Human Rights Director Ashwin Raj [left] and Richard Naidu

The Director Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission has slammed an opinion piece written by prominent lawyer Richard Naidu published by the Fiji Times.

In the opinion piece, Naidu supports the right of The People’s Alliance Candidate Liliana Warid who made statements on social media that labelled indo-Fijians as visitors who she said “were not going back anytime soon”.

Warid had earlier admitted that the Fiji Times had refused to publish her statement due to its racial overtones.

However, the newspaper went ahead and published Naidu’s opinion piece in which Naidu states that Warid’s only sin was to compare non-indigenous Fijians citizens “to visitors to a house who continued to hang around”.

Naidu claims that Warid’s comments were not racist.

It’s the controversial issue that’s not going away, now prominent Suva lawyer Richard Naidu has waded in claiming the post by Warid was not racist and Fijians should not read into it too much.

However, Human Rights Director Ashwin Raj disagrees.

“It’s ironic that Mr. Richard Naidu who has close affiliation with the National Federation Party and someone who casually provides legal advice to the Fiji Times writes an opinion piece in the column of the Fiji Times justifying the morally repugnant racist comments made by the provisional candidate of the People’s Alliance Party.”

Raj says it’s very interesting to note that while the Fiji Times refused to publish the initial opinion piece by The PA provisional candidate, the newspaper published the opinion piece by Naidu in which he states that in his view the statements by Warid were not racist.

“It is equally interesting to note that Mr Naidu does not provide a disclaimer in this article that he acts for the Fiji Times and is closely affiliated to the NFP. Whatever our political affiliation, the Fijian Constitution guarantees everyone the right to be free from hate speech. The Constitution also provides that the right to free speech, expression and publication cannot be used to justify attacks on the dignity of individuals or groups in a manner likely to promote ill will between ethnic and religious groups or oppression or discrimination against any persons or groups.”

Former NFP President, Tupou Draunidalo says Naidu has exposed NFP’s position on the saga, of always attempting to support Rabuka’s The People’s Alliance regardless of the party’s position of not disciplining racist comments by Warid.

“That kind of thinking and that kind of writing is what led to the 1987 coup, what supported the 2000 coup, that kind of thinking, differentiating us on the basis of race that way.”

Raj claims that Naidu’s opinion seem to warn those who do not agree with Warid’s statement.

“It is equally ironic that while Mr Naidu admonishes those that have called out the racist nature of these comments made by Ms Warid and asks her critics to calm down, he does not chastise the Fiji Times at all for not publishing the initial piece by Ms Warid even though he believes so strongly in the right to free expression including the right to offend.”

Meanwhile, Fiji Times Editor in Chief Fred Wesley is yet to respond to questions by FBC News on why it published Naidu’s opinion on Warids statements. Naidu and his law firm Munro Leys have also acted as legal advisors to the Fiji Times.

FBC News has reached out to Richard Naidu for comments.

Email questions were sent to him on Monday and a request for an on-camera interview was made yesterday.

However, we are yet to receive a comment from Naidu.