By The Secretariat, Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) |
<div>There is widespread concern about the high potential for violence on the February 2 elections in Thailand, where a protracted political crisis has dragged on with no immediately foreseeable end as tension continues to mount.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The rising tension has kept many citizens from speaking out because of risks associated or the unwillingness to contribute to further polarization, as each side has invoked the name of the people for their respective ends.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>As this crisis has unfolded over the past three months, a number of opportunities have been w
</div>
By SEAPA |
<p>BANGKOK, 23 November - The Philippines and Vietnam are again at the top of countries of concern related to the continuing problem of impunity in Southeast Asia, says the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) as they marked today the International Day To End Impunity.</p>
<p></p>
By Chen Shaua Fui |
<p>AT a street corner in Kamayut Township, Yangon, a young man does what would be seen as freakish in his country just three or four years ago – he lowers his head, fixes his eyes on his smart phone, swipes the screen and smiles at it.</p>
<p></p>
By Ayee Macaraig |
<p>RANGOON, Burma – Five years ago, Nay Phone Latt tried to kill time by reading, doing yoga, and writing letters, short stories, and poems. But on a recent gloomy Monday morning, the blogger could hardly answer a phone call as he rushed about before he took a bus to Burma’s administrative capital to help change the law that sent him to prison.</p>
By Marlon Alexander S. Luistro |
<p>SINGAPORE – Twenty-two-year-old Wendy (not her real name), on her first day as a Hospitality Intern in a budget tourist hostel in Chinatown in Singapore, speaks surprisingly frankly on a seemingly taboo subject, much to this writer’s relief.</p>
<p>Clad in a colorful traditional gown, the native Singaporean is taking a break from washing dishes and chatting with guests to talk about how free people and media in her country are to criticize the government – a subject which senior Singapore-based journalists were extremely reluctant to discuss with the writer.</p>
By Jefry Tupas |
<p>RANGOON—Two years ago, Freddy Lynn was spending most of his time at a public access centre in downtown Myitkyina in Kachin State. There he was introduced to a world that he did not learn in his university or heard about in his community that had been slowed down by more than six decades of armed conflict.</p>
By Southeast Asian Press Alliance |
<p>Bangkok, 11 October - The Thailand Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that the controversial Section 112 of the Penal Code, better known as the lèse majesté law, is not contradictory with human rights protections of the country's constitution, including on freedom of expression.</p>
<p>ARTICLE 19, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), and Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) have sent an open letter to the Prime Minister of Cambodia to protest the recent arrest of Mam Sonando, the director of Beehive Radio, a Cambodian independent radio station.</p>
By Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) |
<p>Exactly one year ago today, the Thai military launched its dispersal operations against the Red Shirt protest rally, which had been going on for three months. The media became a casualty in the conflict, which saw 92 people, including two photographers, being killed and many others wounded.</p>
By Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) |
<p>A Thai history professor who is outspoken on issues concerning the monarchy now faces a complaint of lèse majesté filed by the Royal Thai Army, the independent news website Prachatai.com reported.</p>
By Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) |
<p>Of all the attacks against media and its practitioners, none is more heinous than the slaying of journalists—and getting away with murder.</p>
<p>Nowhere is this anomaly more pronounced than in Southeast Asia, where by SEAPA’s reckoning at least seven media workers were killed in several countries in 2010 just because they were performing their duties as members of media.</p>
By Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) |
<p>Representatives of the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) and the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA) will submit a letter to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva at Government House on 3 May 2011, asking him to throw support behind the 2011 World Press Freedom Day which falls on the same day. The prime minister will be given a T-shirt pin and a campaign T-shirt to mark this important event.</p>