17 May 2007

Fiji anti-regime blogsite blocked

2:39 pm on 17 May 2007

The Fiji authorities appear to have succeeded in shutting down at least one website critical of the military takeover last year.

The blogsite, Resist Frank's Coup, is now no longer accessible.

This follows a brief shutdown of another website Intelligentsiya which says access to the internet search engine Google was also briefly removed.

This comes less than a week after the military approached Fiji's only internet provider, FINTEL, in a bid to close off access to some websites within Fiji.

There has been a proliferation of blogsites since the end of democratic rule in Fiji which is ruled under emergency powers.

The military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has vowed to maintain media freedom, but military personnel have assaulted media employees with impunity.