Minfo responds to YPCN statement

In the best of Orwellian tradition, the idea that ‘you should not feel threatened by the amendment to the Public Order’ Decree if you ‘do not want to create public disorder’ is utterly fatuous.

Let’s turn that one on its head, shall we?

If the regime did not want to suppress the collective will of We The People, it should not feel sufficiently threatened by Us to warrant needing to rule Us by Decree. It would allow Us to elect Our Own representatives to debate the decree before it passes into law. But no. This tinpot regime won’t even allow Us to vote in a Personality Contest without interference.

The regime calls POAD ‘an enabling statute’. This is the same warped, twisted logic that calls the 2006 coup a ‘sunset clause’ on our native land rights. The decree is intended to DISable Our voice. The regime is interested in ENabling nothing of We The People because it fears Our legitimate voice and Our legitimate powers.

How are We The People to voice Our aspirations, Our hopes, Our dreams, which this illegal regime continues to ravage as though Our beloved country were its own personal piggybank?

When are We The People allowed to speak? If they insist on stifling Our collective voice, how else can We The People be heard other than by standing up for Ourselves and saying simply “No. No more.”

God bless Fiji

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From: Minfonews <news@info.gov.fj>
Date: 16 January 2012 17:09
Subject: GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO YPCN STATEMENT
To: Minfonews <news@info.gov.fj>

Government responds to YPCN LINK

GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO YPCN STATEMENT

The Ministry of Information permanent secretary Sharon Smith Johns released the following statement today in response to the Young People’s Concerned Network:

If the Young People’s Concerned Network seeks to represent the leaders of tomorrow, it will need to do a better job of understanding recent Fijian history and of assessing Government provisions, such as the Public Order (Amendment) Decree—which it misreads either out of a desire to manipulate public sentiment or simply because of ignorance.

To compare the Public Order (Amendment) Decree to most other government’s laws regarding terrorism and extremism, such as the United States or Australia, would reveal immediately that Fiji is in fact more liberal than other countries. The U.S., for example, under the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama, allows the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the U.S., without charge. Fiji does not even come close to this. The United Nations General Assembly further encourages all nations to be proactive in taking steps to “prevent and combat” domestic and international terrorist threats in all their forms.

To be clear: If you do not want to engage in racial or religious vilification or create public disorder, then you should not feel threatened by the amendment to the Public Order Act. The amendment is an enabling statute—one that creates a safe place for open discussion and critical thinking across Fijian society for the formation of a true liberal democratic state.

This is because throughout Fiji’s history demagoguery and religious, racial and ethnic vilification have been used openly to harass and intimidate, and at times hold Fiji for ransom. Politicians and religious leaders have used race and religion, not just to denigrate others but as a political tool of ascendency. In the process, they created public disorder, inhibiting true democracy to flourish.

The Bainimarama Government takes seriously the welfare and opinion of Fijian youth, which underscores all of its activities to strengthen the Fijian economy, create jobs, invest in education and technology, and establish the basis for a new future.

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