5 January 2005
PRESS FREEDOM SUFFERS SETBACKS
Across Southeast Asia, 2004 proved to be a bad year for press freedom, with record numbers of journalists murdered in the Philippines, draconian defamation laws used in Indonesia and Thailand, and worsening censorship in Burma, says a new report issued by the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).
In the Philippines, more than 12 journalists were killed last year, many of them targeted for exposing social problems, including government corruption and criminal activities. Since 1986, more than 60 have been murdered because of their work and not one person has been convicted, says SEAPA. This has led to a culture of impunity in which journalists are trapped in a violent cycle.
In Thailand and Indonesia, governments and private companies used archaic and harsh defamation and libel laws to silence critics. Shin Corp., the Thai telecommunications giant owned by friends and relatives of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, sued a media advocate who questioned the sudden growth in the company's profits in the same year that Thaksin became prime minister.
In Indonesia, a businessman with known ties to military and government leaders successfully sued "Tempo" magazine for a story suggesting that the businessman may have improperly benefited from a fire that gutted a marketplace.
In other countries, governments remained intolerant of a free press, says SEAPA. Media in Laos, Singapore and Malaysia are largely controlled by political and military leaders. Malaysian officials threatened to use the Internal Security Act to punish webmasters who allow "irresponsible" material to be posted on their sites.
In Burma, one of the worst places to be a journalist, the military junta ordered the indefinite suspension of more than a dozen news publications already under its control.
Read SEAPA's report here: http://www.seapabkk.org/column/2005/01/20050102.html
Visit SEAPA's website: http://www.seapabkk.org/
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