However, an official in the government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup and installed himself as prime minister, said his comments to media executives had been exaggerated.

The exchange deepens a rift between Bainimarama and media outlets he accuses of bias against his government. Critics say he is waging a campaign of intimidation that threatens free speech.

Netani Rika, editor of the Fiji Times newspaper, said Bainimarama called a meeting of senior media executives on Monday and told them he would have “no qualms” about closing them down in “a worst-case scenario.”

Bainimarama said Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah, expelled last Friday as a threat to national security and for breaching work permit conditions, would not be the last expatriate to be deported, Rika said.

Foreign nationals hold senior management roles in several of the country’s media outlets.

Journalists who are Fijian nationals also have been targets of intimidation by the nation’s Military Council — a body that advises Bainimarama on running the country.

Parmesh Chand, the head of the prime minister’s department, said media reports of Bainimarama’s comments to the journalists had been sensationalized.

“The reported comments of Prime Minister Bainimarama that ... he would not hesitate closing down certain media outlets seems to be grossly exaggerated and taken out of context,” Chand said in a statement.

“It is unfair now that media is strategically picking up issues from that meeting and in the process sensationalizing them,” Chand said.

Rika noted that Chand’s statement did not say Bainimarama denied making the threat to close outlets.

“He knows what the prime minister said,” Rika said. “If the government has no intention of closing the media ... then let it say so.”

Hannah’s expulsion, the second of an Australian-born media executive in three months, was seen as Bainimarama’s regime continuing the campaign of media intimidation it began within days of seizing power.

The expulsion has been condemned by the U.S., Australian and New Zealand governments as well as by media groups.

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