Political crimes, rumours, repression

More evidence that Thailand is taking the political road to Burma:-

Political crimes, rumours, repression

The story on the Democrat Party-led government’s attempt to further crackdown on political activity through the opportunity created by the health rumours is developing remarkably rapidly.

Bangkok Pundit has an excellent summary of the development of the arrests and asks about government strategy that draws conclusions similar to those of  Political Prisoners in Thailand.

Meanwhile, The Nation (3 November 2009: “Use of Computer Act questioned”) has a special report that sees the use of the Computer Crimes Act against the two bailed suspects as an attack on political web-posting.

It cites Sarinee Achavanuntakul, a “committee of Thai Netizen Network (TNN)” who “insisted she was commenting in her personal capacity, not on behalf of TNN,” who said that “[i]Invoking the law was unwarranted and violated the freedom of speech…”.

Referring to Fa Diaw Kan and Prachatai, where the allegedly offending posts were made by Khatha Pachachirayapong and Thiranan Vipuchanun , the Nation report states: “Both websites are renowned for its constantly critical content to the institution – especially after the coup. The Nation has learned that both suspects, especially Thiranan, had been active posters for some time before the October incident.”

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, “the webmaster of Prachataiwebboard.com, said ‘bbb’ (Thiranan) was the regular poster since the September 19 Coup and most of her posts were the translation of English news on Thai politics.” Chiranuch added that “the police had never contacted her to ask for any information about the case and she did not delete the post.”

Thanapol Eawsakul, the editor of Fa Diaw Kan” said he didn’t acknowledge anything about the post as the smeskyboard.org had been separated from the journal. He added, “This is nonsense. How could the police prove that the posts were false information anyway as it said that there was a rumor that . . . , not the fact was . . .”. He added, “The government needed to find a scapegoat for this rumor thing…”.

Political Prisoners in Thailand thinks Thanapol is being too generous to the government. We think the government is taking the opportunity to increase its media repression.

Source: Political Prisoners in Thailand