ISSUE EIGHT OUT NOW!
A Special Issue, drawing on papers presented during a workshop : New Media for Civil Society, held in Nepal this year.
Today, heightened international anxieties over terrorism and other national security concerns are leading to the introduction of more stringent surveillance, security and border-control measures. These measures have important implications for civic rights (defined here as minority rights and rights to political engagement and free speech). Security concerns also sometimes lead to media targeting of particular social groups (eg. religious or ethnic minorities) as "threats", resulting in serious infringements of the rights of the groups concerned. At the same time, new information and surveillance technologies are altering the relationship between state, media and society in ways which affect the scope of political debate and the expression of minority views.
Against this background, the Asian Civic Rights Network (AsiaRights) brings together human rights and communications researchers, NGO activists, media professionals, and experts with practical experience of security and surveillance techniques from public and private sectors to investigate the role of the media in promoting human rights in an age of the "global war on terror". This project further develops the international networks established through the ACORN project.
The network's activities include workshops and a new online magazine to appear from the first part of 2004.
The Asian Civic Rights Network is made possible by the generous support of the Toyota Foundation.
For further information on the Network, please contact:
Tessa Morris-Suzuki
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200
email: tessa.morris-suzuki@anu.edu.au
Dr. Julia Yonetani,
School of Modern Languages,
University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW 2052
Australia
email: j.yonetani@unsw.edu.au
