Fiji military regime bans all media criticism (Roundup)

Apr 13, 2009, 6:38 GMT

   Wellington - Fiji's military regime, which was reappointed last week after being declared illegal by the Court of Appeal, expelled two foreign reporters Monday after banning all media criticism under emergency regulations, reports from the capital Suva said.

   Veteran Australian radio reporter Sean Donery and New Zealand's TV3 political reporter Sia Aston were ordered to leave the country after reporting that military censors had forbidden local media from criticising the government.

   'Given the restrictions imposed on local media, I'm not surprised that they don't want foreign journalists here telling the rest of the world what you people aren't allowed to tell your own people,' Donery said.

   He had earlier reported that the country's leading newspaper, the Fiji Times, carried no stories about the political situation in Monday's edition.

   The Fiji Times had been warned that if it continued to publish empty pages or blank spaces indicating where military censors have banned articles, it would be shut down and its publisher deported, Donery reported, quoting sources in Fiji.

   The Ministry of Information has sent letters to newspapers, radio and television stations advising that all news stories published or broadcast from now on should not carry any negativity, the Fijivillage news website reported.

   It quoted Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum as saying that the government headed by military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama wants all media organizations in the country to publish or broadcast news that is pro-Fiji.

   Television Fiji, which was made to cut a planned item in Saturday's news, did not screen its usual evening news bulletin on Sunday in protest against the censors, who have been posted in every media outlet's newsroom.

   Bainimarama's regime has attacked the press since he ousted the elected government in a bloodless coup in December 2006.

   Two of The Fiji Times's Australian publishers have been deported in the past 18 months, and in January the paper was fined for publishing a letter critical of the High Court, while the editor, Netani Rika, was given a suspended three-month prison sentence for contempt of court.

   The Australian publisher of another daily, The Fiji Sun, was also deported last year.

   A Fijian citizen in Suva, too afraid to be named, was quoted by Wellington's Dominion Post as saying he feared being arrested, beaten or killed for speaking out.

   'There's no constitution, there's no law,' he said. 'They are the law.'

   The Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that Bainimarama's government was illegal, but President Ratu Josefa Iloilo then sacked the judges, revoked the constitution, declared emergency powers and reappointed Bainimarama and his cabinet for five years.