The Fijian administration issued a decree Monday that introduces stiff fines and possible prison sentences for journalists, editors and media companies that produce reports deemed to be against the public or national interest.
New rules requiring media companies to be at least 90-percent owned by Fijian nationals will force Rupert Murdoch’s Australian arm, News Limited, to sell or close the Fiji Times within three months.
In an open letter to Fiji’s military ruler Frank Bainimarama, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard said “we support the adoption of international sanctions aimed at condemning the promulgation and strict application” of the media law.
“The repressive regulations that you have introduced punish the Fijian people and jeopardize the development aid that the economy and society need,” added Julliard.
Amnesty International said the decree would further restrict media freedom and violated the right to freedom of expression.
“Amnesty International fears that the decree’s vaguely worded provisions will be used to punish peaceful critics of the government,” Amnesty’s New Zealand chief executive Patrick Holmes said.
Claire O’Rourke, from the International Federation of Journalists , said the laws amount to censorship.
She said: “The regime is using these laws to erase the rights of citizens to be fully informed and the rights of journalists to inform them.”
Russell Hunter, managing editor of the Samoa Observer, was editor-in-chief at the Fiji Times and chief executive officer of the Fiji Sun when he was expelled in 2008.
He said the laws are a means to control the media.
“Perhaps also a sideswipe at the Fiji Times, because it hasn’t played along with the government’s agenda. It has taken an independent line,” Hunter told Radio Australia
Any link between foreign investment and the media decree was denied by Fiji’s Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
“The people who know Fiji… know the issue of the media is very separate to the private-sector investment that takes place in other sectors,” Sayed-Khaiyum told Sky News.
News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan wrote in The Australian newspaper Tuesday that closure of the newspaper now seemed inevitable.
“There will not be too many potential publishers wanting to purchase a newspaper with these draconian restrictions hanging over their head — even at a fire-sale price,” he said.
