14 May 2014

Fiji TV sacking after regime call - PFF

7:11 pm on 14 May 2014

The media group Pacific Freedom Forum says a senior reporter at Fiji TV was sacked following a phone call from the attorney-general, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum.

A journalist and publisher, Ricardo Morris, who is a former coordinator of PFF, says the veteran reporter Anish Chand had said at a meeting that the television company should source wider political views than ones that simply favour the government.

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Photo: FIJI ONE

Mr Chand declined to comment on the matter, but Mr Morris says one of Mr Chand's own colleagues undoubtedly called the authorities and shortly afterwards his contract was terminated on May the 3rd - World Press Freedom Day.

"And it is understood that somebody at that meeting or who heard about that meeting then passed the message on and then a phone call was made from the attorney general to the management of Fiji TV and the rest, as they say, is history."

Ricardo Morris says he has just resigned his own position at PFF after feeling ongoing pressure from authorities.