Fijian Activist Harassed at 4am over Facebook Post

In the early hours of New Years Eve morning, Fijian Activist Pita Waqavonovono was woken by police strongly advising him to delete a post he made on Facebook.

“Living in a military dictatorship sucks”, was what he wrote.

Though his status update that he had posted on his personal facebook page, he says that “we know that they’re monitoring us”.

The police further interrogated him about his New Years Eve plans under the suspicion that he was leading an exodus of people out of Suva on that night.

“At the end of that conversation, I refused to change anything, requested a warrant, told them to go away, and come back with proper papers and preferably at Godly hours!” he said.

Although he says his house was not raided as reported by other articles, the impolite 4am wake up call is more than just an inconvenience, and in fact social media inquisitions have become part of daily life in the nation under military rule.

“This is something that…a lot of us face here in Fiji. It’s a situation that we’re basically married into if you’re going to speak up against the administration, or if you’re going to say anything that’s against the process or different processes that this administration is creating”, Waqavonovono told an ABC Radio Australia reporter.

After the incident, Waqavonovono wrote on his personal facebook page “If I get arrested or tried for giving a damn about Fiji, than I gladly accept the challenge”.