Fijian 'bashed by police’
NZPA-AAP Suva A villager from Fiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu, was recovering last evening from emergency surgery after accusing the police of severely bashing him. According to Stateowned Radio Fiji, the indigenous Fijian man told relatives and doctors he was arrested at the weekend and taken to a police station in the island’s main city, Labasa.
He alleged police officers kicked him in the stomach and sprayed water on him while he vomited on his cell floor. He was then taken by a police vehicle to the local hospital but was left outside until fellow villagers took him in for treatment Doctors at the hospital said the man had suffered multiple internal injuries including damage to his abdomen and small intestine which had needed surgery.
Relatives later told Radio Fiji that he had been "treated like an animal” by the police and that they were seeking legal advice. The incident follows three weeks of unrest in and around Labasa which has been the focus of renewed • protests by fundamentalist indigenous Fijian Methodists over relaxations to a controversial Sunday observance decree.
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Press, 1 August 1989, Page 8
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185Fijian 'bashed by police’ Press, 1 August 1989, Page 8
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