Fiji’s prime minister yesterday intervened after police locked up a New Zealand news crew reporting on a Chinese resort development accused of flouting environmental protection measures in the Pacific nation.
Blaming the journalists’ arrest on “rogue officers,” Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said that he demanded the crew’s immediate release and would personally apologize for their treatment.
“A full investigation into why these officers would use such heavy-handed tactics will be undertaken,” he said in a statement.
New Zealand’s online news outlet Newsroom said that a three-person team was arrested on Wednesday after entering the Suva office of Chinese-owned developer Freesoul, which is building a resort on Malolo Island.
Freesoul — which is facing charges over environmental damage allegedly caused by the development — declined to give interviews and told the journalists to leave, which they did, Newsroom said.
However, a short time later they were arrested by police and held overnight in a Suva police station before being released yesterday.
The arrests demonstrated the power in Fiji of developers from China, which has ramped up its activities in the Pacific in recent years to the alarm of Australia and the US, Newsroom coeditor Tim Murphy said.
The police action was an overreaction to “awkward and uncomfortable” questions posed by the media, he said.
“This is not how things should work in a democracy and a normal open society,” Murphy said.
Bainimarama, who has received criticism from rights groups such as Amnesty International over curbs on a free press, insisted that he supported media exposure of environmental wrongdoing.
The Fijian leader originally seized power in a 2006 military coup, but has since won two national elections and reinvented himself as a climate change campaigner.
Bainimarama said that he had been “deeply concerned” about Freesoul’s activities for some time and planned to introduce laws to stop developers who ignored environmental protections from operating in the country.
“As both a Fijian who treasures our environment and a global advocate for sustainable development, I share in the public’s outrage,” he said.
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