BLOGGERS HIT BACK AT 'FRANK AND CO'

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By JAMES IHAKA

AUCKLAND (NZH Online/Pacific Media Watch): Online bloggers in Fiji are continuing to criticise the military regime amid censorship of mainstream media and the deportation of foreign journalists.

Frank Bainimarama's regime has silenced the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio transmitters in Fiji and imposed tough reporting constraints on domestic media.

Commodore Bainimarama yesterday told Radio New Zealand that press freedom had been "causing trouble" in Fiji.

But several blogs and independent commentators are deriding "Frank and Co" and calling him an illegal leader.

The rawfijinews.wordpress.com blog, which refers to the Bainimarama regime as "Frank and Co", reported that civil servants were banned from using the internet at work and discussing anti-regime subjects. "Such directive will only prompt the civil servants to check out the blogs in the comfort of their own homes ... to see what exactly it is that the illegal goons don't want them to see," its author said.

Another thread revealed internet cafe owners had been told to close while government "internet investigators" probed their businesses.

"The internet cafe owners replied that they were going to call the police to report them for harassment. The officers decided to just split and forget about it," it said.

The intelligentsiya.blogspot.com blog said Fiji was in a mess and the scorn of the regional neighbourhood.

"The self-appointed illegal leader defies the calls for elections and lies about the so-called 64 percent support of his ideals and the normalcy of our current situation," it said.

"Lo and behold we even detect some knee-knocking as Bainimarama now begins to fear another coup within a coup of his three coups."

The loyalfijian.blogspot.com blog said Sada Reddy's first move as Governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji to devalue the dollar by 20 percent ranked alongside the 1987 coup and the several abrogations of the constitution "as one of the most severe actions taken by any Fijian administration".

 Meanwhile, coupfourpointfive.blogspot.com, said Fiji Law Society president Dorsami Naidu, who was detained after leading a peaceful protest in support of the sacked judiciary, was released yesterday.