Fiji authorities have expelled three foreign journalists and arrested a local reporter in a crackdown on reporting of the nation's political upheaval.
3News reporter Sia Aston and cameraman Matt Smith are expected to arrive back in New Zealand this afternoon.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) correspondent Sean Dorney was expected to
arrive in Sydney at 1340 NZ time today after he was deported by government officials unhappy with his coverage of recent political developments in the troubled nation.
Dorney spent the night under supervision by immigration officials in Nadi along with Aston and cameraman Smith.
Fijian television reporter Edwin Nand was arrested overnight for giving footage to a New Zealand television network.
The blog website, Intelligentsiya, reports that Fiji Times publisher, Australian Anne Fussell, would be deported on Tuesday or Wednesday for allegedly breaching visa conditions. Her predecessors Rex Gardner and Evan Hannah were deported under similar circumstances.
The media crackdown follows a new power grab by the country's military head, Frank Bainimarama after a court ruled last Thursday that his regime, in power since a 2006 coup, was illegal under the country's 1997 constitution.
But in response, the country's ailing 88-year-old president Ratu Josefa Iloilo sacked the judges, dissolved the constitution, ruled out any election for five years and briefly removed Bainimarama before reappointing him to the top job.
Fiji is expected to be suspended from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum following the developments, which have been heavily condemned by regional heads, the US and the UN.
Meanwhile, Bainimarama has moved to tighten his grip on the country, posting censors in newsrooms and putting up roadblocks on the capital's streets.
The Fiji Times, the country's main newspaper, published its Sunday and Monday editions with several blank spaces where stories about the crisis would have appeared.
"The stories on this page could not be published because of Government restrictions," read the only words on Sunday's page two.
Fiji's main television station, Fiji One, refused to broadcast its nightly news bulletin Sunday, instead showing a simple message written across a black screen: "Viewers please be advised that there will be no 6pm news tonight."
The station later informed viewers it could not present some prepared stories because of censorship rules.
- AAP
