<p>A blog is a New Media tool that started many years ago. It may be a diary expressing a person’s thoughts or a communications space for a social movement, depending on what the user wants it to be. In some countries they have been very effective.</p>
<p>‘<a href="http://thaienews.blogspot.com/">Thai E-News</a>: News about Thailand that you may not have read in the news’ is the slogan of one of Thailand’s leading political websites. It has only content and no web board. It is unabashedly ‘red’, but red with a strange smell. It posts critical points of view from all circles.</p>
<p>Phuttipong Pong-anakekul, a second-year law student at Ramkhamhaeng University, wrote an article in Prachatai in response to what Surapon Nitikraipot, Rector of Thammasat University, <a href="http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/1596">said</a> at a public forum on 25 Jan. </p>
By Jon Dent |
<p>This was a busy week on the frontlines of personal freedom, particularly in regards to free speech. Tying together several key events were government’s increasingly sophisticated restrictions on our human rights, and the efforts to push them back. For obvious reasons, freedom of speech is dear to this writer, and this week’s post addresses the past week’s developments.</p>
By CJ Hinke |
<p>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 governments.</p>
By Jon Dent |
<p>Thailand’s exotic nature goes well beyond its breath taking landscapes. It permeates deep within Thai society. Foreigners living here or passing through who are blocked by the language barrier glimpse only the tip of the iceberg of Thai society and its politics. The two main English language Thai newspapers fail to report the full story on many issues. Sometimes they don’t bother to report at all. Personally, I am not part of any side of Thai politics.</p>
By Bai Tong Haeng |
<p>I do not agree at all with the human rights organizations which have listed the 10 steps forward and 10 steps back for 2009 and have raised the case of the Supreme Administrative Court’s temporary injunction against 65 projects at Map Ta Phut to first place in human rights progress.</p>
By Andy Hall, The Human Rights and Development Foundation |
<p>20th Jan 2010 marks the renewal deadline for the first batch of 70, 000 Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian migrants working in Thailand whose work permits will expire on that day. The next date for the expiry of all the other work permits of migrants from Burma, Cambodia and Laos (approximately 930, 000 officially registered persons) is 28th Feb 2010.</p>
By Shan Women’s Action Network |
<p>A guidebook launched today gives tourists an alternative view of Shan State by providing a pictorial exposé of the deliberate neglect, destruction and reinvention of local cultural and historical sites.</p>
By Awzar Thi |
<p>This is a story about a recent incident of police violence in Thailand. For reasons that will become obvious, the persons and places involved cannot be identified. </p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk |
<p>The article was originally written under the request of Fah Diew Kan Magazine in which the Thai-translated version will appear on its latest edition. Pravit Rojanaphruk is currently a Katherine Fanning Fellow for Journalism and Democracy at Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio.</p>
By M.L. Nattakorn Devakula |
<p>Amidst the current political climate where the ideological dividing lines within political parties take form, there is an obvious phenomenon that is occurring. This comes in the form of politically motivated media organization. What has gone down over the past several years is quite interesting from the perspective of those who study how influential media outlets can become.</p>