It’s been 50 years since the Balibo 5 were killed in Timor-Leste. No one’s been held accountable

Shannon Brincat

doi:10.64628/AA.jwskqyamd

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It’s been 50 years since the Balibo 5 were killed in Timor-Leste. No one’s been held accountable

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It’s been 50 years since the Balibo 5 were killed in Timor-Leste. No one’s been held accountable

Shannon Brincat

The Conversation, Vol.16 October 2025

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64628/AA.jwskqyamd

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Abstract

On October 16, 1975, five journalists were killed in the remote Timorese town of Balibo. To this day, no one has been charged with their deaths. Known as the “Balibo Five”, the men were reporting on the covert Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste. They were Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart from Australia, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters from the United Kingdom, and Gary Cunningham from New Zealand. Several months later, another Australian journalist, Roger East who went to investigate their disappearance, was executed. His body was never recovered. Fifty years on, the case remains one of the most egregious examples of atrocities committed against war correspondents. It’s also a chilling case of a state failing to prosecute the murder of its own citizens.

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Title: It’s been 50 years since the Balibo 5 were killed in Timor-Leste. No one’s been held accountable
Authors: Shannon Brincat - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and Society
Publication details: The Conversation, Vol.16 October 2025
Publisher: Conversation Media Group
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.64628/AA.jwskqyamd
ISSN: 2201-5639
Copyright note: © The Conversation Media Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Organisation Unit: Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; School of Law and Society; Sustainability Research Cluster
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991183645502621
Output Type: Magazine article

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