A teenage contestant in a popular reality TV show ‘Academic Fantasia’ is the latest target of outrage in the Thai cyber world for making strong political comments on his Facebook page against the PM.
Withawas Thaokhamlue, 17, aka Mark V 11 in the reality TV show produced by the True cable television station, has posted comments on his Facebook page, rebuking the PM after the government crackdown on the red shirts.
‘Damn! How could he say that when the people have come out in protests like this, if I were [Prime Minister], I would have resigned long ago? But when the same thing happens to him, he doesn’t give it a shit [to resign]. How is that? When they burned, what would you do? You just couldn’t do any damn thing. How about resigning? Moron! If you can’t deal with it, just dissolve the House. He is just afraid that he will not get a job. His family is not as rich as Thaksin. Afraid of dying? Afraid of fleeing the country with no money?’ he allegedly posted on his page.
According to members of cyber space, he has also posted rude curses against the red shirts and soldiers to stay away from the Siam Paragon area so that he could go to karaoke bars and bowling alleys.
True Vision executive and producer of the Academy Fantasia Season 7 Atthaphol Na Bangchang said that the company’s production team had met and decided that Withawas would not be dismissed from the show, because he had posted the comments before he was selected as one of the 12 ‘dream hunters’, and so he had not breached the rules of the show, which forbid contestants from expressing political views for the duration of the show.
When reporters asked PM Ahisit Vejjajiva about this issue on 6 July, he responded that he had not seen the comments. And when asked if he was concerned about youths having radical political opinions, he said he had no idea, but using rude language was not appropriate.
Academy Fantasia PR staff who brought stars from the TV show to Government House to take phone calls from the public as part of the government’s ‘6 Days, 63 Million Opinions’ campaign told reporters that Withawas was staying inside the programme’s designated house, which has no television, so he was not aware of the news about his postings.
In the latest development, Withawas has been accused of posting comments defamatory to the highest institution. Screen captures claimed to have been taken from his Facebook page have been pasted on the forums of Social Sanction (SS), Seri Thai (Free Thai), and ASTV-Manager.
The administrator of the SS group has said, ’The evidence is obvious. [We]’d better help send the captures to the DSI.’
