Qereqeretabua says it was disgusting and humiliating of Kumar to accuse her of engaging in explicit acts

Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lenora Qereqeretabua says she feels that one of the problems being given freedom of speech without responsibility is that you can share as much lies as you want, you can attack someone’s dignity and reputation as you want, and think that you can come out unscathed without sparing a thought for your target.

Qereqeretabua made these comments when talking about the continuous attacks and lies spread by former school teacher, Kishore Kumar against her on social media.

Kumar is charged with allegedly making false claims on his facebook page, Kishore Kumar Publications regarding a porn video of Qereqeretabua in 2020.

She also says this was an attack on her personally, on her husband, her daughter, and attack on her parents who have worked for decades without hurting a fly, and for this man to come out of nowhere, and worse, as a teacher, in charge of our teenagers, putting this rubbish online, was very concerning.

Qereqeretabua says it was two years before the elections, and she was not going to stand by and have one man to make women too scared to serve the country.

She says she refused to engage because of her own mental health.

While giving evidence, Qereqeretabua says as an Opposition MP at that time, it was probably one of the nastiest times to be in parliament in Opposition.

She says they were fiery and they tried as much as possible to keep government to account, but it was a nasty time to be in the Opposition.

The Assistant Minister says this was affecting her family and every time she went home after a fiery debate in parliament, her mother would question her if she still wanted to be in parliament or do something else.

Qereqeretabua says this was all quite apart from Kishore Kumar’s targeted attack on her.

She says her mental health was not in a good place.

Qereqeretabua says she had made it public before when she first came into parliament in 2018, and in an interview in 2019, that she had survived a suicide attempt, but she was determined to stick by it and do the job that people voted her in to do, despite Kumar’s attacks to get her out of parliament for whatever reason.

While giving evidence in court, Qereqeretabua says she decided that it was better for her to report the matter to the police, and it was important to do this as she is not only standing for herself but for everyone who is bullied like this, and who end up committing serious acts. She says people were talking about it and it was infuriating and embarrassing as a mother, wife, leader, a woman in the Parliament, only woman in the party to be in Parliament and as a wife of a church leader.

Qereqeretabua says it was disgusting and humiliating of Kumar to accuse her of engaging in explicit acts.

She also says that the people believed these rumours and it was 2 years away from the election. Qereqeretabua says every MP wants to be elected and if she did not stand for herself that time, this would have impacted her negatively as well in the last elections.

Meanwhile Kishore Kumar was advised by the court to stick to the issues and have correct dates while cross-examining Qereqeretabua.

Magistrate Seini Puamau told him to put the correct date after Kumar questioned Qereqeretabua on the date she had commented on his first video on his social media page, alleging Qereqeretabua of a porn video of her.

While cross-examining Qereqeretabua in court on why it took her so long to report the matter to the police after Kumar's first video of making allegations against her, Qereqeretabua told Kumar that she thought the first video by him would be a one off thing.

However, Qereqeretabua says Kumar continued uploading videos against her which then continued affecting her.

The trial continues tomorrow.