The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) says it is “deeply concerned” at reports that Western Australian police are demanding the ABC hand over footage about climate protesters filmed as part of a Four Corners investigation.
“As researchers and teachers of journalism, we uphold the ethical obligation of journalists to honour any assurances given to protect sources,” said JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake in a statement.
“This obligation is imperative in supporting the Western democratic tradition of journalism and to investigative journalism in particular.”
“I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life.” Video: ABC Four Corners
WA police are reported to have demanded footage via “Order to Produce” provisions of the WA Criminal Investigations Act. The law compels organisations to comply.
One of JERAA’s core aims was to promote freedom of expression and communication, said the statement.
“The association is concerned that the WA police action represents a direct threat to media freedom and the practice of ethical investigative journalism,” Dr Wake said.
“We join the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) in urging the ABC to stand firm and not hand over footage which could potentially undermine assurances by the Four Corners team to their sources.”
The union for Australian journalists said it was alarmed at the reports that WA police were demanding the ABC hand over footage featuring climate activists filmed as part of the television investigation before it had even aired.
If you’re ever writing about issues in Pacific nations, there is a rich and detailed free archive of audio, video and text news articles and research abstracts covering a wide range of topics that you can dip into.
The award-winning website was built as part of an extraordinary pioneering initiative led by Professor David Robie, founding director of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology.
It was a publishing platform, similar to The Junction, for student journalists and independent media contributors from media schools and institutions across the Oceania region, including AUT and the University of the South Pacific.
The Pacific Archives . . . story telling from news stories to documentaries to research. Image: PMC/The Junction
When the website was taken offline for a few weeks in September 2023, there was a wave of concern expressed.
Dr Robie called it a disappointing reflection on the decline of independent journalism and lack of respect for history at media schools.
Valuable files
Jemima Garrett, co-convenor of the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAPMI), described it as an “appalling waste and disrespectful”.
Another investigative journalist and former journalism professor Wendy Bacon said: “This is very bad. … Unfortunately the same thing happened to an enormous amount of valuable files of Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at University of Technology Sydney.”
The Pacific affairs adviser of the Pacific Islands Forum, Lisa Leilani Williams-Lahari, simply wrote: “Sad!
A 2min video on the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre. Video: PMC
Without making a comment, but perhaps in response to this feedback, the archive was restored by AUT on Monday October 2, 2023.
You can also read articles by AUT and other Pacific Media Centre students here on The Junction.
Israeli airstrikes bomb Gaza . . . The latest of Israel’s settler-state pogroms in the West Bank took place in Huwara one day before Hamas’s action. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
Israel is carrying out the longest, now-illegal, now-apartheid occupation in modern history. Gaza has been illegally blockaded for 17 years, confining more than two million mostly civilian human beings in deteriorating conditions, subjecting them to repeated bombardments and ceaseless deprivation.
Hamas’s attack is a response to longterm and escalating, immediate violence.
The blockade wall that was breached is an illegal structure. A million children have been born behind that wall; did you expect them to sit quietly?
Wall deserves to fall
That wall deserves to fall — but we, here in Aotearoa and throughout the world, should have brought it down with diplomatic and economic and legal sanctions long before it came to this.
Now Hamas’s violent resistance has broken through the wall.
Palestinians have a legal right to armed resistance, but no one has a right to unlimited violence. There is no honour in attacking civilians in their homes or bombing Gazan apartment buildings.
It is a core principle of international humanitarian law that the violations of one armed group do not release another armed group from its constant obligation to uphold the rights of civilians. Armed groups are responsible to the law, to the idea of minimising the harm done in this world.
We who demand the protection of Palestinian civilians can best do that by calling for the protection of all civilians: human rights are either everyone’s rights or they are nothing.
If we lose sight of that, the world becomes even more dangerous — and Palestinians have always borne the brunt of that danger.
No military solution
There is no military solution. Solutions call for political will here, outside Israel/Palestine.
The rage and despair accumulated through generations and decades of brutality will not reset. Do not call for the return to the status quo ante because it was intolerable, unjust and illegal.
We, here in Aotearoa New Zealand, need to act on the basis of law and the equal rights of human beings to protection, to justice, to self-determination.
We call on our government to initiate, to pick up the phone and lead in mustering international action.
For anyone to be safe, Palestinians must be free and civilians must be protected.
Israeli air strikes on Gaza in retaliation to the surprise Hamas attacks that followed more than 240 Palestinians - mostly civilians - being killed by Israeli security forces in the past year. Image: TVNZ screenshot/APR
COMMENTARY:By John Minto
The Hamas attack on Israel yesterday has brought the usual round of systemic misreporting by New Zealand news outlets as they repost stories from the BBC, AP and Reuters which bend the truth in favour of Israeli narratives of “terrorism” and “victimhood”.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa John Minto . . . “‘Occupied’ is the status these Palestinian territories have under international law, United Nations resolutions and NZ government policy, and should be consistently reported as such.” TVNZ screenshot/APR
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically talk about the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem when they should be reported as the occupied West Bank, occupied Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem.
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically refer to Palestinians resisting Israel’s military occupation Palestinian “militants” or “terrorists” or similar derogatory and dismissive descriptions.
We would not call Ukrainians attacking Russian occupation forces as “militants” so why do our media think it’s OK to use this term to describe Palestinians attacking Israeli occupation forces?
Palestinian right to resist
Under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist Israel’s military occupation, including armed resistance and should not be abused for doing so by our media.
Palestinian resistance groups should be described as “resistance fighters” or “armed resistance organisations” while Israeli soldiers should be described as “Israeli occupation soldiers”.
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically give sympathetic coverage to Israelis killed by Palestinians but do not give similar sympathetic coverage to Palestinians killed, on a near daily basis, by the Israeli occupation (more than 240 killed so far this year, including dozens of children.
Labour leader and NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins . . . New Zealand “condemns unequivocally the Hamas attacks on Israel.” Image: TVNZ screenshot/APR
The vast majority of these killings are simply ignored.
Palestinians are the victims of Israeli apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing, land theft, house demolitions, military occupation and unbridled brutality and yet our media ends up giving the impression it’s the other way round.
Wide coverage is given to Israeli spokespeople in most stories with rudimentary reporting, if any, from Palestinian viewpoints.
For example, so far Radio New Zealand has reported on the views of New Zealand Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses but has yet to interview any Palestinian New Zealanders who suffer great anxiety every time Palestinians are killed by Israel.
Support for self-determination
New Zealanders overwhelmingly support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination. They rightly reject Israel’s racist narratives and its apartheid policies towards Palestinians.
Yara Eid, a journalist from Gaza, expresses her reaction to the news that her friend and fellow journalist 21-year-old Ibrahim Lafi was murdered by Israeli missiles in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/4LqutaOgmP
We should not be calling for negotiations between the parties because Palestinians face both Israel and US at the negotiating table and this will never bring justice for Palestinians and will therefore never bring peace.
Killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . a graph showing the devastating loss of life for Palestinians compared with Israelis in the past 15 years. Source: Al Jazeera (cc)
Instead, we need a timeline for Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions. This would mean:
Ending the Israeli military occupation of Palestine;
Ending Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians, and Allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land in Palestine
This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished via Pacific Media Watch with permission.
Contact with the journalist Nidal Al-Wahidi was lost yesterday during his coverage of events at the Beit Hanoun checkpoint, and there is no confirmed information about his death. https://t.co/2U9wAkrwaw
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has hailed the news that Narges Mohammadi — an Iranian journalist RSF has been defending for years — has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran,” her courage and determination.
Persecuted by the Iranian authorities since the late 1990s for her work, and imprisoned again since November 2021, she must be freed at once, RSF declared in a statement.
“Speak to save Iran” is the title of one of the letters published by Mohammadi from Evin prison, near Tehran, where she has been serving a sentence of 10 years and 9 months in prison since 16 November 2021.
She has also been sentenced to hundreds of lashes. The maker of a documentary entitled White Torture and the author of a book of the same name, Mohammadi has never stopped denouncing the sexual violence inflicted on women prisoners in Iran.
It is this fight against the oppression of women that the Nobel Committee has just saluted by awarding the Peace Prize to this 51-year-old journalist and human rights activist, the former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, the Iranian human rights organisation that was created by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was herself awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
It is because of this fight that Mohammadi has been hounded by the Iranian authorities, who continue to persecute her in prison.
She has been denied visits and telephone calls since 12 April 2022, cutting her off from the world.
New charges
At the same time, the authorities in Evin prison have brought new charges to keep her in detention.
On August 4, her jail term was increased by a year after the publication of another of her letters about violence against fellow women detainees.
White Torture: The infamy of solitary confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi.
Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage on 12 December 2023. At the award ceremony in Paris, her two children, whom she has not seen for eight years, read one of the letters she wrote to them from prison.
“In this country, amid all the suffering, all the fears and all the hopes, and when, after years of imprisonment, I am behind bars again and I can no longer even hear the voices of my children, it is with a heart full of passion, hope and vitality, full of confidence in the achievement of freedom and justice in my country that I will spend time in prison,” she wrote.
She ended the letter with a call to keep alive “the hope of victory”.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:
“It is with immense emotion that I learn that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to the journalist and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.
At Reporters Without Borders (RSF), we have been fighting for her for years, alongside her husband and her two children, and with Shirin Ebadi. The Nobel Peace Prize will obviously be decisive in obtaining her release.”
On June 7, RSF referred the unacceptable conditions in which Mohammadi is being detained to all of the relevant UN human rights bodies.
During an oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on July 5, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed concern over the “continued detention of human rights defenders and lawyers defending the protesters, and at least 17 journalists”.
It is thanks to Mohammadi’s journalistic courage that the world knows what is happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons, where 20 journalists are currently detained.
Operation "Al Aqsa Flood" . . . the Palestinian armed group Hamas has launched the largest attack on Israel in years, infiltrating areas in the south of the country following a barrage of more than 2000 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
The New Zealand government bears heavy responsibility for loss of life of Palestinians and Israelis in the latest fighting in Israel/Palestine and must revisit its policy, says the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) national chair John Minto.
“Whatever the eventual outcome of the Hamas attacks on Israel today [Saturday], the New Zealand government bears heavy responsibility for the loss of life of Palestinians and Israelis,” he said in a statement.
“Like other Western countries, New Zealand has failed to hold Israel to account for its multiple crimes, including war crimes, against the Palestinian people, day after day, year after year and decade after decade.
“We have ignored human rights reports of Israel’s apartheid policies. Our government has been looking the other way.”
Hamas launched a large-scale military operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” against Israel, describing it as in response to the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence.
The group running the besieged Gaza Strip (population 2.1 million) said it had fired thousands of rockets and sent fighters into Israel. Reports said at least 40 Israelis had been killed, 35 people taken captive and more than 750 had been wounded and taken to hospitals.
Palestinian sources said 160 people had been killed, mostly in Gaza Strip.
Repeated Israeli attacks
Minto described the Hamas attacks as “understandable”.
“Over recent months Western countries have turned a blind eye to the brutality of the Israeli army and settler groups engaging in repeated attacks on Palestinian towns and villages and the killing of civilians and children,” he said.
“The result is now playing out in more violence initiated by Israel’s brutal occupation — the longest military occupation in modern history. The occupation includes Israel’s 17-year-old blockade of the Gaza strip — the largest open-air prison in the world.”
“New Zealand must reassess its policy on the Middle East and demand Israel adopt a timetable to implement international law and United Nations resolutions.”
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is finished. Politically and otherwise,” declared Al Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara, who says Israel has never learnt from history of colonialism.
“His arrogance has finally caught with him. No matter how many Palestinians this corrupt opportunist kills before his final downfall, he will go down in utter humiliation.
“Israel gets a glimpse of the real future days after Netanyahu cavalierly showed us at the United Nations future maps of the new Middle East centered around Israel — with no Palestine existence.”
Israel launched air strikes on Gaza in retaliation in an operation called “Iron Swords”.
Al Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara . . . Israel has never learnt from the history of colonialism and the suffering of a third generation of Palestinians in the Gaza “open prison”. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
Vanuatu's new Prime Minister Charlot Salwai (left) and Graon Mo Jastis Party's Ralph Regenvanu who is back as Minister for Climate Change Adaptation, Energy, Environment. Image: Facebook
By Koroi Hawkins and Don Wiseman
Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Sato Kilman has been voted out through a motion-of-no-confidence in the country’s Parliament in Port Vila today.
The motion was carried by a show of hands, with 27 votes, in the absence of the government bench which had vacated the floor in protest ahead of the motion being moved.
Charlot Salwai was then nominated as the sole candidate for Prime minister and was duly-elected by secret ballot with 29 votes in the absence again of the MPs on the other side of the House.
Salwai was previously prime minister from February 2016 until the general election in 2020.
Immediately after the vote, Salwai took his oath and was installed as the new prime minister of the Republic of Vanuatu.
In his acceptance speech, Salwai apologised to the Vanuatu public for the ongoing “political crises” which have seen four prime ministers elected now in the the space of three years.
He also thanked police for keeping the peace and thanked citizens for respecting the law and each other.
Salwai, who is the leader of the Reunification Movement for Change Party, thanked all of the MPs who voted for him and in particular the leaders of the three major political parties in this coalition government — Ishmael Kalsakau Ma’aukoro from the Union of Moderate Parties, Jotham Napat of the Leaders Party, and Ralph Regenvanu of the Graon Mo Jastis Party.
Salwai said Vanuatu was facing many challenges economically, socially and environmentally with climate change, and he acknowledged the added impacts that political instability were having on local businesses and society at large.
“It has not yet been 12 months since the initial establishment of the government of honourable Ma’aukoro which he led following the snap election in October of 2022 yet today is the second time that we have changed the government,” Salwai said speaking in Bislama.
“I say sorry to the last government but we exist in this system of democracy where when the weight of the number of members moves to one side a change of government follows.”
Following the Prime Minister’s speech, Parliament was adjourned until 8:30am on Tuesday, October 10.
Ousted prime minister Sato Kilman . . . only came to power last month in a similar leadership challenge mounted against the then prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau Ma’aukoro. Image: Vladimir Pesnya /RIA Novosti
Government walk-out
The ousted prime minister Sato Kilman only came to power last month in a similar leadership challenge mounted against the then prime minister Kalsakau.
The current Parliament was elected through a snap election in 2022 which was triggered by then prime minister Bob Loughman before a challenge against his leadership could be mounted.
The walk-out staged this afternoon by the now former government MPs came about after they had argued unsuccessfully against the validity of today’s sitting.
This is in light of an ongoing Court of Appeal case for one of their members, Bruno Leingkone, whose seat had been vacated by the Speaker last week on the basis that the MP had missed three consecutive Parliament sittings without the express consent of the Speaker’s office while receiving medical care in South Korea.
The now opposition grouping were also trying to argue that because of the appeal case today’s vote-of-no-confidence should have been conducted as if the 52 member house were at full complement.
This would have raised the threshold for an absolute majority which is required to unseat a prime minister.
Uncertain future Despite the one-sided affair in Parliament this afternoon, the political instability in Vanuatu is likely to continue with only a handful of MPs required to shift the balance of power.
Before staging their walk-out, members on the other side of the House had also indicated they would likely challenge the legality of this afternoon’s proceedings in court.
The immediate challenge facing the newly elected prime minister in forming his cabinet over the weekend will be keeping everybody in his new coalition government happy as he allocates portfolios.
Koroi Hawkins is the RNZ Pacific editor and Don Wiseman a senior journalist. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
The state of civic space in Indonesia has been rated as “obstructed” in the latest CIVICUS Monitor report.
The civic space watchdog said that ongoing concerns include the arrest, harassment and criminalisation of human rights defenders and journalists as well as physical and digital attacks, the use of defamation laws to silence online dissent and excessive use of force by the police during protests, especially in the Papuan region.
In July 2023, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed concerns regarding the human rights situation in the West Papua region in her opening remarks during the 22nd Meeting of the 53rd Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
She highlighted the harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention of Papuans, which had led to the appropriation of customary land in West Papua.
She encouraged the Indonesian government to ensure humanitarian assistance and engage in “a genuine inclusive dialogue”.
In August 2023, human rights organisations called on Indonesia to make serious commitments as the country sought membership in the UN Human Rights Council for the period 2024 to 2026.
Among the calls were to ratify international human rights instruments, especially the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), to provide details of steps it will take to implement all of the supported recommendations from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and to fully cooperate with the Special Procedures of the Council.
Call to respect free expression
The groups also called on the government to ensure the respect, protection and promotion of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, for clear commitments to ensure a safe and enabling environment for all human rights defenders, to find a sustainable solution for the human rights crisis in Papua and to end impunity.
In recent months, protests by communities have been met with arbitrary arrests and excessive force from the police.
The arbitrary arrests, harassment and criminalisation of Papuan activists continue, while an LGBT conference was cancelled due to harassment and threats.
Human rights defenders continue to face defamation charges, there have been harassment and threats against journalists, while a TikTok communicator was jailed for two years over a pork video.
Ongoing targeting of Papuan activists Arbitrary arrests, harassment and criminalisation of Papuan activists continue to be documented.
According to the Human Rights Monitor, on 5 July 2023, four armed plainclothes police officers arrested Viktor Makamuke, a 52-year-old activist of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a pro-independence movement.
He was subsequently detained at the Sorong Selatan District Police Station where officers allegedly coerced and threatened Makamuke to pledge allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
A week earlier, Makamuke and his friend had reportedly posted a photo in support of ULMWP full membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — an intergovernmental organisation composed of the four Melanesian states.
Shortly after the arrest, the police published a statement claiming that Makamuke was the commander of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) — an armed group — in the Bomberai Region.
The Human Rights Monitor reported that members of the Yahukimo District police arbitrarily arrested six activists belonging to the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) in the town of Dekai, Yahukimo Regency, on 6 July 2023.
KNPB is a movement promoting the right to self-determination through peaceful action and is one of the most frequently targeted groups in West Papua.
The activists organised and carried out a collective cleaning activity in Dekai. The police repeatedly approached them claiming that the activists needed official permission for their activity.
Six KNPB activists arrested Subsequently, police officers arrested the six KNPB activists without a warrant or justifying the arrest. All activists were released after being interrogated for an hour.
On 8 August 2023, three students were found guilty of treason and subsequently given a 10-month prison sentence by the Jayapura District Court.
Yoseph Ernesto Matuan, Devio Tekege and Ambrosius Fransiskus Elopere were charged with treason due to their involvement in an event held at the Jayapura University of Science and Technology (USTJ) in November 2022, where they waved the Morning Star flag, a banned symbol of Papuan independence.
Their action was in protest against a planned peace dialogue proposed by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).
According to Amnesty International Indonesia, between 2019 and 2022 there have been at least 61 cases involving 111 individuals in Papua who were charged with treason.
At least 37 supporters of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) were arrested in relation to peaceful demonstrations to commemorate the 1962 New York Agreement in the towns Sentani, Jayapura Regency and Dekai, Yahukimo Regency, on 14 and 15 August 2023.
Allegations of police ill-treatment
There were also allegations of ill-treatment by the police.
On 2 September 2023, police officers detained Agus Kossay, Chairman of the West Papua National Coalition (KNPB); Benny Murip, KNPB Secretary in Jayapura; Ruben Wakla, member of the KNPB in the Yahukimo Regency; and Ferry Yelipele.
The four activists were subsequently detained and interrogated at the Jayapura District Police Station in Doyo Baru. Wakla and Yelipele were released on 3rd September 2023 without charge.
Police officers reportedly charged Kossay and Murip under Article 160 and Article 170 of the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) for “incitement”.
Veteran Tahitian independence leader Oscar Temaru with his wife Marie at the UN . . . "my strategy has not changed one bit . . . this country must absolutely become a sovereign state." Image: Polynésie 1ère TV screenshot/APR
ANALYSIS: By Patrick Decloitre
After 10 years of non-attendance, France turned up to this week’s French Polynesia sitting of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24) — but the French delegate did not deliver the message that pro-independence French Polynesian groups wanted to hear.
French Polynesia was re-inscribed to the United Nations (UN) list of non-self-governing territories in 2013.
Pro-independence leader Moetai Brotherson, President of French Polynesia, came to power in May 2023.
Since then he has claimed he received assurances from French President Emmanuel Macron that France would end its “empty chair” policy regarding UN decolonisation sessions on French Polynesia.
President Macron apparently kept his promise, but the message that the French Ambassador to the UN, Nicolas De Rivière, delivered was unambiguous.
He declared French Polynesia “has no place” on the UN list of non-autonomous territories because “French Polynesia’s history is not the history of New Caledonia”.
The indigenous Kanak peoples of New Caledonia, the other French Pacific dependency currently on the UN list, have actively pursued a pathway to decolonisation through the Noumea Accord and are still deep in negotiations with Paris about their political future.
French public media Polynésie 1ère TV quoted the ambassador as saying: “No process between France and French Polynesia allows a role for the United Nations.”
French Ambassador to the UN Nicolas De Rivière . . . present this time but wants French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list. Image: RNZ Pacific
The ambassador also voiced France’s wish to have French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN list. At the end of his statement, the Ambassador left the room, leaving a junior agent to sit in his place.
This was just as more than 40 pro-independence petitioners were preparing to make their statements.
Tahiti’s President Moetai Brotherson . . . pro-independence but speaking on behalf of “all [French] Polynesians, including those who do not want independence today.” Image: Polynésie 1ère TV screenshot/APR
This is not an unfamiliar scene. Over the past 10 years, at similar UN sessions, when the agenda would reach the item of French Polynesia, the French delegation would leave the room.The C-24 session started on Tuesday morning.
This week, French Polynesia’s 40-plus strong — mostly pro-independence delegation — of petitioners included the now-ruling Tavini Huira’atira party, members of the civil society, the local Māohi Protestant Church, and nuclear veterans associations and members of the local Parliament (the Territorial Assembly) and French Polynesian MPs sitting at the French National Assembly in Paris.
It also included President Moetai Brotherson from Tavini.
French position on decolonisation unchanged For the past 10 years, since it was re-inscribed on the UN list, French Polynesia has sent delegates to the meeting, with the most regular attendees being from the Tavini Huiraatira party:
“I was angry because the French ambassador left just before our petitioners were about to take the floor [. . . ] I perceived this as a sign of contempt on the part of France,” said Hinamoeura Cross, a petitioner and a pro-independence member of French Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly, reacting this week to the French envoy’s appearance then departure, Polynésie 1ère TV reports.
Since being elected to the top post in May 2023, President Brotherson has stressed that independence, although it remains a long-term goal, is not an immediate priority.
Days after his election, after meeting French President Macron for more than an hour, he said he was convinced there would be a change in France’s posture at the UN C-24 committee hearing and an end to the French “empty chair policy”.
“I think we should put those 10 years of misunderstanding, of denial of dialogue [on the part of France] behind us [. . .]. Everyone can see that since my election, the relations with France have been very good [. . . ]. President Macron and I have had a long discussion about what is happening [at the UN] and the way we see our relations with France evolve,” he told Tahiti Nui Télévision earlier this week from New York.
President ‘for all French Polynesians’ – Brotherson President Brotherson also stressed that this week, at the UN, he would speak as President of French Polynesia on behalf of “all [French] Polynesians, including those who do not want independence today”.
“So in my speech I will be very careful not to create confusion between me coming here [at the UN] to request the implementation of a self-determination process, and me coming here to demand independence which is beside the point,” he added in the same interview.
He conceded that at the same meeting, delegates from his own Tavini party were likely to deliver punchier, more “militant”, speeches “because this is Tavini’s goal”.
“But as for me, I speak as President of French Polynesia.”
Ahead of the meeting, Tavini Huiraatira pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said that “It’s the first time a pro-independence President of French Polynesia will speak at the UN (C-24) tribune”.
Temaru, 78, was French Polynesia’s president in 2013 when it was reinscribed to the UN list.
Speaking of the different styles between him and his 54-year-old son-in-law — Moetai Brotherson is married to Temaru’s daughter — Temaru said this week: “He has his own strategy and I have mine and mine has not changed one bit [. . .] this country must absolutely become a sovereign state.
“Can you imagine? Overnight, we would own this country of five million sq km. Today, we have nothing.”
French Minister of Home Affairs and Overseas Gérald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, previously Twitter, earlier this week: “On this matter just like on other ones, [France] is working with elected representatives in a constructive spirit and in the respect of the territory’s autonomy and of France’s sovereignty.”
Darmanin has already attended the C-24 meeting when it considered New Caledonia.
The United Nations list of non-self-governing territories currently includes 17 territories world-wide and six of those are located in the Pacific — American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, Pitcairn Island and Tokelau.
Patrick Decloitre is the RNZ Pacific French desk correspondent. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Savali ole Filemu March for Peace on Auckland's Ponsonby Road on Saturday recognised the anxiety which currently faces overstayers, and the pain still felt from the Dawn Raids. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
By Lydia Lewis
A Tongan RSE worker, whose case sparked an independent review of Immigration New Zealand’s “out-of-hours compliance visit” practices, is still on edge.
Pacific community members have compared the actions to the infamous “Dawn Raids”.
Keni Malie’s lawyer, Soane Foliaki, said his client’s case should have ended such exercises.
However, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) Immigration Compliance and Investigations team has only temporarily suspended “out-of-hours compliance visits” to residential addresses.
“At least until this work is completed,” MBIE Immigration Investigations and Compliance General Manager Steve Watson said.
He said the visits would not resume until new standard operating procedures came into effect and staff had been fully trained in the new procedures.
It is uncertain how these new procedures will be different, and what this will mean for migrant workers.
Detained in front of wife, family
In the early hours on April 19 this year immigration officials showed up at Keni Malie’s residence and detained him in front of his wife and children. He was then taken away and shortly after served with a deportation order.
An overstayer who cannot be named for privacy reasons sharing his story at a public meeting in Ōtara on 6 May 2023 that was sparked by a recent Dawn Raid of a Pasifika overstayer in Auckland. Image: RNZ Pacific/Lydia Lewis
“Four children were in the house, with three sleeping downstairs and at least one woken up by the activity,” the independent review states.
Malie’s lawyer broke the story to the media, out of desperation. The story gained traction and following a public outcry, Immigration New Zealand admitted this was not a one-off incident.
Keni Malie has since been granted a temporary visa while he and his lawyer work though his residency application but he said he was still nervous about it.
Malie explained in Tongan, as his lawyer translated:
“The hardest thing for me was trying to make sure that I can put a loaf of bread on the table for my children. I hope for the day that I can feel secure and get residence,” Malie said.
Immigration New Zealand has confirmed it has been conducting out-of-hours compliance visits — known as “Dawn Raids” — for the past eight years.
Auckland lawyer Soane Foliaki represented a Tongan man who was arrested for overstaying in New Zealand. He spoke at a meeting on overstaying and Dawn Raids in Otahuhu, Auckland. Image: Lydia Lewis/RNZ
Figures released under the Official Information Act show Pacific community members were the third highest after Indian and Chinese nationals of the total number of people located, between July 1, 2015, and May 2, 2023.
Out of 95 out-of-hours compliance visits, which in some cases multiple people were found, 51 were Chinese, 25 Indian and 17 Pacific.
There was one from the USA and one person from Great Britain on the list.
MBIE reviews An independent review of what Pasifika community leaders have called MBIE’s Dawn Raids-style visits has now been completed.
Leaders and members of the Pacific, Indian and Chinese communities were interviewed, along with immigration lawyers and advisers and representatives.
One of the reasons given for this review was that the raids of the 1970s were a “racist application of New Zealand’s law”.
“Immigration officials and police officers entered homes of Pacific people, dragged them from their beds, often using dogs and in front of their children. They were brought before the courts, often barefoot, or in their pyjamas, and ultimately deported,” Heron report reads.
Tongan community leaders were outraged to find out Keni Malie, who is Tongan, went through what they see as a similar trauma.
According to the report, Malie was in New Zealand as an RSE worker when he did not turn up to work because he was getting married.
Added to ‘process list’
After being stopped by police for driving without a licence, Crime Stoppers were also sent a notification for another issue. He was then added to Immigration’s National Prioritisation Process list.
In the Immigration Officers’ view, their “compliance visit” to Malie was carried out reasonably and respectfully.
“They stressed that the operation was calm, respectful and did not require any use of force,” the review states.
But his lawyer, Soane Foliaki disagrees that it was “respectful”.
“In the dark of the night they were back at it, you know, without any consideration? Why did the Prime Minister apologise?” Foliaki said.
To him this was reminiscent of the Dawn Raids. Something the former Prime Minister had only just apologised for.
An INZ spokesperson told RNZ Pacific at a Pacific community event earlier this year that in some cases officers sit down with a cup of tea to build rapport with overstayers.
Trauma for community
“I want to again acknowledge the impact the Dawn Raids of the 1970s had on the Pacific community and that the trauma from those remains today,” MBIE’s Steve Watson said.
We know we have more to do as we learn from the past to shape the future. This continues to be at the centre of our thinking as we move forward,” he said.
Lawyer Soane Foliaki who has been fighting for justice for 30 years still has hope, hope for his client and hope that there will be change.
“We always felt that New Zealand was always a decent country, they’ll always give us a fair go. This is also our home here,” Foliaki said.
Lydia Lewis is an RNZ Pacific journalist. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
