An MP with the opposition Labour Party in New Zealand says the Nauru government is going backwards in terms of openness, freedom and respecting the democratic process.
The party's foreign affairs spokesperson, David Shearer, was commenting after the shutdown of Facebook on the island.
David Shearer Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
The government says it is to end access to child pornography but the Nauru opposition says it is an attempt to stop criticism of the government's increasingly controversial actions.
Mr Shearer says the social media ban and the removal of other freedoms are taking Nauru in the wrong direction.
"It is hard to come to any other conclusion other than that the Nauru government is clamping down to benefit itself rather than to benefit the principles on which, in the Pacific anyway, we are all founded on."
