- Aisea Taoka
Aisea Taoka (born 1946) is a
Fiji ancivil servant and formerpolice officer, who currently serves as theCommissioner of Prisons , a position he has held since 1996. He had previously served for 31 years in the Police force.Taoka hails from
Ketei on the island ofTotoya , in the Lauarchipelago . Under the pretext of taking him to see an eye surgeon inSuva , his fatherRupeni Raga smuggled him out of his village inJanuary 1953 in order to educate him. (At that time, it was permitted to leave the village only for medical reasons). Living with relatives inBagasau , he was educated atSuva Methodist Boys School and subsequently atLelean Memorial School , graduating in 1964. During this time, his immediate family moved to Suva. On leaving high school, Taoka enlisted in the police training school.Home Affairs Minister
Paul Manueli appointed him to lead a Commission of Inquiry into an outbreak atNaboro prison in 1994. Two years later, he was appointed Prisons' Commissioner.Taoka is a strong proponent of law and order and is unsympathetic to criticisms of prison conditions. In his submission on
14 February 2006 to the parliamentary committee studying the proposed Prisons and Corrections Bill, Taoka said that those in prison had never considered their victims' rights, so it was out of order for them to complain of their imprisonment conditions being a violation of their own rights. "These are the people who trample on the rights of law abiding citizens; their right to privacy, their right to ownership of property, their right to life ... these are the people who are charged with killing, and you want to read the human rights hand book to me," theFiji Times quoted him as saying. The condition of prisons was what the government could afford, he said.His comments drew a sharp response from
Shaista Shameem , Director of theFiji Human Rights Commission , who was quoted in the "Times" on16 February that prisoners were human beings who had the right to live with dignity.Taoka has taken a different position on the question of compulsory
AIDS /HIV tests for prison inmates, however, saying that it would be an affront to their dignity. Patient confidentiality was as applicable in prison as anywhere else, the Fiji Times quoted him as saying on20 February 2006 .Taoka is married to Margaret and has children.
Sources
[http://Fijitimes.com Fiji Times]
29 January 2006
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