11 Aug 2008

Fiji businessman critical of police action against journalist

2:14 pm on 11 August 2008

The subject of a Fiji Times story which resulted in a journalist being detained says the actions of the police were undesirable and unfair.

Reporter Serafina Silaitoga wrote an article in Saturday's Times, in which businessman Charan Jeath Singh challenged the interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry to admit he received a letter of dismissal.

She was then served with a search warrant and taken to the police station.

Charan Jeath Singh says he has spoken to lawyers and says there was nothing seditious about the story.

"It was very unfair on the part of the authorities to try to hassle her, for the reporting that she had done fairly and squarely and that she had only tried to be a messenger. And she being also pregnant, and taken out of her house in front of her children, was a bit undesirable and I think unfair."

Labasa businessman Charan Jeath Singh.