A media watchdog has urged the Thai-language Thai Post daily to explain to the public its decision to remove the column of Bai Tong Hang, who eventually resigned from the paper.

According to the Campaign for Popular Media, Thai Post dropped the column on 21 Oct.  The columnist writing under the pen name Bai Tong Hang consistently expressed political views drastically different from those of his colleagues in the same paper.

The abrupt change has raised questions among readers, and affected the credibility of the paper which claims to vouch for ‘freedom of thought’ in its slogan, the group said.

The media advocacy group asked the editor and executives of the Thai Post to clarify the facts of this issue, and urged readers to make their reactions known to the paper.

Bai Tong Hang is the pen name of Atheukkit Sawaengsuk.  For many years, he wrote the column ‘Wai Tuan Nam (Swimming against the Tide)’, in which he answered Thai Post readers’ letters on political issues and reported exclusive political interviews with prominent figures in the Thai Post’s Sunday tabloid edition. Both were main attractions for many readers.

In sharp contrast with his colleagues in the paper, he was a strong critic of the 2006 coup and the anti-Thaksin movement.

However, he has started to contribute to Prachatai (Thai) here.