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'Deep concern' after Fiji throws out journalists
AFP - Tuesday, April 14
SUVA (AFP) - - Foreign journalists said on Monday they had been ordered to leave Fiji, leading a regional body to voice "deep concern" as the military-led regime tightens its grip after the latest political upheaval.
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Journalists sent to cover the "new order" said they were being thrown out after the government expressed disapproval at their reporting on the reinstatement of coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama as prime minister.
He was reappointed on Saturday after president Josefa Iloilo scrapped the constitution and sacked the Appeal Court judges who two days earlier had declared the military government to be illegal.
"The curtailment of media access and freedom of speech and, as already evident, the disregard for judicial independence are especially worrying," a statement by Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Tuiloma Neroni Slade said.
In the first reaction from the 16-member regional alliance -- of which Fiji is a member -- since the crisis erupted last week, Slade said there would be consultation with forum members on a response to the developments.
The forum earlier this year threatened to suspend Fiji from the grouping if it did not set a date by May for elections to be held before the end of the year.
However, Bainimarama, who first seized control in a bloodless coup in 2006, said after his reinstatement on the weekend that there will not be democratic elections until 2014.
Slade said he found the abrogation of the constitution "to be disturbing given its implications for human rights and the democratic aspirations" of the Fijian people.
"Rights and freedoms safeguarded under constitutions underpin principles of democracy, justice, transparency and accountability," he said.
Veteran Pacific reporter Sean Dorney, from Australia's ABC, together with a reporter and cameraman from New Zealand's TV 3 network, were told by Fiji's information ministry they were to be deported, they said.
"I was told this morning by a senior immigration official in Fiji that they were unhappy with my reporting and that immigration officers would escort me to the airport and out of the country," Dorney reported.
Late Monday, a Fiji Television journalist was taken in for questioning after authorities learned that film of Dorney's detention and deportation had been transmitted overseas, industry sources told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Dorney was driven to the airport accompanied by several soldiers, witnesses told AFP.
Under a 30-day state of emergency, the media in Fiji are not allowed to carry stories critical of the government, with police and information ministry officers placed in newsrooms to vet stories.
Local media have been warned they could be shut down if they breach the regulations.
The Fiji Times, in an apparent protest, left a page of the newspaper blank because it was not allowed to publish certain stories, while the main television channel, Fiji One, cancelled its evening bulletin on Sunday.
The Fiji Sun meanwhile ran a story saying it would no longer run political stories whether or not they showed the government in a favourable light.
"When it comes to reporting fairly on politics, journalists were severely restricted by the most recent directive from the government," the Fiji Sun reported its publisher, Peter Lomas, as saying.
In December 2006, Bainimarama toppled the elected government of Laisenia Qarase, accusing it of corruption and of unfairly favouring the indigenous Fijian majority over the minority ethnic Indian population.
The coup -- the fourth in two decades -- was condemned by the international community with the United States, European Union, Australia and New Zealand introducing targeted sanctions against the regime.
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