Laos to admit foreign media for ASEAN summit

Laos to admit foreign media for ASEAN summit

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Laos said it would allow an unprecedented level of freedom to
foreign journalists covering the 10th ASEAN Summit in the country
in November and other ASEAN meetings there next year.

Laos took over heading the 38th ASEAN Standing Committee on
Monday. Foreign Minister Somsavat Lengsavad announced the land-
locked country would grant permission to about 1,000 foreign
journalists to report on the summit and the subsequent ASEAN
Ministerial Meeting (AMM) and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) next
year.

The country would allow foreign journalists free access into
the country to document the life of all Laoatians, Somsavat said.

"We welcome all foreign journalists who wish to report on or
document Laos," Somsavat was quoted as saying in an Agence
France-Press report on Tuesday.

"(The government) has provided 1,000 rooms (to accomodate the)
foreign journalists ... and we hope that we will meet this
target," he said.

Laos' communist government has a history of restricting
journalism inside the country, with those deemed to have harmed
the government or weakened the state subject to criminal
prosecution.

All domestic print media and television stations are state-
owned and controlled, with TV news and talk shows only relaying
the government's policies and differences in administrative
approaches, according to the U.S. State Department's Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices issued in March last year.
Internet services are also under the government's control.

However, the Laotian government does allow foreign TV and
radio broadcasts from abroad, and limited Asian and Western
newspapers are sold through private outlets with the government's
permission. Laotians are also able to watch regular Thai TV
programs and listen to Thai radio news, making the cultural
boundary of the two nations somewhat blurred.

Foreign journalists, meanwhile, normally require special visas
to enter the country and must travel accompanied by an official
escort at all times.

Two European journalists were sentenced to 15 years in prison
in Laos last year for entering the country on tourist visas and
writing reports about the government's treatment of the ethnic
Hmong minority group. The journalists were freed five weeks
later.

Laos is a poor country with a population of about 5.5 million.
It underwent economic reforms that favored a more market-oriented
economy in 1986. However, the government still controls many of
the banks and enterprises in the country and Lao is still heavily
depended on official foreign aid and remittance from Laoatians
living overseas.