Fiji’s media have protested the censorship imposed by the country’s military commander by canceling evening news broadcasts and leaving large parts of newspapers blank.
The government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama asked an Australian reporter to leave yesterday, in a sign that international coverage of the latest military power grab is being closely scrutinized.
Australian Broadcasting Corp correspondent Sean Dorney said he was initially told he would be deported.
“They called me to the immigration department this morning and informed me they were unhappy with my reporting, which was being broadcast on the local Fiji One network,” Dorney said.
He said he was allowed to return to his hotel to pack and was then asked if he would leave voluntarily.
“I said no. I’m here to report and my visa is still valid, and now I’m awaiting further information,” he said.
It is not known when he would leave the country.
Fiji’s latest political upheaval began on Friday, when Fijian President Ratu Josefa Iloilo abolished the Constitution, fired all the judges and declared a state of emergency in response to a senior court’s ruling that Bainimarama’s regime was unlawful. He set a timetable of five years for elections. He denied he was acting at the behest of Bainimarama.
The next day, Bainimarama was sworn in as prime minister and quickly tightened his grip on the country, posting censors in newsrooms and roadblocks on the capital’s streets.
“Emergency regulations are in force,” Bainimarama said in a national address late on Saturday. “However, these regulations are only a precautionary measure.”
Military-backed “information officers” stood watch in newspaper, news radio and TV offices to prevent the publication or broadcast of any reports that, Bainimarama said, “could cause disorder.” Police were granted extra detention powers.
The Fiji Times, the country’s main daily, published its editions on Sunday and yesterday with several blank spaces where stories about the crisis would have appeared.
“The stories on this page could not be published because of Government restrictions,” read the only words that appeared on Sunday’s page two.
Fiji’s main TV station, Fiji One, refused to broadcast its nightly news bulletin on Sunday, instead showing a simple message written across a black screen: “Viewers please be advised that there will be no 6pm news tonight.”
The network later informed viewers that it could not present some prepared stories because of the new censorship regulations.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Sunday added to the international scorn directed at Bainimarama following his latest actions.
“Australia condemns unequivocally this action by the military ruler of Fiji to turn this great country into virtually a military dictatorship, with the suspension of freedom of the press and actions which undermine prosperity for the ordinary people,” Rudd told reporters.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS