A confederacy of tyrants.

Fiji's miseries continue with the passing of a judicial monstrosity called the Media Industry Development Decree 2010:

Effective immediately, the decree imposes fines and jail terms of two years for the publishing of material 'which is against the public interest or order, is against national interest, offends against good taste or decency or creates communal discord' and orders that all media outlets must be 90% owned by Fijian citizens who live permanently in the island nation.

The Fiji Times - the oldest, (founded in 1869) and largest of the country's newspapers and one of the oldest newspapers in the Asia-Pacific region - is wholly owned by News Limited, publisher of The Australian, and has three months to comply with the decree or be closed down. The newspaper has its own board, which includes several Fijian nationals as directors.

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who detailed the laws, has described The Fiji Times as a "purveyor of negativity" after its robust reporting of the coup and failure of Mr Bainimarama to hold democratic elections.

Bainimarama long ago placed gov't censors within the newsrooms of Fijian news outlets, so this decree is more fait accompli than a surprise. Equally unsurprising is that today's edition of the Fiji Times is completely free of any reporting of this news.

I'm usually the last person to defend anything espoused by a Rupert Murdoch-controlled media outlet, but as a student of journalism and advocate for its role in a functioning democracy, I agree with every word of this column condemning Bainimarama's 'bully tactics':

There is only one way of interpreting the latest move by the bullies running Fiji.

It is an astounding tribute to the fear that a free press - even a censored press - can instil in the hearts of tyrants.

It proves that media freedom is the natural friend of the civil society that Fiji's dictators are trying hard to bury. And it shows that newspapers are much more than a commercial enterprise.

This amounts to a retrospective expropriation of foreign investment that cannot be ignored by leading democracies, let alone the world's capital markets.

There seems to be no limit to the ability of the Fiji regime to dream up ideas that will inevitably hurt its own people. It has a shocking record: an elected government was overthrown, the last remnant of judicial independence has been demolished and the country's leading lawyers have been intimidated. The last Australians and New Zealanders who were part of the independent judiciary left the country long ago. They have been replaced by more malleable folk.

It seems clear that Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was not satisfied with merely removing critical articles from the Fiji Times. He wanted praise and acceptance for his regime as a legitimate government that was pledged to reform past wrongs.

This regime seems to think that, once the pernicious influence of foreigners is removed, it will have far more success in encouraging the media to see things their way.

But if respect and legitimacy is the goal, this move is a step in the wrong direction.

It will give the regime's opponents a powerful new ally. Until now, Fiji had been doing its best to persuade the international business community that it was business as usual. World capital markets and ratings agencies will now be forced to take account of the fact that there is no doubt that capital is no longer safe in Fiji.

This may well cause more dislocation to Fiji than any move against the country's judiciary.

Fiji's coupmakers are a threat to international business.