SEA Coalition for Academic Freedom

21/09/2026

📣 NEW OPINION-EDITORIAL ARTICLE

Read the full article: https://seacaf.org/inside-the-panopticon-how-indirect-state-interference-stifles-academic-freedom-in-southeast-asia/

Inside the Panopticon: How Indirect State Interference Stifles Academic Freedom in Southeast Asia

By Apisit Ngamjitkul | International Relation Student, MUIC
SEACAF Intern, 2026

The majority of people spend a third of their lifetime within the educational system, often without realizing that their fundamental rights are being incrementally taken away. Every year, academic scholars across Southeast Asia’s higher-education institutions face fresh challenges in their academic journey. But do they actually know what constitutes a violation of academic freedom? That’s the critical question facing the academic community, since no actionable framework has been adopted across institutions — leaving students’, teachers’, and researchers’ freedom to research, teach, and ask questions without fear all the more exposed.

Unsurprisingly, data from the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) shows Southeast Asian countries ranking relatively low, confirming the region’s declining academic freedom. This cycle of perpetual state intervention is becoming normalized within institutions — not unlike a panopticon, where academic life is under constant watch. The current state of academic freedom in Southeast Asia is, quite simply, at risk.

Illsutration from: Artivism for Academic Freedom 2026 |
Fight Back, created by: Edsell Abelilla

Read the full article: https://seacaf.org/inside-the-panopticon-how-indirect-state-interference-stifles-academic-freedom-in-southeast-asia/

18/09/2026

📣 Are you ready to take the lead for academic freedom and work alongside stakeholders across the Southeast Asia region? Be A SEACAF Country Campaigner!

🌏 As a SEACAF Country Campaigner, you will:

📣 Amplify SEACAF’s regional campaigns and localize advocacy messages for your national context
🤝 Mobilize networks, including student groups, faculty associations, and civil society partners
💡 Share local insights to strengthen SEACAF’s research, communications, and advocacy
📚 Support the localization and dissemination of academic freedom resources
🔎 Monitor and flag local developments affecting academic freedom, scholars, students, and civic space
🗣️ Contribute to campaign planning and regional academic freedom monitoring efforts

🌱 Who can apply?
You must:
✅ Be a SEACAF member, with experience in campaign and advocacy work on academic freedom — or simply have the willingness to learn
✅ Be a national of one of the 11 Southeast Asian countries and currently reside in your home country
✅ Demonstrate integrity, commitment, and responsibility in representing SEACAF

🤝 What will you get?
As a Country Campaigner, you will have access to:
🎓 Exclusive campaign & advocacy resources and training
✈️ Possible travel funding support for selected engagements
💰 Occasional honorarium opportunities, where available
🌱 Opportunities to apply for small initiative subgrants to support locally led activities, subject to availability and coordination with the regional secretariat

📌 Engagement: Initial one-year term

🌿 Submit you LOI and Application here:
https://bit.ly/SEACAFCampaigner
https://bit.ly/SEACAFCampaigner
https://bit.ly/SEACAFCampaigner

Read more about the program: https://bit.ly/4rgyEqN

18/09/2026

SEACAF Steering Committee member Sol Iglesias speaks at "The Future of Southeast Asian Studies: Where will the experts of tomorrow be educated and how?", a roundtable she organized together with Antje Missbach of Bielefeld University and Jemma Purdey of Monash University.

Attendees gather for the roundtable "The Future of Southeast Asian Studies: Where will the experts of tomorrow be educated and how?", part of a wider conversation on where the next generation of Southeast Asian Studies scholars will be trained, and what it will take to protect academic freedom as the field's center of gravity shifts.

Conversations like this one are core to SEACAF's mission — if you'd like to be part of shaping them, become a coalition member at https://seacaf.org/member/.

17/09/2026

WiSEASS gathered informally on 3 September 2026 on the sidelines of the 14th EuroSEAS Congress, hosted at the Complutense University of Madrid. The event brought together current members and prospective ones for a chance to reconnect and meet new colleagues working on Southeast Asia.

Sol Iglesias (University of the Philippines-Diliman, co-convenor and member of SEACAF Steering Committee) and Sayamol Charoenratana (Chulalongkorn University, co-convenor) welcomed attendees alongside Kikue Hamayotsu (Northern Illinois University), a founding member of WiSEASS. Kikue reflected on the network's early years, recalling her time on the selection committee for the 2021 WiSEASS Collaborative Grants before later becoming a grant recipient herself — funding that helped her organize a panel on democratic backsliding in Southeast Asia at EuroSEAS 2022 in Paris, drawing mainly on fellow WiSEASS members.

Gatherings like this one matter beyond the networking itself. As institutional space for Southeast Asian Studies narrows in some regions and academic freedom comes under pressure in others, informal networks of scholars — especially women working on and from Southeast Asia — become part of the infrastructure that keeps research on the region resilient and collaborative. WiSEASS's own grants and panels, including the one Kikue helped build on democratic backsliding, are themselves a small case in point: scholarship on shrinking civic space, sustained by a network built to withstand it.

To be a coalition member, visit https://seacaf.org/member/

17/09/2026

SEACAF recognised this collaboration as an important milestone in advancing the role of universities as safe havens for human rights defenders (HRDs) and scholar-activists. It supported the launch of the Pilot Protection Program for At-Risk Human Rights Defenders and Scholar-Activists in Southeast Asia, a partnership between UP Manila’s Political Science Program and the University of York’s Centre for Applied Human Rights.

The pilot program demonstrated how universities can go beyond their academic mandate to provide protection, solidarity, and safer spaces for HRDs and scholar-activists to continue their research and advocacy.

Where Knowledge and Truth Defy Fear!

UP Manila, University of York launch pilot protection program for human rights defenders in Southeast Asia

MANILA, Philippines - The University of the Philippines Manila (UP Manila), through the Political Science Program of the Department of Social Sciences (DSS), College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) of the University of York launched the Pilot Protection Program for At-Risk Human Rights Defenders and Scholar-Activists in Southeast Asia on September 15.

The initiative establishes a framework for collaboration between UP Manila and the University of York to provide institutional support and temporary protective spaces for human rights defenders and scholar-activists whose work and safety are at risk.

The formal launch was attended by UP Manila Chancellor Michael L. Tee, CAS Dean Ma. Teresa G. De Guzman, DSS Chairperson Wensley M. Reyes, and Political Science Program Coordinator Clarinda L. Berja, along with Professors Jose Mikhail F. Perez, Beatrice A. Fernandez, and Carl Marc L. Ramota, who serves as project coordinator.

Prof. Paul Gready, UNESCO Chair in the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Expansion of Political Space and Director of CAHR, and Dr. Bencharat Chua, Director of the Southeast Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF), conveyed their support for the initiative through recorded messages.

The pilot program is among efforts to strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions to uphold academic freedom, protect human rights defenders, and contribute to the expansion of democratic space in Southeast Asia. It is envisioned as a first-of-its-kind initiative in the region that positions universities as potential temporary spaces of protection for individuals facing threats because of their human rights and academic work.

Strengthening institutional protection

Human rights defenders across Asia and Southeast Asia continue to face various forms of threats, including harassment, intimidation, surveillance, vilification, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and politically motivated legal actions. Those working on environmental protection, press freedom, gender equality, minority rights, labor rights, and other human rights concerns are among those who may be exposed to such risks.

Members of the academic community - including faculty members, researchers, students, and scholars - may likewise face threats for exercising academic freedom, conducting research on politically sensitive issues, participating in public discourse, or advocating for human rights and social justice.

These challenges underscore the need for institutions that can provide meaningful forms of protection and support. In this context, universities have a distinct role as spaces for knowledge production, critical inquiry, and public engagement, as well as institutions that can contribute to the protection of individuals and communities facing repression.

The pilot program seeks to provide at-risk human rights defenders and scholar-activists with opportunities to temporarily access a safe and supportive academic environment. These may include opportunities for rest and recovery, academic and professional engagement, skills development, knowledge exchange, and networking with human rights defenders and academic communities across the region.

The initiative also aims to strengthen transnational networks and facilitate the sharing of experiences and strategies among human rights defenders, scholars, and institutions working to protect human rights and academic freedom.

Advancing academic freedom and human rights

For UP Manila, the initiative builds on the University's continuing efforts to institutionalize mechanisms for the promotion and protection of academic freedom and human rights.

In 2024, UP Manila established the Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Academic Freedom and Human Rights (CAFHR) as a university-based mechanism dedicated to monitoring and responding to concerns involving violations of academic freedom and human rights.

The establishment of CAFHR reflects UP Manila's commitment to fostering an academic environment where members of the University community can pursue teaching, research, public engagement, and other forms of scholarly work with respect for academic freedom and human rights.

The partnership with the University of York further expands this institutional commitment by connecting UP Manila with a broader regional network concerned with the protection of human rights defenders and the preservation of democratic and academic spaces.

Through the pilot protection program, UP Manila and its partner institutions seek to contribute to the development of higher education institutions that are responsive to threats against academic freedom and human rights and that recognize the protection of human rights defenders as an integral component of their institutional mission.

The initiative ultimately seeks to strengthen the role of universities as human rights-based institutions that uphold academic freedom, promote democratic participation, and provide meaningful institutional support to individuals whose work advances human rights and the public interest.

14/09/2026

🌿 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EUROSEAS 2026:

Academic freedom in Southeast Asia is not an abstract, far off concern. It's a daily reality shaping what scholar-practitioners, and academics can research, publish, teach, and say out loud. Across the region, universities have increasingly become sites of surveillance rather than sanctuary: professors face investigation or dismissal for critical commentary on state policy, student activists are red tagged, harassed, or criminalized under sweeping national security and anti-terror laws, and research on sensitive topics, from extrajudicial killings to authoritarian consolidation to historical memory, is met with institutional self-censorship long before it reaches any government desk.

This is happening against an undeniable regional and global backdrop of democratic backsliding. From the Philippines' Anti-Terror Act chilling human rights scholarship, to Thailand's lèse-majesté and computer crime laws being wielded against academics and students, to Vietnam's tightening control over civil society research, to Myanmar's post-coup devastation of its entire higher education system, the pattern is consistent: as political space contracts, intellectual space contracts with it. As such, scholars who study power under the pursuit of critical enquiry inevitably become targets of it.

At the same time, the tools of repression are evolving faster than the frameworks meant to protect academic freedom. Digital surveillance, disinformation campaigns designed to discredit researchers, funding conditionalities that quietly steer what gets studied, and the criminalization of "fake news" or "misinformation" all represent newer, less visible fronts in this struggle, ones that traditional academic freedom protections were never designed to address.

What makes this roundtable especially timely is its insistence on solidarity as a strategy and not just a sentiment. Southeast Asian scholars have long developed creative, resilient tactics for navigating censorship: creative forms of expression, informal networks, diaspora scholarship, cross-border publishing. These strategies are strongest when linked to international solidarity and support systems.

Bringing together experiences and voices of defiance from the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam-focused scholarship at a European conference like EUROSEAS also does something important: it internationalizes what governments often try to frame as purely domestic, internal matters. Academic freedom violations thrive on isolation. Regional coalitions like SEACAF exist precisely because collective visibility and cross-institutional pressure are often the only real check available when national accountability mechanisms fail or are actively captured.

As autocratic tendencies rise globally and shrink civic space across Southeast Asia, defending the university as a space for free inquiry is not a niche academic concern. It is inseparable from the broader, multi-sectoral fight for democratic resilience, human rights, and public accountability in the region.

📌 Be a coalition member, visit: https://seacaf.org/member/

09/09/2026

EUROSEAS 2026: Safeguarding Scholarship and Academic Freedom in Southeast Asia

On September 1, 2026, Professor Herlambang P. Wiratraman of Universitas Gadjah Mada presented “Judicializing Protection for Intellectual Freedom: Courts’ Role in Safeguarding Indonesian Scholars” at the 14th EuroSEAS Conference at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).

The presentation was part of the double panel “Safeguarding Scholarship: Autocratization, Institutional Autonomy, and Academic Freedom in Southeast Asia,” convened by Ratnaria Wahid (Universiti Utara Malaysia) and Sriprapha Petcharamesree (Chulalongkorn University), with Cherian George (Hong Kong Baptist University) as discussant.

The session brought together critical perspectives on the challenges facing scholars and academic institutions amid growing pressures on academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and intellectual freedom across Southeast Asia.

Professor Wiratraman was joined by other members of the Southeast Asian Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF), who presented their research and perspectives across separate sessions throughout the conference.

🌏 SEACAF at EuroSEAS 2026 — advancing conversations, strengthening solidarity, and safeguarding academic freedom across Southeast Asia.

01/09/2026

📣 NOW HAPPENING: SEACAF Regional Director, Bencharat Sae-Chua and Scholars-at-Risk International Advisory Council, Southeast Asia representative Rommel B. Rodriguez presenting at roundtable on Academic Freedom of Expression and Academic Solidarity at the EUROSEAS 2026 | Salon de Grados, Universidad Complutense Madrid, a session convened by Karin Zackari from University of Gothenburg