Students boycott classes over law

STUDENTS at the country’s largest university will boycott classes from today as public outrage against the new judicial conduct law gains momentum.
Following their protest march in Port Moresby last Friday, students at the University of Papua New Guinea said they were not happy with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s response to their petition outlining their opposition to the new legislation.
Other tertiary institutions around the country were also expected to boycott classes as they had already pledged their support.
They said O’Neill’s address to the nation on the issue on Sunday night “did not cater for any four of the demands stipulated in the petition delivered by the students to the government last Friday”.
President of the university’s Student Representative Council Emmanuel Isaac said in a statement yesterday: “The decision to boycott classes was initiated and unanimously agreed to by the whole student body after a thorough discussion at the Forum Square at which equal opportunity and time was given to all provincial student leaders to make their stance.”
The new law gives par­liament the power to refer a judge to the governor-general who is then required to appoint a tribunal to investigate the judge. 
Isaac said the students appreciated the support they had received from non-governmental and civil society organisations.
“Our doing this is for the best interest of the nation,” he said.
He thanked the students at the University of Technology and their representative council for supporting the opposition to the new legislation.
In a related development, acting Correctional Services Commissioner Martin Balthazar has told a radio station that commanding officers at the country’s 20 prisons had been put on alert after an inmate called the National Broadcasting Corporation’s Current Issues programme last night to warn the public of a mass break-out by inmates (see separate story).
The prisoners were the latest group to join a growing tide of criticisms of the law.
Other groups that had condemned it included the Community Coalition Against Corruption, PNG Trade Union Congress and the PNG Chamber of Commerce and Industry.