Press Freedom

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Jul 23  (IPS/Asia Media Forum) – Many netizens worldwide have long realised that the Internet is not completely without fetters, but those in Thailand say a three-year-old law is now practically choking Thai self-expression and right to information in cyberspace.

By Athar Parvaiz

SRINAGAR, India, Jul 19 (IPS) - Abdul Rehman stopped in his tracks when he did not see his usual newspapers strewn out on his lawn one morning this month. But little did he know that he would not see newspapers, whether out on the newsstands or delivered to subscribers like him, for three more days.

By Wai Moe

Burmese authorities denied on Saturday that there has been an outbreak of the plague in areas east of the Pegu mountain range, saying that the National Health Department has found no evidence of the disease in dead rats taken from areas considered at risk.

By Chularat Saengpassa - 'The Nation'

Using the emergency decree, authorities have recently shut down 26 community-radio stations in nine provinces and pressured six others to discontinue their services.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Jul 2 (Asia Media Forum) – Thailand’s media are not very happy these days, and it’s not only because of an emergency decree that turns three months old next week.

There are also government-instigated ‘media reforms’ in the offing, which has upset some members of the media here, along with press-freedom advocates.

By Gordon Ross

BEIJING, May 31 (IPS) - Last June, when thousands of Iranians – many organised through social networking websites such as Twitter – took to the streets to protest the outcome of the country’s presidential election, a Chinese English-language newspaper, ‘Global Times’, published an editorial critical of the Western media’s coverage of the protests.

By Farah Zahidi Moazzam

KARACHI, Pakistan, May 30 (Asia Media Forum) — While there was no question that the visual depictions of the Prophet Mohammad on Facebook hit a raw nerve among devout Muslims all over, the debate here in Pakistan has been all about whether the government should be the one making choices for its Internet users.

Malaysian authorities seized more than 6,000 copies of a pro-opposition newspaper amid a dispute over whether it flouted the country's strict publication laws, 'The Straits Times' quoted officials as saying on May 25.

By Anita Rachman

Seeking a media outlet free of the chains of corporate ownership, a group of journalists is planning to develop a Web site that will carry stories conventional news organisations dare not touch.

By Lynette Lee Corporal*

BANGKOK, May 20 (IPS/Asia Media Forum) - As big a story as this week’s crackdown on anti-government protests in Thailand is the significant number of journalists killed or hurt, and media professionals and organisations threatened during the country’s most serious political conflict in years.

Since April, two foreign journalists, a Japanese and an Italian, have died from bullet wounds while covering operations against the protests by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), whose supporters are called red shirts because of their protest colour.

Italian freelance journalist Fabio Polenghi was shot by unidentified gunmen on Wednesday, during a blockade to end the two-month old UDD rally in the Rajprasong commercial district. Reuters cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto died during an Apr. 10 attempt to break up protesters at another protest site.