‘They threatened to kill us at gunpoint,’ says NZ Gaza flotilla activist
A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was…

A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was…
Activists in Aotearoa New Zealand marked International Women’s Day today and the start of Ramadan this week with solidarity rallies across the country, calling for justice and peace for Palestinian women and the territories occupied illegally by Israel.
Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians as similar student and academic protests spread across the United States — and faced crackdowns by police.
Just months before the outbreak of the genocidal Israeli war on Gaza after the deadly assault on southern Israel by Hamas resistance fighters, Australian investigative journalist and researcher Antony Loewenstein published an extraordinarily timely book, The Palestine Laboratory.
The national news team of Papua New Guinea’s major television channel, EMTV, has walked out in protest over a decision earlier this month to suspend head of news Sincha Dimara for 21 days without pay for alleged insubordination. This is the third ousting of a news manager in five years at EMTV with PNG facing a critical national election in June.
A West Papuan envoy who was gagged while addressing the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues two years ago has been blocked again while trying to speak out.
Amid the chaos [of two weeks of #BlackLivesMatter protests in the US calling for justice for George Floyd] the savage treatment being meted out to the messengers was also unprecedented, with many media freedom watchdogs and news organisations condemning the attacks on reporters.
As well as attacks on Rappler, President Duterte has also recently targeted the country’s main local TV station, ABS-CBN, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer with threats and punitive red tape in response to criticism of his autocratic leadership style.
A survey of New Zealand professional journalists, published in Pacific Journalism Review, shows for the first time that women journalists are paid less than men, despite making up the bulk of the workforce. Female journalists, despite predominating in the profession, are significantly disadvantaged in terms of promotion and income.
The inaugural Pogau Award for courage in journalism: “Every year this award will always remind us about the human rights abuses never addressed in Indonesia since the 1965 massacre.”