A new civil society platform to monitor attacks against press freedom in Southeast Asia has just been launched. The platform provides statistics on attacks and threats against journalists and media workers in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Timor Leste. The platform can act as an early warning system, which means that it can make responses to violence more timely and effective. Additionally, the platform will facilitate monitoring in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 16.10.1. SDG 16.10 focuses on ensuring that the public have access to information.
Indicator 16.10.1 calls for a focus on monitoring to measure this target by considering the:
Number of verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture of journalists, associated media personnel, trade unionists and human rights advocates in the previous 12 months
In December last year CFOM members Sara Torsner and Diana Maynard, in collaboration with partner Free Press Unlimited, contributed with expertise on the methodological development of the new platform to facilitate monitoring in line with SDG Indicator 16.10.1.
You can read more about CFOM’s work on monitoring below.