Media News - Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Fiji government threatens media crackdown after expelling publisher

Fiji's military ruler has threatened to close down media outlets in the South Pacific country after deporting a publisher for allegedly threatening national security, a newspaper editor said Tuesday. However, an official in the government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup and installed himself as prime minister, said his comments to media executives had been exaggerated. The exchange deepens a rift between Bainimarama and media outlets he accuses of bias against his government. Critics say he is waging a campaign of intimidation that threatens free speech. Netani Rika, editor of the Fiji Times newspaper, said Bainimarama called a meeting of senior media executives on Monday and told them he would have ‘no qualms’ about closing them down in ‘a worst-case scenario.’ Bainimarama said Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah, expelled last Friday as a threat to national security and for breaching work permit conditions, would not be the last expatriate to be deported, Rika said. Fiji Times owner News Corp. said Tuesday that Bainimarama had banned Hannah permanently from Fiji. (AP via International Herald Tribune)

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