PARIS (Pacific Media Watch / Wikileaks / Reporters Without Borders): WikiLeaks has revealed the existence of a blanket gagging order applying to all citizens and news media throughout Australia.
Reporters without Borders yesterday condemned the five-year gagging order involving several Asian leaders issued last month by Victoria's Supreme Court.
The gagging order forbids any media coverage of a case involving seven senior executives with banks affiliated to the Reserve Bank of Australia, who have been charged with spending millions of dollars in bribes to obtain contracts with the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries to print plastic banknotes.
The court injunction names 17 international political figures including Vietnamese President Truong Tan San, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The gagging order also forbids the Australian media from even mentioning its existence - even though it is being widely reported by the press and social media outside Australia and these reports are accessible to the Australian public.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called the gagging order "the worst in living memory".
“With this order, the worst in living memory, the Australian government is not just gagging the Australian press, it is blindfolding the Australian public. Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop must account for “why she is threatening every Australian with imprisonment in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing corruption scandal involving the Australian government,” he said.
“The grounds given for this gagging order, which include national security, are unacceptable and cannot justify such complete censorship applying to all news and information providers, including both journalists and ordinary citizens,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk.
“This disproportionate order, whose aims include protecting the interests of certain Southeast Asian leaders, is tantamount to asking everyone to turn a blind eye to a crucial aspect of this case – the identity of those receiving these ‘financial incentives'. We urge the authorities to put the public interest above national interest and to restore transparency in this case by rescinding this order at once.”
Melbourne Law School senior lecturer Jason Bosland told Reporters Without Borders that Victoria’s courts had issued 200 such suppression orders every year for the past five years.
These were "rarely rescinded", Reporters Without Borders said.
The Guardian reports on corruption allegations gag
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