It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers – who are using blogs to protest against the coup of December 5th, 2006- has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform. However, Lieutenant Colonel Pita Driti still insisted that “if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned”. Last week, he admitted that Rowland Fenton was arrested and released after interrogating him over anti-military blogs deemed a “threat to national security”. Intelligentsiya reported on May 14th that the army’s Land Force Commander has a list of about 20 people who will be arrested in connection with anti-military blogs. It has also been reported that the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) have pressured FINTEL, Fiji’s only ISP, to block blogspot.com blogging platform, which is nearly exclusively used by the Fijian “Freedom Bloggers”. Previously, on Friday May 11, the prominent businessman Ulai Taoi was arrested and then released after being held in custody for 24. The FMF suspected him of being an anti-military blogger. It has been reported that he was “physically abused while in custody”. According to an email from “Bainivore,” a member of the Fijian Freedom Bloggers, the military claimed that Ulai Tao was Fijian Black – the blogger who ran the May Day protest and called on people to boycott work in protest against the interim administration. (see the video below). But the irony in that is the fact that the Fijian Black is not a person but a blog. As described by Intelligentsiya: “FIJIAN BLACK is the blognym for the blogsite Good Men (and Women) Doing Something and is calling on the public of Fiji to passively resist the interim regime by staying home on Tuesday, 1st of May, 2007.” And while the Fijian military junta has reportedly been hiring Indian “hackers” from Bangalore to track the identities of the Freedom Bloggers, the cyber-activists have been gaining support over the last few days as bloggers from around the world condemn the military crackdown on blogging. Two days ago, a group composed of prominent bloggers from New Zealand offered its support to provide hosting on their servers to the Fijian blogs. The group called on the New Zealand government to condemn the Fijian interim government crackdown on bloggers. “Blogs are one of the few news sources outside of the control of the military regime in Fiji, representing a vital channel of uncensored information for both Fijians and the international community. Any Fijian bloggers wishing to make use of this offer should make contact through one of the above-listed websites,” the statement said referring to a list of prominent blogs offering access to their own websites for Fijians. But the question of why the Fijian military junta decided to crack down on this group of “Freedom Bloggers,” composed of independent citizens without political affiliations exercising their constitutional rights to free speech, remains. Can blogging drive political action in “a nation where Internet access is far from ubiquitous and far from affordable by local standards”? The answer may be found in the reaction of apolitical Fijian bloggers to the approach of the “Freedom Bloggers”. As a member of Fijian Black described in an email exchange: “Now the political blogs are the most vocal, visible and visited of the blogs in Fiji. Not only do our posts get read, they get emailed all over the world, to people who are interested in our country, they get printed out (I'm talking reams of printouts here) in totality for the consumption of the Fiji public who don't have internet access, and now, they are getting widespread media coverage, in Fiji and regionally.” For Discombobulated Bubu, a female Fijian blogger and a mother: “the reaction of the average Fijian has been overwhelming – people that have access to computers download and print out stuff on the blogs. This then gets sent out to the remote villages by bus, boat and fax (those who have it) and by [what we call] “coconut wireless” – people talking to each other. The military has grossly underjudged this means of communication – hence I think [the reason for] their panic now to shut the “people's voices” up.” The Fijian blogsphere which, according to Fijian Black, was “fairly dormant until this coup last year”, has turned political. “Blogging from Fiji was pretty much a thing for the techies/nerds/researcher/scientist. Since February, the average citizen has now become more familiar with the term ‘blog’ and would have a rough idea of how to set one up. Mostly, thanks to the Fiji TV station and the Military for drawing attention to it.