Tighter curbs are being placed on the media across Southeast Asia, and China will likely pursue its crackdown on Internet reporting, a US-based media rights group said on Tuesday.
The greatest setback to press freedom came in Thailand, following a 2006 coup that brought greater pressure to bear on journalists, said Bob Dietz, the Asia Programme co-ordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "We see things getting worse," he told reporters.
"In Southeast Asia we see a disappointing media situation in a region which has shown solid economic growth." China's "government will be increasingly stretched in its ability to gain control of the situation, but I expect to see Internet arrests continue".