Fiji deports second newspaper publisher

By PITA LIGAIULA
Associated Press Writer

Fiji´s military government defied a High Court order and deported the Australian publisher of the South Pacific country´s leading newspaper Friday, continuing a campaign of media intimidation it began within days of seizing power.

The coup-installed government said Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah was a threat to national security who breached his work permit conditions. He was put on a Korean Air flight Friday to the South Korean capital, Seoul.

It was the second deportation of a senior media figure this year. In late February, Russell Hunter, the Australian-born publisher of The Sun, was deported for what Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama called "destabilizing" reporting.

Editor Netani Rika said the Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch´s News Corp., had "prickly and tenuous" relations with the government because of the paper´s critical coverage of Bainimarama´s December 2006 coup, Fiji´s fourth in 20 years.

"This regime is by far the most difficult in terms of relations with the media," Rika told The Associated Press. "They are going to continue to intimidate us. I don´t see them stopping, given they´ve gone this far."

The Fiji Times has a daily circulation of 40,000 among the country´s 730,000 population, and 29,000 separate visitors to its Internet site daily.

Shortly after the coup, troops occupied some offices of newspapers and radio and television broadcasters, demanding the right to scrutinize reports before they were aired or published.

Officials had taken Hannah to the international airport from his home in Suva late Thursday. His newspaper obtained a High Court order for him to appear in court Friday, effectively postponing the deportation, but immigration officials ignored the order and put him on a plane early Friday.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith condemned Hannah´s deportation as "yet another reprehensible act in a disturbing pattern of behavior" that had eroded fundamental rights and the rule of law in Fiji since Bainimarama´s coup.

The U.S. Embassy said the deportation raised "serious questions about its respect for freedom of the press."

Fiji´s population is split between the indigenous Fijian majority and ethnic Indians, introduced by former colonial power Britain in the 19th century to work on sugar cane plantations.

Bainimarama claims the racist policies and corruption of the former Fijian-dominated government sparked his coup, and insists the racially based communal voting system must be changed before democracy can be restored _ something he has pledged to do by April 2009.

Many observers believe he won´t follow through with the pledge.