More expatriates will be deported and Fiji’s military has threatened to close down the Pacific nation’s news media.<\/p>\n
But military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama – who has installed himself as prime minister – says he did not want to close media down.<\/p>\n
Bainimarama has confronted Fiji’s media bosses after last week deporting Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah, three months after Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter was also kicked out.<\/p>\n
Regional news agency Pacnews said Bainimarama told the meeting that Hannah will not be the last of the expatriates to be deported.<\/p>\n
He told the executives he could not reveal why Hannah had been deported but said that others are likely to follow.<\/p>\n
He said the news media were publishing “inciteful” articles and called for balance and fair reporting.<\/p>\n
Pacnews said Bainimarama added the last thing he would want to do is close down the media and his government should not be likened to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
The Fiji Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd.<\/p>\n
The Australian, owned by the same stable, reported this morning that the Fiji Times editor Netani Rika described how Bainimarama claimed that local journalists hate him.<\/p>\n
Bainimarama claimed that shutting down the country’s media would be the worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n
“He told us that he can shut the media down, but in his quotes, ‘I don’t want to do that’,” Rika told The Australian.<\/p>\n
“He told us today that he did not want us to go down the path of Zimbabwe, but he was quite clear … while he did not want to close the media down, that would be an option if we did not take on board the concerns that he raised today.”<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Bainimarama became agitated when the media representatives made it clear they would not “roll over and do what he wanted”, Rika said.<\/p>\n
Bainimarama refused to explain how Hannah had breached his work permit, he said.<\/p>\n
“The actual words he said was: ‘There’s no use discussing that matter. This person, Russell Hunter, and the other, Hannah whatever-his-name is, are not coming back’.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More expatriates will be deported and Fiji’s military has threatened to close down the Pacific nation’s news media. But military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama – who has installed himself as prime minister – says he did not want to close media down. Bainimarama has confronted Fiji’s media bosses after last week deporting Fiji Times publisher Evan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[60,11,15,22],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}