Pacific media must speak truth to power: PFF

PFF Rarotonga, COOK ISLANDS-- Regional media monitoring network the Pacific Freedom Forum is disappointed by widely reported claims by a government information adviser attending the current Pacific Media Summit in Suva that it's not the job of journalists to challenge government.
Papua New Guinea's deputy secretary of the PNG Department of Communications and Information Paulius Korini initiated a heated discussion amongst regional journalists in an Anti-Corruption workshop with his claims that media controls and regulation would help the industry towards balance in reporting. The former mainstream broadcast journalist, now a senior communications adviser to the Pacific's largest developing country had told other participants who disagreed with his statement he agreed with some of their views. Just hours later he told Radio Australia journalist Bruce Hill twice in the same interview that it's not the job of PNG's journalists to challenge government, and that the media should work in partnership with governments and be more responsible in their reporting. 
"It's concerning to see a former senior journalist now revoking the basic premise of journalism.  If Pacific journalists can't report the truth about the powerful and challenge those who want to keep information secret, they are not doing their jobs," says PFF chair Titi Gabi of Papua New Guinea.
"We urge all Pacific governments to welcome enquiries from the media and coverage, however critical or positive, of their performance.  And the same applies to the other sectors of society who are the watchdogs of governance -- we in media must also welcome the same challenges on the work we do."
The Pacific Freedom Forum leadership is not at the Fiji meeting along with other regional media networks including the Pasifika Media Association, with many choosing to stay away in protest at having a regional media event in one of the region's most repressed nation for free speech and free media. Journalists from those organisations are attending the Pacific Media Summit in Suva as individuals.
"We stand in solidarity with our PNG media colleagues and commend their work at a difficult time in the nation's history, especially as the country enters an election period in the next few months,"  says PFF co-chair Monica Miller, "and we are concerned that government media officers attending the current media summit may be hoping to use its hosting in Fiji as a chance to push their agenda for media control disguised as responsibility."
"Our position from our membership, even those individual journalists at the summit, is clear: the role of the media as the fourth estate mandates us to challenge those who want to keep information secret. The public is best informed by journalists when we speak truth to power, and make the powerful truthful."-- ENDS

Korini interview with Bruce Hill:  http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/onairhighlights/media-should-not-challenge-governments-pina-workshop-told

Tonga publisher calls Korini comment 'ignorant and arrogant': (Link to www.radioaustralia.net.au after 29/3)


CONTACT: PFF Chair Titi Gabi | Freelance Journalist | Papua New Guinea Mail: PO Box 7776, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea | Mob: (675) 7314 3929 | Email: titi.gabipng@gmail.com PFF co-Chair Monica Miller | KHJ Radio | American Samoa Mob 684 258-4197 | Office 684 633-7793 | Email: monica@khjradio.com The Pacific Freedom Forum are a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

PFF supports no-treason call for West Papua

PFF, Rarotonga, COOK ISLANDS --Three years in jail for five West Papua activists is a further erosion of free speech and other human rights for the province, says the Pacific Freedom Forum.

“There is no treason in freedom of expression shared peacefully,” says PFF chair Titi Gabi, “in Indonesia, or anywhere else.”

The five men were sentenced by judges after being convicted for a public speech. Made last October, leaders at the Third Papua Peoples Congress ended the speech with a “Declaration of Independence” in front of a crowd of thousands.  Shortly after the activist event, three people were killed when security forces opened fire on dispersing crowds. None of the military involved have been given jail terms.

“Under guarantees of free speech, strong opinion must be allowed without risking unconstitutional persecution by the state,” says Gabi, a Papua New Guinea journalist. "The statements which so riled the Indonesia government were made during a peaceful assembly. Matters reportedly turned ugly when the military fired guns into the crowd. An unarmed, peaceful gathering sharing political ideas can hardly be labelled as an act of terrorism."
The Pacific Freedom Forum supports calls from Human Rights Watch and other groups for convictions to be dropped against the group now dubbed the “Jayapura Five”.

The convicted men are Selpius Bobii, a social media activist; August Sananay Kraar, public servant; Dominikus Sorabut; film maker, Edison Waromi, a former political prisoner, and Forkorus Yaboisembut, a Papua tribal leader elected president at the congress.

Co-chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Monica Miller, says that authorities in Indonesia must "follow through on the constitutional mandate to open up public spaces for all people of West Papua to share ideas safely with each other and their leaders.”

Miller says an impression of widespread injustice is growing worldwide, quoting a report from the US-based Freedom House on “contradictory” rulings within the Indonesian legal system.

“Until they feel heard by their rulers and the global community, the people of Papua will continue to pay the ultimate price for trying to speak  freely on their lives,” says Miller.

Sentencing of the five in west Papua comes as Pacific journalists prepare to attend a regional media meet in Fiji.
Miller called on colleagues at the forthcoming Pacific  Media Summit  in Suva this month to also focus outside Fiji, on wider challenges facing freedoms of speech, including in west Papua.
“Journalists and the media must balance the news needs of their local markets with reporting urgent regional issues,” says Miller. The continued erosion of free speech in west Papua goes against Article 19 of the 1946 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Indonesia is a signatory.--ENDS

LINKS

Pacific Media Watch ( archives and background)
http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/pmw-nius

Jakarta Post:

Papuans found guilty of subversion, get 3-year jail terms

Human Rights Watch Condemns Conviction of Papua Activists

Sydney Morning Herald:

Anger greets jailing of West Papua activists

Pacific Scoop:

Indonesia: Guilty Treason Verdicts For Congress Leaders

Sentence Violates Human Rights Law

Appeal against Papuan Congress treason convictions launched

 

CONTACT: PFF Chair Titi Gabi | Freelance Journalist | Papua New Guinea Mail: PO Box 7776, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea | Mob: (675) 7314 3929 | Email: titi.gabipng@gmail.com PFF co-Chair Monica Miller | KHJ Radio | American Samoa Mob 684 258-4197 | Office 684 633-7793 | Email: monica@khjradio.com The Pacific Freedom Forum are a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.

PNG Government, Media leaders must act on police grenade threat

PFF, Rarotonga, COOK ISLANDS -- The Pacific Freedom Forum condemns the grenade threat against a Papua New Guinea journalist by Police force officers late last week, and is calling on the O'Neill government and the PNG Media Council to publicly support media freedom.

Post Courier Business Editor Patrick Talu,was shown a hand grenade by a policeman who was armed with an M16 rifle, and ordered to leave the Port Moresby’s Unagi Oval or be blown up. He was covering landowner/official skirmishes over a controversial gas pipeline project. 

 "The Pacific Freedom Forum condemns this latest threat and calls for decisive action from the highest levels of authority to stamp out this blatant and dangerous disregard of the rule of law,"says PFF chair Titi Gabi.

"It is frankly alarming that the PNG political leadership has yet to publicly and immediately discipline those involved in an escalating trend of threats to journalists. PNG's constitution protects freedom of information and journalists such as Talu are trying to keep the country informed at a time in history when it's important for journalists to be out in the field and witnessing to the nation what's happening."

"We applaud comments by the Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga that such behaviour is unacceptable and urge both the Police and the PNG Media Council leadership to bring the instigators of these threats to justice. Decisive action is urgently needed to ensure journalists can feel safe as they go about with the daily work of reporting."

The PFF call comes on the heels of an earlier statement by the regional media monitoring network following a statement from the office of the O'Neill leadership that a new commission to monitor and 'deal with' anyone accused of making 'subversive' comments, even via mobile phone calls, texting and social networks. 

"The hard line image of a 'big-brother' state  is evolving into a dangerous mindset of impunity amongst law enforcers when it comes to threatening the media. This is unacceptable and illegal, and must be stopped in its tracks," says PFF co chair Monica Miller from American Samoa.

She noted with concern that the grenade threat against Talu "is only the tip of the iceberg. Already colleagues, particularly women journalists, are being harassed but are unwilling to come forward. This acceptance of abuse and threats against journalists is not an acceptable part of news practice, and we must make the most of our networks to stand up to this criminal bullying." 

"We stand in solidarity with our PNG colleagues at this uncertain time, call on the O'Neill leadership to publicly condemn threats from law enforcers against journalists and all PNG citizens, and urge the Police Superintendant Domnic Kakas, himself a former journalist, to do his utmost to help his team repair public confidence damaged by this behaviour."--ENDS

CONTACT: PFF Chair Titi Gabi | Freelance Journalist | Papua New Guinea Mail: PO Box 7776, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea | Mob: (675) 7314 3929 | Email: titi.gabipng@gmail.com PFF co-Chair Monica Miller | KHJ Radio | American Samoa Mob 684 258-4197 | Office 684 633-7793 | Email: monica@khjradio.com The Pacific Freedom Forum are a regional and global online network of Pacific media colleagues, with the specific intent of raising awareness and advocacy of the right of Pacific people to enjoy freedom of expression and be served by a free and independent media. We believe in the critical and basic link between these freedoms, and the vision of democratic and participatory governance pledged by our leaders in their endorsement of the Pacific Plan and other commitments to good governance. In support of the above, our key focus is monitoring threats to media freedom and bringing issues of concern to the attention of the wider regional and international community.