By Reporters Without Censors |
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<div><strong>The best way for journalists to undermine the junta's rule is to report the truth:</strong></div>
<div><strong>The First Editorial and Opening of Reporters Without Censors</strong></div>
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<div>Eighty-two years ago today (24 June 1932), Siam became a democracy. Today, the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity that initially came with it have not taken root in our political system.
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<div>The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) has blocked 219 websites which are deemed threats to “national security” according to an order of the military junta and it will ask Facebook, YouTube and Line, a chat application, to ban some user accounts which disseminate “illegal” content, Surachai Srisakam, Permanent Secretary of the MICT, told media on Tuesday. </div>
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<div>The MICT is also drafting a plan to build a national internet gateway so that censorship measures can be applied by the state more efficiently.
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<div>More than 100 URLs have been blocked since the imposition of martial law on May 20, and more than 22,000 URLs have been blocked in total since December 2011, Surachai Srisarakham, Permanent Secretary of the ICT Ministry, told media on Saturday. </div>
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<div>This was the work of the Cyber Security Operation Center (CSOC), he said.
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By Suluck Lamubol |
<div>A draft amendment of Article 37 of the 2008 Broadcasting Act, aimed at prohibiting the broadcast of content undermining ‘national security’, the ‘constitutional monarchy system of government’, and ‘public morality’, is now undergoing public hearings while receiving wide opposition.</div>
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<p>After the cabinet meeting on 18 Oct, Minister of Culture Sukumol Kunplome told reporters that the cabinet had approved amendments to the 2007 Print Registration Act as proposed by the Ministry.</p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk, The Nation |
<p>The week-long Vegetarian Food Festival, which comes to an end today [4 Oct], should have shed some light on the plight of animals that are advertised as being "happy" to be consumed.</p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk |
<p>Residents and long-time expats who have watched the latest Hollywood comedy "Hangover Part II", which was mostly shot in Bangkok, may wonder how accurate the depiction of their city was.</p>
By Jim Taylor |
<p class="rtecenter">“Can you see the moon? Can you see it seen...”<br />
(Playwright) Gertrude Stein, <em>A Circular Play</em></p>
<p>The lack of ethical, balanced and objective reporting by certain Bangkok-based foreign and Thai journalists1 is a continuing dilemma for the pro-democracy movement since post-2006 coup. INGOs are not much better (e.g. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and now the International Crisis Group [ICG]). Indeed ICG Update Briefing Report (No.121, 11 April 2011) entitled “<a href="http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/2413"><em>Thailand: The calm before the storm</em></a>” makes many errors and false assumptions that it seems to me that researchers are not keeping their ears close to the real ground.</p>
<p>On 15 Sept, Somyos Phreuksakasemsuk lodged a complaint with Amara Pongsapit, Chair of the National Human Rights Commission, and Parinya Sirisarakarn, a Human Rights Commissioner, asking the agency to look into the government order for the police to search Golden Power Co, which was hired to print the Red Power magazine, and to halt the printing of the magazine on its 11 printing presses. The Provincial Industry Authority pressed charges against the company for violating the factory law, and police also searched K K Publishing Co, distributor of the magazine, and ordered it to stop dis</p>
By Reporters Without Borders |
<p class="para">As a commission specially created by the Thai government will be investigating the violent clashes between the security forces and Red Shirts in April and May 2010, Reporters Without Borders is releasing a report on 10 serious violations of press freedom and the safety of journalists.</p>
By Jana Slovakova, New Mandala |
<p>Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that the red-shirts and the yellow-shirts have a great deal in common, far more than any differences that might ostensibly set them apart. Both camps are nationalistic, patriarchal, pro-military, capitalist, and consumerist. Both demonstrate a deep subservience to the bearers of wealth and power, exhibit a fundamental intolerance in both thought and deed, and exploit totally misconceived notions of democracy and human rights, notions that have already been fatally distorted by their leaders.</p>