned about impressing world leaders,” Kramer said in a statement.

“The bottom line is, we cannot afford to be this extravagant. Our country is broke and the O’Neill government continues to be irresponsible and reckless.”

Papua New Guinea APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko … facing calls to be sacked. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ

Facing calls to sack Tkatchenko and step down himself, O’Neill said yesterday that the vehicles would be sold to the private sector in a public tender.

This would happen in a transparent process, he explained, as soon as the APEC summit concluded in mid-November.

“Like many other international events that we have hosted in the past in the past 40 years, there has always been an arrangement where the private sector will buy those vehicles, so that it saves government money,” the prime minister explained.

Disastrous ‘optics’
But the Maserati deal has made for disastrous “optics”, triggering global media attention and outrage among Papua New Guineans.

“The Italian automobile manufacturer must now come out publicly to explain why they agreed to sell 40 Maseratis destined for PNG APEC to a small dealership based in Colombo, Sir Lanka,” said Kramer.

The outspoken MP said he could not envisage world leaders agreeing to be ferried in luxury vehicles that appear to be procured through a small backyard dealership.

However, Tkatchenko continues to defend the import, saying the kind of service provided through Maserati was standard for APEC summits.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz