Police Warnings
Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes spoke out on 16 September to express concern about the tone of the debate over the bill. He was reacting to comments made by Raiwaqa resident Masi Kaumaitotoya that although their leaders did not know it, the masses were preparing for another coup. Hughes said that such threats to stability would not be tolerated, and that "certain individuals" were being closely monitored.
Hughes reiterated on 19 September that persons making racist threats needed to be stopped, and called on chiefs and church leaders to counsel such individuals. "I can't understand how people who harbour these biases can reconcile their hatred of others with their religious beliefs," he added.
On 2 October, Manasa Tugia, the Chairman of the parliamentary committee looking into other bill, said that he would not tolerate hate speeches from persons making parliamentary submissions on the bill, and that all comments would be limited to the bill itself.
Read more about this topic: Reconciliation And Unity Commission (Fiji)
Famous quotes containing the words police and/or warnings:
“Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)