Stories about Thailand
Thailand now blocking 277,610 websites
Conservative, Royalist Manager media network published the first govt announcement of further Internet censorship since July. Buried in Manager’s propaganda, we learn that the new Army commander has signed a memorandum of understanding with the ICT minister and the ministers of justice and culture. The MOU specifies 43,000 new websites to be blocked immediately and 3,000 pending for lèse majesté content.
Thailand’s Emergency: Who Killed the King?
David Streckfuss, a human rights expert on political and cultural history, finds that the heart of the longstanding and ongoing lèse majesté debate rests in the country’s defamation law. This truism concerns not only academics who are constrained from speaking freely but also ordinary citizens.
Thailand activist arrested after #IAL2010 needs your support!
Chiranuch Premchaiporn, Prachatai director was arrested at Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport. A Journalist and anti-censorship believer (@Jiew on twitter) was returning from the Conference “Internet at Liberty 2010: The Promise and Peril of Free Expression” held in Budapest.
Southeast Asia: Sex and web censorship
Regulating internet content today is viewed as an anti-democratic practice but Southeast Asian governments seem able to justify it by invoking the need to save the young from the scourge of indecent sexual behavior.
Thailand: Government shuts 43,000 more websites for lèse majesté, plans to block 3,000 more, total up to 113,000
On May 9, MICT and CRES admitted to blocking at least 50,000 websites and adding 500 more per day. It appears FACT was blocked from that date. FACT’s extensive testing across Thai ISPs has revealed that ISPs are blocking at least a further 15,000 bringing the total to more than...
Thailand pulls plug on TV station, decrees martial law, arrests Webmasters, blocks 10,000 more websites
Thailand’s draconian Internal Security Act was passed in 2007 in its 11th hour by a national legislature appointed by a military coup. Its targets appeared to be the ongoing insurgency in Thailand’s five Muslim provinces in the Deep South, collectively called Patani.
Thailand: Another lèse majesté computer act arrest
On February 5 an unidentified man was arrested for comments he posted to a webboard. His house was searched, his computer confiscated as evidence, his family frightened, and friends panicked. These are ordinary people who express opinions that the authorities consider dangerous, and the mainstream media never allows. The Internet...
Google for good…or just for money?
Google’s recent opposition to Internet censorship in China went wildly underreported in Thailand. Yet this move to seize the moral high ground has vast implications to Thailand and every other censorship nation. The world’s censors have been put on notice by a company worth five billion dollars, more than many...
Thailand’s new tsunami of political repression – SET them FREE!
Politicians can be so entertaining. Sometimes we laugh so hard we cry. Of course, the posturing and bluster of politicians always leads to the truth being forgotten as they try to distance themselves from any issue which could interfere with their position at the public trough. We’re still trying to...
Thailand: Liberal Thai blocked by MICT!
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT). We have just discovered free Thai language news site Liberal Thai blocked by a transparent proxy redirecting users to Thailand's ICT ministry. Liberal Thai is a new websites which has been translating news articles in English into Thai making them accessible to Thai readers, particularly...
OpenNet Initiative Releases Results on Filtering in Asia
From the Great Firewall to the Myanmar Wide Web, Asia is well-known for its practices in Internet filtering. China has long taken the lead in blocking Web sites, filtering sites across the spectrum – from social to political content, pornography to Internet tools. The OpenNet Initiative (full disclosure: I'm involved)...
Thailand: Nine new charges against Prachatai webmaster
Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Thai online news portal Prachatai, was arrested on March 6 under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act. Her charges resulted from allowing comments posted by readers of Prachatai’s online discussion fora alleged to be lèse majesté.
Thailand: Web director arrested for “allowing offensive comments”
Prachatai web director Chiranuch Premchaiporn was arrested by police yesterday for “disseminating lese majeste content on the website.” To put it in another way, she was arrested for allowing comments on the website which the police deemed as offensive to the monarchy. Chiranuch is now out on bail.
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) releases new legal circumvention tools
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) is pleased to announce two new, easy, legal tools for circumventing Internet censorship. Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Official Censor of the Military Coup, has blocked at least 17,775 websites which, along with blocking by the Royal Thai Police, resulted in more than 50,000 websites blocked in Thailand. Public webboard discussions, circumvention tools, voices from Thailand's Muslim South and critical commentary of Thailand's monarchy were particularly targetted for censorship.
Harry Nicolaides, Thailand's latest political prisoner
The Harry Nicolaides case raises vital issues, procedurally, legally and in Thai society. Was Harry arrested because he wrote in English and therefore his self-published expat bargirl novel of 50 paid-for vanity copies of which seven (we repeat, seven) copies were actually sold, represented a clear and present danger to the Thai monarchy from the world community?
Thailand: Plans to block anti-monarch websites
The Thai government is planning to set up a firewall to block websites considered to be insulting to the country’s monarch, together with other Internet content deemed inappropriate. According to news reports, the Communications Ministry has received more than 1,000 complaints on websites which are considered offensive to the royal family.
Censoring Free Speech in Thailand
The past few weeks have seen YouTube blocked again as well as Prachatai, Thailand’s foremost independent news portal and Same Sky, a journal of social criticism. Both sites have popular public Web discussion boards. In the past, both sites have been warned by MICT to self-censor “sensitive” public comments.
Thailand: publishing house website shut down
The website of Fah Diew Kan (Same Sky), a quarterly social and political magazine, has been shut down by its host Net Service Ltd for Lèse majesté violations. The move came after pressure from Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The editor of Same Sky told the daily...
Thailand: the first victim of the Computer Crime Act
It seems that the Thai authorities have used the recently passed Computer Crime Act (you can download the document below) to arrest two Thais for alleged offensive comments posted on the Internet about the country’s revered monarch. “At least one person being detained in Bangkok Remand Prison for crimes against...
Thailand: Ban on YouTube lifted; Veoh and MetaCafe blocked
The Thai Information and Communications Technology Ministry has lifted the ban on Youtube.com, Bangkok Pundit reported today. According to The Nation, the Thai government has lifted its ban on YouTube after a deal was made between the video-sharing site and local Thai officials. Youtube “agreed to block any video clips...
