Details
(Editor's Note: The statement can be downloaded from URL: http://www.waccglobal.org/component/ content/article/1768:press-freedom-and- responsibility-go-hand-in-hand.html?Itemid=167)

WACC recognises – along with many others – that freedom of the press underlies democracy and enhances freedom of expression. The capacity of the “fourth estate” to hold governments and public institutions accountable, to inform and alert the world’s people is indispensible. And never more so than in an age of 24/7 digital communication.

Details
by Nina Somera

Two weeks since the proclamation of the 30-day state of emergency, scores of Fijian media and social movements continue to grope in the dark, performing their duties albeit with extreme caution.

Details
by Nina Somera

After more than three months in detention, Suwicha Thakor was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment under Thailand’s Computer Crime Act of 2007 and lese majeste laws. Thakor, 34, was earlier accused of posting the digitally altered images of King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the internet.

Details
by Human Rights Watch

[Editor’s Note: This article was released on 25 March 2009 and maybe found on this URL: http://www.hrw.org]

Malaysia’s Home Ministry should immediately rescind its order suspending the publication of two opposition party newspapers, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called for repeal of the 1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act.

Details
by the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC)

Amidst growing level of attacks against free media and freedom of expression in Nepal and just within days of attack on community radio Mahakali, yet another community radio station, Radio Mukti, run by a women’s group and located in the central region town of Butwal has been vandalised by a group of students from the Butwal Multiple Campus on the night of 21 March 2009.

Details
by Nina Somera

Thailand’s police has once more hogged the headlines with the arrest of Pratchatai webmaster Chiranuch Pemchaiporn on 6 March 2009 on the basis of the Computer-related Crime Act of 2007. However when the police came to the office in two vans and seized the computer and other electronic devices, they could not identify which posts violated the law.