Shawn W. Crispin/CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative

CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn W. Crispin is based in Bangkok, Thailand, where he has worked as a journalist and editor for more than two decades. He has led CPJ missions throughout the region and is the author of several CPJ special reports. Follow him on LinkedIn.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., shown here at a campaign rally in Quezon City, Philippines, on April 13, 2022, has not displayed overt antagonism toward the media since winning the presidency in May 2022. However, local journalists say he has not yet taken substantive actions to undo the damage wrought to press freedom under the Duterte administration. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

In Marcos Jr.’s Philippines, milder tone belies harsh media reality

At a waterfront courthouse in Tacloban City, a long-time hotbed of communist insurgency in the Philippines’ Eastern Visayas island region, heavily armed guards were escorting jailed journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio to trial. The picturesque setting belied the harsh reality of the April 17 hearing. Cumpio could be put behind bars for life if found guilty…

Read More ›

Myanmar’s jailing of journalists enters harsh new phase

Myanmar’s military regime has doubled down on its repression of journalists as it tightens it grip on the country following its democracy-crushing coup on February 1, 2021. After arresting scores of journalists to block coverage of its abuses and resistance to the takeover, its second year in power saw the handing down of harsh prison…

Read More ›

‘Red-tagging’ of journalists looms over Philippine elections

As Philippine presidential candidates wind up their campaigns before the May 9 election, journalists in the country are demanding that whoever succeeds President Rodrigo Duterte put an end to “red tagging” –  the labeling of individuals as rebels or supporters of the communist insurgency – that helped put their colleague Frenchiemae Cumpio behind bars.  Cumpio, the 23-year-old executive director…

Read More ›

Opinion: Myanmar’s military junta is killing press freedom

One year since a democracy-suspending coup, press freedom is dying in Myanmar. A military campaign of intimidation, censorship, arrests, and detentions of journalists has more recently graduated to outright killing, an escalation of repression that aims ultimately to stop independent media reporting on the junta’s crimes and abuses. In January, military authorities abducted local news…

Read More ›

How Myanmar became the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists

Myanmar has catapulted in the rankings of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual census of jailed journalists, the repressive upshot of a democracy-suspending February 1 coup that saw authorities suppress news coverage of their harsh clampdown on anti-military protesters. At least 26 journalists were imprisoned in Myanmar for their reporting as of December 1, compared with…

Read More ›

American journalist Nathan Maung describes alleged abuse during Myanmar imprisonment

When armed authorities raided the office of news website Kamayut Media in downtown Yangon, Myanmar on March 8, editor Nathan Maung’s initial reaction was to plead not to be shot. The American journalist and his Myanmar colleague Hanthar Nyein were arrested, blindfolded, and taken to a military interrogation center, where for more two weeks they were interrogated,…

Read More ›

Irrawaddy editor Aung Zaw speaks to fears of a post-coup media crackdown in Myanmar

On February 1, Myanmar military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government and imposed a year of emergency rule until new elections are held and democracy restored. News reports have shown the coup has been met with spirited and widespread anti-military street protests, reportage the now-ruling military has tried to blackout through heavy handed measures including…

Read More ›

Philippines makes premature claim to end of impunity in journalist murders

When the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural classified the 2009 Maguindanao massacre — the deadliest attack on the press ever recorded by CPJ — as “resolved,” Philippine authorities were quick to echo and tout this designation.  Too quick, as it turned out. UNESCO’s then-assistant director-general for communication and information, Moez Chackchouk, made the official…

Read More ›

ABS-CBN newsroom

ABS-CBN head of news describes losses to journalists, Philippine public amid station closure

Regina Reyes says she had a “journalist’s premonition” that something bad would happen the day before Philippine authorities ordered her ABS-CBN news station to cease and desist operations on May 5. That evening, ABS-CBN, the nation’s largest news organization, said goodbye to its viewing audience and signed off the air. “Up to now, that screen…

Read More ›

A man collects supplies over barbed wire in the coronavirus lockdown area of Selayang Baru, outside of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 26, 2020. A journalist faces prison time over her social media posts on the health crisis. (AP/Vincent Thian)

Malaysian journalist faces six years in prison over COVID-19 Facebook posts

When Malaysian journalist Wan Noor Hayati Wan Alias criticized a government decision to allow a cruise ship with Chinese tourists to dock and disembark at the coastal city of Penang in late January, a time when China was at the epicenter of the COVID-19 global pandemic, she was criminally charged with causing a public panic.

Read More ›