Pacific Press Release – Pacific Media Watch

PAPUA NEW GUINEA REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ILLEGALITY OF MOTI ARREST

By Patrick O’Connor

(World Socialist Web Site/Pacific Media Watch): The Papua New Guinean Parliament has released a report by the Ombudsman Commission into the events of September–October 2006, beginning with the arrest of the then
pending Solomon Islands’ attorney general, Julian Moti, at the behest of Australian Federal Police (AFP). Read more »

Pacific Scoop:

Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh.

The Coupfourpointfive blog has published the names and some personal details of the five assessors in the Assassination trial.  To what purpose, we can only guess but my guess is that it’s a form of intimidation. My understanding is that the the identity of jurors in a NZ trial are deliberately not made public for this very reason. The blog then went on to distort two important facts relating to the selection of the assessors and their implied bias. Read more »

Navtej Singh and his wife Harjinder Kaur.

Security footage of Navtej Singh's killers during the robbery of his liquor store in Manurewa.

Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Thakur Ranjit Singh, Pacific Media Centre, AUT University.

The verdict of the jury (and the court) in the murder trial of the killers of Navtej Singh, Manurewa liquor store owner who was shot in his store last year in a gang robbery, has sent wrong signals about the fairness and the consistency of the justice system in New Zealand.

What confused many Indian community leaders, general public, journalists and even some members of the legal fraternity is how come only one out of the group of six got convicted for murder while all the other accomplices escaped any of the serious convictions. Read more »

Pacific Press Release – Citizens’ Constitutional Forum

The Fiji Government should urgently address concerns on the independence of the judiciary and the state of the rule of law, as the issue is of the greatest concern to the international community, says the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum (CCF). Read more »

Pacific Media Release – Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, 10 February 2010

Fiji needs to provide an independent judiciary and protect human rights

Fiji’s Interim Government should allow visits by the UN Special Rapporteurs against Torture, on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, and on Human Rights Defenders, says the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum (CCF). Read more »

Julian Moti, former attorney general of the Solomon Islands. Photo: Solomon Times.

Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Thakur Ranjit Singh

Fallout from the Julian Moti trial and a permanent stay order on his court case in Brisbane has raised questions on whether the media was complicit in fabricating a case against the former Solomon Islands’ attorney general.

In this item, Thakur Ranjit Singh accuses, in particular, the Australian media of being unprofessional, compromising media ethics, and wanting in not revealing dubious activities of the Australian Government as it pursued Moti, when seeking to extradite him from the Solomon Islands to Australia on child sex charges, accusations of which Moti had already been acquitted. Read more »

Fiji Broadcasting's expulsions report on its website today.

Pacific Scoop
By Pacific Media Centre news desk

UPDATED: The Fiji government’s expulsion order against Australian High Commissioner James Batley and  acting New Zealand High Commissioner Todd Cleaver has been blamed on taped information given by the Chief Justice Anthony Gates to Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, Radio Fiji reports.
Read more »