FIJI: Hold Firm Against Gov't Pressure - Journalists Urged

By Shailendra Singh

SUVA, Feb 29 (IPS) - Amid fears of a new clampdown on media, following the expulsion of Australian expatriate newspaper publisher Russell Hunter, journalists in this Pacific Island country are being urged by activists not to succumb to intimidation by the interim government.

Pacific Centre for Public Integrity director Angie Heffernan said the deportation of Hunter was a ‘‘blatant act to muzzle the media’’ by the military-backed itnerim government and a deliberate strategy to instill fear so as to prevent independent reportage on the actions of the regime.

Hunter, the publisher of the Fiji Sun, was whisked away from his Suva home on Monday night by two men claiming to be immigration officers. He was put on a flight to Sydney from Nadi International Airport the following morning.

Heffernan urged the media to remain strong in the face of such tactics. "Their courage in the face of such aggression will be a light of hope to the citizens of Fiji who have to endure against the actions of an unlawful despotic regime," she said.

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