<div><span>Freedom House, a human rights advocacy group based in Washington D.C., on Thursday revealed its <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2014#.VIEzbDGsUf0">2014 Freedom on the Net</a> report, which categorizes <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2014/thailand">Thailand’s Internet</a> as ‘not free’, while categorizing&nbsp;<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2014/myanmar">Myanmar Internet</a> as ‘partly free.’&nbsp;</span></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <div>This is a reversal from 2013, when Thailand was </div></div>

<div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <div>The BBC will re-open its Thai-language service for three months to provide alternative news after local media have been censored by the junta, according to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10955996/BBC-takes-on-Thailand-dictatorship-with-a-pop-up-Thai-service.html">the Telegraph</a>.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The Telegraph reported on Wednesday that the operation will start this Thursday and will available only on a digital platform.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>“The BBC Thai initiative is a three-month experiment in how to respon </div></div>

<p>AT a street corner in Kamayut Township, Yangon, a young man does what would be seen as freakish in his country just three or four years ago – he lowers his head, fixes his eyes on his smart phone, swipes the screen and smiles at it.</p> <p></p>

<p>RANGOON, Burma – Five years ago, Nay Phone Latt tried to kill time by reading, doing yoga, and writing letters, short stories, and poems. But on a recent gloomy Monday morning, the blogger could hardly answer a phone call as he rushed about before he took a bus to Burma’s administrative capital to help change the law that sent him to prison.</p>

<p>SINGAPORE – Twenty-two-year-old Wendy (not her real name), on her first day as a Hospitality Intern in a budget tourist hostel in Chinatown in Singapore, speaks surprisingly frankly on a seemingly taboo subject, much to this writer’s relief.</p> <p>Clad in a colorful traditional gown, the native Singaporean is taking a break from washing dishes and chatting with guests to talk about how free people and media in her country are to criticize the government – a subject which senior Singapore-based journalists were extremely reluctant to discuss with the writer.</p>

<p>RANGOON—Two years&nbsp;ago, Freddy Lynn was spending most of his time at a public access centre in&nbsp;downtown Myitkyina in Kachin State. There he was introduced to&nbsp;a&nbsp;world that he did not learn in his university or heard about in his community that had been slowed&nbsp;down&nbsp;by more than six decades of armed conflict.</p>

<p>While Southeast Asian governments are enhancing the delivery of <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/09/03/southeast-asia-online-media-projects-of-governments/">online services</a> for the benefit of their citizens, they are also instituting tougher internet regulations which many analysts believe could be used to curtail media freedom.</p>

<p><em>New publication highlights increasing attempts by governments and some non-state actors in Asia to reduce online spaces</em></p> <p>(Tokyo/Bangkok, 20 July 2012): The space for free speech and expression on the Internet and social media in Asia is shrinking and faces increasing challenges, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), a Bangkok-based human rights NGO, during the launch of its latest report titled, &ldquo;<em>Internet and Social Media in Asia: Battleground for Freedom of Expression</em>&rdquo;, in Tokyo, Japan today.</p>

<p>Cyber political pundits, bloggers and Facebook activists in Thailand often feel deeply frustrated and annoyed with their lack of liberty to write at will. Yet netizen's frustration with seemingly increasing internet censorship is not unique to Thailand, but rather it's part of the global insurgence of state control over internet freedom. As the internet and new media come to dominate the flow of news and information around the world, governments have stricken back with measures to control, regulate and censor the content of blogs, websites and text messages.</p>

<p class="rteleft">As a part of our &lsquo;looking forward to 2012&rsquo; series, Prachatai interviewed CJ Hinke, freedom activist and founder of FACT &ndash; Freedom against Censorship Thailand - on the situation of freedom in Thailand, internet freedom in particular. </p>

<p>On 4 October 2011, Front Line Defenders along with nine other international digital freedom and human rights organisations submitted a joint letter to H.E. Nguyen Tan Dung, the Prime Minister of Vietnam calling for the release of human rights defender Mr Pham Minh Hoang, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment on 10 August 2011.</p>

<p>Next week, government, business, and civil society representatives will gather at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss the future of the global digital space.&nbsp; This gathering takes place against the backdrop of growing restrictions by repressive regimes on online freedoms.&nbsp; The U.S. and European governments have undertaken significant initiatives to respond to these restrictions, but their initiatives are inadequate to stem, let alone reverse, the decline of freedom on the internet.&nbsp; Stronger action is needed.</p>