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| Freedom House map of media freedom in 2011. |
Radio Free Asia
Cambodia’s score also deteriorated due to an "aggressive use of disinformation and defamation legislation against journalists, as well as a reduction in media diversity following the closure of an opposition newspaper," Freedom House said.
Asia suffers a modest decline in an annual media freedom survey.
The level of press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region has fallen, with conditions in China "highly repressive" and with extensive state and Communist party controls also evident in Laos and Vietnam, U.S. human rights group Freedom House said in an annual survey Monday.
The region is also home to two of the survey’s poorest performers, Burma and North Korea, it said, citing a modest decline in the average score for the Asia-Pacific in the group's latest annual media freedom index assessing the degree of print, broadcast, and Internet freedom.
Only five percent of the region’s population had access to free media, while 46 percent live in "partly free" and 49 percent in "not free" media environments.
"Conditions in the world’s largest poor performer, China, remained highly repressive in 2010," Freedom House said in its report, Freedom in the World 2011, released in conjunction with UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day.
Chinese authorities increased censorship and Communist Party propaganda in both traditional and online media, with a focus on politically sensitive issues like the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo in October, it said.
"Detailed party directives—which can arrive daily at editors’ desks—also curbed coverage related to public health, environmental accidents, deaths in police custody, and foreign policy," the report said.
Dozens of activists, dissidents, and journalists remained in jail for their writing at year’s end, with minority language journalists facing "special persecution."
Test limits
Nevertheless, Freedom House said, journalists and bloggers continued to test Beijing's limits of permissible expression by exposing official corruption, circulating underground political publications, and engaging in imaginative efforts to circumvent China’s comprehensive Internet filtering system, the so-called Great Firewall.
In the region, the social-networking website Facebook remains unavailable in China and Vietnam.
“What we see in both countries, I believe, is a sort of cat-and-mouse game where there is obviously severe control over news media and the media content, but where people are trying to push back against these very repressive boundaries," said Freedom House senior researcher Karin Karleka.
"So there are definitely controls in place by both governments to hold onto the news agenda. But I would say that activists in both countries are pushing back."
The two countries were among the worst performers worldwide.
Cambodia’s score also deteriorated due to an "aggressive use of disinformation and defamation legislation against journalists, as well as a reduction in media diversity following the closure of an opposition newspaper," Freedom House said.
In Burma, Freedom House saw "marginal improvements" after a new civilian government took over from the military junta after elections in November 2010.
The "improvements" stemmed from "somewhat more open media access" to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi following her release from house arrest last year.
Status changes
The region featured two important status changes in 2010. South Korea, which had long hovered at the low end of the "free" range, slipped to a "partly free" designation. Contributing factors included an increase in official censorship as well as government attempts to influence media outlets’ news and information content.
Over the past several years, an increasing number of online comments have been removed for expressing either pro–North Korean or anti–South Korean views.
The current conservative government has also interfered in the management of major broadcast media, with allies of President Lee Myung-bak receiving senior posts at large media companies over the objections of journalists.
Also in 2010, additional pressure on the media in politically turbulent Thailand led to a status downgrade to "not free" from "partly free."
Key factors included the use of the restrictive new Computer Crimes Act to punish online expression, a continued increase in lèse-majesté prosecutions, and periodic violence between political factions that caught journalists in the crossfire and led to censorship of media outlets.
Freedom House said the proportion of the world’s population that had access to a free press declined to its lowest point in over a decade in 2010, as repressive governments intensified their efforts to control traditional media and developed new techniques to limit the independence of rapidly expanding internet-based media.
Reported by Parameswaran Ponnudurai and Richard Finney.
1 comment:
Koh Tral Island must not be forgotten
By Ms. Rattana Keo
Why do Koh Tral Island, known in Vietnam as Phu Quoc, a sea and land area covering proximately over 30,000 km2 [Note: the actual land size of Koh Tral itself is 574 square kilometres (222 sq miles)] have been lost to Vietnam by whose treaty? Why don’t Cambodia government be transparent and explain to Cambodia army at front line and the whole nation about this? Why don't they include this into education system? Why?
Cambodian armies are fighting at front line for 4.6 km2 on the Thai border and what's about over 30,000km2 of Cambodia to Vietnam. Nobody dare to talk about it! Why? Cambodian armies you are decide the fate of your nation, Cambodian army as well as Cambodian people must rethink about this again and again. Is it fair?
Koh Tral Island, the sea and land area of over 30,000 square kilometres have been lost to Vietnam by the 1979 to 1985 treaties. The Cambodian army at front line as well as all Cambodian people must rethink again about these issues. Are Cambodian army fighting to protect the Cambodia Nation or protecting a very small group that own big lands, big properties or only protecting a small group but disguising as protecting the Khmer nation?
The Cambodian army at front lines suffer under rain, wind, bullets, bombs, lack of foods, lack of nutrition and their families have no health care assistance, no securities after they died but a very small group eat well, sleep well, sleep in first class hotel with air conditioning system with message from young girls, have first class medical care from oversea medical treatments, they are billionaires, millionaires who sell out the country to be rich and make the Cambodian people suffer everyday.
Who signed the treaty 1979-1985 that resulted in the loss over 30,000 km2 of Cambodia??? Why they are not being transparent and brave enough to inform all Cambodians and Cambodian army at front line about these issues? Why don't they include Koh Tral (Koh Tral size is bigger than the whole Phom Phen and bigger than Singapore [Note: Singapore's present land size is 704 km2 (271.8 sq mi)]) with heap of great natural resources, in the Cambodian education system?
Look at Hun Sen's families, relatives and friends- they are billionaires, millionaires. Where did they get the money from when we all just got out of war with empty hands [in 1979]? Hun Sen always say in his speeches that Cambodia had just risen up from the ashes of war, just got up from Year Zero with empty hands and how come they are billionaires, millionaires but 90% of innocent Cambodian people are so poor and struggling with their livelihood every day?
Smart Khmer girl Ms. Rattana Keo,
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