Human rights report attacks Fiji, G20

SYDNEY - Fiji's military regime has been lambasted in an Amnesty International report critical of continuing free speech violations and widespread intimidation in the troubled country.

The world human rights watchdog has catalogued a raft of contraventions in Fiji during 2008, including the torture of prisoners and expulsion of journalists.

The report does not include the dramatic political developments this year under the leadership of Army head Frank Bainimarama, in power since a December 2006 coup.

The latest upheavals in April, in which the country's constitution was abrogated, the media censored and elections delayed for five years, are a major setback for Fiji's stammering journey towards democracy.

"It was bad before but it has deteriorated even more now," said Russell Hunter, the Australian former Fiji Sun publisher who was deported last February and is named in the report.

"If Amnesty had considered the violations even this year to date, what you'd have is a very long and depressing list."

The report states: "The interim, military-supported Government continued to violate freedom of expression and intimidate journalists and members of the public".

Amnesty International has also slammed the world's most powerful G20 countries for their sometimes "horrific" human rights record.

Australia, although a G20 member, is spared some of the harshest criticism.

But the list of human rights abuses in the G20 countries collectively is "depressingly long", Amnesty International says.

The human rights group cites arbitrary detention without charge or trial in 14 of the G20 nations, unfair trials in nine, and torture or grave ill-treatment during interrogation in 15.

Five of the G20 countries - China, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Indonesia and Japan - are also singled out for carrying out 78 per cent of all state executions across the world.

"This group is seeking to solve the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and lead the world to a better place," said Amnesty's Australian director, Claire Mallinson.

"But member countries have allowed, and in some cases carried out, human rights abuses on their own people.

"If the G20 are going to lead us to a better place, then this cannot continue."

- AAP