The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission is urging members of the public who post incidents of alleged human rights violations on social media platforms to also report these matters to relevant authorities.

While social media posts expose the wrong doings (human rights violations), these allegations cannot be verified without independent investigations.

Therefore, it is incumbent on them to report these incidents to relevant institutions to allow independent investigations and for remedy to be afforded to the victims. The Commission is particularly concerned with the recent Facebook post (dated 29 December 2020) on alleged Police brutality involving a child.

The Commission had since approached Totogo Police Station, Raiwaqa Police Station, Lami Police Station and the Fiji Police Force Headquarters to obtain more information about the alleged incident because the person who put out the post was not forthcoming. We have also sent several messages to the person.

The Commission encourages victims of violations as well as the whistle-blowers to come forward and report alleged violations without fear of further reprisal and recrimination.

We need co-operation from members of the public to be able to independently investigate such matters and save on any unnecessary use of our resources and time which can be directed towards other complaints of national interest.

We can be contacted on +679 9709894.

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