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.
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.