Southeast Asia’s Press Freedom Challenges for 2010
BANGKOK, 23 January 2010 — The massacre of 31 journalists in Maguindanao, the Philippines, on 23 November 2009, most graphically illustrates the violence and impunity that threaten journalists not only in the Philippines, but throughout the region, according to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), the non-government organization that promotes press freedom in the region.
In its annual report on the state of press freedom in Southeast Asia, SEAPA stated that the journalist killings in 2009 are only one of several kinds of attacks that illustrate the vulnerability of press freedom. The report concluded: “Throughout the region last year, journalists and media workers suffered from physical threats (as in Indonesia and Thailand), social ostracism and demonization (as in Burma and Vietnam), imprisonment, detention, and legal harassment (everywhere from East Timor to Malaysia and Singapore). Indeed, not only journalists and writers, but even their defenders (lawyers and human rights advocates) are being arrested and harassed, from Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia to Singapore and the Philippines.”
For more on the report, read here.
