SUVA, Fiji, March 6 (UPI) -- Three months after Fiji lifted emergency laws, critics say its military dictatorship limits free expression and gives wide powers to police and the military.
Some say the current situation under leader Frank Bainimarama is worse than martial law, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Virisila Buadromo, the executive director of Fiji's Women's Rights Movement, said a new public-order amendment decree is more punitive than martial law.
Bainimarama says the lifting of emergency laws is a step toward a return to democracy in September 2014 in the island nation in the South Pacific Ocean.
"For that process to be genuine, there needs to be the lifting of or the repealing of certain laws which are limiting people's ability to be able to express themselves openly and without fear," Buadromo said.
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's interim attorney general, denies any such restrictions.
"The reality is that there is nobody stopped from making comments about the government under the rules that prevail in Fiji," he said.
But Dan Urai, Fiji's Trade Union Congress president and a former member of Parliament, disputed that.
Urai, 52, was arrested in November and held in a cell 10 days with no access to a lawyer after being charged with urging political violence.
He faces life in prison if convicted.
"People are afraid to speak out in this country. Decrees have insured that the fear continues with people. They are still scared," Urai said.
