Press Release
APEC Summit in Kuala Lumpur
17-18 November 1998

Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) calls for any agreement to include a "democratic clause"

On 17 and 18 November, the heads of state and government of 21 nations will meet in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for the sixth summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Group (APEC). The eighteen member states are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. This year they will be joined by Peru, Russia and Vietnam.

Four of those twenty one countries openly flout press freedom - China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam - and four others are the scene of serious obstacles to the free circulation of information - Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and Russia.

RSF believes that violations of the freedom to inform and to be informed are holding back those countries' economic development and the introduction of democratic governments there. We therefore call for any agreement concluded by the APEC nations to include a "democratic clause" based on respect for the principles of democratic freedom and human rights, and therefore freedom of the press.

In China, at least fourteen journalists are currently in prison. The government has refused to release one of them, Gao Yu, although she is very ill. The Vietnamese communist party still controls the press and broadcasting and does not tolerate any form of press freedom. Malaysia and Singapore have drawn up lists of taboo topics, on the pretext of respecting "Asian values", and maintain emergency laws such as Malaysia's Internal Security Act that force journalists to practise self-censorship. (Excerpts)