FIJI – New Zealand writers advocacy group PEN NZ has condemned the continuing ban by the Fiji government of Television New Zealand Pacific Affairs correspondent Barbara Dreaver.

In a statement PEN NZ said in views the continuation of the ban on Dreaver as an indication of the ongoing erosion of freedom of expression in the Pacific.

New Zealand currently ranks 5th in the world in the latest World Press Freedom Index. New Zealand should take its place as leader in the Pacif-ic on the World Press Freedom Index to make a clear stance in favour of Barbara Dreaver and the other journalists currently banned from Fiji, the statement says.

“In the last year there has been a marked erosion worldwide in freedom of expression.

“Freedom of Expression is a right guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights. Article 19 states: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression’.”

PEN NZ notes that this right includes the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

Dreaver is on a “blacklist” of journalists banned from Fiji. In 2008, Dreaver was taken into custody after arriving in Fiji, detained overnight, and refused access to assistance from the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affair and Trade.

Following her detention she was deported back to New Zealand.

For the past eight years she has been banned by the post-coup Fiji government, led by former military commander Commodore Voreqe Bain-imarama (who was elected Prime Minister in September 2014), from entering the country, except for a one hour special dispensation to transit through Nadi International Airport.

Dreaver is the TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key described Barbara Dreaver as a “significant voice” of the Pa-cific.

Other journalists also banned from Fiji include former Fairfax reporter Michael Field and Australian journalist Sean Dorney.

Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has stated he will not be lifting the ban which he sees as necessary to prevent the “wilful propagation of false information.”

Speaking at a banquet to welcome Prime Minister John Key to Suva last night he launched a scathing attack on the media.

“New Zealand television ran footage of tanks in the streets of Suva when our military does not own any tanks. They had been interposed from other sources. A claim was made that Fijian children were starving and were eating grass. These are egregious examples of wilful bias and misre-porting,” he said

In reaction to Bainimarama’s stance, Dreaver this week wrote: “It’s ironic that Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama does the same thing he accuses the New Zealand and Australian media of doing – twisting facts.” In 2006 she reported on the poverty that plagued a Fijian village and criticised the democracy of the country, landing her on the not-welcome list.

“His ridiculous statement about grass-eating children originated from one of my stories – a story I was told was the reason why I was blacklisted in 2008.”

Dreaver said Bainimarama was wrong, and TVNZ had no footage of military tanks in Suva.

She also said her story showed children picking grass because there was no fuel for the lawnmowers, not eating grass.

“The story did feature a teacher saying children were turning up at school hungry,” Dreaver said. “They objected to that story because it showed poverty, and that schools had not been receiving funding from government.”

TVNZ head of news and current affairs John Gillespie backed up his reporter, called Dreaver a “highly respected journalist”.

“She’s covered the region for 20 years and I can’t think of a journalist who knows it better.

“She should be immediately removed from the Fiji government’s blacklist so she can do her job as our Pacific correspondent.”

Gillespie said One News footage from the time of the coup showed “definitively” there was no basis for Bainimarama’s claims that the channel showed tanks on Fiji’s streets.

Bainimarama defended his ban on some New Zealand media, including TVNZs’ Barbara Dreaver, at an event intended to honour John Key dur-ing his visit last week, the first New Zealand prime minister to visit Fiji in a decade.

It appeared to be a direct swipe at Key, who had repeated just ahead of the banquet that he intended raising the media blacklist with Bainimara-ma in the hope he would drop it as a gesture of goodwill.

- PNC sources