Launch of the Southeast Asian Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF)

In December 2024, academic freedom and higher education advocates across Southeast Asia successfully closed out the year by launching the Southeast Asian Coalition for Academic Freedom (SEACAF). Hosted by the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University, Thailand, SEACAF seeks to strengthen and institutionalize academic freedom protections across Southeast Asia, while bolstering advocacy, research, monitoring, and solidarity efforts within the higher education community.

From December 9th to December 13th, higher education advocates from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam convened at Mahidol University for a series of strategic planning meetings to discuss the different mechanisms that national contexts in Southeast Asia found most effective for defending academic freedom.

Participants discussed opportunities to work cross-regionally in support of academic freedom, including by leveraging the Surabaya Principles, as the Indonesian Caucus for Academic Freedom has done, to create more protections for scholars; by integrating the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into calls for greater protections; and by potentially developing university-level protocols for defending academics against attacks based on their gender, race, or cultural background.

At the end of the week, Mahidol IHRP also held a series of public events discussing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the context of academic freedom and human rights in Southeast Asia, including milestones, setbacks, and ways ahead.

Watch a video of the public events >>

SAR thanks everyone who joined the official launch of SEACAF and looks forward to future partnerships with SEACAF and Mahidol IHRP. Please write to SEACAF Director Bencharat Chua at director@seacaf.org to become a member of the Coalition and join the mission to safeguard academic freedom.