AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Participants at last night’s World Media Freedom Day event at AUT University applauded the two Pacific “information heroes” honoured last week for their efforts in defence of the public right to be informed.
Both men -- José Antonio Belo in Timor-Leste and Kalafi Moala of Tonga -- have been jailed during their careers in defence of media freedom.
Belo is currently campaigning against a draconian new media law being debated in East Timor’s national assembly this week.
The participants also acknowledged the fate of three Al Jazeera English journalists and a fourth reporter from Al Jazeera Arabic who have detained by Egyptian authorities since last year as being symbolic of the global fight for media freedom.
“Ironically, on World Media Freedom Day, which was actually last Saturday, three Al Jazeera English journalists went on trial for allegedly spreading false news and aiding the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Pacific Media Centre director professor David Robie.
“Or rather, they didn’t go on trial because their case was yet again adjourned for another two weeks – and again bail was refused.”
Dr Robie said the case of bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian; correspondent Peter Greste, an Australian; and producer Baher Mohammed, had become a worldwide cause célèbre.
Hunger strike
And so had the case of their Al Jazeera Arabic colleague, Abdullah al-Shami, who had actually been in prison in Cairo for eight months without charge and was on a hunger strike.
New Zealand Commisson of UNESCO board member Trish Carter, founding editor of the Al Jazeera Asia-Pacific bureau, also spoke in support of the Al Jazeera detainees and spoke of her communications with Peter Greste’s parents in Australia.
“These four journalists are just some of the many who have been brutally victimised by the world’s predators of the press,” Dr Robie said.
He cited Reporters Sans Frontières figures since the start of this year alone - 16 journalists have been killed, 9 netizens or citizen journalists have died, 169 journalists been imprisoned and 170 netizens jailed.
“I would like to briefly just focus our attention on the Asia-Pacific region for a moment. Last week RSF published a list of 100 people around the world that it described as ‘information heroes’. Two were in Australia and none in New Zealand. But two were named from Pacific island states.
“Neither of our Pacific Island media heroes rated a mention in the mainstream media. I guess in the parochial press it takes a Kiwi to get the attention.
“But both of these men deserve our gratitude – leading investigative journalist José Antonio Belo in Timor-Leste and Kalafi Moala of Tonga. Both of them have been jailed during their careers for defending press freedom.”
Handcuffed, burned
During the Indonesian occupation in the 1990s, José Belo, editor of the weekly Tempo Semanal, “was handcuffed, hung by his feet, burned and put in prison for three years”.
In the case of Kalafi Moala, publisher and managing director of the Taimi Media Network, who contributed much to the opening up of democracy in the kingdom, the RSF citation said in part: “In 1996, Moala and his colleagues were sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment each for publishing pro-democracy reports that were judged in [contempt of Parliament].
“Using prison visitors, the tenacious journalist managed to smuggle out editorials written on toilet tissue which were published in the course of the following four weeks.”
Pacific "information heroes"
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