Transcript
STANLEY SIMPSON: Well we are so thankful. We appreciate that the Prime Minister and the Fiji government stepped in quite quickly and have condemned it. This is not a good look for the country. It's not a good look for the media in this country, it sends the wrong kind of message. You know Totogo is not a very nice place to sleep, to spend the night. And that was a punishment in itself. People need to, journalists need to be allowed to do their job and not put in the cells for asking questions or testing the boundaries.
JM: In your view, this is obviously a valid story, and the Prime Minister I think has called the detention a 'rogue move', who exactly has he been blaming?
SS: Well I think they'll have to talk to the officers and get, I think they are having an investigation or enquiry into how this happened. And why this happened. Because that's just, I can't describe, it's just over the top to, you know to put the journalists into a cell in Totogo for trying to do their job. So, I think they will have to check on what the chain of events that got those journalists into the cell. And find out what happened.
JM: Have you managed to see or hear anything of the journalists themselves? Will you be reaching out to them?
SS: We were trying to find them this morning. We were trying to call the Police Commissioner and other people in authority to try and see what the facts were. Why they were held. And to demand that they be released. And as that was happening, the statement came from the Prime Minister that he has demanded that they be released.
JM: Just lastly, what's your impression of how this act might impact on media in Fiji, particularly around these kind of controversial stories?
SS: It's very damaging. And it's punishing the country's image. As the media, we've come through a very tough decade, you know. And to see this happen in the country, of this mindset still there among certain officers, you know we had the feeling that we, we were moving on and were free to do our work. But seeing this kind of action is really disturbing and disappointing. And we want assurances from the government that this not happen again. And must not happen even to any local journalist or any journalist at all.
