Monday, March 12, 2007



Fiji: silencing the blogs

Last week the Fijian military went hunting for the authors of the blog Intelligentsiya, accusing them of accusing them of "portraying a negative image of the Interim Government". They haven't caught them yet, but their hunt has had other results: Fijian blogger Ms Vakaivosavosa, who had previously been a strong critic of the coup and interim regime, has decided to call it a day rather than risk being dragged in for supporting "incitement".

So, in the space of just four months, Fiji has gone from a (albeit flawed) democracy to a place where people are afraid to criticise the government for fear of being dragged from their beds in the middle of the night. And some people still consider Commodore Bainimarama to be a "progressive" dictator...?

2 comments:

Vakaivosavosa quit blogging on her own terms, which was not influenced by the Interim Government.

Anyways Fiji still has it easy compared with Gitmo or Abu Gharaib.

Posted by Anonymous : 3/12/2007 12:36:00 PM

You might have noticed PC
http://pc.blogspot.com/2007/03/bainimarama-hero-or-villain.html
wondering aloud about Tim Wikiriwhi bailing from the Libz because they wouldn't leap up to support the commodore's heroic battle against institutional racism. See also Wikiriwhi's open letter to Frank
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00090.htm

I don't have patience for the ensuing discussion - scanning it, it seems Tim's main ground for asserting that Frank is a good guy is that Frank says so.

Vakaivosavosa quit blogging on her own terms, which was not influenced by the Interim Government.

Perhaps you might like to carefully read her post while it's still there.

Anyways Fiji still has it easy compared with Gitmo or Abu Gharaib.

Oh, well that's all right, then.

Posted by Lyndon : 3/12/2007 01:35:00 PM