AUCKLAND (Pacific Scoop / Radio Australia / Pacific Media Watch): The Kiribati Independent newspaper has decided to stop publishing in the face of a police probe described by its publisher as “politically motivated”.
The newspaper’s publisher and editor, Taberannang Korauaba, confirmed today the temporary suspension after announcing the move on the paper’s Auckland-based website.
He told Pacific Media Watch and Radio Australia that he believed that a police visit to the newspaper’s offices in Tarawa on Monday was intended to intimidate.
The police visited were investigating complaints from the Ministry of Communications that the publisher had breached newspaper registration guidelines.
Korauaba told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat reporters had been too intimidated to work, and the newspaper could not operate under such “difficult” circumstances.
He said the Kiribati Independent would cease publication until the investigation was completed.
“We don’t want to be caught in the middle of debate, that’s why we stopped to allow the police to investigate and if they have a case they can take it to the court and we’ll take it from there,” he said in an interview with Geraldine Coutts.
Legal advice
Korauaba said the newspaper’s management was seeking legal advice on the issue.
Media freedom groups – including Reporters Without Borders, International Federation of Journalists, Pacific Media Watch, Pacific Media Centre and Pacific Freedom Forum – have appealed in recent weeks to the Communications Ministry to grant the newspaper a licence without political interference.
Radio Australia's Helene Hoffman spoke to Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
She also spoke to the senior secretary from Kiribati's Ministry of Communication who said the ministry was "not yet ready" to comment on the situation.
Dr Robie told Hoffman he had been following the case for several months and said he also believed the closure of the newspaper was politically motivated.
"There clearly seems to be a level of intimidation given that it has taken almost six months to deal with what should have been a fairly straightforward bureaucratic process," he said.
Pacific Media Watch
