YAREN – The former president of Nauru has said he fears new restrictions on freedom of speech will make it impossible to properly campaign for next year’s national election.

The government has amended the criminal code to make comments deemed in breach of the new amendments an offence punishable by up to seven years in jail.

The Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill 2015 prohibits language “that is threatening, abusive or insulting in nature and has the intention to stir up racial, religious or political hatred.

Former Nauru president, Sprent Dabwido, was one of five opposition MPs who last year were suspended from parliament for talking to foreign media.

Dabwido said he was “not surprised” by the new legislation.

“This government, and the way they are handling the running of the nation, is more of a dictatorial manner,” he said.

He said he was “ashamed” a law had been passed that could “gag people” and “break the constitution in terms of freedom of speech”.

Nauru, which had a population of less than 10,000 in 2011, generates a large majority of its income from Australia’s offshore detention centre.

Dabwido said Australia’s influence on Nauru was affecting the way the country is governed.

“90 per cent of the revenue in Nauru is coming from Australia,” Dabwido said.

He said Australia’s money was being used “not to develop a nation, but to be used by those few in power to get rich and for themselves to retain power”.

An election is slated for next year, and Dabwido said the new laws will make campaigning “very difficult”.

Nauru justice minister David Adeang earlier said the amendments were in defence of public safety.

“In defence of what? Who’s attacking Nauru?” Dabwido said. “I haven’t seen the republic of Kiribati sending an army.”

Former justice minister, Matthew Batsiua – another of the five MPs expelled from parliament – fears he could be jailed for even commneting to the media on the issue.

“To me it does nothing to help Nauru progress. It seems to be a law that has been brought in in a very superficial manner to serve a political agenda. I am very concerned where we are going with all this.

“It doesn’t provide any clear direction in terms of what people can say or cannot say because it seems to be a very broad brush approach to public debate on political issues.

“They have now put into our laws that it is basically illegal to criticise the government because it could be misconstrued as trying to generate political hatred.

“I have been in this political arena for over ten years, President Waqa has been in the political arena for over then years and so has Justice Minister Adeang. And we all know what we sign up to when we enter public office – we know that we are putting ourselves up for scrutiny.

“It just comes with the territory. You can always try to do your best. But you have to accept, once you are in public office then you are fair game and you are not able to win every person over and that is just a fact.

“And it is unbelievable that they would try to put in laws that will curtail criticism because as far as I am concerned in the game or the business of politics, criticisms, scrutiny, debate is all part of it.”

The new law was passed a week after the government enacted a ‘temporary block’ on social networking site Facebook.

The move, which the government said was to stop the spread of child pornography, was slammed by refugee advocates, who said the ban would severely impact the ability for asylum seekers to communicate.

The situation on Nauru has caused raised eyebrows as high up as Washington’s Capitol Hill.

A US State Department spokesperson, Jeff Rathke, told a briefing in Washington that ensuring citizens had access to unrestricted and open internet is essential to a healthy democracy. “We’re aware of that and we’re concerned by reports of recent internet restrictions imposed by the government of Nauru including that they blocked Facebook and other social media sites and we’ve certainly conveyed our views to the government there and reiterated our calls for the restrictions to be lifted.”