(PINA/IFEX) – On 11 June 2000, “Fiji’s Sunday Post” reported that Fiji Television Ltd’s operating licence is under threat because a programme is being claimed to have caused a civil disturbance in Suva two weeks earlier. The Fiji government’s telecommunications director Josua Turaganivalu was quoted as saying the licence can be revoked because of the […]
(PINA/IFEX) – On 11 June 2000, “Fiji’s Sunday Post” reported that Fiji Television Ltd’s operating licence is under threat because a programme is being claimed to have caused a civil disturbance in Suva two weeks earlier. The Fiji government’s telecommunications director Josua Turaganivalu was quoted as saying the licence can be revoked because of the “Close Up” programme.
Fiji’s interim military government has pledged its support for media freedom. It has provided armed protection for news organisations which have been threatened. But there had been longstanding differences between Turaganivalu’s ministry and Fiji Television over the conditions of the exclusive licence which the company won to set up a national television service (see IFEX alerts).
On 28 May, a policeman was shot dead and the TV station was ransacked following the airing of the “Close Up” current affairs programme. Local activist Jone Dakuvula – one of two people featured in the programme on media coverage of the Fiji crisis – criticised attempted coup leader George Speight.
Armed men were amongst a group which soon thereafter left the parliamentary complex held by Speight and his followers and went on a rampage which included the shooting of the police officer and attack on the TV station, “Fiji’s Sunday Post” said.
Fiji TV chief executive Ken Clark was quoted by the “Fiji’s Sunday Post” as saying the Ministry of Communications has made a wide leap between the television programme and the riot. He said on television that it was a legitimate and appropriate current affairs programme and legitimate freedom of speech. He said he is disappointed with the ministry’s position that the TV programme caused the disturbance.
“Fiji’s Sunday Post” quoted Turaganivalu as saying the ministry wrote to the station asking it to explain why it aired the programme. He said he was surprised that the Fiji TV chief executive came out publicly about the issue. “We had expected them to write back to us. But he decided to let the public know about their side of the story first instead of us,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. Turaganivalu claimed that the contents of the programme had clearly breached a clause which specifically states Fiji TV is prohibited to air such programmes.
Background Information
On 29 May, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces declared martial law and an interim military government in the Fiji Islands. The move came amidst growing lawlessness. On 19 May, the elected government led by Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, had been seized in an attempted coup by Suva businessman Speight and armed gunmen, including some soldiers. Speight and his indigenous Fijian followers still hold Chaudhry and an estimated thirty other members of his government hostage in the parliamentary complex.
The attempted coup by Speight and his supporters came amidst a march through Suva by indigenous Fijians protesting against what they said are threats to their indigenous rights and land ownership. Indigenous Fijians then looted and burned shops and restaurants owned by ethnic Indians in downtown Suva.
Chaudhry won power in general elections in May 1999. His Fiji Labour Party formed a coalition government which included some indigenous Fijian parties. Fiji’s ethnic Indians are mainly descendants of indentured plantation labourers brought from India by the British colonial government in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In 1987, following widespread unrest and growing violence following the election of what was seen as an Indian-dominated government, Sitiveni Rabuka, then a colonel, led two coups by the army. Fiji returned to parliamentary government in elections in 1992, with Rabuka voted into power as a civilian prime minister. Chaudhry’s government was elected under a new multiracial constitution adopted in 1997.
