หมายเหตุ : ภาพปกอัลบั้ม "เมด อิน ไทยแลนด์" ของวงคาราบาว เผยแพร่ครั้งแรกปี 1984

AN OPEN LETTER TO UNESCO

Dear Director-General,

For the past two years, I have been campaigning for UNESCO to recognise Bangkok as World Book Capital 2008.

Thailand has a thriving, vibrant, diverse book publishing community, a large number of bookstores, one of the best literacy standards in the world and a fast-growing reading public.

Bangkok is host to two major international book fairs every year with 800 booths and over a million titles. Our book fairs receive more than a million public visitors each.

I have been a Thai book publisher associated with Thammasat University for the past 15 years. I publish classic children's books in Thai language.

However, I am withdrawing my support for UNESCO to honour Bangkok in this way. Thailand simply no longer deserves this international prestige. International censure and condemnation for Thailand is the only hope we have left for restoring our freedoms and human rights.

Thailand is now a country living under a heavy yoke of censorship. More than 1,500 books in many languages are banned here, some officially but far more are self-censored out of fear. Book publishers fear to publish books on any modern political subject. Even Master's degree theses and Doctoral dissertations are censored and their authors tried in criminal courts.

Self-censorship is more insidious by far than tyranny. A tyrant can be confronted and stood down. Fear lives in every home, the fear of not knowing what is banned and what is not, and is impossible to master.

Booksellers, even at university bookstores, refuse to stock or special order these books. These books cannot be taught in our classrooms or be shelved in our academic libraries.

Internet links discussing or selling banned books are blocked by the Thai government in complete secrecy. More than 45,000 websites are currently blocked here.

Even political discussions on Web fora are blocked or self-censored so we cannot discuss current affairs or give voice to any dissent or criticism. Our Muslim South has been silenced, our media self-censored.

"UNESCO promotes freedom of expression and freedom of the press as a basic human right." It saddens me deeply to reject the people that I love, the books that I love, the city that I love.

Thailand is signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantee all people freedom of expression yet our government mocks these rights and tramples them underfoot.

Bangkok in 2007 is no Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Antwerp (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006) or Bogota (2007)--our country's image has been blackened by our government.

Censorship has silenced and shamed Thailand and any hope we might have for real democracy in the future. You might try Yangon or Pyongyang in 2008; it's still 1984 in Thailand.

Freedom,
CJ Hinke
Ruean Panya Books

cc: *International Publishers Association (IPA), Geneva
 Jens Bammel, Secretary-General bammel@ipa-uie.org >
 Secretariat secretariat@ipa-uie.org>
 Ana Maria Cabanellas cabanellas@ipa-uie.org>
 
 *International Booksellers Federation (IBF), Brussels
 Francoise Dubruille, , Director ibf.booksellers@skynet.be>
 
 *International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA),
 The Hague
 Alex Byrne, President alex.byrne@uts.edu.au>
 Peter Johan Lor, Secretary General ifla@ifla.org >