PORT MORESBY (PNG Post-Courier / Pacific Media Watch): A journalist was assaulted and threatened to be blown up with a hand grenade by police in Port Moresby yesterday, reports the Post-Courier.
Patrick Talu, a young journalist and the business editor for the South Pacific Post (Post-Courier) was shown a hand grenade by a policeman who was armed with an M16 rifle and ordered to leave Unagi Oval or he would be blown up with the hand grenade.
“Yu go nau, bai mi blowim yu up” ("Go away, I will blow you up") the policeman ordered while showing the hand grenade to Talu.
"Yupela ol newspaper wok long bagarapim na givim nem nogut lo mipela ol polisman" ("You newspapers are painting a bad picture of us policemen"), a policeman with rifle pointed at Talu shouted while referring to the gun-wielding policemen who chased landowners that appeared on the front page of this newspaper yesterday.
“Another policeman, from East New Britain descent came to my side and removed my handset of my phone.
“At first, I was ordered to stop by a group of policemen who were chasing and open fired indiscriminately at the landowners from the oval to the road towards Gordon.
“When I turned around, a policeman along with his colleagues walked towards me and ordered me to give my camera to him while he tried to grab hold of my camera.
ID card
“I asked why he wanted my camera while I introduced myself that I was Patrick Talu, a reporter from Post-Courier. He then asked for my ID card as proof that I was a reporter from Post -Courier but I told them I had no ID at that time. While we were arguing, more than 10 to 15 policemen surrounded me and pushed me away and ordered me to leave,” said Talu, who gave an account of the incident.
The incident happened while he was at the Unagi Oval to cover the event where Hela Transitional Authority Chairman and MP for Tari- Pori James Marape and HTA CEO William Bando were to meet the aggrieved landowners on the ongoing LNG related issues.
The threat was issued at 2pm by one of the policemen in the company of more than 20 fully armed policemen from the Mt Hagen-based mobile squad who were flown in by Prime Minister Peter O'Neill government-appointed police Commissioner Tom Kulunga to contain any uprising due to the political impasse between the O’Neill-Namah government and deposed Sir Michael Somare government.
An unfazed Talu said it was an unprofessional and primitive act by some rogue, ill trained and ill disciplined policemen who think they are above the law.
“Their guns and uniform does not put them in any superior position. They are there to protect and safeguard the interest and lives of the citizens of this country,” Talu said.
The secondary-school teacher-cum journalist expressed concerns that if the government can let the police issues threats and intimidate innocent and helpless citizens, then the principle of democracy in rights to freedom of movement and association and freedom of expression is compromised.
“If the government turns a blind of on these issues, we cannot preach about freedom because it is being always compromised here,” he said.
Meanwhile, he has called on Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga to disarm the rogue policemen and withdraw the deployment as there was no war or any civil unrest like that in Tripoli (Libya) or Cairo (Egypt) in Port Moresby.
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Pacific Media Watch
