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Internet Thai Government Cracks Down on Rebellious Websites
Tom Corelis (Blog) - September 4, 2008 8:05 AM

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13 comment(s) - last by wordsworm.. on Sep 6 at 4:18 AM

State turns to censorship amidst anti-government rioting and martial law

Besieged by protests and rioting, the government of Thailand is seeking to erase about 1,200 websites from the country’s internet.

According to Thailand’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) ministry, the websites listed “disturbed the peaceful social order and morality of the people, and/or which were considered detrimental to national security.”

The ICT says that 344 of the websites it listed had content it deemed “contemptuous” of Thailand’s royal family, five were considered “obscene,” two featured religious content and one hosted a sex video game.

Thai courts issued orders to shut down about 400 of the websites on the ICT’s list, while the remaining 800 are expected to be blocked by ISPs. The ICT also asked police to help round up sites’ owners, noting that it wants to “bring all violators to trial.”

The harsh order comes amidst a violent uprising between the Thai government and the People’s Alliance for Democracy. Thailand Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej imposed emergency rule Tuesday, just before the ICT’s edit, in order to calm a political uprising that saw the death of a demonstrator and the injury of dozens more. The past week, writes The Guardian, set a new record for violence since anti-government demonstrations began in May.

Under the government’s state of emergency, says rights group Amnesty International, Thai military forces are given the right to restore order, and authorities are allowed to suspend civil liberties, ban public gatherings, and forbid the media from reporting on panic-inducing events.

Hostilities began last week, after thousands of PAD protestors surrounded government buildings and seized the National Broadcasting Service of Thailand, a state-run TV station. The group seeks seek the resignation of Prime Minister Samak’s government, on threat of utilities outages and an economy-destabilizing bank run.

The Thai government previously banned YouTube in 2007, after the site hosted an offensive video defacing 79-year-old Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej.

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Nothing New

By Regs on 9/4/2008 8:38:40 AM , Rating: 5

Every leader they had was corrupted to the core since...Vietnam. Of course when America pulled out of Vietnam and left Thailand hanging, of course they will change their diplomatic tune.

Ever since, there has been nothing coups and power struggles with their leadership. It's like the Congo, when whoever has the most wealth and power takes control. The guys who take control are usually no better than the last. This is why dictatorship and monarchy don't work because it depends solely on the leader.

Maybe it's time for them to try out democracy. If so, we should aid them and back them anyway possible.

--It is well known that the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.--

RE: Nothing New

By ttowntom on 9/4/2008 10:28:24 AM , Rating: 2

Their PM and other officials ARE elected (though there is a lot of rumors of vote buying). Their King isn't elected. But he's only a symbol without any real power.

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RE: Nothing New

By Dark Legion on 9/4/2008 11:08:40 AM , Rating: 4

How ignorant, Thailand is a democracy, except for the King who is primarily a symbolic figure. In fact, the PAD are suggesting DOING AWAY with the democracy. The problem is that most of the anti-government protesters are in Bangkok, which is the capitol, and the place where all the government is. Nearly everywhere else, especially the North, people favor the current government. If the protests were anywhere but Bangkok, this would not be such a big deal. If you are going to make comments from half way around the world, at least get your facts straight.

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RE: Nothing New

By whiskerwill on 9/4/2008 3:51:43 PM , Rating: 2

Well Thailand is sort of a democracy in name only. Most offices (and all major ones) are pretty much just bought and sold like rice.

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RE: Nothing New

By wordsworm on 9/4/2008 12:00:15 PM , Rating: 2

It's funny how elected men can become dictators of other countries. Clearly we've seen how this doesn't work either.

Some folks mention how they like to think of the US as the world's police force. But who elected them to this task? Usually it's only American allies who look favorably on their interference. ie, in Georgia, the Georgian government certainly looks favorably, whereas the Russians who have been objecting to American placement of missiles there certainly don't appreciate American involvement.

So, if we favor democracy so well, should we then consider a Terran government which is elected by the majority of the planet, allocate resources to it, give it a monetary system, a welfare system, (with all the other fixings of a regular government), not to mention a police force?

There is no international democratic foundation. The closest is the UN, and the US constantly mocks it unless it suits its purpose. It isn't particularly fair either.

In any case, politics is not an easy science to debate. To say that monarchy and dictatorship don't work is to ignore some extremely successful periods in which monarchy reigned. Charlemagne was one of the greatest.

What constitutes a good government is usually a matter of the people involved and the opinions of historians and the government's citizens. Heck, most religious people pray all the time for a dictator to come along and set the world straight, whether it's God, Allah, or some other deity.

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RE: Nothing New

By Oregonian2 on 9/4/2008 6:09:06 PM , Rating: 2

A very liberal very good friend of ours (who is a foreign national living in the U.S.) acknowledges the idea that the U.S. are essentially criminal when interfering with other country's problems and the U.S. should keep to itself and respect other country's rights to do anything they want (murder all teachers, whatever they want). The U.S. should keep it's nose out of whatever the rest of the world is doing and just keep to it's own problems (none of which by definition of sorts can be external). That same person also holds the U.S. responsible for everything bad that happens outside of the U.S. because the U.S. is so powerful and didn't prevent it from happening or doing anything about it when it does. Basic damned if you do damned if you don't. I don't think this is anywhere near a unique view.

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RE: Nothing New

By rcc on 9/5/2008 11:53:51 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
good friend of ours (who is a foreign national living in the U.S.)

Perhaps your friend should move back to where he/she/it came from, since we, in the US, seem to offend them so. No, let me guess, they are too busy taking advantage of the system and making money here?

::Shrugs::

One of the problems the US would have with not being the world's policeman is that the world won't let us retire. If we did, we'd be the horrible uncaring monsters that allow xyz (pick your favorite cause) to happen.

Society is full of hypocrites like this, on a neighborhood basis, national basis, and global basis. They say they want one thing, but were you to actually give it to them, they'd still be pissed.

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RE: Nothing New

By bigjaicher on 9/4/2008 6:38:39 PM , Rating: 2

[Warning] Long Explanation About [/Warning]

Okay some things about this. The king of Thailand has a slight bit of power. He has the ability to veto laws, although he never uses it.

My family (some which live in Thailand cause I'm half Thai) consider the PAD (People's Alliance for Democracy) as the
People
Against
Democracy

The guy that's elected... Thaksin's proxy was elected. You have to wait until the next election for him to go out of power if the people want him to. I mean, look at Bush. 8 years?

The thing is, the majority of Thailand WANT HIM (Thaksin's proxy, whatever his name is) to be leader. With Thaksin, their country was making money. The big rich factory owners were losing money. The reason? With him, a foreign countries wanting to build factories had to give their workers quadruple the minimum wage. Factory owners were losing their good workers. The baht versus the dollar was going up. This is good for consumers in Thailand, but the exporters (factory owners) sold their goods for dollars, and got less baht for it. When Thaksin was kicked out, the new "democratic" (put unconstitutionally in power by the military) government tried to dilute the baht and get rid of these increases in minimum wage for the factory owners.

The guy that's being protested against won in a landslide. The Thai people want to have more money and improve the quality of life. The protesters are a minority, probably given money by factory owners. And don't give me "right to protest." It's right to peacefully protest. These guys broke into government buildings and chucked rocks at politicians. They were then ordered by the judge to leave. They didn't. By all means, instead of martial law, what should have happened is that they should have brought in a couple of policemen and gunned them down, because they violated a court order to leave. They shouldn't be blocking/deleting websites, though.

Both choices for government right now are corrupt. However, one has the support of the poorer people, while the other has the support of the Thai factory owners. Remember, the other side declared martial law before too. In the end, if they truly want democracy, Thaksin's party will win in a landslide, because they are bettering the lives of the people in Thailand. And once the people get wealthy enough, they will realize the corruption of Thaksin's party and finally put in an uncorrupt leader.

The only reason that they are in martial law is to stop the rioters. Hopefully, they will revert back.

You have to realize that they are a democratic country. This is in no way like the Congo. They have a constitution. They are very developed, and there has only been one coup since the Vietnam war. And that coup lasted a day, and then the people who did the coup were put out of power and the people who were elected into power were put back into office again.

And if you read this, thank you, and hopefully you understand better the facts about this.

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RE: Nothing New

By wordsworm on 9/4/2008 7:34:30 PM , Rating: 2

Sounds like the royalty system in Thailand isn't terribly dissimilar to the role that the Queen has over her country and territories (UK/Canada/Australia).

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RE: Nothing New

By defter on 9/5/2008 2:52:42 AM , Rating: 2

It is very dissimilar. You will not be thrown to the jail if you say something bad about queen in UK/Canada/Australia.

In Thailand, any critique of royal family (not only king) is illegal and punishable by harsh penalties.

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RE: Nothing New

By wordsworm on 9/6/2008 4:18:30 AM , Rating: 2

afaik, you're right. So, I guess that would be similar to the way military in the US are not allowed to become vocal about the president. I haven't looked into the idea of whether or not Canadian military would have the same laws against dissing the Queen.

Rather than putting folks into jail for dissing the queen, what's more likely to happen is that media to be quietly covered up, seized at the border, and burned. Lots of censorship goes on in Canada. I can't help but think if a serious movement was afoot to dethrone the Queen in Canada, something would be done about it. I cannot comment on the UK or Australia.

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haha

By Retrospect on 9/4/2008 1:26:51 PM , Rating: 2

The current government is elected by the people but the opposition party called PAD) doesn't think the current government is fit to run because they think it's corrupted.

PAD party doesn't want the election to be held again they want a chosen leader by them to run the country. I don't understand why they called them self the People of Alliance Democratic.

They reason why they don't want any elections is because they have a lost all of them by 80-90%, so they are going to cry until they win!.

That's my view

RE: haha

By Dark Legion on 9/4/2008 2:18:08 PM , Rating: 2

And it's true. You can see that from the recent elections, where the PAD supporters keep losing, and then riot after they lose. Then they are given another election, and everyone shows them once again that they dont want the PAD supporters in power. How many elections must they lose before they accept defeat?

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