Printer Friendly Version

Australia Trashes Free Speech – SBS Sacks Journalist Scott McIntyre Over Anti-War Tweets

By Dr Gideon Polya

04 April, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Free speech has been trashed in jingoistic, pro-war , US lackey Australia. Scott McIntyre, a courageous young sports journalist with Australia's substantially taxpayer-funded,  multicultural  Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), was sacked after he tweeted a succession of truthful anti-war comments on Anzac Day (Australia's  war dead remembrance day). Only a few, notably John Pilger, came to his defence, and the rest was silence or strong condemnation of McIntyre.

To better understand this latest trashing of free speech in Australia you need to appreciate some Australian history and the high level of ignorance, jingoism,  racism, politically correct racism (PC racism), political cowardice and censorship  in Australia.

The British invaded Australia in 1788 and quickly set about wiping out the Indigenous population  and stealing their land. Before the British Invasion in 1788, Indigenous Australians had  been living in Australia for about 60,000 years. There were 350-750 different tribes and a similar number of languages and dialects, of which only 150 survive today, and of these all but about 20 are endangered.  After the genocidal British Invasion, the Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million in 1788 to about 0.1 million in the first century through introduced  disease, deprivation and genocidal violence. The last massacres of Aborigines occurred in the 1920s but no Treaty has ever been signed. Indigenous Australians were only counted  after a referendum in 1967 and were finally given some protection by the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. In 1998  about 4,000 Aborigines out of an Aboriginal  population of 500,000 died avoidably  every year but the avoidable death rate has declined from 0.8% pa in 1998 to 0.6% pa in 2013, with still  circa 4,000 annual avoidable deaths out of a population now of about 670,000. Indigenous Australians are far worse off than White Australians in relation to housing, health, wealth, social conditions, imprisonment, avoidable death and life expectancy, with many living  in Third  World  conditions in one of the world's richest countries. The Australian Aboriginal   Ethnocide continues with a Third World living conditions, a Third World avoidable mortality rate,  continuing forced removal of Aboriginal children from their mothers, compulsory education in English, and now a concerted State and Federal move to close 150 remote communities where surviving, impoverished  Aboriginal communities are clinging to land their forebears have inhabited for tens of thousands of years [1-5].

White Australia  did not confine its  genocidal excesses to Indigenous Australians  and  has invaded 85 countries (as compared to the UK 193, France 80, the US 70 and Apartheid Israel 12), with these invasions being associated with 30 genocidal atrocities and with White Australia typically acting as a UK lackey of the British Empire pre-WW2 or as a US lackey of the American Empire after 1941.    However Australia's secret genocide history (except for the Aboriginal  Genocide which is subject to extraordinary  denial)  is completely ignored by Mainstream  Australian politicians, media and academic  historians, most notably by the recently published   “The Cambridge History of Australia”   [6-9].  Qualitatively,  Australia's worst genocidal atrocity has been the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide involving the complete extermination  of as many as 600 unique Indigenous cultures, languages and dialects [1-6]. However from a quantitative perspective, the  worst atrocity involving Australia was the WW2 Bengali Holocaust, the 1942-1945 man-made Bengal Famine in which the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons (Australia was complicit by withholding food for starving Indian from its huge wartime grain stores) [9-11].

Australia is connected with the Armenian Genocide in which the Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians   in what was first huge genocide of the 20th century. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces were involved he Anglo-French (Allied) invasion of Anatolian Turkey in 1915 that was part of an Anglo-French strategy to assist their ally Russia (that was cut off from the Mediterranean ) , to seize Constantinople (Istanbul), seize the oil-rich parts of the Middle East that were part of the Ottoman Empire, to further secure the Suez Canal and the Middle East between Europe and  British and French Asian colonial possessions, and to establish a third front against Germany and Austria-Hungary in WW1. The tragedy of WW1 arose out of Germany being squeezed out of global capitalism by the British and French Empires  and a longstanding British policy of  violently influencing the balance of power in Europe.

Months of Anglo-French bombardment of the Dardanelles (linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean) eventually precipitated violent Turkish xenophobia on the eve of the actual Allied invasion on 25 April 2015. On 24 April 2015 the Armenian Genocide commenced with the rounding up of Armenian community leaders and intellectuals such as councillors, clergy and professionals, and expanded  to mass killings and the forced  expulsion of Armenian  communities in horrendous death marches. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed and one of the regions oldest civilizations was decimated. Successive Turkish governments have remorselessly rejected the extent and terminology of the Armenian Genocide [9, 11].

The actual Allied land invasion of the Dardanelles passage region at the  Gallipoli Peninsular  (on the northern or European side of the Dardanelles) commenced on 25 April 2015. Both the British  and French used soldiers from their respective empires, including the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps  (ANZAC) forces. The ANZAC forces  were mistakenly landed on steeply sloping terrain instead of on adjoining more level terrain.  Pre-eminent British warmonger and imperialist Winston Churchill was the architect of this British imperial disaster that was associated with about 250,000 Allied casualties and about 250,000 Turkish casualties, with about 60,000 Allied soldiers and 80,000 Turkish soldiers dying before the Allies withdrew in 1916.  The Turks fought tenaciously to defend their homeland  and their general Kemal Ataturk was to later found a modern secular Turkey on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire [12, 13]

 Anzac Day has been commemorated as Australia's most sacred war dead remembrance day for a century since the first Anzac Day on 25 April 1915 when Australian  and New Zealand ANZAC forces invaded Turkey at Gallipoli. The total number of Australians killed at Gallipoli was about 8,700 with 700 of these dying from disease (about 2,700 New Zealanders also died). In all, about 62,000 Australians died in WW1 and a total of about 100,000 Australian soldiers have died for their country [12, 13]. 24 April 2015 is the 100th  anniversary  of the start of the Turkish WW1 Armenian Genocide and 25 April 2015 is the centenary of the unsuccessful and disastrous Australian and New Zealand Army Corps  (ANZAC) invasion of Turkey  at Gallipoli, these linked events being commemorated on these dates as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (for Armenians) and Anzac Day (for Australians  and New Zealanders) , respectively. However look-the-other-way Australia still ignores this linkage with the Armenian Genocide on Anzac Day, and indeed a  search of the ABC (Australia's equivalent of the UK BBC) for the term “Armenian  Genocide” yields 140 results but notably none earlier than 2006 [14]. .

 SBS sports journalist Scott McIntyre was sacked by SBS over  making 5 truthful tweets on Anzac Day 2015 (the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC invasion of Turkey) and refusing to remove them or apologize. It must be stated that Australians  should  honor all those who died serving Australia and the best way of honouring  their sacrifice is by telling the truth about the horrible wars in which they participated.

Below  are the 5 truth-telling, pro-humanity tweets of Scott McIntyre (see Scott McIntyre @mcintinhos  ) over which Scott McIntyre was sacked,  with the documented historical veracity of his assertions in parentheses:

1. “Innocent children, on the way to school, murdered. Their shadows seared into the concrete of Hiroshima [with a graphic nuclear human shadow picture]” ( true; for such graphic images from the nuclear terrorist atrocity of Hiroshima see “The everlasting shadow of Hiroshima”[15]).

2. “Not forgetting that the largest single-day terrorist attacks in history were committed by this nation & their allies in Hiroshima & Nagasaki” (true; up to 250,000 mostly  civilians – women, children and the  elderly – were killed in the  nuclear terrorist nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that, like the conventional holocaust of Dresden,  were clearly aimed as a warning about US power to the newly victorious Soviet Union [16];

3. “Remembering the summary execution, widespread rape and theft committed by these ‘brave' Anzacs in Egypt, Palestine and Japan” (true; Australian servicemen  were involved in the Surafend Massacre of over 100 Palestinian villagers in 1918 [17, 18];  killing 800 pro-democracy Egyptian  demonstrators in 1918,  violence, arson and very likely rape in WW1 Egypt [19]; shooting Japanese  prisoners and raping Japanese women [20]; and through withholding food from its huge wartime grain stores Australia was  involved in the WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which 6-7 million Indians were deliberately starved to death for strategic reasons and in which hundreds of thousands of starving Bengali women and girls were subject to civilian sexual abuse and military sexual abuse via the  Military Labor Corps  and on  scale comparable with  the “comfort women” abuses of the Japanese military [9-11, 21].

4. “Wonder if the poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers pause today to consider the horror that all mankind suffered” (true; for the immediate Gallipoli invasion consequence, the Armenian genocide involving 1.5 million killed, and the subsequent genocidal horrors  in the Muslim world and elsewhere to this  day see “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide [22] and related accounts [23-25]; about 50% of Australians  are functionally illiterate and innumerate [26] and Anzac Day is associated with drinking beer and gambling via the “two up” coin-tossing game [27]. Indeed A controversial Australian advertising campaign by Australia's  largest brewery used the Australian Governor General, former Vietnam veteran and former head of Australian defence forces, General Peter Cosgrove,  saying “raise a glass” of beer to serving  personnel and veterans (the brewer made large donations to veterans causes). One notes that  80,000 Australians die preventably  each year and of these 5,600 Australians die alcohol-related deaths annually [28]. Yet Australia has committed to a  presently $125 billion long-term accrual cost to Australia of the Zionist-promoted US War on Terror (10 million Muslims killed by violence or by war-imposed deprivation versus 1 million Australians dying preventably since the US Government's 9-11 false flag operation [29] and despite only 1 Australian having ever been killed in Australia by a Muslim-origin non-state  terrorist – an extraordinary fiscal perversion  of spending billions of dollars  on killing  Muslims abroad instead of keeping Australians  alive at home [28].).

 5. “The cultification of an imperialist invasion of a foreign nation that Australia had no quarrel with is against all ideals of modern society” (true; mostly as a UK lackey or US lackey Australia has invaded 85 countries (as compared to Britain 193, France 80, the US 70 and Apartheid Israel 12) with 30 of these interventions associated with genocidal atrocities that are whitewashed by Mainstream media, politicians and academics [6-8].

 How did Australia respond to Scott McIntyre's truthful assertions?

SBS demanded retraction and an apology and sacked Scott McIntyre for refusing.  Anonymous bloggers spewed hatred and abuse and the  bottom-of the-barrel Murdoch media  (that has about 70% of newspaper readership in Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy and Corporatocracy  Australia), responded with vituperation. Thus right-wing Murdoch media columnist Andrew Bolt stated: “If SBS sports presenter Scott McIntyre had vilified Muslims as he vilified Anzacs he'd be sacked to the Left's cheers. So he shouldn't become the Left's martyr now that SBS has sacked him for his Anzac Day tweets…Once such vilification of our nation was merely the Left's lazy way of advertising its broad-mindedness towards other cultures, but now it is reckless. If journalists portray their own country as the worst terrorist nation — a land of white trash with an army of rapists and murderers — who can blame some young Muslims for feeling obliged to destroy it? Of all “hate speech” now, McIntyre's is becoming the most dangerous. He had to go” [30].

Australia's Communications Minister and Prime-Minister-in-waiting Malcolm Turnbull  “Difficult to think of more offensive or inappropriate comments than those by @mcintinhos. Despicable remarks which deserve to be condemned”. Significantly, Turnbull contacted the head of SBS and has clarified his involvement thus: “The tweets by Mr McIntyre were made on his Twitter account which clearly identified him as an SBS reporter and which he used as part of his work at SBS to report on football. The comments were so offensive that they deserved the widespread condemnation that they received… as soon as I was made aware of the tweets by Mr McIntyre I drew them to the attention of the Managing Director Mr Ebeid who then investigated the matter. The management of SBS however, not the Government, is responsible for  staffing decisions at SBS… Mr McIntyre, as a private citizen, is entitled to express his political views, but in his capacity as a reporter employed by SBS he has to comply with, and face the consequences of ignoring, the SBS social media protocol (available online here), a number of provisions of which were breached by him with his offensive tweets” [31].

Unfortunately other public figures have commented in a similar vein to the effect that McIntyre ‘s comments were offensive and may have breached the Code of Conduct of his employer, SBS. Thus, for example:  

Dr Carolyn Holbrook (an academic in the Arts Faculty at Monash University and the author of “Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography””: “a lot of people who go and commemorate and all these people, tens of thousands of people, who turned up on Anzac Day, you can't insult them by just putting them under the banner of poorly read and boozers and gamblers… this bloke had 30,000 Twitter followers. 30,000 Twitter followers by virtue of the fact he was an SBS sports journalist. He could have perhaps made those tweets in a private capacity or he could have abided by SBS policy when he was told to remove the tweets. Apparently the reason he was sacked is because he didn't abide by the policy and remove the tweets and so that would be my first reaction: the timing and the sentiment and then going against his workplace laws” [32].

 Coalition Senator Arthur Sinodinos (he resigned in 2014 as Assistant Treasurer due to an investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption): “Malcolm [Turnbull] did ring or talk to Michael Ebeidc, the managing director of SBS, to bring to his attention that he had received representations about this and that this matter was blowing up in the Twittersphere. He left it with Ebeidc and then it became a matter of judgment for the SBS management as to what to do in those circumstances. Malcolm did not suggest that the bloke be sacked but he did bring it to his attention” [32].

Tanya Plibersek (Deputy Labor Opposition Leader): “Well, I certainly don't think his comments were appropriate. I think it is for the SBS management to decide whether he has breached any workplace policies. I mean, I'm glad we live in a country where he can say it and nobody is going to knock on the door in the middle of the night. Whether he has borne too high a price, I think that's for other people to judge” [32].

 Tim Fischer (former National Party Deputy PM): “Can I say it's offensive to the thousands - hundreds of thousands that turned out at dawn services all around Australia to be loosely ascribed indirectly in these tweets as being gamblers, boozers and the like… So let's not have half a million dollars of litigation over this matter. He, I think, did breach his contract. He has been dealt with” [32].

Particularly disturbing  were comments by Human Rights advocates who should be unequivocally supporting freedom of speech e.g. Tom Porteous (Deputy Program Director at Human Rights Watch based in Washington DC) : “Well, in a democracy, people should be able to say what they want. And just because it's an inappropriate timing, there's no reason why, in fact, in some ways it's especially important people should be able to criticise the Anzacs on Anzac Day in a free society. But, you know, the question is: did he breach his company's policies and, you know, and the question whether he should be sacked or not is really related to that rather than anything else. But, you know, he has not been prosecuted. But so I support his right to tweet what he wants. I think it's healthy to criticise national legends, even the foundational myth. But as to whether he should have been sacked or not, that's really up to his company. I mean, my company has guidelines and I probably would have been in serious trouble if I tweeted something like that” [32].

Tim Wilson (right wing Australian Human Rights Commissioner writing  in the right-wing, Murdoch-owned “The Australian” newspaper): “Accountability is essential to ensure free speech is exercised with respect for others. On Sunday morning, SBS sacked its sports commentator, Scott McIntyre, for tweeting ­offensive statements about ­Anzacs and Australia. Decrying McIntyre's dismissal as a free speech violation and censorship is absurd. McIntyre was free to tweet his bile before he worked for SBS, while he worked for SBS and now that he no longer works for SBS. His tweets did not break any law. He has not been censored. SBS simply decided it didn't want to be associated with him. No one is guaranteed a job. Employers are not compelled to put up with behaviour that harms their public reputation” [33].

However some prominent people have spoken out for freedom of speech and Scott McIntyre: 

Greg Barnes (a barrister and national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance) defended free speech and attacked Tim Wilson: “Mr Wilson is wrong about the need for SBS having to take action. He is placing the right to freedom of speech below the "right" of an employer to sack or otherwise discipline an individual who has exercised what should be a fundamental human right, subject to laws concerning hate speech and discrimination (and there appears to be no suggestion that Mr McIntyre has breached any such laws.) While it might not suit SBS, or any employer, for their employees to have views about issues that will provoke controversy, it is important that the culture of corporate obsession with "brand reputation" is not allowed to undermine a fundamental freedom such as the right to freedom of speech” [34].

John Pilger (an outstanding an Australian-British journalist based in London): “Young Scott McIntyre drove the Twitter equivalent of a five-ton truck through such maudlin, cynical drivel [Anzac Day glorifications] . He tweeted the unsayable about imperial Australia, much of it the truth; and all decent journalists - or dare I say, his freedom-loving compatriots - should be standing up for him. That Malcolm Turnbull, a pretender for prime minister who made his name unctuously shouting about freedom of speech, should connive with McIntyre's employer, the state-funded TV network, SBS, (which has sacked him), is a measure of the state of public and media life in Australia. That a journalism professor of long standing, John Henningham, can tweet weasel words that "freedom of speech meant that journalists had the right to speak without breaking the law but did not have the right to keep their job when offending others" is a glimpse of the obstacles faced by aspiring young journalists as they navigate the university mills. Many young people reject this, of course, and maintain their sense of the bogus, and McIntyre is one of them. He offended in the highest tradition of freedom of thought and speech. Knowing the personal consequences would be serious, he displayed moral courage. When his union, the MEAA, locates its spine and its responsibility, it must demand he is given his job back. I salute him” [35].

The Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA, the Australian union for journalists) has stated: “Increasingly, media employees are being required to use social media platforms to promote their work and those accounts are then being used as a marketing tool benefiting media employers. The policies have begun to infringe on the private lives of media professionals, dictating what they can and can't say in a private capacity, outside of their work. MEAA believes that employers must recognise that their employees are entitled to a private life, with their own beliefs and opinions; opinions that should be able to be expressed without heavy-handed retribution by the employer. Striking a balance between engaging in debate and freedom of expression requires social media policies to be nuanced. What MEAA is finding is that social media policies of employers are inflexible and deny staff the right to have and express a personal opinion” [36].

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) stated: “NSWCCL is extremely concerned by SBS's decision to sack journalist Scott McIntyre for a series of tweets on Saturday critical of the ANZAC tradition. We are deeply committed to defending free speech in its varied - and sometimes offensive - forms as a central value of a progressive and enlightened society. Equally troubling has been the reaction to the McIntyre incident from certain sections of the political establishment.  McIntyre's sacking should be understood as a free speech issue, and not merely as a breach of a vague social media policy in an employment contract. We note the concerns of the MEAA  regarding the increasing pressure placed on journalists to at once build a personal ‘brand' on social media, and to suppress aspects of their private life, including political views, that their employer may find objectionable. The pressure on media professionals - indeed, many modern professionals - to limit expression of their personal views on social media as a requirement of their employment amounts to a demand for self-censorship that should be roundly rejected” [37].

 Geoff Lemon (writing in The Guardian Australia): “Opprobrium didn't pour down on McIntyre out of respect for historical veracity. It was because he'd disturbed a broadly accepted idea of sanctity on a day that has been secularly consecrated. Without a whole lot to believe in, many of us have deemed Anzac Day holy. It gives us a sense of belonging and meaning. McIntyre breached the general public accord: not in saying hateful things about people who might suffer as a consequence, but in how we collectively view ourselves and our past. As much as I think his comments were factually flawed and deliberately designed to inflame, nothing says that I should then send him messages of rage and hate, or that he doesn't deserve to have a job that is in no way related to those opinions”[38].

I have very little voice in Australia but it is not for want of trying. Thus a detailed comment I sent on an article  in  the  somewhat progressive Australian web magazine Crikey in April in support of  Scott McIntyre was completely  censored by Crikey, presumably for containing things that Crikey does not want its readers to read, know about or think about -  but it can be found on the website “Censorship by Crikey” [39], a key passage stating “There was at least one decent, humane, truth-telling journalist at the SBS, namely Scott McIntyre, but the SBS has sacked him, thereby utterly trashing its own reputation. We should honor all those who died serving Australia and the best way of honouring their sacrifice is by telling the truth about the horrible wars I which they participated.”

It seems possible that Scott McIntyre might have been one of only a small number of decent, courageous, truth-telling,  and ethical journalist in SBS -  this hypothesis being supported by the apparent absence of any support for Scott McIntyre and his right to free speech from his colleagues within SBS -   but SBS has now sacked him over his truth-telling.

Indeed, in addition to this egregious censorship, SBS, like other Australian Mainstream media,  has an appalling record of  (a) lying by commission (false reportage) and (b) lying by omission. False reportage  by SBS is exampled by the following letter I sent to the Australia Consumer and Competition  Commission (ACCC) in 2013: “ ACCC [address], Dear Sir/Madam, On  Thursday  7 November 2013,  SBS TV carried an advertisement from fossil fuel corporation Chevron  that incorrectly and misleadingly stated "Natural  gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is". BP,  Shell, the Australian Government and the ABC  have made similar incorrect and misleading claims. Methane (CH4), a major constituent of natural gas, leaks and has a global warming potential 105 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year  time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. At 2.6% leakage the greenhouse gas (GHG) effect of the leaked CH4 is the same as the GHG effect from burning the remaining 97.4% of the CH4 to yield CO2. Depending upon the systemic leakage (2-8% in the US), gas burning can be much dirtier GHG-wise overall than coal burning. One can further take issue with the misleading use of the term "conventional". Thus Scotland, rich in tidal, wave and offshore wind energy, plans to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2020 at which time renewable energy will be "conventional" for energy smart Scotland if not for seriously mislead Australia. Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya” [39].

Appalling lying by omission by SBS is exampled by its selective reportage of only 4 genocides, namely (deaths in parentheses)   the Armenian Genocide (1.5 million), the WW2 Jewish Genocide (5-6 million), the Cambodian Genocide (1.5 million) and  the Rwandan Genocide (1 million), noting that none of these genocides directly involved the British Empire or the US Alliance. Noting that a “holocaust” involves deaths of huge numbers of people,  and that “genocide” is defined  by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”,   searches of the SBS News for the terms “Bengali Holocaust” , “Bengal Famine”, “Bengali Famine”, “Indian Holocaust” and “Indian Genocide”  reveal zero (0) SBS reportage of the WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which the British with Australian  complicity deliberately  starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons [40].  

Indeed, as revealed on the website “Censorship by SBS (Australia)” [40],  searches of the SBS News also yield zero  (0)  results for scores of other genocidal atrocities, with many involving the UK or US,  e.g. (with dates and deaths from violence or imposed  deprivation in parentheses) “Chinese Genocide” (40 million, 1937-1945), “Russian Genocide” (20 million, 1941-1945), “Iraqi Genocide” (9 million,  1914-present), “German Genocide” (8 million, 1941-1950), “Afghan Genocide” (6 million, 2001-present), “Australian Aboriginal Genocide” (2 million, 1788 to present ), “Palestinian Genocide” (1936 to present), and “Somali Genocide” (1992 to present). The genocide-ignoring  SBS  has managed to totally ignore about 90 such genocide and holocaust terms relating to atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries, and now has sacked one of its few decent journalists, Scott McIntyre, for  merely alluding to the downside of war on Anzac Day. Genocide  ignoring and holocaust ignoring  are  far, far  worse than repugnant genocide denial and holocaust denial because the latter can at least admit the possibility of debate [41].

Constraints on free speech in Australia extend well beyond corporate constraints on the free speech of journalists (noting that US Murdoch media have captured 70% of newspaper readership in Australia). Thus  Australian university academics are constrained by fear of losing funding or employment, by corporate-style Codes of Conduct [42, 43] and most recently by draconian legislation that imposes 10 years' imprisonment for scientists communicating  to non-Australians information about any of thousands of chemicals or technologies in a huge Defence and Strategic Goods List [44] . Even though only one (1) Australian has ever been killed in Australia by a Muslim-origin  non-state terrorist (in December 2014) as compared to 80,000 Australians dying preventably each year from various causes, successive Australian Governments have  committed to a long-term accrual cost of $11 billion per year  of the Zionist-promoted US War on Terror (10 million Muslim deaths from violence or violently-imposed deprivation since 2001) and to draconian anti-terrorism laws  that drastically curtail  Australian civil liberties and variously provide custodial  punishment of up to life imprisonment for Australians reading, writing, speaking, not speaking, supporting or funding in relation to all kinds of  things that the neo-fascist, US lackey Australian Establishment doesn't like [45].

Conclusions.

Like other Mainstream media in Neocon American and Zionist  Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted Western Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies, SBS censors and lies by commission and lies by omission [40] (for links to sites recording Mainstream media censorship in the English-speaking world see [46]) . SBS reports on the  WW2 Jewish Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide and the Armenian Genocide but utterly ignores scores of other genocidal atrocities of  the last 2 centuries. One notes that SBS TV reportage is vastly better than that of  the deeply ethically-compromised ABC (Australia's equivalent of the UK BBC)  or of the bottom-of-the-barrel, lowest common denominator Australian Commercial TV.

Now the genocide-ignoring SBS has trashed free speech in Australia and threatened free speech around the world by sacking a courageous, ethical and truth-telling journalist, Scott McIntyre, for tweeting some anti-war truths on Anzac Day that SBS felt was diminishing its “corporate brand”.  Apparently none of Scott McIntyre's SBS colleagues have spoken up over his sacking and the trashing of free speech in Australia in a comprehensive illustration of the term “presstitute”.   As the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties states: “The pressure on media professionals - indeed, many modern professionals - to limit expression of their personal views on social media as a requirement of their employment amounts to a demand for self-censorship that should be roundly rejected” [37].

 Free speech is vital for scholarship, democracy and for rational risk management that is crucial for societal safety [41]. Decent people must speak up for free speech, inform everyone they can, and urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all  those people and organizations involved in censorship, lying by omission, lying by commission and attacks on free speech.

References.

[1]. “Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .

[2]. “2015 perspective of ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide and Aboriginal Ethnocide”, Aboriginal Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/2015-perspective .

[3]. Gideon Polya, “Abbott & Australian Aboriginal Ethnocide”, MWC News, 11 March 2015: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/50239-australian-aboriginal.html .

[4]. Gideon Polya, “Film Review: “Utopia” By John Pilger Exposes Genocidal Maltreatment Of Indigenous Australians By Apartheid Australia”,  Countercurrents, 14 March, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140314.htm ).

[5]. Gideon Polya, “Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide And Aboriginal Ethnocide By Politically Correct Racist Apartheid Australia”,  Countercurrents, 16 February, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya160214.htm .

[6]. Gideon Polya, “As UK lackeys or US lackeys Australians have invaded 85 countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm .

[7]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Cambridge History Of Australia” ignores  Australian involvement in 30 genocides”,  Countercurrents, 14 October, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya141013.htm .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Australia's' secret genocide history”, Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide, 2008: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/australia-s-secret-genocide-history .

[9]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes  an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal  on the web  : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/

[10].  Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”,  Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .

[11]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008, now available  for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/2008/09/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html .

[12]. “Australian fatalities at Gallipoli”, Australian War Memorial: https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/gallipoli/fatalities/ .

[13]. “Gallipoli Campaign”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “Armenian Genocide And Anglo-French & ANZAC Gallipoli Invasion Centenary – Genocide Ignored Yields Genocide Repeated”, Countercurrents,  23 April, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230415.htm .

[15].  “The everlasting shadow of Hiroshima”: http://www.walltowatch.com/view/32432/The+Everlasting+Shadows+Of+Hiroshima .

[16]. “Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki .

[17].  Vacy Vazna, “The Sarafand Massacre, and cover up”, The Palestine Chronicle, 7 December 2012: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-sarafand-massacre-and-cover-up/ ; 

[18]. “Surafend Affair”, Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surafend_affair .

[19].  David Rowlands,“The ANZAC role in crushing the 1919 Egypt Revolt”, Green left Weekly, 18 April 2015: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47364 .

[20].  “Allied war crimes during World War II”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II .

[21].  “Bengali Holocaust WW2 writings of Dr Gideon Polya”, Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust .

[22]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[23]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[24].  Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[25].  “Palestinian Genocide” :  http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[26]. Josh Fear, “Choice overload. Australians coping with financial decisions”. The Australia Institute, Discussion paper 99: http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP99.pdf  .

[27].  George Venturini , ““Australia Day” And “Anzac Day””,   Countercurrents, 12 April, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/venturini120412.htm .

[28]. Gideon Polya, “Australian State Terrorism - Zero Australian Terrorism Deaths, 1 Million Preventable Australian Deaths & 10 Million Muslims Killed By US Alliance Since 9-11”, 23 September, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230914.htm .

[29]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[30]. Andrew Bolt, “Reckless SBS host deserves no tears”, Herald Sun, 27 April 2015: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/reckless-sbs-host-deserves-no-tears/story-fni0ffxg-1227322028612 .

[31]. Malcolm Turnbull, “Response to Crikey's questions regarding tweets by Scott McIntyre”, Malcolm Turnbull, 27 April 2015: http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/response-to-crikey-on-questions-regarding-tweets-by-scott-mcintyre .

[32]. Anzac spoirt, modern warfare and marriage”, ABC TV, Q&A, April 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4207745.htm .

[33]. Tim Wilson, “SBS within its rights to sack Anzac Day tweeter Scott McIntyre”, The Australian, 28 April 2015: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/sbs-within-its-rights-to-sack-anzac-day-tweeter-scott-mcintyre/story-e6frg6zo-1227323655253 .

[34]. Greg Barnes, “Tim Wilson should speak up for Scott McIntyres”, ABC, The Drum, April 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-27/barns-tim-wilson-should-speak-up-for-scott-mcintyres/6425154 .

[35]. John Pilger, “The message of Anzac day: put out more flags or  shut up”, johnpilger.com, 28 April 2015: http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-message-of-anzac-put-out-more-flags-or-shut-up .

[36]. MEAA quoted by Myriam Robert, “Turnbull dobbed in sacked reporters over Anzac tweets”, Crikey, 27 April 2015: http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/04/27/turnbull-dobbed-in-sacked-sbs-reporter-over-anzac-tweets/?wpmp_tp=1 .

[37]. NSW Council for Civil Liberties CL, “NSWCCL extremely concerned by SBS's sacking of journalist Scott McIntyre”, NSWCCL, 29 April 2015: http://www.nswccl.org.au/scott_mcintyre_150429 .

[38]. Geoff Lemon, “On Scott McIntyre: the greatest insult is to whitewash the fallen”, The Guardian Australia, 27 April 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/on-scott-mcintyre-the-greatest-insult-is-to-whitewash-the-fallen .

[39]. Gideon Polya, “ACCC complaint – gas is not “cleanest”: https://au.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ClimateChangeAction/conversations/topics/3771 . 

[40].“Censorship by SBS (Australia)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-sbs-australia .

[41].  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .

[42]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Whackademia” Reveals Parlous State of Australia 's Censored, Under-funded & Dumbing-down Universities”,  Countercurrents, 14 December, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya141212.htm .

[43].  Gideon Polya “Current academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities”, Public University Journal, volume 1, Conference Supplement, “Transforming the Australia University”, Melbourne, 9-10 December 2001: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/57092/20080218-1150/www.publicuni.org/jrnl/volume/1/jpu_1_s_polya.pdf   .

[44]. “Impact of the Defence Trade Controls Bill on academic freedom”, NTEU: 10 October 2012: http://www.nteu.org.au/article/Impact-of-the-Defence-Trade-Controls-Bill-on-academic-freedom-13461  .

[45]. Gideon Polya, “Terror Hysteria -  Draconian New Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws Target Journalists,  Muslims And Human Rights”,  Countercurrents, 8 October, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya0810114.htm .

[46]. “Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/ .

Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ . 

Tags

Gideon Polya

.

 

 

 

Tweet

 

Share on Tumblr