Press freedom monitoring platform launched for Southeast Asia
Seven Free Press Unlimited partners in Southeast Asia collaborated to launch pfmsea.org, a joint platform to monitor attacks against press freedom in Southeast Asia. It provides real-time data based on attacks and threats against journalists and media workers registered in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Timor Leste. It differentiates between attacks on digital safety, physical safety, and legal safety, including various new regulations that limit press freedom.
Last December Free Press Unlimited’s Annelies Langelaar visited the partners in Cambodia to facilitate a workshop together with Sheffield University to support the organisations in setting up this monitoring platform.
“The workshop was a practical working group session in which we jointly created a plan on how to monitor threats against journalists effectively and coherently throughout the six countries. It is fantastic to see that the proactive spirit continued after the workshop and that the organisations achieved to launch the platform so quickly! ” says Annelies Langelaar.
She continues: “This platform is a great tool for documenting the current situation regarding violence against journalists in Southeast Asia, and can be used to advocate for change and also to hopefully prevent extreme cases such as killings.”
The data presented on the platform is the result of direct monitoring in the field, or through reporting that has been verified by each cooperating organisation. The organisations behind the platform are from six different countries: Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Timor Leste. Ika Ningtyas, Secretary-General of the Alliance of Independent Journalists of Indonesia, says: “We all see the same trends in press freedom obstacles. It seems like governments in Southeast Asia copy the same regulations or patterns of repression to curb democracy. So there is no other answer to counter that trend of repression than by working together. In that way we can support each other and improve our advocacy work to a broader and stronger level.”
This monitoring platform came out of necessity. “It has been difficult to find open data on how many cases of attacks against journalists and media organisations were happening in Southeast Asia. Not only regarding quantity, but also regarding identifying trends, what regulations are used to obstruct journalists, and who are the actors,” says Ika Ningtyas.
Data as a backbone
This monitoring platform can now serve as a database that can be used as an early warning system, and so make the response to each case of violence more timely and effective. Besides that, the data will strengthen analysis and develop good practices to support press freedom. It can also mobilise advocacy for regional and international support. With the data in hand, the call to the different states to be accountable, and to uphold international obligations to protect press freedom, is much stronger.
“So far our data has shown that in 36,5% of the cases of violations against journalists and media, the State was the perpetrator, says Ika Ningtyas. An example of this is the Ministry of Information revoking the licenses of four Cambodian digital news media, and the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, shutting down Voice of Democracy (VOD) in February 2023, which is the only independent local media in Cambodia.
The seven organisations involved share the same vision and mission in promoting press freedom. With the support of the Canadian Embassy, Dutch Embassy and United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) these organisations formed a Regional Coalition to serve the public interest, and created a database needed for documenting attacks against journalists.
The seven organizations are: the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia, the Association of Timor Leste Journalists (ATJL), the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA), Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ), Merdeka Media Movement Malaysia (GeramM), the National Union of Journalists Philippines. (NUJP), and Prachatai.