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Pressure
to reveal
(October 24, 2000)
Three journalists from Fiji's public radio station were arrested
by army soldiers and pressured to reveal their sources, according
to the Paris-based press freedom organization Reporters sans Frontières
(Reporters without Borders).
On October 20, about
ten soldiers barged into the offices of the Fiji Broadcasting
Corporation in Suva. They arrested Executive Director Francis
Herman, News Director Vasiti Waqa, and journalist Maca Iutunauga
from the public radio station. The three men were taken to the
general police station in the capital and interrogated for seven
hours by officers. They asked the journalists to reveal the names
of the members of the army who permit them to broadcast reports
about tension inside the army.
The radio station had
announced that some soldiers refuse to follow the orders of vice-president
Ratu Jope Seniloli, interim president when president Ratu Jose
Seniloli is out of the country. According to the journalists,
these soldiers accuse the vice president of being linked to George
Speight, instigator of the coup that overthrew
the government last May. The authorities accuse the radio
station of trying to destabilize the government and of being irresponsible.
Regarding the arrest, the chairman of the Media Council said the
detention was "unjustifiable" and asked the government to respect
the legal procedures by referring the matter to his institution.
On October 21, the
Fiji Sun newspaper revealed that Fijian Minister of Information
Ratu Inoke Kubuabola had sent a letter to the management of Fiji
Television asking them not to interview former prime minister
Mahendra Chaudhry during the "Close-up" program. According to
the minister, the broadcasting of such a program would promote
"civil insurrection and disobedience."
In a protest letter
sent to Kubuabola , Robert Ménard, general secretary of Reporters
without Borders, said that he was "really worried by the multiplication
of pressure, by the authorities, on journalists of the private
and public media who defend pluralism of information."
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