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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

The legal tools that the authorities abuse to restrict free expression in Thailand are the 2007 Computer Crime Act 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.

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'.

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.

The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has told Internet Service Providers to deal with offending websites, saying if they fail to do so, the Ministry will close them. 

The Criminal Court has agreed to a request by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to detain Nat Sattayapornpisut, 27, who has been charged under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act after he was found to have sent offensive clips to a blog called ‘StopLeseMajeste’. 

The Fah Diew Kan (Same Sky) publishing house website was shut down on the night of Jan 4 by its hosting server.

"We used the Computer Crime Act, because we didn't want to use a more serious law," said Pol Col Yanapol Yangyeun, Commander of the IT Crime Office of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) under the Ministry of Justice, during a seminar on Thailand's relatively new computer crime law on Nov 8, 2007.

The internet user allegedly involved in a lèse majesté web-board thread posted on Prachatai discussion forum late last year met police for interrogation. He said he did not remember if he posted the comment and now the thread has been deleted.

Web-board posters ‘Praya Pichai' and ‘Ton Chan' appeared at Bangkok's Criminal Court on Friday Oct 12, and were told by the court that the prosecution had yet to proceed with the case.

A lèse majesté charge was filed with the Crime Suppression Division police against unidentified internet users who posted messages on the Prachatai web-board.

A well-known anti-coup activist confirmed that he met arrested webmaster Praya Pichai while detained at the same cell in prison. Fellow members of the cyber community and human rights and free speech advocates are raising fund to bail the second woman who is still detained.

A woman detained under the Computer Crime Act was released after her family members bailed her out at the Criminal Court. 

One webmaster and other user names dropped out of the Thai internet community at about the same time a rumour began to spread on Aug 24 that some web-board members had been arrested. The Financial Times newspaper reported in its Sept 1-2 weekend edition that two Thais had been arrested for posting offensive comments about the monarchy.