Celebration of brave journalism
Rights and Freedoms
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Introduction and acknowledgement
Thank you Andrew for your welcome.
Before I begin I would like to acknowledge that we meet on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to elders, past and present. May I also acknowledge Peter Greste’s parents and family who have joined us tonight.
I thank Al Jazeera for the invitation and congratulate them for its focus on sharing the human story in a depth that is unusual in this age of the five second doorstop grab.
It is an honour to celebrate brave journalism and to recognise those who sacrifice their freedom and sometimes their lives to speak truth to power and to expose human rights violations.
Although Al Jazeera has only recently launched the Hear the human story campaign the in depth and personal approach to news reporting has been recognised by many awards including the Women's Empowerment Journalism Awards, the Peabody Awards, Hong Kong Human Rights Awards and an award from the Monte Carlo TV Festival.
Al Jazeera provides a news service that recognizes that individual human stories and fundamental rights and freedoms do matter. Indeed, I have learned in my last over two years in this job that it is difficult to generate public interest in laws, statistics and policy alone. It is only when you can put a face or story to an issue that we can have real impact.
As you will know, the Australian Human Rights Commission has just completed its inquiry into Children held in Immigration detention and I have learned that a speech from me about the prohibition on arbitrary detention and the rights of refugees or the rule of law has nowhere near the effect on hearts and minds of Australians as the individual story.
For example:
On my last visit to Christmas Island I met a young woman refugee from Iraq who at home had been an Architecture student and a fashion model. Indeed she was strikingly beautiful even though some days before she was badly injured after she had jumped off a building in a failed suicide attempt after over a year on the island. Her story attracted significantly more interest than anything I might say about the law. This is why we need to work so closely with the media to ensure the human story is understood.
At the Commission, we work with journalists every day and rely on them to highlight human rights and social justice issues. Right now, there are about 800 children in mandatory and indefinite immigration detention in Australia, Christmas Island and on Nauru. Through their stories, we are able to cut through the hostility and misconception about asylum seekers.
Indeed, journalists above all understand the potentially powerful and sometimes destructive force of words.
One can date the end of Australia’s commitment to a politically bipartisan approach to migration policy when the “Children overboard’ allegations were made in 2001, followed soon after by the Tampa Crisis and again some months later by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in the US. While the subsequent Government inquiry demonstrated that asylum seekers had, in fact, not thrown their babies into the sea and that the allegations were groundless, the slogan created fertile ground for further demeaning slurs over the following 13 years.
- Asylum seekers are by Ministerial dictate referred to as “illegals’ despite a clear provision in the Refugee Convention that the unauthorised arrival is not to attract penalties.
- Asylum seekers are accused of ‘jumping the queue’ when there is not queue. There are no consulates or embassies to fill out forms in most areas of conflict and even the UNHCR resettles refugees on the basis of need rather than any queue.
- Asylum seekers are denigrated as ‘economic migrants’, when we know that in the past at least 85-90% were assessed to meet the legal definition of a refugee and 31,000 asylum seekers living in Australia today have not had their claims assessed.
- Sadly, the 170 or so babies born in Australia of asylum seeker parents are termed ‘anchors’ to gain citizenship. A few weeks ago the Federal Circuit Court in the Baby Farouz case applied the Migration Act to find that despite being born in Brisbane, he was deemed by law to have “entered Australia by sea”. As such, he was an unauthorised maritime arrival and could not apply for a protection visa or Australian citizenship. It takes a journalist /comedian like Shaun Micallef in his TV program Mad as Hell mercilessly to riducule this law saying:
How dare baby Farouz hide for 9 months in his mother’s womb in a criminal attempt to jump the queue and gain Australian citizenship.
Journalism and bravery
To cut through such inaccurate, misleading language we need courageous and brave journalists.
Bravery takes many forms.
It can be about standing up against conventional wisdom or someone who swims against the tide to raise a critical human rights issue. It could be a journalist who goes undercover living as a homeless person on the streets to try and make people understand what it’s really like. Or it could be the reporter who puts their own safety on the line to expose the horrific child sex trade.
Some war correspondents give their lives to expose the suffering and human rights violations in dangerous parts of the world. Journalists in Iraq and Syria bring us news of the suffering on the ground as ISIS wages its war against anybody who disagrees with their world view. The horrifying executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff provide an extreme example of the ultimate sacrifice that journalists make.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 56 journalists have been killed this year alone with the biggest numbers in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and the Palestinian Territories (1). They report that there are 177 journalists imprisoned, including Australian journalist Peter Greste who has now been detained in Egypt for over 300 days.
Peter’s case is just one example of how journalists can become entangled in authoritarian regimes that do not accept human rights or the rule of law; where journalists can be punished simply for doing their job and exercising their right to freedom of expression.
The global access to digital information has raised new challenges for journalists. During the Arab Spring many journalists took to non-mainstream platforms, such as social media, to report on the uprising. Citizen journalists increasingly use online video and photos to share their stories with a global audience. The Guardian reported that Al-Jazeera's citizen media service Sharek received about 1,000 camera phone videos during the Egyptian uprising against Hosni Mubarak (2). This, raises the question who is journalist? Do they have to be registered as such, professionally trained or a member of a licensing organisation?
While barristers are trained never to ask a witness a question in court unless they know the answer, for a journalist, they must pursue their questions down endless rabbit holes to uncover the truth.
Sometimes brave journalism is about exposing a government, like the role played by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in the Watergate scandal. In Australia there are countless examples such as Chris Masters ‘Moonlight State’ program on Four Corners which shook up policing and government in Queensland. A commission of inquiry was announced the day after the broadcast, the inquiry resulted in over 100 convictions and the Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis was charged and eventually jailed.
The media and the AHRC
The media is important to many aspects of the Commission’s work, especially those pockets of injustice that do not attract strong public interest. The human story is crucial to changing hearts and minds.
Often the stories we are trying to tell are of the disempowered, who don’t have easy access to the media. Take Marlon Noble, the Aboriginal man with an intellectual disability who spent 10 years in jail but was never actually convicted of a crime. Here is an excerpt of his story.
This film has helped us highlight the injustice of Marlon’s situation. It was assisted in this case not by a journalist but by some superb and sympathetic cinematography from camera-man Paul Bell in the Kimberley. However the media also took interest in Marlon’s story, and through his experience we have been able to highlight some of the systemic issues that those with an intellectual disability face within the criminal justice system.
Threats to Journalism: Australia’s new anti-terrorism laws
Australia’s recently adopted anti-terrorism laws raise serious implications for journalists who protect whistle-blowers exposing corruption or a travesty of justice. The ASIO Act now creates a new offence in s 35P(1) if:
“a person discloses information that relates to a Special Intellegence Operation” that might involve both ASIO employees and affiliates.
The penalty is 5 years and can apply retrospectively to past SIOs. The penalty is increased to 10 years if the disclosure is intended to endanger health or safety or is intended to prejudice the effective conduct of a SIO. The primary aim is to deter unauthorised disclosures that have these effects.
Clearly the new law has the potential to limit the right to freedom of speech and the Human Rights Council has confirmed that “journalists should not be penalised for carrying out their legitimate activities.” To be a legitimate activity there must be a direct and immediate connection between the restriction on the right to freedom of speech and the alleged threat to security. At the very least it is recommended that for a journalist to be prosecuted it should be likely that the disclosure will endanger a person or prejudice an SIO. As things stand at present, journalists do risk serious penalties for investigation and reporting of ASIO operations. In my view this is a backward step for democracy when the community increasingly demands transparency in government activities carried out in their name.
Free press
The need for an independent and free media has never been more important, particularly within authoritarian regimes where the state controls the journalism of its media outlets. It is ironic, however, that in democratic societies, where some media is government funded, the opposite is true. The ABC and SBS for example are seen by some commentators as a sort of radical left wing fringe dweller existing on government welfare. Australia has been blessed by a diversity of media outlets and by high quality and fearless journalism that commands respect and credibility.
It is troubling, however, that according to Freedom House, global press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, partly reflecting setbacks in the Middle East, Turkey, Ukraine, and East Africa. (3)
So what is a free press? They refer to the robust coverage of political news, that the safety of journalists is guaranteed, that state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and that the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures.
According to the Report, in 2013 only 14% of people live in a country with a ‘free’ press. This equates to 1 in 7 people.
Alarmingly, in the Asia Pacific region, only 5% of the population had access to free media in 2013. It does not help the statistics that includes the world’s worst-rated country for press freedom, North Korea.
In conclusion:
May I mention the plight of Peter Greste who has now spent over 300 days behind bars.
The Commission has taken a special interest in Peter’s case. Recently his brother Andrew addressed our ‘Free Speech’ symposium in Sydney, the Commission has also engaged with Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights to explore ways we can work together as independent national human rights institutions.
Like many people around the world we were shocked and saddened by the most recent court decision. As we have seen from the short video, leaders from all regions have denounced Peter’s seven year conviction and reiterated the fundamental principle that journalism is not a crime.
I’d like to draw on a keynote address Peter prepared for London’s Frontline Club Awards last month 17th October 2014. The address was delivered by an Al Jazeera colleague, Sue Turton.
The hunger for reliable news and the recognition of the role it plays in a healthy, functioning democracy is still there, but we can’t take public support for granted. That's why I’m convinced that our best strategy as an industry starts with a rock-solid commitment to our core ethical and professional standards. The more sloppy we get, the more we degrade public support for our business, the more excuses we give to governments to limit and control what we do.(4)
This I think is critical. Although it is important to share the human story it must be grounded in objective and independent evidence. This is something that is also important for human rights advocates and national human rights institutions, such as the Australian Human Rights Commission. No one can undermine the legitimacy of our work if it is accurate, balanced and evidence based. As our Inquiry Report has been sent to the Attorney General, we await the tabling in Parliament before I can speak about the findings and recommendations. My hope is that like a good journalist, we can let the facts and evidence documented in the Report to speak for themselves.
Tonight we celebrate committed journalists around the world who are exercising their freedom of expression to expose serious human rights issues or abuses.
Freedom of the press is fundamental to any healthy democratic society. We need independent accurate information, we need robust reporting and we need environments where the safety of journalists is guaranteed.
A free society is not possible without free press. I wish Al Jazeera every success in their brave journalism
Thank you all.
References
(1) Reporters without borders. Press Freedom Barometer. At http://en.rsf.org/ (viewed November 2014).
(2) David Batty. Arab spring leads surge in events captured on cameraphones. The Guardian, 30 December 2011. At: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/29/arab-spring-captured-on-ca… (viewed 10 November 2014).
(3) Freedom House (2014). Freedom of the Press in 2013: Media Freedom Hits Decade Low. At: https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FOTP_2014.pdf (viewed 10 November 2014).
(4) Greste, P. (2014). Peter Greste speaks of the war on terror from prison. The Australian, 20 October 2014. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/peter-greste-speaks-of-the-war-on… (viewed 10 November 2014).
