Press freedom in Southeast Asia 'backsliding' - Seapa

Tighter state controls on Southeast Asian media have resulted to a felt weakening of press freedom in the region in 2007, regional media organization Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa) said on Friday. In a statement, Seapa said the attacks on media, as well as the passage of national security and Internet legislation that directly affect the media have contributed to the backslide on press freedom – which has been seen from the freest to the most restricted media industries in the region. In the Philippines, Seapa said the latest attack on media came in the killing of Davao broadcaster Ferdinand Lintuan on Christmas eve. This is on top of “direct pressures" being exerted on the media by the government, the group said. “(T)he freest countries have seen backsliding on the press freedom front. The assassination of yet another Filipino radio broadcaster in the final week of December underscored yet again the continuing impunity by which media and press freedom remained under attack," Seapa stated. “More than this, the Philippine press came under direct pressure and legal challenges from government. In the last 12 months the Philippine media have been threatened and charged by government for everything from ‘sedition’ to ‘obstruction of justice’, effectively warned that coverage of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's many critics would be dealt with as criminally contemptuous of government and state," it added. Seapa is a coalition of press freedom advocacy groups from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand established in November 1998. The group aims to unite independent journalists and press-related organizations in Southeast Asia for the protection and promotion of press freedom and free expression in the region. In its statement, Seapa said similar challenges are faced by media organizations in Indonesia where legislative reforms “were overshadowed by the uneven, unpredictable, and surprising application of laws to the detriment of press freedom." In Thailand, certain laws that were hastily passed under what is supposedly a temporary and self-limited military junta “keep a dark cloud over the press and Thailand's electronic media in particular," the group said. “Such developments as above give a quick and reliable overview of how the press freedom situation worsened in the region through 2007… Indeed, the passage of laws on ‘national security’ and Internet-related crimes in Thailand was a familiar theme in 2007 to all countries in Southeast Asia, from Vietnam to the Philippines and Malaysia to Laos. All highlighted the uncertainties they faced and will continue to face in the coming year," Seapa stated. In more restricted media environments such as those in Burma, Malaysia and Singapore, further deterioration of free expression were also monitored. “The situation in Burma-already the worst in terms of environments for free expression and human rights-further deteriorated right before the whole world's eyes. A notorious regime predictable for its censorship and tight controls now plunges into even more uncertain harshness," Seapa stated. "Meanwhile, Singapore widened the scope of its uncompromising media laws to include the new media even as citizens are beginning to test the erstwhile freedom found on the Internet. A similar development transpired in Malaysia, which is showing signs of backing down from a long-standing promise to never censor the Internet and looking for ways to take on bloggers in court, while political protests in the last quarter of the year have put the government on edge," it added. - GMANews.TV