Title: Round-table seminar on Malaysian Politics after GE14: Consolidation of Democracy or Polarizing Society?
Main Speaker:
Steven Gan (Malaysiakini Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief )
Speaker 2: Institutional Reform
Yukiko Taniguchi (Research Associate, IDE-JETRO)
Speaker 3: Election
Hidekuni Washida (Associate Professor, Toyo University)
Speaker 4: New Opposition
Tsukasa Iga (Affiliated Lecturer, Kyoto University)
Date and Time: July 25 (Thursday) 2019, 11:00-13:00
Venue: Tonantei (Room No. 201), 2nd Floor of Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, CSEAS, Kyoto University
Biography of Steven Gan
Steven Gan is co-founder of Malaysiakini (Malaysia Now). Since it went live in 1999, Malaysiakini has become one of the most influential news websites in the country. Malaysiakini received the Free Media Pioneer 2001 award from Vienna based International Press Institute, and Gan is recipient of New York based Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award 2000.
Malaysiakini was raided by the police in 2003 and 19 of its computers confiscated. Nevertheless, the harassment from the government failed to stop the subscription-based website from continuing to provide its readers with ‘news and views that matter’. Gan was arrested and charged in 2016 over a video on the 1MDB scandal posted by Malaysiakini subsidiary, KiniTV. The charge was eventually dropped after a new government took power in 2018.
Gan is co-editor of the 2004 book, ‘Asian Cyberactivism: Freedom of Expression and Media Censorship’. In 2007, Gan was selected as a member of the World Economic Forum’s International Media Council.
Malaysiakini won the bronze prize (for top media brand) at Malaysia’s Putra Brand Awards twice – in 2010 and 2014 – and the silver in 2015. In 2015, Malaysiakini won the editorial excellence in investigative reporting award from Hong Kong-based Society of Publishers in Asia (Sopa) for its four-part investigative report titled ‘The rise of the Johor royal family’s business empire’. Malaysiakini also won the Sopa award for Excellent in Breaking News this year.
Contact:
Tsukasa Iga (igatsukasa[at]gmail.com)