11 Jan 2003

Fiji Labour Party leader faces police questioning over speech to New Delhi conference

9:38 am on 11 January 2003

The Fiji Labour Party leader, Mahendra Chaudhry, will be questioned by police when he returns to Fiji from India.

The Daily post quotes the assistant information minister, Simione Kaitani, as saying the government would lodge a complaint with police early next week for Mr Chaudhry to be investigated for stirring political instability in Fiji.

The newspaper says Mr Kaitani is pushing for a charge of sedition to be laid against Mr Chaudhry.

Mr Kaitani says Mr Chaudhry's comments on the plight of Fiji Indians at a conference of representatives of Indians from more than one hundred countries in New Delhi are causing instability by stirring up the emotions of indgenous Fijians.

Mr Chaudhry told the conference that Fiji's Indians are landless and defenceless and deprived of their constitutional rights.

He said they face statutory discrimination and are denied security and police protection in a situation of seriously declining law and order.