Is the future of press freedom in Asia bleak?
IS ASIA’S press freedom collapsing? No, we are not lamenting police states that never had a vibrant media. We are talking about the Philippines – which revoked the licence of independent news website Rappler on January 11; we are talking Myanmar, which arrested two journalists from Reuters under the Official Secrets Act in December; we are talking Pakistan, where a journalist escaped an abduction attempt as the New Year began.
Steven Butler, Asia Program Coordinator CPJ, tells Asia News Network “There’s no doubt that press freedom has gone into retreat across most of Asia. Only a few places are holding out against the trend, including Sri Lanka, South Korea and Taiwan. Starting with China, and the 41 journalists it held in jail as of last year, it’s a grim picture almost everywhere else.”
The Philippines
The most shocking attack on press freedom and democracy was witnessed when the Philippines’ Securities and Exchange Commission ordered the revocation of Rappler’s licence to operate. In a 29-page decision dated January 11, the SEC cited violations of foreign ownership rules. Rappler is known to be critical of President Rodrigo Duterte. And the SEC is an agency under the president – responsible for enforcing securities and investment laws in the country.
According to Committee to Protect Journalists, 79 journalists have been killed in the Philippines since 1992.
On January 30, Rappler said it had found millions of false social media accounts spreading fake news linked originally to the 2016 campaign of Duterte. Rappler CEI Maria Ressa said social media was being used to manipulate opinion in the Philippines because the country was “actually the top country that goes online globally” with 97 percent of Filipinos online also on Facebook, the Daily Inquirer reported.
Cambodia
Months earlier, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the shutting down of the Cambodia Daily, which had a great run for 24 years, providing a rare voice in the independent news sphere. Hun Sen oversaw the shuttering of not just the Daily, but also multiple independent radio outlets.
The expat general manager of the newspaper was forced to close down and ordered to stay in the country until the company paid up taxes worth $6.9 million. The Daily shut down headlining its last front page with a sentiment that sums up the state of press freedom: Descent into outright dictatorship.
The US-funded Radio Free Asia had to also suspend operations amid a clampdown on independent media. Two of its former reporters were detained late last year on suspicion of illegally producing and disseminating news.
Myanmar
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in Myanmar on December 12 after they were invited to meet police for dinner on suspicion of violating the Official Secrets Act.
The Ministry of Information has cited the police as saying they were “arrested for possessing important and secret government documents related to Rakhine State and security forces”.
In his newest post for the Council on Foreign Relations, Joshua Kurlantzick writes about the freedom of press in Asia: “The number of press outlets and reporters facing severe consequences is growing. In Thailand, the government has detained multiple reporters and increasingly just refuses to deal with the media – Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha last week installed a cardboard facsimile of himself to ‘answer’ media questions of the government.”
Not just journalists, but those active on social media are being randomly picked up for their anti-establishment posts.
Bangladesh
CambodiaDaily,
Two Bangladesh ministers on January 30 said the Digital Security Act-2018 would not be applied to journalists if they wrote on corruption and illegal acts as it would not be considered as spying.
However, rights body Ain o Salish Kendra is concerned over the approval of the draft.
And they have reason to be – with a Bangladeshi journalist being arrested for reporting on the death of a goat! The journalist was arrested on defamation charges after he wrote on Facebook that a goat had died.
“Jailing a journalist for reporting the death of a goat is beyond absurd,” CPJ noted.
Last year, the Foreign Minis-
try was instructed to monitor journalists travelling abroad.
“This directive turns Bangladeshi diplomats into media spies,” Robert Mahoney, CPJ’s deputy executive director, said from New York. “It is not the job of government to determine whether journalists are serving the interests of their country through their reporting.”
The Editors Guild of India expressed concern at the barrage of criminal defamation and sedition cases filed against Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of Bangladesh’s the Daily Star and a columnist of several Indian newspapers.
“The flurry of cases against Anam by supporters of the ruling Awami League is clearly meant to intimidate and harass him and constitute an attack on the freedom of the press in Bangladesh,” it said in a statement. A total of 83 lawsuits for defamation were filed against Anam in 56 districts. And of those, 17 involve petitions seeking to sue him for sedition.
Thailand
Authorities banned over 1,000 websites following the death in October 2016 of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and interrupted broadcasts by foreign, English-language news outlets about his passing. Thai junta threatened BBC over coverage of royal news.
Meanwhile, the CPJ has urged has Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to reject new legislation increasing government control over the media and to repeal previous decrees expanding state control of the media.
Earlier, Thailand had banned a foreign corresondents club event, citing national security and Thai columnist Pravit Rojanaphruk was charged with two cases of sedition.
India
The Indian media were shocked when a reporter and her newspaper were served an arrest warrant earlier this month for exposing glitches in the government’s much-touted Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). UIDAI over- sees the world’s largest biometric identity card scheme.
The Editors Guild of India condemned UIDAI’s decision calling it “unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press”.
American whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted his disapproval of the police case: “The journalists exposing the #Aadhaar breach deserve an award, not an investigation. If the government were truly concerned for justice, they would be reforming the policies that destroyed the privacy of a billion Indians. Want to arrest those responsible? They are called @UIDAI.”
In October, the Wire, an independent digital media platform in India, was slapped with a case for reporting on Bharatiya Janata Party’s chief Amit Shah’s son’s dramatic growth in assets after the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014. A defamation case was slapped on the media platform and it was asked to take down the story.
However, there has been a breather for the Wire with the Ahmedabad high court vacating an ex parte order placing absolute restraint on the publication of the article. The high court ordered the website to refrain from linking the article, directly or indirectly, with Prime Minister Modi till the libel suit is disposed of.
The brutal murder of senior Indian journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh in 2017 has been cited by many as proof that voices of dissent are being stifled in the world’s largest democracy.
Muzzling of the media in India is an issue many are beginning to contend with and speak out against in recent years. It is not rare for Indian ministers to call journalists “presstitutes” – a portmanteau of press and prostitute.
Raids on the offices and residences of the founders of NDTV, an English-language news channel, in June 2017, by India’s top investigative agency is a case in point.
While the Modi government was quick to justify the Central Bureau of Investigation’s multi- ple raids on the NDTV founders, the opposition political parties and much of the fiercely competitive media world saw the move as an assault on the freedom of speech. NDTV is seen as a liberal voice in India’s fast changing media landscape which is becoming increasingly nationalistic and jingoistic.
A senior journalist who did not wish to be named made an important point about the muzzling of the media.
“As the corporate or mainstream media here refuses to engage with the rise of an aggressive and violent Hindu right and consequent threats to the Indian minorities, I see the Western newspapers, even in the US, eager to fill in that vacuum by reporting and writing on even smaller incidents or issues,” he told ANN.
“Publications like the NYT have even written editorials on the developments like the anointnment of Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister or the politics over cow protection. As far as I am concerned, I welcome the trend since our colleagues back home are too busy cheering the current dispensation,” he added.
In July, a prominent investigative journalist who edited the Economic and Political Weekly was removed after a legal notice was served by the Adani Group, known to be close to Prime Minister Modi. A daily television show moderated by the journalist Nikhil Wagle, perceived to be critical of the government, was cancelled abruptly despite high ratings.
Reporters in conflict zones such as Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand in Central India are the worst-affected.
India has slipped three places in the World Press Freedom Index. There have been several instances of outspoken journalists who are anti-establisment being criticised on social media, with some reporting they have been threatened with rape and assault.
Pakistan
India’s neighbour Pakistan hasn’t fared well in this respect either. Daniel Pearl is history. Many journalists have gone missing since. Last week Taha Siddiqui, an award-winning journalist, escaped an abduction attempt in Islamabad.
Islamabad Police is investigating an “attempt by 10-12 armed men” to abduct journalist Siddiqui. He was “beaten [and] threatened with death”. Amnesty International has condemned the attacks on him and other Pakistani journalists, demanding they be effectively investigated by the authorities.
Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry ordered immediate closure of the Islamabad bureau of Radio Mashaal, the Pashto-language service of US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The country’s intelligence agency had recommended its closure.