More censorship of red shirt media

The Abhisit Vejjajiva regime is expanding its censorship of red shirt media at the time that the prime minister harps on about a coming election. If anyone ever thought this election was meant to be an open and free competition should now be convinced that the regime has never even considered such a possibility.

The BBC reports that the “offices of 13 radio stations linked to Thailand’s anti-government red-shirt protesters have been raided by police.” The claim is that they operate without licenses.

However, on this point, Bangkok Pundit adds that

Naew Na reports that government officials from Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), Crime Suppression Division (CSD), and the local police armed with a court order searched community radio stations which were in breach of the law, especially those stations that had not not received a license, which numbered 13 in total. Seven were in Bangkok and six were in surrounding provinces. The officials are currently undertaking details checks and if they find any wrongdoing, they will seize such equipment together with bringing those responsible to be interrogated in various localities so that further legal action can be taken….

That sounds like fishing by ISOC, which hardly needs a real excuse to censor. The truth is that this is about silencing critics.

Meanwhile, some red shirts believe the raids are another signal of an imminent military coup, with Jatuporn Promphan asking: “Are they trying to provoke the red shirts to take to the streets so that they will stage a coup again?”

As we have said previously, we think there is something in this. Silencing critics is a “win” for the regime. An excuse to avoid an election via, say, a national government, would be a bonus that lese majeste, red shirts and border clashes would justify.

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