(CPJ/IFEX) – On 8 November 1998, CPJ issued the following press release on the occasion of the forming of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance at a two-day seminar on press freedom in Southeast Asia held in Bangkok: Delegates meeting in Bangkok announced the formation of an alliance to support and promote press freedom in the […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – On 8 November 1998, CPJ issued the following press release on
the occasion of the forming of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance at a
two-day seminar on press freedom in Southeast Asia held in Bangkok:
Delegates meeting in Bangkok announced the formation of an alliance to
support and promote press freedom in the region on 8 November 1998.
Twenty-five representatives from five independent journalists’ organizations
in three countries–the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia–launched a
campaign on behalf of a free press in Southeast Asia through the
establishment of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).
The alliance will set up a secretariat in Bangkok next year. The secretariat
will monitor attacks on journalists and threats to the press in Southeast
Asia. The alliance will also encourage governments in Southeast Asia to
reform repressive media laws and relax restrictions on the press.
A steering committee was formed to direct the new alliance. Steering
committee members were drawn from the Reporter’s Association of Thailand
(RAT), the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), the Center
for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) of the Philippines, the
Jakarta-based Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Institute
for Studies in the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), which is also based in
Indonesia.
The alliance is meant to be inclusive of independent journalistic
organizations in the region and was formed in response to the growth of
press freedom in the three countries initially involved. Delegates affirmed
their commitment to support efforts by journalists in neighboring countries
to establish a free press.
“This is a landmark development in the history of the Southeast Asian
press,” said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a member of the six-member steering
committee and the Executive Editor of the Nation newspaper in Bangkok. “We
journalists have to be able to defend ourselves and help our Asian
colleagues.”
The alliance grew out of a two-day seminar on press freedom in Southeast
Asia, hosted by the Reporter’s Association of Thailand in conjunction with
the World Press Freedom Committeee and the New York-based Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“We support your efforts and applaud this endeavor,” said James Ottaway, the
chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee.
Both CPJ and WPFC pledged to assist the alliance in its development. “This
is vital work,” said A. Lin Neumann, the Asia Program Coordinator for CPJ.
Delegates attending the meeting said it was the first time that regional
press freedom organizations have banded together to promote Southeast Asian
concerns.
