Online Freedom of Expression Under Siege in Thailand

by Simon Roughneen, December 10, 2010

BANGKOK, THAILAND -- "Today I have to go all the way to Khon Kaen to report to the police," said Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Thailand's well-known online news site Prachatai during a recent conversation in Bangkok.

The town is 450 km from Bangkok, and Chiranuch has to travel there once a month just to check in with police. This arrangement is the result of her detention at the Bangkok airport on September 24. That came in response to a complaint made about comments posted by a third party on the Prachatai web-board. (Irony of ironies, Chiranuch was returning home from attending an Internet freedom seminar in Geneva.)

She was charged with lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, which under Thailand's legal code can be filed by any citizen against another. Until the charges, which also incorporate an alleged breach of Thailand's Computer Crimes Act, are dropped, or the case goes to court, Chiranuch must make the 450 kilometer journey north once a month. She could receive a 32-year jail term if convicted of one of two lese-majeste charges she faces. The first goes to trial in February 2011, while the latest will be reviewed by a police panel that will decide whether a court case is warranted.

While in the process of preparing for the launch of a new report about the control and censorship of Thailand's online media, she recently squeezed in a few minutes to talk to PBS MediaShift at her organization's downtown Bangkok office.

"We have changed our domain name eight times since April," she said, referring to the month when Thailand's military-civilian-run Center for Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES) pulled Prachatai into its swelling dragnet of blocked websites. It did so by citing threats to national security and stability amid violent protests in the center of Bangkok.
 

Red Shirts

Some 7,000 red shirt protesters gathered in September. Photo by Simon Roughneen

Between March 12 and May 19 this year, over 90 people died and around 2,000 were injured when Thai police and soldiers clashed with anti-government "red shirts," some of whom were armed. The latter became known as the"men in black."

Amid such political turmoil, freedom of expression in Thailand has taken a nosedive. Four years of color-coded protests, a 2006 army coup, and a 2007 constitution re-write combine with concerns about what the future holds after the 64-year reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej comes to an end to feed into a simmering unrest in an increasingly polarized society. (The king made a rare public appearance on November 5 for a dazzling fireworks and light show, and thousands of Thais turned out for his 83rd birthday.)

According to a recent Thammasat University report, "Control and Censorship of Online Media, through the Use of Laws and Imposition of Thai State Policies," just under 75,000 websites are blocked by Thai censors. The report's authors argue that this is in contravention of Section 45 of the Thai Constitution, which says, "[a] person shall enjoy the liberty to express his opinion, make speech, write, print, publicise, and make expression by other means." (The report is not yet available online.)

While these rights are qualified by other laws, as in all democracies that promote freedom of speech, Thailand's recourse to emergency decrees has swung the pendulum toward restrictive interpretations of and implementation of the relevant codes.

Some of the blocked sites and closed-down radio stations, many of which are affiliated with the red shirts, were deemed to have carried content or programs that incited violence. (In one sample protest, red shirts spilled blood on the private residence of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjva in a black magic ritual apparently aimed at driving him from office.)

More recently, the red shirt backer, one-time telecom mogul and former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra, has been invited to testify at the United States' "Helsinki Commission" about what took place in Thailand during 2010. This is scheduled to take place on December 16, even though the Thai Government wants him extradited back to Thailand to face jail on corruption charges.
 

Facebook Rising in Thailand
Foreign reporters have also faced scrutiny and criticism in Thailand. CNN correspondent Dan Rivers was the target of a Facebook campaign at the height of the protests. Thais opposed to the red shirts gathered on an anti-Rivers Facebook page to object to what they deemed to be biased reporting in favor of the protestors. Undeterred, Rivers got the first footage of the armed "black shirts," offering close-up visual proof that the protest was not entirely peaceful -- and signaling that he sought to tell both sides of the story.

"If there is really hate speech or incitement to violence, it can be dealt with through the criminal courts," said Chiranuch during our interview. "The legal means are already there and there should not be a need to suppress legitimate voices."

This is what you see when you try to access a blocked website in Thailand

For its part, her publication insists that it is an impartial and independent online alternative to Thailand's mainstream media. The site's success boils down to what Sawatree Suksee, a lecturer in law at Thammasat University and lead author of the aforementioned report, calls a growing interest in Thai-style citizen journalism.

"The government tries to interfere with mainstream media, so the Internet plays a different role in politics," she said at a recent public forum about Thailand's netizens.

She added that web-boards and social media are booming in Thailand, giving curious Thais their information fix. "The Internet is too fast for the government to react to," she said.

Boosted by the launch of a Thai-language version, the number of Facebook users has more than doubled since January, to 6.7 million, or around 10 percent of the country's population, according to Socialbakers.
"Facebook is a new technology and we don't have any way to control it yet," Chuti Krairiksh, the minister of information and communication technology recently told Agence France-Press. Perhaps his boss, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva, will hesitate to lock down the site now that he has over 531,000 fans, and while the site's popularity continues to grow.
 

Monitoring Comments
However, the structure of the country's lese-majeste laws means that the boards need careful monitoring by owners, lest they end up like Chiranuch. Aside from her case, other non-news websites are also falling afoul of the law.

Teepagorn "Champ " Wuttipitayamongkol manages the youth and lifestyle-oriented website exteen.com, which he says gets 300,000 unique visitors per day. He lamented to PBS MediaShift that he "has been called in by the police, though his site has nothing to do with politics."

Commenting on how political turmoil can sometimes engage Thai youth, he did say that "when the political incident took place they freely share their thoughts on my site." However, if one user makes a complaint about another user, citing lese-majeste to the police, the police are in turn obliged to investigate.

While Thailand has regressed in terms of freedom of expression, it must be acknowledged that researching or writing a story like this would be much more difficult in some other Southeast Asian countries, such as Laos or Vietnam, and downright dangerous-to-impossible in Burma, which is usually covered by reporters based in Thailand.

For now, Prachatai can be accessed inside Thailand, without apparent hindrance, on www.prachatai3.info, while the red shirt-linked Facebook page can be viewed under Ratchaprasong News.



Simon Roughneen is an Irish journalist currently in southeast Asia. He writes for Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Asia Times, The Irrawaddy, ISN, South China Morning Post and others. He is a radio correspondent affiliated to Global Radio News and has reported for RTÉ, BBC, CBS, CBC Canada, Fox News, and Voice of America. He has worked in and reported from over 30 countries.


Via:  http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/12/online-freedom-of-expression-under-siege-in-thailand344.html

Silence of the dissenters: How south-east Asia keeps web users in line

Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines are all moving towards Chinese-style internet censorship
• Interactive guide: censorship in Asia

Ben Doherty in Bangkok
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 October 2010 16.56 BST
Article history

 

A customer uses a computer in an internet cafe at Changzhi in Shanxi province, China Dissenters say the whole region is moving towards tighter web regulation. Photograph: Reuters

Governments across south-east Asia are following China's authoritarian censorship of the digital world to keep political dissent in check, the Guardian can reveal.

Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have all moved or are moving towards monitoring internet use, blocking international sites regarded as critical and ruthlessly silencing web dissidents.

• In Vietnam, the Communist party wants to be your "friend" on the state-run version of Facebook, provided you are willing to share all personal details.
• In Burma, political unrest can be silenced by cutting off the country from the internet.
• In Thailand, website moderators can face decades in jail for a posted comment they did not even write, if the government deems it injurious tothe monarchy.

While much is made of China's authoritarian attitudetowards internet access, a majority of south-east Asian governments have similar controls and , rather than relaxing restrictions on internet use, many are moving towards tighter regulation.

The Guardian has spoken to five leading bloggers across the region about the present restrictions they face and future fears.


Interactive: Meet five key bloggers who fear a crackdown on freedom of expression. 

 
Raymond Palatino, a Filipino MP and editor with Global Voices, says governments, in addition to crudely blocking websites, are starting to use arguments of morality and decency to censor access to information and quash criticism.

"There is direct censorship to block political dissent. You have repressive laws in Myanmar [Burma], in Vietnam, in Singapore. In fact I think Vietnam is catching up with China in terms of building strong firewalls to prevent dissidents from accessing critical content on the internet.

"But we also see governments using the excuse of protecting the public morality in order to censor internet content. Governments use the excuse of censoring pornography as a safe argument to make censorship acceptable to the public."

More than a decade ago, George W Bush asked people to "imagine if the internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread". But rather than emerging as a catalyst for democracy, the internet has become another way to to stifle dissent.

Palatino sees governments using the internet for their own selfish advantage. "They are learning how to prevent people for using the internet to criticise government. Instead of being a potent tool for empowering the people, the internet will be in the hands of an authoritative, repressive government."

With a population of more than 600 million, south-east Asia has about 123 million internet users. But penetration ratesvary from 0.2% in Burma and Timor-Leste to more than 80% in Brunei Darussalam and 77% in Singapore. But south-east Asian use is still dwarfed by China's384 million users.

In the Philippines, cybercrime legislation before the parliament would outlaw anything deemed obscene or indecent. Palatino says: "The laws are deliberately broad and vague so they can be used to shut down anything subversive."

Cambodia's government is seeking to monitor all internet use inside the country, by appointing the state-owned telephone company to operate the sole internet exchange.

Websites will be monitored to filter out pornography, officials say, but opponents say sites critical of the government are also likely to be blocked.

In Thailand, century-old lese-majesty legislation is combined with new computer-related crime laws, to mute criticism on the web.

Lese-majesty laws – defaming the monarchy - are imposed inconsistently in Thailand, but wielded often enough, and against defendants of sufficient profile, to stifle almost any discussion of the monarchy's role in a country riven by political factionalism. Chiranuch Premchiaporn, the editor of Thailand's English-language news website Prachatai.com, faces up to 70 years in jail for allowing the monarch to be insulted online.
The charges relate to five of 200 comments posted about an interview with a Thai man who was charged for refusing to stand for the anthem in a theatre.

Premchiaporn, known as Jiew, did not write the comments, and pulled them from the website but, according to police, allowed them to stay up ''longer than the appropriate period'', a period never defined by authorities before or since the charge.

Now on bail, the prospect of jail weighs heavily on her. "And it isn't just about 'Oh, how long I will have to spend in the cell', my whole life is uncertain. I cannot plan my life because of this legal charge, it makes everything hard."

Thailand's strict laws, and harsh punishments, have had a chilling effect on political discussion on webboards and blogs.

"I think the biggest problem in Thai media is self-censorship … but we started Prachatai for the ideals of believing in the rights of people to access information … from many sources and not be dominated by just one source," Jiew says.

Prachatai is blocked in Thailand, under order of the emergency decree after the red-shirt uprising of May. It is one of more than 100,000 websites blocked in the country. "We want to promote the rights of the people to speak up about their issues, not just only people who have a big name, or who are important in government."
In Vietnam, web-users can become "friends" with their communist government, joining the country's own version of Facebook. A trial version of go.vn was launched in May. A full version is expected online by the end of the year.

The functions are familiar to those versed in social networking. Users can update their status, post photos and links, and send messages back and forth.

There are news links, historical articles on founding father Ho Chi Minh and other revolutionary heroes, and members can also play state-approved network games (in one particularly violent example, players join a band of militants sworn to fight the spread of global capitalism).

The site is closely monitored by the government's security services, and while, for many, the attraction of the internet lies in its anonymity, to join go.vn users must submit their full names and state-issued identity numbers to the government.

The Vietnamese government says it expects to have 40 million members, half the country, in five years. Perhaps because web dissidents are dealt with so ruthlessly by the communist regime – four bloggers were recently jailed for 16 years for anti-government posts – five months on, take-up of go.vn is a bare few thousand.

Burma has one of the poorest records on internet freedom in the region.

All .mm sites and email addresses are closely monitored by the ruling military junta, and international sites banned, but the tiny internet cafes that dot the former capital, Yangon, are adept at bypassing the government's firewalls, using proxy servers to evade the censors and access banned sites.

Outfoxed on technology, the junta responds during times of stress by simply unplugging the internet, especially to stop unwelcome news getting out of the country.

At the height of the monk-led Saffron Revolution in 2007, the junta's generals shut down access completely, later claiming a break in an underwater cable had cut the country off.

With Burma heading towards its first elections in a generation early next month, and the anticipated release of political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi a week later, there is an expectation the web blackout may be repeated.

Via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/21/internet-web-censorship-asia

Analysis on Chiranuch latest charges and arrest

By Thaweeporn Kummetha, Thai Netizen Network


BANGKOK Oct.2 -- The arrest and legal procedure of the case against Prachatai director Chiranuch Premchiaporn were both unfair and unlawful, said Chiranuch’s attorney.

Chiranuch’s lawyer Anon Nampa, who drove from Saraburi province to accompany her during the interrogation at Khon Kaen provincial police station in Northeastern Thailand, said the charges against her are too severe and constitute unjustifiable use of law.

“The charges are filed at random,” Anon said. “It clearly is political slandering.”

On Friday September 24, 2010 at 4pm, after taking 14-hour flights from Budapest, Hungary, Chiranuch, director of independent online newspaper Prachatai.com, was arrested by immigration police at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi international Airport. She was driven for another six hours to Khon Kaen to hear what she was charged for - comments posted on the website under held responsibility. But this time each comment could make her face a jail term of up to 15 years. She faces four charges including lese majeste. She was later released on bail of 200,000 baht (about 6,600 U.S. dollars)

Regarding the former case against Chiranuch which is now on trial, she was charged on March 6, 2009 for violating Section 15 of Computer-Related Crime Act for allowing comments allegedly deemed lese majeste to be posted on Prachatai’s webboard for ‘longer than an appropriate period’, set by police.

Maximum jail term of 50 years
After considering that comments related to the interview of Chotisak Onsoong, who refused to stand for the royal anthem in a theater, on Prachatai, which attracted more than 200 comments within the first week of published, and Sameskyboard.com on April 28, 2008 deemed lese majeste, Sunimit Jirasak, a Khon Kaen businessman, went to the police station and filed charges against Chiranuch and Samesky webmaster Thanapol Eawsakul for publicizing and persuading others to approve, praise and imitate Chotisak’s ‘disloyal’ act, Manager Online reports1.

Sunimit also lodged a complaint against Chotisak, who already faces another lese majeste charge, the report says. However, Anon said the police denied there exist any charges against Chotisak.

The interview was originally published on Prachatai on April 21, 2008, and was later posted on Samesky webboard. The five comments alledgedly deemed lese majeste on Prachatai were posted during the period between April 21 to 27, 2008.

“That means [Sunimit] lodged complaint the next morning after the comments were posted the night before,” said Arthit Suriyawongkul, committee member of Bangkok-based Internet user network for online liberty “Thai Netizen Network” who accompanied Chiranuch from the airport to Khon Kaen.

“Most of the comments approve Chotisak’s act, indicating that they want to overthrow the monarchy. It is believable that letting people freely express their opinions regarding the issue on the Internet indicates that [the webmasters] want to be the center of the people who want to undermine the throne. Therefore, both webmasters should be charged,” Manager online reported Sunimit’s remark.

The court arrest warrant was issued a year later on September 28, 2009.

According to the warrant of Chiranuch, she was charged for:

1. lese majeste (Section 112 of the Penal Code – possible jail term of up to 15 years per violation)
2. Publicize to the public by word, writings or any other means which is unconstitutional (Section 116 of the Penal Code – possible jail term of up to seven years)
3. Import to a computer system of false computer data in a manner that is likely to damage the country’s security or cause panic to the public (Section 14 of the Computer-Related Crime Act – possible jail term of up to five years)
4. Intentionally support or consent to an offence above (Section 15 of the Computer-Related Crime Act – similar punishment to Section 14)

As, according to the police, there were five problematic comments, making the maximum jail term of 50 years.

Thanapol, the police told Anon, also faces exactly the same charges as Chiranuch.

Sarinee Achavanuntakul, a committee member of TNN, said it is not fair to conclude that the webmasters, who are an intermediary, intentionally support the remark as the role of an intermediary are more like a “tube” for information to flow, not an editor of a newspaper who has selected and edited every piece of information before being published.

“It is not fair to conclude that way. The nature of the Internet is that information flows very fast. It would post a very high cost for the intermediary if they are expected to have to screen everything before being published,” Sarinee said. She furthered voice a concern that if this kind of charges continues, it would kill Internet innovation in Thailand as no intermediary would like to create any user-generated content website which could land them heavy legal burden.

“Utterly ludicrous,” Pravit Rojanaphruk, a veteran journalist and lese majesty critic reacted. “Letting free-flow of opinion doesn’t mean that the webmasters necessarily agrees with the alleged ‘disloyal’ contents. This society is so neurotic. [Some people] are so paranoid about the security of the monarchy institution, or the lack of it, although the institution is revered by a significant number of Thais. Despite this, they still want to suppress all voices of dissent – this is not healthy or helpful for democracy.

“The arrest is more likely to draw negative attention to the monarchy institution again though it’s unlikely to be the last,” Pravit added. “And given the general silence by the mainstream media over the case, the media have also proven themselves to be a shameless defender of the undemocratic values again.”

Anon said charging Chiranuch with lese majeste and Section 116 of the Penal Code are not fair as she did not collaborate with the posters. Moreover, there are sections in the Computer Crime-Related Act which deal directly with the role of webmasters.

Intermediary is a tube, not collaborator.
According to Anon, the police pressed charges with possible severe sentence against Chiranuch without any investigation to prove that the comments deemed lese majeste nor was there any attempt to find the posters of the problematic comments.

“They only target the webmasters,” Anon said.

Chiranuch said some comments have been deleted while the page was still active.

Sarinee said it is really unfair for the webmasters to be charged before the comments are proven to be insulting the throne or the posters were found guilty of lese majeste by the court.

If the posters are found guilty, then the police may start the legal procedure of proving the intention of the webmasters as to whether they intentionally support those remarks to be posted or not, Sarinee explained.

“As I know, Prachatai always immediately takes down comments which the authority sent notice of any inappropriate comment. This indicates that Prachatai did not intend to break the law,” she said.

Chiranuch confirmed that since the Computer Crime-Related Act was enforced, Prachatai has always cooperated with the authorities whenever asked to delete comments. However, Prachatai had never received any notice from authorities to delete the five problematic comments, she insisted.

This is contrary to the earlier on-going ten charges against Chiranuch despite the fact that Chiranuch had quickly deleted postings deemed defamatory by the authorities. She apparently allowed it to remain ‘for too long’ a period, or so the charges claim.

There is no established regulation on how to receive ‘notice’ from the authorities and ‘take down’ postings under Thai law.

However, the authority do sometimes send letters requesting cooperation from the webmasters, asking for them to delete contents or asking for IP address of some webboard members.

Sarinee said due to the fact that what constitute lese majeste differs from individual to individual, police tend to first arrest anyone accused of lese majeste. Under this condition, there is no safe habour for the intermediary and due to fear of possible prosecution they will likely engage in excessive censorship or even shut down any venue for possible comments so not to have to worry about the situation.

After months of legal cases against her, Chiranuch and her colleagues decided in July to shutdown Prachatai’s webboard for good, leaving only the on-lined newspaper which has been blocked by the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration since April 2010. Prachatai announced on Thursday that the Abhisit Vejjajiva government was hunting for people making anti-government comments online and since it cannot ensure their safety, it had decided to close the Web board.

"With limited protection and no guarantee of safety for anyone who uses the webboard, the Prachatai team has to come to this conclusion - to close the board, announced Prachatai2.

Prior to the shutdown of Prachatai webboard, Samesky webboard was closed by Thanapol in October 2008. “It’s time for someone else to take the burden,” was Thanapol’s reason.

Suspicious Timing
Chiranuch, who has travelled abroad f our times since the court issued the warrant, said she has never seen an arrest warrant or a summon letter before and never had trouble passing through the immigration counter at the airport. This is similar to Thanapol from Sameskybooks.org who is reportedly facing the same charges. Thanapol said he has gone abroad once after the arrest warrants was supposedly made, but never had problem passing through the immigration police counter and had never seen any legal document from Khon Kaen police.

“Chiranuch is a legal address registration, and has traveled abroad several times. The question is why the police didn’t first send her a summon letter and why the police had to charge her when she re-entered Thailand that Friday?” asked Anon.

A reliable anonymous source said the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and a police department specifically dealing with cyber crime did not acknowledge and did not order the arrest. The source further observed that the arrest followed police reshuffle in August.

The immigration police and the police in Khon Kaen treated Chiranuch very well, said Arthit.

He said on that night of the arrest Khon Kaen police told him and Chiranuch not to worry as she would certainly be granted bail. “[A senior official] told me to take good care of you,” a Khon Kaen police was quoted by Arthit as saying.

Supinya Klangnarong, a media right activist and TNN coordinator, believed that the arrest was aimed at making headlines.

“Normally, when police arrest suspect in cases related to lese majeste, they like to keep it low-profile,” said Supinya. “However, this arrest is so blatant and the day of arrest is so symbolic.”

Chiranuch was arrested after returning from two international conferences on Internet freedom: Internet at Liberty held by Google with cooperation with Central European University in Budapest and the 5th Internet Governance Forum held by the United Nations in Lithuania. On the same day, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, had to respond to foreign media’s accusation of him damaging press freedom after attending UN assembly in New York. A year ago, back in March 14, 2009, the PM spoke at Oxford University3 saying the 2009 case of Chiranuch is misunderstanding and was mistaken by police.

“I even spoke on the phone personally to the person who recently arrested which I think it's been a misunderstanding and not following the standard operative procedure that I have actually worked hard with the police,” said the Oxonian prime minister.

Back in New York on September 24, 2010, the very same day Chiranuch faced more new charges, Abhisit seemed to have put out a different vision on freedom of expression.

“I'm not sure whether you'd allow any special station for Al-Qaeda here," was Abhisit’s answer4 quoted by AFP as to why opposition media are being suppressed in Thailand.

Asked if Chiranuch ever had any thought of keeping herself low-profiled and not engage in risky activities, she replied in quivered voice: “I did thought about it. But if I stopped now and not speak out or stop fighting it will continue to become a problem for Thai society.”


Via: http://thainetizen.org/analysis-chiranuch-latest-charges