Media shutdown keeps news off shelves
Title -- 4292 TONGA: Media shutdown keeps news off shelves
Date -- 5 February 2004
Byline -- None
Origin -- Pacific Media Watch
Source -- Matangi Tonga/PIR, 4/2/04
Copyright -- MT
Status -- Unabridged
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TONGA MEDIA SHUTDOWN KEEPS ALL NEWS OFF SHELVES
www.matangitonga.to
NUKU'ALOFA (MT/Pacific Media Watch): The Tongan people for the past three weeks have been deprived of reading newspapers, including the Tongan government's own newspaper, Matangi Tonga reports.
Warnings of severe penalties for unlicensed publishers and booksellers, along with police raids on shops, have kept Tongan newspapers off the news stands.
Last November, the Tongan government banned the publication of any newspaper unless various licences were obtained by publishers, sellers and importers. The deadline for applications for newspaper licences was December 31.
However, after the Registrar for Newspapers was queried on the fact that the Media Act was not made public until December 24, and therefore no time was given to study the Act and to prepare application forms, the newspaper registration unit postponed the Deadline to January 31.
The situation became complicated, however, when Tongan police raided small shops and confiscated the Taimi 'o Tonga newspaper, along with cash from the newspaper’s sales, on January 7. It was then conveyed through the "coconut wireless" that no newspaper was allowed to be distributed without a license.
Some publishers ignored the coconut wireless and distributed their papers, including the government's own paper, the Kalonikali Tonga, on January 16 and Kele'a on January 21. Kele’a is a newsletter which is published by pro-democracy People's Representative Member of Parliament 'Akilisi Pohiva.
Other news organisations, aware that their application for a license might be denied, voluntarily ceased publication.
As the shutdown of newspaper publishing in Tonga continues, the last word from the Registrar of Newspaper was a letter on February 2, reminding news organisations that failure to abide by the Newspaper Act of 2003 carried a $10,000 fine or imprisonment not exceeding one year or both. Decisions on licensing applications have not been announced.
For the meantime, Tonga’s new media laws have successfully shut down the print media in Tonga.
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