Vanuatu-based media representatives have called for a more unified front to repel attacks on freedom of expression and the media in the Pacific.
The media pack making the most of the photo op of Pacific Islands leaders posing with some of the great minds behind RAMSI including, senior Police executives, former RAMSI special coordinators and politicians as well as regional experts. Photo: RNZ/ Koroi Hawkins
Last week three senior journalists in Fiji were taken in by police for questioning in relation to a story related to the air terminal services dispute.
The week before, the Kiribati government confiscated the equipment of New Zealand journalists seeking to report on the tragic sinking of the MV Butiraoi.
And this year the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting is being held in Nauru which has set prohibitive fees for journalist visas.
But the media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, Dan McGarry, said what is most worrying is there is no regional solidarity to repel such attacks.
"We need to see solidarity and it generally or at least in the past it always started with organisations like the Pacific Islands News Association, here in Vanuatu the Media Association of Vanuatu. And these organisations have been culpably silent on the topic and this is really, really worrying," Dan McGarry said.
Mr McGarry, together with his newspaper's publisher Marc Neil-Jones, is also concerned about attacks on general freedom of expression.