McCully will talk to Fiji about video

Prime Minister John Key has expressed alarm over a video showing two men being beaten by Fiji police. 

Key said the New Zealand government was taking reports of the attack seriously.

“And we expect the Fijian authorities to deal with them appropriately and hold those people who have undertaken those beatings to account,” Key said.

“It’s the sort of thing we worry an awful lot about,” he said, adding that Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully would be raising the attack with his counterpart, Inoke Kubuabola.

On Tuesday the New Zealand Parliament will vote on a cross-party motion calling on Fiji to uphold United Nations conventions against torture and human rights.

The resolution will formally condemn the violence and call on Fiji’s military government to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Phil Goff, is introducing the motion to parliament.

Fiji’s interim Prime Minister,  Voreqe Bainimarama has come out in strong support for the police involved in the beating shown on the video.

Speaking to the website Fijivillage, he said the escaped prisoners had terrorised Fiji before being caught.

“At the end of the day, I will stick by my men, by the police officers or anyone else that might be named in this investigation,” he told Fijivillage.

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