POLICE detained and interrogated a television crew for five hours yesterday for allegedly "disobeying a police order" while covering a school dispute in Nasinu.
Reporter Emily Moli and cameraman Shalendra Datt were ordered into a police van and removed from Rishikul Sanatan College where they were assigned to cover the dispute between the school management and the principal.
Their arrest follows claims by Superintendent Waisea Tabakau of the Valelevu Police Station claimed that the two had failed to abide by a lawful order.
He had told the crew that they were interfering in police business by filming the goings-on at the school yesterday morning.
The pair said they were at the school property at the invitation of Rishikul College management.
SP Tabakau and about 20 officers of the Police Tactical Response Unit arrived at the college, escorting ousted principal Mahendra Pal.
Mr Pal was locked out of the college on Monday by an angry management who refused to acknowledge him as principal.
Ministry of Education officials and the police attempted to have Mr Pal reinstated.
As the officers escorted Mr Pal into the college, SP Tabakau ordered the TV crew to leave.
When they continued filming the event, the senior officer told the journalists they were "disobeying a police order."
Fiji TV Legal Manager Tanya Waqanika described the detention as "totally baseless and totally unjustifiable." "We were denied media freedom," she said.
"Our journalists were shooting inside the private premises on the invitation of the school management." Two more Fiji TV employees were detained at noon after they shot footage from outside the school compound on a public walkway.
Reporter Edwin Nand and cameraman Trevuz Chung were told to get into a police van. They were also told by SP Tabakau that they had disobeyed a lawful order.
They were released a short while later along with the equipment that police had seized.
Ms Waqanika said they would lodge a complaint with the Police Commissioner and the Fiji Media Council on the treatment.