World Press Freedom Day: Journalists at risk

[admin]

World Press Freedom Day: Journalists at risk

FORUM-ASIA co-hosted a panel discussion on the state of press freedom in Asia on 6 May 2009, in Bangkok. Two journalists from Sri Lanka and Thailand presented recent cases of the press freedom being denied in Asia. Below is a brief report on what transpired during the discussion at the Foreign Correspondence Club of Thailand.

On 6 May 2009, FORUM-ASIA and the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) hosted a panel discussion entitled, "Celebrating World Press Freedom Day: The State of Press Freedom in Asia in commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day on 3 May". The panelists were journalists Duk-soo Hyun from South Korea and Pravit Rojanaphruk from Thailand, who discussed the state of press freedom and the types of challenges journalists faced as they undertake their work as human rights defenders in their countries.

Emerlynne Gil, the Human Rights Defenders Programme Manager of FORUM-ASIA, opened the panel and discussed how recent trends across Asia have indicated that the right of freedom of expression and press freedom are being denied from the people. Hundreds of journalists across the region have been threatened, harassed, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared or killed by state and non-state actors for their commitment to professional reporting on human rights abuses in their countries.

In Sri Lanka, journalists are continuously under attacked. So far, eight journalists have left the country after the murder of prominent journalist, Lasantha Wickramatunge on 8 January 2009. Gil also stated that in Malaysia, social activist, journalist lecturer and writer Wong Chin Huat was arrested under the Sedition Act on 5 May 2009 for holding a press conference to launch the "1BLACKMalaysia" campaign. The campaign calls for Malaysians to wear black and gather peacefully on 7 May 2009 to protest the "coup" of Perak, a northern state in Malaysia by the Barisan Nasional (BN) Government.

Duk-soo Hyun, a former journalist of the Yonhap Television News (YTN) channel from South Korea, depicted how he and a number of his colleagues were laid-off and suspended after advocating for editorial neutrality from government authorities since the appointment of a pro-government President of YTN. According to Hyun, this move by the government may be linked to the lack of support from the media in the last election which had caused the lost of seats in the parliament of President Lee Myung Bak's party.

Similarly, Pravit Rojanaphruk, a Senior Reporter of the Nation newspaper in Thailand, commented that the recent political turmoil in Thailand has left the media caught in the middle of two parties: the Peoples' Alliance for Democracy (PAD), known as the yellow shirts, and the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), the red shirts. According to Rojanaphruk, within the past three years the Thai media have been extremely politicised adding that the Thai mainstream media has been deeply sympathetic towards the PAD. He said, "Vigilant media only presents one side of the debate, no space for counter argument or different views". Meanwhile, journalists supporting the DAAD have faced extreme censorship.

The World Press Freedom Day declared by the United Nations General Assembly every 3 May since 1993 is an opportunity to commemorate the significance of freedom of expression and press freedom highlighted under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The panel discussion was attended by journalists, members of the FCCT and various organizations in Bangkok.

The output of this panel will be presented to the UN the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, Frank La Rue, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, in June 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, to raise the attention of the international community to the risks and challenges journalists face as they undertake their work as human rights defenders.