Reporters Sans Frontières

Published on 8 February 2008

An army spokesman said in May 2007 that the military would stop hounding blogs “critical towards the institution and members of government”. After blocking access to several of them, Col. Pita Driti relented and said that the military authorities “were no longer concerned about comments posted on these blogs”. He explained his change of heart with the remark that the military had developed a “thick skin” and “no longer feels offended by criticism”.

Several blogs had been made inaccessible over a period of a few days, among them resistfrankscoup.blogspot.com and fijishamelist.blogspot.com, but many of them changed address to get round this censorship. Col. Pita Driti made it clear: “The state of emergency is still in place and people should realise that some freedoms have to be restricted, including freedom of expression. When we have found these bloggers, we will take them to our military quarters and explain to them how their comments constitute a threat to the country”. In 2007, the government appointed by the military said it wanted to allow media some independence, while keeping the power to “thwart those who try to take advantage of the situation to incite people to disturb the peace which now reigns.” Many opposition figures were detained, threatened, and sometimes beaten following the coup.

In June, the Fijian authorities arrested and then expelled New Zealand journalist Michael Field, working for the Fairfax press group, after he flew in to Suva airport. He had planned to cover the diplomatic crisis between Fiji and New Zealand, whose ambassador had just been declared persona non grata. “This is not the first time I have been turned back, but this time it comes amid growing harassment of Fijian journalists”, said the former correspondent for AFP in the Pacific. The incident revealed the existence of a black list of foreign journalists banned from entering Fiji.