liberty central's civil liberties hero of the week: The Fijian press
Newspapers hot off the press at a printing centre. Photograph: Sarah Lee
The Fijian media has shown great ingenuity this week in finding inventive ways to protest against government censorship.
Fiji is in the midst of a military crackdown after president Josefa Iloilo sacked the judiciary and declared a state of emergency following a court ruling that found the interim government – led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama – to be illegal. Bainimarama seized power in a 2006 military coup.
Fiji's military government have the emergency power to put censors, with the power to veto stories, in every Fijian newsroom.
Since then the Fiji Times has run blank pages with the sentence, "The stories on this page could not be published due to government restrictions", while the Fiji Daily Post has run articles about a man going out and watching paint drying.
The former begins: "It's official: a man went out. Neighbours reported that they saw him go out last night. 'I thought he was just mad', a woman opined while asking to remain anonymous."
Hurrah for tomfoolery in the face of a military regime that has ordered journalists to "get on board" and adopt "the journalism of hope".