Fiji, Australian media trying to deal with censors
Updated
With Fiji now under emergency law for the next month, new regulations have effectively put censors in every newsroom in the country, and they have the power to veto any story. Not only that, two foreign reporters, including ABC correspondent Sean Dorney, are being deported.
Presenter: Campbell Cooney, Pacific correspondent
Speaker: Stephen Smith, Australian foreign minister; Russell Hunter, former publisher, Fiji Sun; 'Keep The Faith', a Fiji blogger; Joe Ealedona, president, Pacific Island News Association; Sean Dorney, ABC correspondent, deported from Fiji under new media regulations
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COONEY: Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, told a press conference, he believes Fiji will almost certainly be expelled from the Pacific Islands Forum and he describes its new commitment to elections in 2014 as a sham.
SMITH: There's nothing I've seen in the developments in recent days which would show Fiji being on a genuine pathway or process to democracy and if there is no change, then my view would be that ultimately, the Pacific Island Forum will suspend Fiji.
COONEY: But given the current state of censorship in Fiji, it's unlikely that Mr Smith's words will appear in the local media.
Fiji's chief censor and principle secretary of the Ministry of Information, Major Neumi Leweni, has made it clear he only wants positive stories about the new interim government's achievements, the president's actions in scrapping the Constitution, or in fact anything to do with politics in Fiji in print or on air.
Russell Hunter, was the publisher of the Fiji Sun until being deported early last year in response to his paper's reporting on the then-interim government. Mr Hunter believes there is a very simple reason Fiji's leaders do not want unvetted reporting of events.
HUNTER: It's a criminal regime, it has blatantly disobeyed the Appeals Court, the President says he has abrogated the Constitution but he has not powers to do so. The government has been declared illegal and has yet to be appointed.
COONEY: And so far, the censorship is proving effective.
Fiji TV has cancelled some bulletins and the country's newspapers are best described as lean.
Fiji's online social network site, Sotia Central, was flooded by members expressing concerns over the end of constitutional rule. It's since been shutdown.
To fill the gap, Fiji's anonymous freedom bloggers are hoping they can provide coverage of news in their homeland. One of them who uses the name "Keep the Faith", is a contributor to the Fiji blog intelligencia.
BLOGGER: We obviously don't have a lot of the journalistic prowess, but we can try and be a filler. We have had a lot of support from the people overseas, from IT experts, and in terms of advice. To this day, we still don't know who each other are and we have this scoop and I wish to keep to our pseudonym.
COONEY: The president of the Pacific Islands News Association, Joe Ealedona, has warned Fijian journalists about doing anything which endangers themselves or their colleagues. But he says PINA will support them.
EALEDONA: PINA will support what the Fiji media will do as a body. I will want the Fiji media to act as a body, to work in consolidarity with each other. It is a military regime and we know what military regimes can do, and I just hope that nothing gets out of hand there.
COONEY: But Fiji's regime is not just targeting the local media.
The ABC's Sean Dorney has been in Suva reporting for Australia Network Television News. He was detained by Immigration officials and he's to be deported today.
DORNEY: It's not something I was not expecting, given the restrictions they have placed on the local media.
COONEY: Also forced to leave Fiji is New Zealand television reporter, Sia Aston.
But Russell Hunter says it's unlikely Fiji's leaders can continue to keep the country's population in the dark for as long as they might like to.
HUNTER: Fiji is a very small country. Everybody in the place knows exactly what's going on, knows exactly what is the status of this government and I suspect begins to know now what the outcome of all this will be.
