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Nauru visa fee hike unconstitutional – Reporters Without Borders

Radio New Zealand International - January 15, 2014

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Nauru hikes journalist visa costs amid Australian secrecy on asylum policy - Reuters. January 9, 2014
Refugees still being held in Nauru processing centre - Radio New Zealand International. October 25, 2013

The media organisation Reporters Without Borders says Nauru is violating its own constitution with its 4,000 percent hike of the journalist visa application fee.

Nauru has justified the increase of the application cost from about 200 US dollars to over 7,000 as a revenue gathering measure.

Reporters Without Borders says the new price is out of proportion and is nothing less than a ban on foreign media visits.

It says it is clear that behind this decision is the fact Nauru hosts one of Australia's asylum seeker camps abroad.

It says in the process of externalising the asylum-seeker issue, Canberra is even managing to delegate responsibility for censorship and discriminatory measures against the media.

Reporters Without Borders has called on Nauru to rescind this measure outright because it is also against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Nauru has signed.