Human Rights

By Chularat Saengpassa - 'The Nation'

Using the emergency decree, authorities have recently shut down 26 community-radio stations in nine provinces and pressured six others to discontinue their services.

By Gordon Ross

BEIJING, May 31 (IPS) - Last June, when thousands of Iranians – many organised through social networking websites such as Twitter – took to the streets to protest the outcome of the country’s presidential election, a Chinese English-language newspaper, ‘Global Times’, published an editorial critical of the Western media’s coverage of the protests.

Despite a phenomenal growth in the media, journalists here have to put up with poor wages and working conditions, and the hazards of working in an insurgency troubled state.  Journalists' organisations are now no longer willing to stay silent, says 'The Hoot's' Nava Thakuria.

By Lynette Lee Corporal*

BANGKOK, May 20 (IPS/Asia Media Forum) - As big a story as this week’s crackdown on anti-government protests in Thailand is the significant number of journalists killed or hurt, and media professionals and organisations threatened during the country’s most serious political conflict in years.

Since April, two foreign journalists, a Japanese and an Italian, have died from bullet wounds while covering operations against the protests by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), whose supporters are called red shirts because of their protest colour.

Italian freelance journalist Fabio Polenghi was shot by unidentified gunmen on Wednesday, during a blockade to end the two-month old UDD rally in the Rajprasong commercial district. Reuters cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto died during an Apr. 10 attempt to break up protesters at another protest site.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, May 19 (Asia Media Forum) — As reports spread of soldiers moving to the rally site of the anti-government protesters and the expected surrender of its leaders Wednesday, a small group of activists and individuals gathered at the United Nations complex here to call for talks and reconciliation.

   "Stop the killing!' many in the emotional, distraught group of protesters shouted. Thus far, at least 43 people have been killed and 365 injured since the army started on May 13 its crackdown on the two-month protest of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

By Johanna Son

BANGKOK, MAy 18 (IPS) - Amid gunfire and street battles here and heated, divided emotions playing out in Thailand’s worst political crisis in decades, there has been little room for discussing human rights, restraint and finding a middle ground.

By Saw Yan Naing

BANGKOK—As journalists wanting to enter the barricaded camp at Ratchaprasong, we joined the queue and were checked by Redshirt security guards.

By Lynette Lee Corporal*

BANGKOK, May 15 (Asia Media Forum) - Two months into Thailand’s anti-government protests and as an army-led blockade is underway to end them, the media are struggling with challenges to their credibility and perceptions of bias in the South-east Asian country’s gravest political stalemate in years.

Thailand's Center for the Resolution of Emergency Situation's (CRES) website blockade has added more controversies to the already-problematic lese majeste and cyber laws and their application, which has in the past few years curbed the people's basic rights and has ushered the society into the climate fear, reports 'The Bangkok Post' on May 6, citing a seminar on 'Critiques on CRES Anti-Monarchy Accusation'.

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 4 (IPS) - In her newspaper-strewn office on the ground floor of a quiet apartment complex, Chiranuch Premchaiporn surveys the options before her in case the government’s censors come calling again.