EXCLUSIVE: Asylum seekers who’ve voluntarily returned home from the Manus Island detention centre present new allegations that Australian G4S security personnel incited local Papua New Guineans to attack them during the riots of 17 February that left one man dead. YAARA BOU MELHEM reports from Lebanon.
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Congratulations to the Al Jazeera 101 East team! Reporter, Yaara Bou Melhem; Cameraman, Trent Butler; Fixer, Zia Rehman; Editor, Nadim Shartouny – The Council and Programme Editor, Sharon Roobol.
Chairing a talk by Mona Eltahawy for the All About Women event at the iconic Sydney Opera House.
All About Women is a one day speaker extravaganza featuring men and women from Australia and around the world who tell their stories and debate issues about women.
Deadly clashes between poor garment workers and police are threatening to cripple Cambodia’s largest export industry.
Cambodia’s largest export industry is facing its biggest crisis, with garment workers and security forces engaged in a series of ongoing clashes. One recent protest left five people dead and scores injured.
The violence comes after weeks of political and labour unrest crippled Cambodia’s garment industry.
While the international spotlight has focused on the garment factories of Bangladesh, Cambodia’s garment workers have been staging their own revolution. Hundreds of industrial strikes have left the industry in turmoil and presented Prime Minister Hun Sen with the toughest political challenge in his nearly three-decade rule.
Cambodia began exporting garments in the 1990s. Low wages and an abundant workforce, powered mainly by the country’s rural population, have drawn major clothing brand names like GAP, H&M, Nike and Puma to Cambodia. Today, the industry is a $5bn-a-year business with almost 550 factories, mostly owned by Taiwanese, Korean, Chinese, Hong Kong and Singaporean companies.Last year 381 industrial strikes were recorded, up from 102 the previous year. Backed by a powerful workers’ union, the nationwide strikes are fuelled by opposition-led, anti-government protests demanding Hun Sen’s resignation.
The garment sector accounts for more than 80 percent of Cambodia’s exports and is the cornerstone of the country’s economy. Yet these fashion powerhouses pay their workers a pittance, and a series of tragedies threaten to shut down the industry.
Early last year, the ceiling of a shoe factory collapsed, killing three workers. The workers in the company, Wing Star Shoe, were working on Asics shoes. Eyewitnesses say that the heavy weight from the second floor caused the ceiling to collapse. Mass faintings are also common. Investigations show that garment workers typically toil in poorly ventilated factories, work long overtime hours to earn extra income and suffer from malnutrition.
We travel to Sihanoukville to investigate allegations that a factory producing shoes for Japanese international brand Asics has continued to hire underage workers despite repeated warnings.
Back in the capital Phnom Penh, frustrated workers have begun protesting outside factories, demanding better pay and working conditions. Strikes have become common. Following Bangladesh’s high-profile garment factory accidents, Cambodia’s union leaders and workers are demanding a minimum wage of $160 a month – $60 higher than what the government has offered.
Cambodia’s most recent strike began on December 24, 2013. Protests began with relatively minor clashes with police, who used tear gas and batons. But on January 3, 2014, military police armed with assault rifles fired into a defiant crowd gathered outside the Canadia Industrial Park area. Police said the workers were hurling objects at them. At least five people died and 23 were arrested.
“The situation is like a war,” Ath Thorn, the president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, says of the crackdown. He says demands for a higher minimum wage reflect Cambodia’s rising cost of living.
Cheam Yeap, a government spokesperson, estimates losses of $200m in the two-week nationwide strike. International clothing retailers like Adidas and H&M have stepped forward to say they oppose the violence and called on the government to find a peaceful solution, stating that the workers have a right to safe working environments. But Ken Loo from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia believes increasing the minimum wage will result in manufacturers closing down their factories and leaving Cambodia in search of cheaper options. He says the unions “are being silly” with their demands.
101 East examines the stalemate and asks, will the garment workers get what they deserve or will they continue to be fashion’s victims?
Behind the military pomp and ceremony North Korea displays to the world, relatively little is still known about the realities of life there.
But a landmark UN inquiry currently under way in London is hoping to change that by hearing testimony from those who’ve managed to escape.
Yaara Bou Melhem hears some of the harrowing stories of persecution and concentration camp-like conditions from defectors now trying to make a new life in the UK.
And she speaks to the man leading the human rights inquiry, former Australian High Court Judge Michael Kirby.
As he puts it, either the defectors are telling very imaginative and detailed lies about North Korea, or it’s an unmissable opportunity for the world to find out what’s really going on and take action.
When a Lebanese Sheik angrily blamed Australia for the drowning of asylum seekers off the coast of Indonesia in Dateline’s Village of Tears story two weeks ago, viewers were outraged.
18 people from his village of Qabeit died in the tragedy, including a mother and her eight children, and he demanded to know why Australia hadn’t rescued them.
Only the father of that family survived, and in this report Yaara Bou Melhem travels with him as he returns to his home village near the Syrian border.
Walking through his empty house, Hussein Khoder tells Yaara he’s been left with nothing, but is still determined to leave Lebanon and make a new life.
And what about laying the blame at Australia’s door? There’s a surprising apology from the Sheikh who caused so much anger.
The Australian Government is directly to blame for the deaths of at least 39 asylum seekers in a boat sinking off Indonesia last week, according to leaders in one of their home villages in Lebanon.
Yaara Bou Melhem reports from Qabeit, near the Syrian border, on the anger over the deaths of 18 local people including a mother and her eight children. Only the father survived.
In an angry tirade, local Sheik Ali Khoder says Australia has gone from being a land of dreams and freedom to killing people for election propaganda.
And Yaara spends time with the family who lost nine members, hearing how poverty drove them to flee, despite the pleas of their loved ones not to make the perilous journey.
In a poignant moment, she’s shown photos of the children and pictures they sent from their travels, including one aboard the ill-fated boat as it set sail for Australia.
Sectarian violence between extremist members of Pakistan’s majority Sunni and minority Shia communities has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people since the 1980s.
Analysts say Pakistan is increasingly becoming the battleground in a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
They claim the bulk of the violence more recently has been committed against the Shia community.
Bomb blasts this year alone have killed hundreds of Shias, with Sunni hardline group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claiming responsibility for most of the violence.
The extremist group has an openly anti-Shia agenda and is banned in Pakistan. It is classified as a terrorist organisation by several Western nations.
Rights group Amnesty International says the Shia Hazara community is particularly vulnerable to being targeted. The Hazara tribe is ethnically Mongolian and its people have oriental features that make them easily identifiable from the rest of the country’s population
So, can the Pakistani authorities protect its minorities and if so how?
101 East speaks with the families of victims of sectarian violence, from Pakistan’s Shia as well as Sunni communities. We also speak with Hazaras who have survived attacks in Quetta, and those who are fleeing the insecurity they face while living there. We film with counter-terror police and the government and talk to them about efforts to end sectarian violence.
