Khaleed Daoed, one of the alleged organisers of the fatal SIEVX
voyage in which 353 people, including 146 children, lost their lives,
appeared in Brisbane court for the second time on Monday.
When Daoed
arrived in Brisbane last month after being extradited from Sweden he
made headlines, but when he faced court on Monday not one media outlet
in Australia considered the story newsworthy!
Daoed is the first person to appear before an Australian court
charged with offences connected with the infamous SIEVX voyage and one
would expect that our media would be watching. Instead it was down to
sievx.com to break the story that Daoed's case had been adjourned
until 5 April next year.
Surely this should have rated at least a paragraph in major Australian
newspapers? But instead all we got was silence.
Ironically there was one newspaper that reported on the story -
Arbetarbladet, a local newspaper published in Sandviken, Sweden, the
town where Daoed made his home for the last nine months prior to his
extradition.
But in our own country where there are very deep connections to the
SIEVX tragedy, there was nothing. For example, we have living in Australia 14
people who embarked on SIEVX and scores of others
who lost family members in the sinking.
What does it say about the Australian media that this story went
unreported? Why was it considered not of interest to the Australian
public?
Significantly, Daoed is not the only alleged people smuggler to
appear before a court and to have his case go virtually unreported by
the Australian media.
The trials of alleged smuggling kingpins, Hasan Ayoub, Keis
Asfoor and Ali Hassan Abdolamir Al Jenabi have all received similar
treatment. That is, after initial reports of extradition, or committal
hearings, the media switches off and fails to follow these cases
through to their conclusion.
That there is a pattern of behaviour by our media in relation to these
cases is very troubling.
For many months in 2001, particularly during the Federal election
campaign, we were inundated with daily bulletins about the evils of
people smuggling.
Why the silence now when alleged smugglers face our legal system?
What is going on?
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