Taimi editor arrested over affidavit
Title -- 4124 TONGA: Taimi editor arrested over affidavit
Date -- 25 July 2003
Byline -- None
Origin -- Pacific Media Watch
Source -- New Zealand Herald 25/7/3
Copyright -- NZH
Status -- Unabridged
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TONGAN NEWSPAPER EDITOR ARRESTED
www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3514546&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
by Natasha Harris
AUCKLAND (NZ Herald Online/Pacific Media Watch): The head of Tonga's controversial newspaper Taimi 'o Tonga has been arrested and charged with helping a former prison officer write an affidavit against Police Minister Clive Edwards, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Mateni Tapueluelu, 32, was held in a police cell in the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa overnight on Wednesday after seven police officers raided his office and home looking for the affidavit.
Former prison officer Kivalu Halahingano was also arrested and charged with bearing false witness for writing the affidavit in 2000.
Halahingano said in the affidavit that Clive Edwards ordered him to burgle the office of Mateni Tapueluelu when Tapueluelu was a prison officer.
The affidavit formed part of a petition by suspended and dismissed prison officers seeking to have Edwards removed from office.
The Tongan Government has tried many times to censor the bi-weekly newspaper and Tapueluelu told the Herald this was just another attempt to close the paper.
From February, the paper was outlawed on and off in Tonga as the Government tried to censor criticism. The clampdown came after the Government introduced a bill to Parliament changing the constitution to restrict press freedom and remove from judicial review laws and ordinances passed in the kingdom.
While Tapueluelu was arrested on production night, the paper was published on time.
Both men have been released from prison. Tapueluelu was released on bail on Thursday until a preliminary inquiry in the Magistrates Court on September 4.
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