To The Office of the Ombudsman

20210304
To the Office of the Ombudsman ( New Zealand )
Re non-reporting of Julian Assange's case by State-owned Media in New Zealand.

Both Radio New Zealand and TVNZ responded that they did not have any documents relating to any decisions about whether (or not) to report on Julian Assange's case or on information released by Wikileaks. I was concerned that there seemed to be an unintuitive and suspicious lack of reporting on what seemed to me to be an issue of great public importance. This non-reporting of this issue is of great concern in other countries - especially those that are directly involved i.e.The U.S. and its allies : the UK , Australia, Canada, New Zealand - that stand to be implicated by the evidence revealed by Wikileaks about breaches of the Geneva Convention.

Neither state broadcaster, Radio New Zealand nor TVNZ 1 have been providing any significant in-depth coverage on award-winning Australian journalist/publisher Julian Assange's ongoing arbitrary detention( with the exception of Bryan Crump's excellent interview on the 2nd of November 2020

(which came 2 days after I'd complained about lack of coverage )or on the attempt by the U.S. to extradite him to face extradition charges for having exposed breaches by their forces of the 4th Geneva Convention - and according to a response from Radio New Zealand they have mentioned Julian Assange 40 times in these superficial pieces.

Nor has there been any further coverage on or any investigation into the evidence uncovered by Wikileaks of breaches of the Geneva Convention or other International Human rights and criminal law. See also : The Afghan War Logs The Iraq War Logs

Back in 2015 Julian Assange made a significant submission on behalf of Wikileaks to the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Protection for Whistleblowers and the on the 4th of December 2015 the Human Rights Council's Working group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Julian Assange must be guaranteed the right of free movement and access to compensation. This is in line with the UN policy on protecting whistleblowers from 'intimidation and reprisals' by the states against whom they have revealed serious breaches of the Geneva Convention - and other International Human Rights and criminal law. In 2019 , Nils Melzer, the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Torture concluded that Julian Assange's conditions amounted to torture and that this case was unprecedented.

The United Kingdom (which is holding Julian Assange in solitary confinement in London's Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison ) is signatory to the 1948 International Declaration of Human Rights and is required to abide by and to enforce the opinions of the UN Working Groups through its own Human Rights Act but for some inexplicable reason, they are refusing to do this in Julian Assange's case.

In the absence of any in-depth reporting, investigation or discussion of this matter , the public of New Zealand remain largely oblivious to the plight of this individual but also to the issue in general that should otherwise be of huge concern to us as individuals and as a society that ostensibly at least aspires to being a functional democracy with meaningful checks and balances , a functioning and effective media that is able to demand transparency and accountability to those in positions of power - without fear of intimidation and reprisals.

This is a pivotal issue for our whole civilization.

It will have huge repercussions for our media's willingness to test the limits of power.

Societies that allow those who demand transparency and accountability to be subjected to intimidation and reprisals are doomed to endure the excesses and abuses that are inevitable consequences of unlimited power.

By either wilful or unintentional omission , our state broadcasters are allowing this to happen.

Alan William Preston
Mangawhai , New Zealand.

Ombudsman responded...