Call for PINA to quit Fiji

Call for PINA to quit Fiji

RAROTONGA, April 8 (CIT) – Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) vice-president John Woods says the organisation should pull out of Fiji following the release of a draft media decree by the military government.

Woods, managing editor of Cook Islands News, is also disappointed with the wait-and-see approach the organisation’s secretariat is taking over Fiji’s proposed media decree.

He said it is critical the PINA board discuss and comment on the decree immediately.

“But this is unlikely given the dysfunctional nature of the PINA administration,” said Woods, who last week told Radio Australia PINA should be removed from Fiji where it is ‘cowtowing’ to censorship under the current government.

Yesterday PINA said it was adopting a wait and see approach following the release of a draft media decree in Fiji on Wednesday.

The decree plans to restrict foreign media ownership which will impact on national daily, the Fiji Times.

PINA’s Fiji-based manager, Matai Akauola, said it’s too early to adopt a strong position.

“PINA would like to try to meet with its members, like Fiji TV, Fiji Times, Fiji Sun before we could come to a conclusion on how we see this media decree. You could just gather from the meeting that they have their own point of view, so it would be good to sit down one on one with the various organisations,” Akaoula told Radio New Zealand.

But Woods said PINA needed to take note of the online discussion among Pacific journalists who wanted action by the body now to fight the draconian decree.

“PINA’s very existence is based on liberty and freedom of expression.

“We should be shutting the (PINA) office in Suva and taking Pacnews out of the country and relocating them to a regional country where freedom of expression exists and is allowed.”

“I would ask that our president and the secretariat put aside their bias and tolerance of Fiji media restrictions and listen to the whole of Pacific media.”

Meanwhile, the New Zealand Government said it would be concerned if there is a crackdown on the Fijian media and was seeking more information.

Acting Prime Minister Bill English said yesterday that the regime of self-appointed Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama issued a new media decree which Newspaper Publishers’ Association chief executive and New Zealand Media Freedom Committee secretary Tim Pankhurst described as “highly oppressive”.

It was clearly aimed at totally muzzling an already repressed media, he said.

Mr English said he was worried about the reports.

“We would be concerned about a media crackdown in Fiji... it does look a bit consistent with how the regime does business, but we would like to get a clearer idea of what they have actually decided before we make too much more comment,” Mr English said.

Mr Pankhurst said the regime was cementing in place emergency regulations imposed a year ago that have seen censors installed in newsrooms.

“It not only targets editors and their journalists. Any members of the public brave enough to express dissenting views are also in line for crippling fines, ill treatment and jail.”

Media outlets could be fined up to $F500,000 (about $NZ344,000) and individual journalists up to $F100,000 ($NZ69,000) and be jailed for up to five years if they failed to comply with the decree’s dictates.

Offences included such “crimes” as criticising the government and even failing to run bylines, Mr Pankhurst said. Foreign media ownership was also restricted.

Officers were empowered to enter newsrooms and seize any notes, documents, or equipment.

“Soldiers overseeing the media is a characteristic of a dictatorship,” Mr Pankhurst said.

“There doesn’t seem to be any reasoning with an increasingly unsavoury regime that deserves to be isolated and condemned.

“Far from restoring democracy, it is heading in the opposite direction.”

Mr Pankhurst said the Media Freedom Committee would continue to offer whatever support it could to colleagues working in increasingly difficult circumstances. – Martin Tiffany

ENDS

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