HONG KONG – Evan Hannah, publisher of the News Corp.-owned Fiji Times newspaper was deported from Fiji on Friday morning local time. Local authorities said he was a threat to national security and that he had breached his work permit.

          Hunter is the second newspaper man in the last three months to be expelled by the military regime, which took over the country in late 2006.

          In February, Russell Hunter, publisher of Fijian daily The Sun, was deported for what Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama called "destabilizing" reporting.

          Circumstances surrounding Hannah's expulsion are complicated. He was expected to be put on a flight to Sydney, but the paper obtained a court hearing set for Friday morning that effectively stayed his departure.

          Despite the court orders immigration officials collected him from his home Friday morning and put him on a Korean Air flight bound for Seoul.

          After the coup media in Fiji has been regularly harassed. Government troops occupied the offices of some media companies and demanded the right to scrutinize reports before they were aired or published.

"This is the third time in a little over a year that the safety of our employees and the freedom of the press have been seriously threatened by Fijian authorities," John Hartigan, the chairman and chief executive of News Ltd., said.

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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