SODELPA Leader Sitiveni Rabuka has urged authorities to review the latest Amnesty International report and to bring to justice public servants who had allegedly committed assaults on civilians as they are legally required to do under the Convention Against Torture which Fiji had signed.
Rabuka says the report is also timely given Fiji’s attempt to join the UN Human Rights Council.
The SODELPA Leader believes that this situation is a consequence of the 2012 Public Order Decree.
Rabuka has urged the authorities, the Minister for Public Order, who is the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence who is responsible for the Fiji Military Forces and the Fiji Police Force, to closely study the report and to work to ensure that those public servants who have allegations of torture against them are stood down, the allegations investigated and charges laid.
He also wants the 2012 Public Order Decree to be repealed.
Rabuka also says that there should be more tighter screening of applicants to ensure those who don the uniform, do not break the law they are tasked to uphold.
Meanwhile Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the latest Amnesty International report on Fiji is biased, selective and does not reflect the true position in Fiji or the great strides that Fiji has made as a nation to deal with the issue of torture.
Sayed-Khaiyum says Fiji has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the institutions and their leaders have made it clear that torture, assault and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees will not be tolerated.
He says the Prime Minister and the Police Commissioner are both on the public record having said that there is a policy of zero tolerance for torture and that policy is being enforced with vigour.
Sayed-Khaiyum says it is no secret that during more turbulent times in Fiji, we had a problem with certain individuals taking the law into their own hands but there has never been institutionalised torture in Fiji and the days in which these individuals behaved with impunity are over.
He says indeed, there has been no immunity in the Constitution or any other law in Fiji that applies to disciplined forces since 2014.
In an October 2016 speech, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said that the culture of “what we call the buturaki – the beating – is deeply ingrained in parts of the Fijian psyche”.
He also stressed that there is no state sanctioned beatings or torture.
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