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Special Report
Freedom Takes Hold: ASEAN Journalism in Transition
Country Reports
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Burma
Cambodia
China
Fiji
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Macau
Malaysia
Nepal
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Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Phillipines
Samoa
Singapore
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Taiwan
Thailand
Tonga
Vietnam
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For the second year, the Asian economic free
fall determined the climate for the press in Southeast Asia. The flow
of information became a crucial variable as governments
responded to the social and political dislocations of the economic
crisis; some leaders lifted virtually all restrictions on freedom of
expression, while others tightened their hold on what was reported and
how it was presented.
Economic turmoil boiled over into the political arena for two of Southeast Asia's longest-standing leaders, with starkly contrasting results for the press. The resignation of Indonesia's President Suharto in May paved the way for a flowering of press activity after most restrictions on the media were lifted by the transitional government of President B.J. Habibie. The exhilaration of freedom, however, was tempered by caution over continued social unrest and uncertainty over the eventual scope of promised legal reforms to protect Indonesia's fledgling democracy.
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister, strengthened his hold over the already tightly controlled Malaysian mainstream press before he proceeded to remove his reform-minded deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, as a political rival by firing him and then arresting him for corruption and sodomy in September. His plans apparently backfired: Malaysians, weary of whitewashed news and a pro-Mahathir slant on the Anwar crisis, set up websites to share information on the fate of Anwar, who became a focal point for public protest.
Spurred on by the changes in Indonesia and an aggressively free press in Thailand, journalists from these two countries and the Philippines, the third "free press" country in Southeast Asia, announced the formation of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) at a November conference in Bangkok co-sponsored by CPJ. SEAPA is the first effort to form a multilateral organization in Southeast Asia to promote press freedom and defend journalists.
The alliance will have plenty to do, judging by the strictures on the press in other countries in Southeast Asia. For example, journalists in Cambodia came under the sway of Prime Minister Hun Sen's political party as he consolidated the power he had seized in a 1997 coup. And Vietnam's communist rulers pushed renewed ideological orthodoxy on the state-controlled media.
The Chinese government sent mixed signals about press freedom throughout the year. In the summer and early autumn, Beijing softened its stance on the press by allowing expanded discussion of political topics in some publications in anticipation of state visits by U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The promise of liberalization intensified when China signed the U. N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October. But the end of the year saw an abrupt reversal of this trend with the reemergence of hard-line attitudes toward the press.
The 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic and the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement coincide in 1999, and this potent symbolic juncture has already prompted authorities to take preemptive measures against those who might use the occasion to challenge one-party rule. Some newspapers and publishing houses have been shut down, and both local and foreign journalists with contacts among China's pro-democracy movement have came under increasing pressure. The prosecution of a computer entrepreneur for providing e-mail addresses to a dissident on-line magazine sent ominous signs for the future of Internet freedom in China.
Fortunately, China seemed to be keeping to its bargain in Hong Kong, where the press remained lively and free under the principle of "One Country, Two Systems" which now governs the territory. Nevertheless, Hong Kong journalists remained alert to any sign of retreat from the territory's proud tradition of media independence.
South Asia's political, ethnic, and religious crosscurrents threatened the press in several places, even as journalists organizations consistently took governments to task for attacks on the media. On May 29, the day after Pakistan detonated its first nuclear bomb, Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif declared a state of emergency with the potential to undermine press freedom by suspending constitutional protections. He justified the action by raising the possibility that international sanctions in the wake of the blast could lead to public unrest.
In Sri Lanka, the government imposed military censorship on war reporting in June after a series of embarrassing battlefield losses to separatist Tamil rebels in the ongoing civil war.
India's Northeast remained a dangerous place for journalists -- especially in Assam -- where they frequently find themselves caught between separatist Assamese rebels and Indian Army forces. Although many journalists feared a contraction of civil liberties following the victory of the socially conservative Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in national elections, it never materialized.
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