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Fiji

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Campaigns and Advocacy

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UN Rights Council should press military government to reverse growing crackdown on dissent, says Human Rights Watch

Fiji will undergo its first Universal Periodic Review before the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva on 11 February 2010.

Regime urged to lift Public Emergency Regulations

Sign PFF's electronic petition, calling for an end to the so-called "Public Emergency Regulations", which severely restrict media rights and freedom of expression.

From the Communiqué

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Foreign journalists deported, media censored in state of emergency

The Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) are demanding that Fiji's military government stop deporting journalists and censoring the media after the government declared a 30-day state of emergency last week.

COUP LEADERS SEIZE CONTROL OF MEDIA

Fiji's press is under siege following a military coup on 4 December 2006 that toppled the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, report the International Press Institute (IPI), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

CONCERNS RAISED OVER BROADCASTING BILL

Fiji's parliament has tabled a bill that, if passed, would give the government powers to control broadcast media, warn the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), ARTICLE 19 and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).

Suitcase Radio Brings Fijian Women's Voices out of the Margins

22 August 2006

PINA COMMENDS LOCAL MEDIA IN FACE OF PRESSURES

"Fiji's independent news media are operating as normal and without censorship even though martial law has been declared and an interim military government has taken over running the country," reports the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA). On 29 May, the Fijian Military Forces assumed power under the head of Commodore Frank Bainimarama. Bainimarama says that the military has taken over with "much reluctance" due to "the rapid breakdown in law and order" since the attempted coup on 19 May, notes PINA. The military also took control due to the stalemate reached in negotiations to free former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and parliamentarians still being held by attempted coup leader George Speight.

GOVERNMENT TO ENACT FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL

On 3 February, the Fiji Islands government announced that it intends to pass proposed freedom of information bills in the next six months, reports the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA). The result of a 1996 review of all media legislation in Fiji commissioned by the previous government, the proposed freedom of information bill would replace the Official Secrets Act and Press Correction Act from British colonial times. The legislation would grant the public the right "to correct errors in information about them held by the government." The government would also be required to publish information on the functions of its various agencies, and PINA reports that "the ombudsman may also be given the responsibility to review the government's information practices." Attorney-General Anand Singh, who made the announcement, stated that the laws will be based partly on Australian and New Zealand's freedom of information acts. The freedom of information law would apply to "all government ministries, departments and offices.... [except] the indigenous-Fijian Bose Levu Vakaturaga (council of chiefs), the president and his office, government-owned businesses, the court system, and commissions of inquiry," says PINA.