22 Apr 2009

Amnesty International fears further abuses in Fiji

8:11 pm on 22 April 2009

Amnesty International says the regime in Fiji has threatened lawyers and could commit further human rights abuses now it has almost unlimited power.

Amnesty's Pacific researcher Apolosi Bose has just spent two weeks in Fiji on a fact finding mission.

He says judges who tried to go to work after the abrogation of the constitution received verbal threats on their mobile phones.

"People received death threats on that day. There was a warning from people who were linked to the military or to the government, you know don't do anything, we are now on a path for success and nothing you can do can will ever stop us."

Apolosi Bose says critics of the government in Fiji are afraid to speak out because there is now no constitution, no judiciary and the media has been censored.