SEVERAL thousand demonstrators have converged on the
entrance to the University of Papua New Guinea to protest against new laws that
give parliament the power to effectively suspend judges, The National reports.
The protesters, many of them students at the
university, say they will march on government offices unless Prime Minister
Peter O'Neill or his deputy, Belden Namah, come to collect a 4000-signature
petition against the law.
While there is a heavy police presence outside the
campus, police are mostly unarmed. Senior officers have been negotiating with
the protest leaders to keep them on the university grounds.
The law was rushed through parliament on Wednesday,
a day after being introduced.
It has received much criticism in PNG and has been
interpreted as a way for the government to move against PNG's chief justice,
Sir Salamo Injia.
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