An Australian journalist who was denied entry into Papua New Guinea (PNG) believes he has been blacklisted from the country because he reported on conditions at the Manus Island detention center.
Photojournalist Matthew Abbott was on Friday detained by immigration officials at Port Moresby airport after getting off a flight from Brisbane.
Abbott was attempting to apply for a tourist visa and planned to travel on to Manus Island to report on conditions at the now-decommissioned center, where about 600 men have been without power, water and basic services for five days.
Photo: AFP
He was acting as an independent freelancer and was not on commission from any publication.
“While I was waiting in line for a visa on arrival, I handed over my passport to the immigration officer,” Abbott said. “She looked confusedly at her screen and asked if I was the same Matthew Abbott that had been involved with publishing disruptive material from Manus Island.”
Abbott said he was told to get his bags and wait to speak to a senior official.
“It was clear that I was on a list and there was no chance I was getting into the country,” he said.
Abbott said he asked if he had been denied entry on the orders of the Australian government and the officials did not respond. He said they treated him with respect and courtesy.
“To be told you can’t even access the country on the orders of your own country is pretty disappointing,” he said. “I know some of the guys who are there. Someone needs to be there to be covering this.”
The “disruptive material” is believed to refer to an incident that occurred at the detention center in July, when Abbott photographed the aftermath of an attack on two Afghan refugees.
Officials at the camp attempted to delete the photographs from his camera, scanned his passport and warned him not to publish them.
“When it was clear last time that they could not get the photos back off me, they said to me: ‘If you publish these photographs you are never going to come back here,’” Abbott said. “There’s a total double standard being applied ... journalists that are doing positive work and non-critical work are being allowed in whereas people who are doing critical work are stopped.”
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Paul Murphy said denying independent journalists access to Manus Island was an affront to press freedom and accused the Australian government of trying to dictate the nature of the coverage on Manus.
“These things are being done in our name and as citizens we have a right to independent scrutiny of what’s happening there,” Murphy said.
The suggestion that Abbott had been blacklisted because his work was critical of the detention center regime was particularly concerning, he added.
“Any evidence of government control and intervention in determining who gets to report, what can be reported and when it’s reported is absolutely repugnant,” he said. “It’s not something you would expect to see in a liberal democracy.”
Other Australian journalists have managed to gain access to the center, including News Corp’s Rory Callinan and Brian Cassey.
A Department of Immigration and Border Protection spokesman said that entry to PNG was a matter for that nation’s authorities.
Meanwhile, Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani has reported that the navy and PNG police are stopping food from being delivered to the regional processing center.
He says they are telling the detainees that if they want food, they will need to relocate to the alternative accommodation centers.
Boochani said a boat driver who attempted to deliver food on Friday was arrested.
Detainees have resisted moving to the accommodation centers, one of which is reportedly incomplete, because of safety concerns.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia