Wed 05 June 2019:
Police raided the offices of Australia’s national broadcaster on Wednesday over allegations it had published classified material, the second raid on a media outlet in two days, prompting complaints that the “outrageous” raids hindered media freedom. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said its officers carried out a search warrant at the head office of the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) in Sydney on Wednesday over a report known as the “Afghan Files.” That came a day after police raided the home of a News Corp editor, although the AFP said the raids were unrelated. “It is highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way,” ABC Managing Director David Anderson said in a statement. “This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and defense matters,” he said. He added: “The ABC stands by its journalists, will protect its sources and continue to report without fear or favour on national security and intelligence issues when there is a clear public interest.”
Six police descended on ABC’s offices in Sydney armed with a warrant targeting three senior journalists and executives involved in a two-year-old investigative report. In 2017, ABC obtained documents that showed Australian special forces had killed innocent men and children in Afghanistan and published them in a series of broadcasts. The Australian police has a warrant to search through email systems in relation to the journalists and are searching “data holdings” between April 2016 and July 2017, ABC said. Police are also searching for article drafts, graphics, digital notes, visuals, raw television footage and all versions of scripts related to the stories.
The raid targeting the Canberra home of Annika Smethurst, the political editor of The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, is related to a 2018 newspaper report that said Australian intelligence agencies wanted to carry out surveillance by accessing people’s emails, bank accounts and text messages, domestic media reported. The Sunday Telegraph’s parent company News Corp called the raid on its employee “outrageous and heavy handed”, and “a dangerous act of intimidation.” The Rupert Murdoch-controlled company said it had “the most serious concerns about the willingness of governments to undermine the Australian public’s right to know about important decisions governments are making.”
The raids came barely two weeks after Australia’s conservative government won a May 18 election it was widely expected to lose, and which almost cost Dutton his seat. The home affairs minister must authorize raids considered politically sensitive, according to guidelines on the police website. Dutton denied involvement in the police investigations and said his office was notified after the raids were carried out. “It is entirely appropriate they conduct their investigations independently and, in fact, it is their statutory obligation,” Dutton said in a statement. ABC staff posted footage and comments as the raid unfolded. “This is a bad, sad and dangerous day for a country where we have for so long valued … a free press,” Lyons said on Twitter.
“Police raiding journalists is becoming normalised and it has to stop… it seems that when the truth embarrasses the government, the result is the Federal Police will come knocking at your door.” The BBC on Wednesday condemned overnight police raids on the headquarters of its Australian partner, describing it as a “deeply troubling” attack on press freedom. “This police raid against our partners at ABC is an attack on press freedom which we at the BBC find deeply troubling,” the British broadcaster said in a statement. “At a time when the media is becoming less free across the world, it is highly worrying if a public broadcaster is being targeted for doing its job of reporting in the public interest.”
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