Fiji: Blogs are a threat to national security

On May 14th, Intelligentsiya reported that the army's Land Force Commander has a list of about 20 people who will be arrested in connection with anti-military blogs. It has also been reported that the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) have pressured FINTEL, Fiji's only ISP, to block blogspot.com blogging platform, nearly exclusively used by the “Fijian Freedom Bloggers”. It seems that the Fiji's military junta is considering blogs as “a threat to ‘national security“.

Lats week, on Friday 11th May, 2007, the prominent businessman Ulai Taoi was arrested and then released after 24 hours custody. The FMF suspected him of being an anti-military blogger. It was reported that he was “physically abused while in custody”.

4 comments

  • […] It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform. However, Lieutenant Colonel Pita Driti still insisted that “if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned”. Last week, he admitted that Rowland Fenton was arrested and released after interrogating him over anti-military blogs deemed a “threat to national security”. […]

  • […] It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers – who are using blogs to protest against the coup of December 5th, 2006- has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform. However, Lieutenant Colonel Pita Driti still insisted that “if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned”. Last week, he admitted that Rowland Fenton was arrested and released after interrogating him over anti-military blogs deemed a “threat to national security”. […]

  • […] It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers – who are using blogs to protest against the coup of December 5th, 2006- has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform. However, Lieutenant Colonel Pita Driti still insisted that “if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned”. Last week, he admitted that Rowland Fenton was arrested and released after interrogating him over anti-military blogs deemed a “threat to national security”. […]

  • […] ‘It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers – who are using blogs to protest against the coup of December 5th, 2006- has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform‘. […]

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