Freedom Forum participated in the regional meeting of the SWIFT in Lombok, Indonesia from August 27-29, 2025. SWIFT is a regional alliance of media professionals that supports journalists in distress across Asia. The alliance comprises members from various civil society organizations from the region who gather annually to share updates on the status of freedom of expression in their countries and to develop collective action plan for next year.
Executive Chief Taranath Dahal and Program Coordinator and Media Monitoring Officer Nanu Maiya Khadka from Freedom Forum attended the meeting.On the first day, Ruth Kronenberg, Executive Director at Free Press Unlimited (FPU) delivered welcome remarks. Then, all the participants shared experiences and challenges faced in their respective contexts. They noted that press freedom remains under threat in many countries with unsafe digital spaces. Women journalists continue to experience harassment online. Similarly, laws and policies in several countries have been used to criminalize online expression, leading to self-censorship and growing professional insecurity among journalists.
Representatives from media organizations also shared how they were working in these challenging environments. Their works range from research and documentation to policy advocacy and direct support for journalists in distress.
On the second day, Akriti Saraswat, Project Officer–Safety at FPU, shared a presentation on the vetting process for journalist support cases at FPU. She explained the criteria and procedures FPU follows when reviewing requests for assistance.
Following that, Kronenberg also explored on funding opportunities for media persons and organizations during global crisis. She suggested searching for private funding sources, including cryptocurrency and small-scale "pocket funding" and building coalition with like-minded organizations to strengthen networks.
The discussion also dwelt on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its growing threats to journalists. In this session, participants highlighted gendered online attacks, morphed images that contribute to trust erosion in journalism. The session emphasized the need for guidelines on the ethical use of AI, noting that although AI poses risks, it can also strengthen information integrity if used responsibly.
In the next presentation by Fransisca Susanti from PPMN and Margaret from Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) from Indonesia introduced Indonesia Leaks, an initiative that protect whistleblowers and promote public interest reporting. They also discussed the Investigative Journalists Club, a collaborative journalism initiative for enhanced protection, as well as security guidelines for whistleblowers. However, they noted that commitment from media organizations toward such safety mechanisms remains limited.
In the final session, participants discussed the way forward, and future priorities for the SWIFT network. The members marked importance of making the network independent and active through online engagements in case offline meetings are not feasible. They were for sharing achievements of the network among donors and stakeholders and create a collective data bank to retain publications and resources of member organizations in a shared digital space.
