“The MIDA experiment is over and the draconian legislation now belongs in the dustbins of history.”
While participating in the debate on the Media Industry Development (Repeal) Bill 2023, Minister for Communications Manoa Kamikamica read a statement by the Fijian Media Association saying the MIDA act “is the worst thing to have happened to freedom of the media in Fiji”.
He said the origins of the MIDA Act began after the 2006 coup that brought a reign of terror, violence, intimidation, censorship, and fear to the country’s media industry.
“Journalists were beaten, detained, and threatened, their media businesses burned, offices trashed, and houses firebombed,” Mr Kamikamica said.
“Media workers that were attacked in some way included Pita Ligaiula, Dionisia Turagabeci, Anish Chand, Merana Kitione, Leone Cabenatabua, Maika Bolatiki, Netani Rika, Sophie Foster, Imraz Iqbal, Samisoni Pareti, Apisalome Coka, Maikeli Radua, the late Sitiveni Moce, among many others,” he said.
“Government advertising was taken away from media organisations the government did not like and senior journalists and editors were forced out of their jobs.
“A public emergency regulation in 2009 enforced unprecedented and dictatorial censorship, and government officers entered newsrooms to force journalists to only report what the government wanted.
“The censorship then morphed into the 2010 Media decree and then the MIDA Act which has caused uncertainty, stress, mental anguish, and threatened the survival and livelihoods of many media businesses.
“Some of Fiji’s best journalists left the industry as a result and the media still carry the mental scars today from that very disturbing period.
“Neither the previous government nor a single member of the public has ever used the MIDA Tribunal to complain about the media, and there has been no media development under MIDA.
“It was a useless, but dangerous and vindictive piece of legislation for the industry.
“The repeal of the MIDA Act has long been a unifying demand of all media organisations in Fiji. No government, including this Peoples Coalition Government should ever be given such power over the media.
“We need to return to the media freedom Fiji enjoyed and was renowned for prior to 2006.”
After a fierce debate on the Bill 2023, the Fiji Parliament passed the Bill to repeal MIDA.
