https://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/12/06/fiji-deports-us-citizen-for-swearing-at-president/ Independent Asia Pacific news and analysis Fri, 09 Dec 2016 19:51:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/12/06/fiji-deports-us-citizen-for-swearing-at-president/#comment-3428 Tue, 06 Dec 2016 13:43:43 +0000 http://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=17984#comment-3428 This outcry was clearly provoked. The heinous Land Sales Act unjustly criminalizes foreign-property owners retrospectively, forcing foreigners to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in building homes on properties (on outer islands without the infrastructure to accommodate building) purchased prior to the laws enactment . Ms Seaton’s anger was directed at the Act and any reasonable witness would attest to her legitimate right to protest the law’s unfairness. In a truly democratic country her deportation would have been avoided. Fiji is clearly a false democracy as it censors its media and abrogates the rights of its citizens and legal land owners in a spirit that promotes deception and tyranny. The citizens of Fiji only deserve the fruits of democracy if they have the courage to uphold and defend its principles. Apparently, that is not the case and what happened to Ms. Seaton is only a harbinger of what is to come.

]]> https://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/12/06/fiji-deports-us-citizen-for-swearing-at-president/#comment-3426 Tue, 06 Dec 2016 13:22:14 +0000 http://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=17984#comment-3426 Let’s get the story straight here folks. I am a resident of Fiji, know Ms. Seaton personally and am well aware of the circumstances surrounding her deportation. Ms. Seaton did not yell obscenities at the President of Fiji. That is a complete fabrication. The only profane conduct in this scenario would be the behavior of Fiji government officials. For the past 2 years, Ms. Seaton has been advocating on behalf of non-citizen landowners in Fiji who will be severely punished by a piece of retrospective legislation passed in December, 2014 – Act 16 of The Land Sales Act. It is because of her consistent, strenuous advocacy and her challenging of Fiji’s elected leaders to uphold their constitutional obligations that Ms. Seaton was deported. She never directed profanity at the president or any other Fiji official. During her testimony before the parliamentary committee, Ms. Seaton did, however, openly confront government officials for their human rights violations and abdication of the Fiji Bill of Rights without the use of profanity.

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