Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)

According to information received by SEAPA, Huynh Thuc Vy was arrested after she and her husband were interrogated by police in connection with their participation in a protest.

SEAPA welcomed the AICHR’s decision to organise a regional consultation on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration with civil society in the region.

ARTICLE 19 has called for the UN member states to raise concerns to the Philippines regarding violence against individuals exercising free speech and the culture of impunity, the absence of a right-to-information law, and the use of criminal defamation laws to silence critics.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the online news website Prachatai, received a one-year prison sentence and a US$1,000 penalty for violating Section 15 of the Computer Crimes Act, which mandates website hosts to delete illegal content.

UPDATE: The president of IFEX member Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Nabeel Rajab, was re-arrested and sentenced to three years in prison on 16 August. Many other human rights defenders remain in prison, including BCHR’s founder Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, and his daughter, Zainab Al-Khawaja.

SEAPA marks World Press Freedom Day with the release of 10 country reports on the situation of press freedom in the region.

“Talk of the News” was the only live-broadcast program that enabled the public to phone in and comment on current news and voice their problems.

The papers are being targeted for publishing articles that accused the deputy prime minister of being drunk during the parliament’s charter amendment debate on 25 February.