Rory MacKinnon
WELLINGTON: With all the Hobbit-chat of late you could be forgiven for thinking it was a slow newsweek – but here at the Scoop offices it was nothing of the sort. On Monday, the independent West Papua Media network released video it had received of Indonesian soldiers torturing two Papuan men: punching and kicking them, running a bayonet over one’s throat and burning the other’s penis with a charred stick. [WARNING: Link features real and graphic violence]
Within hours the horrific footage made the headlines of Al-Jazeera, the BBC, CNN and the Sydney Morning Herald, while Amnesty International and other NGOs demanded an independent investigation by Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission.
Meanwhile, coverage here in the Shire was practically non-existent, other than here at Pacific Scoop and the equally tiny newsroom at Radio New Zealand International. Even MFAT didn’t bother to brief our foreign minister Murray McCully on the video – despite his going on a two-day trip to Indonesia the very next day. - Pacific Scoop/Pacific Media Watch
* Read the full article here:
http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/10/deadline-mccullys-moral-duty-to-west…
* Also, media analysis on Cafe Pacific:
http://cafepacific.blogspot.com/2010/10/mccully-and-nz-medias-moral-fai…
https://www.fpcn-global.org/films/mov/brutal_Kostrad_torture_in_West_Pa…
Pacific Media Watch
