SYDNEY: Australian police have raided the headquarters of public broadcaster ABC in a sharp crackdown on sensitive leaks.Six police descended on the corporation’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. The Australian Federal police said the searchwas "in relation to allegations of publishing classified material, contrary to provisions of the Crimes Act 1914."ABC executive editor John Lyons said the search warrant demanded access to reporters´ handwritten notes, emails, story drafts, footage and passwords, among other things -- going through a total of 9,214 documents."This is a really serious escalation of the attack on the free media, and that hits the public," he said as the raid continued. "I´ve never seen an assault on the media as savage as this." "It´s not just about the media. It´s about any person out there who wants to tell the media about a bad hospital or a school that´s not working. Or a corrupt local council."A day earlier police raided a journalist´s home in Canberra over a report that detailed the authorities´ bid to gain powers to spy on Australian citizens communications at home. police said there was "no link" between the two raids which relate to "separate allegations of publishing classified material".Both stories involved sensitive and potentially classified materials and were embarrassing to the Australian government and the security services in particular.Prime Minister Scott Morrison has tried to distance himself from the raids, which come just days after the re-election of his conservative government, insisting they were police, not government, matters."Australia believes strongly in the freedom of the press and we have clear rules and protections for the freedom of the press," he said during a visit to London. "There are also clear rules protecting Australia´s national security and everybody should operate in accordance with all of those laws passed by our parliament."Earlier in 2017 hundreds of pages of secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC give an unprecedented insight into the clandestine operations of Australia’s elite special forces in Afghanistan, including incidents of troops killing unarmed men and children.The documents, named as Afghan Files, many marked AUSTEO — Australian Eyes Only — suggest a growing unease at the highest levels of Defence about the culture of Australia’s special forces as they prosecuted a bloody, secretive war against insurgents across a swathe of southern Afghanistan.One document from 2014 refers to ingrained “problems” within special forces, an “organisational culture” including a “warrior culture” and a willingness by officers to turn a blind eye to poor behaviour.A large proportion of the documents are reports on at least 10 incidents between 2009-2013 in which special forces troops shot dead insurgents, but also unarmed men and children.The Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force is investigating at least two of the incidents as part of its inquiry into the conduct in Afghanistan of special forces, which includes alleged unlawful killing.Those two incidents — which both occurred in September 2013 — are the deaths of a man and his six-year-old child during a raid on a house, as revealed by the ABC, and the killing of a detainee who was alone with an Australian soldier and allegedly tried to seize his weapon.A report into another 2013 incident in which an Afghan man riding a motorcycle was killed by Australian troops, and a female passenger possibly injured, states that Afghan authorities were becoming increasingly agitated over Australians allegedly killing unarmed civilians, and threatened to stop working with Australians.The documents also provide fresh details of some notorious incidents, including the severing of the hands of dead Taliban fighters by Australian troops.
06-08-2019, 01:21 PM
Australian police raid media outlet for exposing Afghan Files
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