Behind the Fiji censorship: A comparative media regulatory case study as a prelude to the Easter putsch

Abstract

On 10 April 2009, a military backed regime wrested total control of the Fiji Islands in what was arguably a fifth coup and imposed martial law. The then President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, abrogated the 1997 Constitution and dismissed the judiciary in response to a Court of Appeal ruling—by a bench of three Australian judges—that the interim government of Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama established after the fourth coup in December 2006 was illegal. Bainimarama was reinstated, emergency regulations—including state censorship—were decreed and elections were deferred until 2014.