Fiji 'coup' ad questionable but given nod

A holiday deal to Fiji advertised with the tagline, What a coup! has been given the okay by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Travel agent Our Pacific published the newspaper advertisement in July.

The full headline read, Radisson Fiji from $1099. What a coup!

That angered one reader, who complained it was distasteful and offensive given the political situation in Fiji and the threat of human rights violations.

Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has been in charge of Fiji since he launched a coup in December last year – its fourth in 20 years.

But the authority ruled that though the advertisement "could be seen by some to be of questionable taste", it was not offensive enough to breach its code of ethics.

Several people also complained about a Telecom Yellow Pages television advertisement.

It featured animated black hands which were hurriedly organising a party while a white man read a magazine.

One complainant was concerned about "the black hands doing the work and acting as the working class while the white man and woman act as overseers", the authority ruling said.

Another complained about the man kicking the black hand.

But the authority rejected the complaints, ruling the logo had been used by Telecom for many years and resembled a glove more than a skin tone.

Another complaint about an anti- spam website that used an example email from Nigeria and a picture of a black man was also rejected by the authority.