<p>Police have arrested the webmaster of a pro-red shirt website for committing lèse majesté, and will make more arrests.</p>
By Achara Ashayagachat, Bangkok Post |
<p>Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Thai online news portal Prachatai, was granted bail this afternoon after the prosecutors eventually filed a lawsuit against her under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act.</p>
By Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) |
<p>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 is their only outlet.</p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk |
<p>Reading the latest and possibly last letter from jail from convicted lese majeste and computer crime law offender Suwicha Thakor dated January first 2010 was a sobering experience. The letter reflects Suwicha's lack of faith on Thai mainstream media which do not care to put his side of the story to the public. So instead, Suwicha only mentioned in his Thai-language letter, the left-leaning not-for-profit prachatai.com online newspaper which duly published his letter on Wednesday.</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 Amnesty International |
<p>Thailand should reverse its recent backward slide in respect for freedom of expression, as illustrated by the sharp increase over the past ten months in cases under the lese majeste law.</p>
By Reporters Without Borders |
<p>Reporters Without Borders has written to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the eve of his birthday on 5 December asking him to pardon Thai Internet users who are in jail or who are being prosecuted in connection with the dissident views they allegedly expressed online.</p>
By Mutita Chuachang, Athit Suriyawongkul |
<p>Sawatree Suksri, a lecturer of the Faculty of Law, Thammasat University, who has studied computer-related law in Germany, talked to Prachatai about the 2007 Computer Crimes Act which she finds too ambiguous in many points, including, for example, national security, which has been subject to arbitrary interpretations by the authorities.</p>
By Asian Human Rights Commission |
<p>In recent days police in Thailand arrested and charged another person over causing a decline in the stock market by spreading rumours through the Internet about the king's health. </p>
By Reporters Without Borders |
<p>The legal tools that the authorities abuse to restrict free expression in Thailand are the <em><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/16852375/Act-on-Computer-Crime-25502007">2007 Computer Crime Act</a></em> and the lese majeste law (section 112 of the criminal code), which mainly targets Internet users. Harassment and intimidation are constantly employed to dissuade Internet users from freely expressing their views.</p>
By Thai Netizen Network |
<p>Thai Netizen Network demands Thai authorities to make clarification on the recent arrests of internet users, including Nat Sattayapornpisut in whose case the authorities are asked to disclose the means of accessing e-mail accounts and the law that entitled them to do so, 'since this matter may have violated people’s right to privacy and freedom to communicate'.</p>
By Reporters Without Borders |
<p>Three Internet users have been arrested in the past four days for posting articles blaming King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s poor health for last month’s fall in the Bangkok stock exchange. They have been charged under article 14 of the Computer Crimes Act 2007 with endangering national security by spreading false rumours about the king’s health.</p>