The Director of Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission Ashwin Raj has questioned if the Fiji Times can issue a very clear statement about what it is doing about allegations that several of its journalists were allegedly engaged in a racist diatribe on social media in relation to the Rugby World Cup.
Raj says the irony is that the newspaper published a story in relation to Fiji’s Universal Periodic Review only a few days ago quoting a report of the Special Rapporteur on racism, xenophobia and related intolerance on his visit to Fiji in 2016.
He has questioned is the Fiji Times upholding and embodying values of non-discrimination, human dignity, and equality or is it merely occupying a moral high ground from which it judges others while vilifying individuals because of their ethnicity.
Raj says that the alleged racist comments were made on social media by journalists in their private capacity who happen to work for the Fiji Times and not by the newspaper company itself but it does not exonerate them from the fact that they are Fiji Times journalists.
He further says it leaves them to wonder how these deep-seated racial prejudices, evidenced from the social media commentary, ultimately affect their journalistic ethics, impartiality and their ability to foster cohesion in a country that has been deeply divided along racial lines.
Fiji Times Editor-in-Chief Fred Wesley says they are investigating the allegations against the journalists. Wesley says they are doing their job adding they hope Raj is doing his.
