The Human Rights Press Awards for Asia yesterday hosted its annual ceremony in Taiwan for the first time, celebrating journalism and human rights in a nation ranked best in Asia for press freedom.
Taiwan boasts freedom of the press and has become an important hub for international media, being home to 176 correspondents from 86 media outlets from 22 countries as of last month, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the event in Taipei.
However, authoritarian regimes are constantly attempting to influence the nation’s media environment and democracy, and polarize Taiwanese society through disinformation campaigns and propaganda, Tsai said.
Photo: Screen grab from the Presidential Office’s Flickr page
It takes all sectors of society to act together to combat disinformation with timely and transparent clarification, research on authoritarian information manipulation and media literacy lessons, she said.
“Taiwan will continue to stand up for democracy, freedom and human rights,” she said.
Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club president Thompson Chau (周浩霖) called on the government to “remain committed to press freedom, provide more access and ease regulations on foreign media workers.”
The winners and runners-up this year were announced on Thursday last week — to mark World Press Freedom Day the following day.
The organizers — Human Rights Watch, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism, and the foreign correspondents’ clubs in Taiwan and Thailand — present the awards to “increase respect for people’s basic rights and to focus attention on threats to those freedoms.”
The awards were given in seven categories: Investigative Writing (English), Investigative Writing (Chinese), Photography, Multimedia, Documentary Video, Podcast and Newsroom in Exile, with the final two being new additions this year.
Winners included the Guardian , which earned the Investigative Writing (English) award for its reporting on alleged trafficking of workers at Amazon.com warehouses in Saudi Arabia; and Singapore-based Initium Media, which won the Chinese-
language award; and al-Jazeera, which won in the Multimedia category for its “If I die, I die: Pakistan’s death-trap route to Europe” report.
Zan Times and Frontier Myanmar — which was also honored in the Podcast category — won in the Newsroom in Exile category for their “Despair is settling in: Female suicides on rise in Taliban’s Afghanistan” and “Religious minorities persecuted in Myanmar” reports.
In the Photography category, Agence France-Presse won for its images of women fighting Myanmar’s junta.
In the Documentary Video category, BBC Chinese and Deutsche Welle were recognized for their films on anti-extradition bill protesters in Hong Kong and an elite police unit in Bangladesh.
“In an era in which rising authoritarianism generates autocratic leaders and mass disinformation, the role of journalists in exposing the truth is more critical than ever,” Human Rights Watch executive director Tirana Hassan said.
Many winners “are examples of brave journalism from Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Myanmar, places where reporting has become increasingly difficult and dangerous,” Chau said, adding that “Taiwan is an extraordinary place for a growing number of Asia-focused correspondents to live and work.”
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
TYPHOON DAY: Taitung, Pingtung, Tainan, Chiayi, Hualien and Kaohsiung canceled work and classes today. The storm is to start moving north this afternoon The outer rim of Typhoon Krathon made landfall in Taitung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) at about noon yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, adding that the eye of the storm was expected to hit land tomorrow. The CWA at 2:30pm yesterday issued a land alert for Krathon after issuing a sea alert on Sunday. It also expanded the scope of the sea alert to include waters north of Taiwan Strait, in addition to its south, from the Bashi Channel to the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). As of 6pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 160km south of
STILL DANGEROUS: The typhoon was expected to weaken, but it would still maintain its structure, with high winds and heavy rain, the weather agency said One person had died amid heavy winds and rain brought by Typhoon Krathon, while 70 were injured and two people were unaccounted for, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday, while work and classes have been canceled nationwide today for the second day. The Hualien County Fire Department said that a man in his 70s had fallen to his death at about 11am on Tuesday while trimming a tree at his home in Shoufeng Township (壽豐). Meanwhile, the Yunlin County Fire Department received a report of a person falling into the sea at about 1pm on Tuesday, but had to suspend search-and-rescue