Remembering 2010

As another anniversary of the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime’s army-led crackdown on red shirts is upon us, it is worth recalling that it is only a year or so ago that the Department of Special Investigation reported its investigations of the deaths.

DSI stated back then that state authorities “may be responsible for the deaths of at least 25 people…”.

Since then, while the DSI under the Yingluck Shinawatra has made some moves towards having Abhisit and Suthep Thaugsuban held responsible, it seems the army brass is again sitting in the world of unconscionable impunity (more on this below).

A series of recent reports reflect on the tragic events of 2010 and on the events since.

At the Red Shirts blog, it is reported that on 12 May 2013, a hearing finally:

took place at the Bangkok Criminal Court on the investigation and autopsy reports concerning 6 corpses found inside the Pathumwan Temple grounds. These victims were shot dead during the government suppression of the UDD protest on May 19, 2010.

Police investigators found bullet holes and:

reported that many more bullet holes could be found all over the temple grounds. Bullet holes were found on a metal sign in front of the temple, on the wall of the temple, on the advertisement sign under the BTS sky train, on the sky walk connecting the sky train stations, on the overpass and many more on the concrete platforms of the sky train.

Soldiers denied investigators access to the sky train tracks and the sky walk area.

Police ballistic analysis showed “23 bullet holes found on the temple grounds and Rama 1 Road …indicated that these shots had been fired from a higher angle and definitely not from a horizontal line of fire.” There was no evidence reported of shots from inside the temple.

At the Bangkok Post it is reported that the “parents of a boy who was killed as security forces moved in to clear the Ratchaprasong area … claim …  not enough is being done to find the people responsible for their son’s death.”

Pansak Srithep, was the father of 17-year-old Samapan, his only son. Samapan was killed on Ratchaprarop Road, where several people were shot dead. Pansak said “it has been draining for him and other families of those killed during the unrest to struggle to find witnesses willing to appear in court.”

Pansak “wants the government … to do more to help, and said investigators could do more to help with the court cases.” He claimed the Yingluck government “lacked the will to help…”.

The Bangkok Post states that there are currently “37 cases are at the initial inquest stage,” while “[a]nother 15 cases, including the death of Japanese cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto and six deaths at Wat Pathum Wanaram, are at a stage where authorities are still determining if the security forces were responsible.” Another four cases “are awaiting a decision from prosecutors as to whether they will proceed,” and five others, “including that of Maj Gen Khattiya Sawatdiphol, known as Seh Daeng,” are at initial stages of police investigation.

The family of Kamolkate Akkahad, a medic shot at Wat Pathum Wanaram, are “also dismayed by the slow progress…”. They “will not join the main [official red shirt] stage during the event on Sunday.”

At Prachatai it is reported that on 29 April, “the Criminal Court began an inquest into the deaths of Mana Saenprasoetsi and Phonsawan Nakhachai who were shot at Bon Kai on Rama IV Rd on 15 May 2010…”. They were two of 16 killed at this location, where video evidence shows army operations, including snipers.

Mana “was fatally shot in the back of the head near the mouth of Soi Ngam Duplee … while he was trying to help people who had been shot there.” Phonsawan, who was assisted by Mana later succumbed to his stomach gunshot wound.

Mana’s  mother Naree stated he was shot “while holding a red-cross flag in his hand”and helping two others who had been shot.

Soon after his death, the authorities (mis)used photos of Mana to justify actions that took place some distance from where he was shot.

Another story at the Bangkok Post directs attention to red shirt dissent the Puea Thai government’s amnesty push:

Some red shirts see the proposal championed by Deputy Premier Chalerm Yubamrung as a betrayal because it would cover senior Democrat Party figures who were in government when the military crackdown on the Bangkok rally took place three years ago Sunday.

Of course, the anti-Thaksin Shinawatra lot oppose amnesty as a move to bring the man home. Thaksin is due to address supporters via videolink this weekend.

As PPT has stated several times, a blanket amnesty “would simply perpetuate the culture of impunity in Thailand, where senior figures rarely take responsibility for anything…”. The report adds:

Prominent scholars have been criticising the Pheu Thai flip-flop in social media forums. They include Nitirat Group core member Piyabutr Saengkanokkul; Thammasat University scholars Kasian Tejapira and Somsak Jeamteerasakul. Hard-core red-shirt activists Nithiwat Wannasiri, Jittra Kotchadet and Suda Rungkuphan also oppose the Chalerm plan.

 They say the party is betraying the red-shirt rank and file, as if a hundred deaths and a thousand injuries were simply the price to pay for the party’s compromise with the old establishment for the sake of its own survival.

PPT reiterates that those responsible for the murder of civilians must be brought to justice as an important step to rooting out the culture of impunity that state officials and the military has when murdering civilians.

Knowing the obvious on the military

At The Nation there’s a story that seems all too obvious to PPT and probably to anyone else who watches Thailand’s politics: the military is politicized, runs coups and rejects any modern notion of civilian control.

It seems that when an academic recites these truths, it is newsworthy, especially when a foreign academic, Professor Aurel Croissant, is making these points.

That “Thailand remains among those countries that have failed to institutionalise civilian control over the military,” is clear, despite efforts by  premiers as diverse  as Chuan Leekpai and Thaksin Shinawatra.

The professor says that “Thailand ranks fifth the world in terms of having the most number of military coups,” with 18 “successful” coups since 1932.

Nicholas Farrelly at New Mandala some time ago pointed out that counting coups is difficult:

Here on New Mandala we recently hosted a discussion about Thailand’s coup history where I suggested that counting the number of coups (attempted and successful) is a complicated business. Often, when somebody asks “how many coups have there been in Thailand?”, the final number that is cited is 18 but I fear that this may be a product of force of habit rather than hard number crunching.

He adds:

As it stands I have 11 “successful” and 9 “unsuccessful” coup efforts in the 20th century [sic. he adds 2006 in] for a total of 20.

The army’s real task: coups and repression

Readers at that thread add several more.

Croissant tells us that “the risk of a putsch remains high,”another point widely discussed, even in the past few days.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, “Croissant predicted it will be a long time before Thailand can achieve genuine civilian control over the military.”

Oddly, though, in the way he is reported, the professor seems to blame civilians for the problem.

It [civilian control] will depend on not just the military refraining from getting involved in politics but also on strong civilian support and consensus that civilians should have oversight of the military.

“There’s no consensus on that they will not pull the military into political conflicts,” said Croissant, who jointly conducted research on the topic over four years in which more than 180 people in the Kingdom were interviewed.

We guess it depends a bit on who you interview….

Croissant adds:

… the military’s power can be exerted not just through the staging of coups d’etat but also through influence over the government’s decision-making processes. The lack of coups doesn’t automatically mean that civilian oversight exists, he said. “The military can exercise control over policy because democracy is weak.”

And who do we blame for that?Certainly the military, but we will come back to this point below.

On the brighter side, the academic “sees the September 19, 2006 coup as a sign of the army’s ‘eroding military control’ over Thai politics and society.”

What is missing in this account -and, yes,we know it is only a news report – is any discussion of the forces that have institutionalized the military’s coup  mentality.

From 1932, the military became a “protector” of the state. By the late 1950s, the military was transformed – with considerable U.S. funding and advice – into a “protector” of the state with the monarchy as the central defining element. This latter role has demanded a military that was pretty much hopeless in terms of usual ideas about  warfare and was trained and armed for domestic warfare. This meant fighting communists, insurgents,and as required, civilian protesters, who have been murdered by the military in very large numbers.

Protecting the monarchy and state also meant support for and from the Sino-Thai tycoons who expanded their economic and,later, political power through this period. The military was rewarded, with awards, decorations and loot (especially in border zones and in “commissions”).

Of course, the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime represented a complete alliance of military power and civilian weakness. Abhisit was anointed by military and monarchy and was beholden to them.

The alliance of capitalists, monarchy and military is strongly in favor of military interventionism  to protect their interests, political and economic. Some saw Thaksin’s rise as a weakening of this alliance and 2006 was a way to put things right. Some predict this alliance will weaken again at succession.

Panic, censorship and the Democrat Party

W e have already posted several times on the continuing and seemingly heightened political struggle as disgruntled royalists seek to undermine the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra. Part of the increase in political tension revolves around issues such as constitutional reform and amnesty. The most recent panic for royalists was Yingluck’s speech in Mongolia airing several truths about the anti-democrats who oppose her. That panic attack saw some nasty and deeply sexist remarks and crazy incantations of treason. At the same time, PPT indicated its position on the defamation regime.

So we are dismayed to read at the Bangkok Post that Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap has said that he will seek “to silence websites that allow criticism of the prime minister.” This is dumb politics and a stupid over-reaction that allows the yellow-hued lot to prance about talking about “democracy” and “freedom of expression.” Of course, these elitists have no ground to stand on these issues but the minister has allowed them to make these claims.

That the Democrat Party has jumped on Anudith’s silly statement with glee is to be expected. However,  it is more than a little nauseating to listen to its leader Abhisit Vejjajiva claim that Anudith’s statement is a “violation of democratic principles…”. That it might be, but for Abhisit to lecture anyone on democracy is an affront.

Neither the Democrat Party nor Abhisit know anything at all about democracy and their track record is of undemocratic action.

When Democrat Party deputy spokeswoman Mallika Boonmeetrakul lectures that the “minister had no power to close websites, which could be shut down only by a court order…”, this is a practices that her party repeatedly flouted when in government.

When she says that “Users of social media, along with the press, have the right to freedom of expression and to comment on and criticise public figures, including the prime minister,” Mallika ignores the Abhisit regime’s massive censorship of all opposition media.

The Abhisit regime was undemocratic at birth and its time in government was the most repressive for three decades.

Anudith needs to be criticized, but not by a Democrat Party that is disingenuous and pathetic.

Who burned Bangkok?

Both the Bangkok Post and The Nation report on the acquittal of two red shirts who had been charged in the arson of the CentralWorld shopping complex in May 2010. It is to be recalled that the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime had long claimed that the burning of the shopping mall was a planned act of red shirt defiance. The Democrat Party has continued to campaign against red shirts and the current government as aiding and abetting arsonist.

As PPT posted some time ago, the South Bangkok Criminal Court heard the case of the remaining defendants, Saichon Phaebua and Phinit Channarong. Earlier, two juveniles were acquitted. Phinit was arrested and charged with six others, accused of robbery, use of arms against the authorities, and violating the Emergency Decree. He had already been sentenced to six months for violating the Emergency Decree, but was acquitted on the other charges. Saichon was arrested three weeks after the arson and claimed he was forced to confess.

On 25 March, the Court freed both men, “citing a lack of witnesses and evidence.” The prosecution “failed to produce the policemen who arrested Mr Pinij…” and there were no witnesses to the arson produced: “The court also said CentralWorld security and fire-fighters who testified could not confirm they saw Mr Pinij set fire to the shopping centre.” Likewise, no “state witnesses could not provide firm evidence that … [Saichon] had set fire to the shopping complex.” Saichon was sentenced to a year for violating the Emergency Decree.

Red-shirt leaders Jatuporn Promphan and Weng Tojirakarn, who were at the court for the verdict, “said the court verdict indicated that the red shirts were not involved in ‘burning of the city’, as has been alleged,” by the Democrat Party and other royalists.

The question of who was responsible remains unanswered. At the time, red shirts seemed convinced that the event was related to military actions in the mall. As noted in our earlier post, some evidence in support of this claim was presented during the case against Saichon and Phinit.

Challenging state blocking

This story was at Prachatai a few days ago, but deserves attention as it is the first serious challenge to the state’s blocking of we sites and URLs.

Prachatai has been pushing a case in the courts “against the authorities for blocking its website during the red-shirt protests in 2010…”. That was deliberate blocking by the Abhisit Vejjajiva government as it sought to shut down all media it deemed “oppositional” and not sticking to the regime’s royalist script.

Initially the Civil Court rejected the case, but after that was overturned by the Appeals Court, the case is back on.

Prachatai initially filed its case on 23 April 2010, and soought 350,000 baht in damages from the state.

The case goes back to court on  27 May for a preliminary hearing.

In its first complaint to the Civil Court,

… Prachatai accused the CRES of violating the rights and freedoms accorded by the Constitution, arguing that despite the power authorized by the Emergency Decree, the government cannot take any action to limit, remove or violate the constitutional rights and freedoms of individuals on an arbitrary basis without any solid supporting evidence or reason.

Without any evidence of substance from the state, the compliant court dismissed that case saying that the “defendants had performed their duties under a proper chain of command as authorized by the law…”.

As we stated above,this case now becomes (potentially) seminal for internet freedom in Thailand.

Yingluck in power

Pongphisoot Busbarat, a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian National University and a former staff member of Thailand’s National Security Council has a 2-part piece at the World Politics Review that claims to assess Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government to date. PPT only read the first part, on domestic politics. While reading it, we were continually reminded of the logic of the People’s Front of Judea (PFJ) in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

Pongphisoot begins thus:

Though often dismissed as the puppet of her exiled brother, Yingluck Shinawatra has survived several critical challenges since becoming Thailand’s first female prime minister in a landslide victory in July 2011 elections. Yet despite initial hopes for reform, the past year and a half have demonstrated that the Yingluck government’s ultimate goal is to maintain its grip on power…

We can probably accept that, and we have made the last point several times, but then this:

… the successes of Yingluck and her Pheu Thai Party (PTP) do not necessarily mean progress on the democratic front…. Yingluck’s performance on justice and democracy, for example, has been disappointing on several levels.

PPT has also been critical of the government on lese majeste and on slow investigations on the 2010 violence, but does this amount to poor democratic performance? This is where Pongphisoot starts to get very Pythonesque. He says that one of the failures is that “of the 1,019 protesters that were arrested during the crackdown, 20 still remain in prison.” That’s a failure? Sure, there are still red shirts held in the political prison, but according to his figures, some 1,000 were released. That sound more like some success rather than failure. And, the current regime is not throwing people in prison at a great rate as the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime did. So, yes, the Yingluck government did have some success in getting red shirts out of jail.

Pongphisoot then states that “[n]o one from the military or the previous government has been prosecuted for the violent suppression of the protests,” but ignores the fact that investigations have made progress under this government. Abhisit and his deputy Suthep Thaugsuban do face murder charges. Can anyone imagine any progress on this matter if Abhisit was still premier? In addition, the courts are making findings that military bullets killed people. Abhisit and his lot, including the military brass, have always denied that the Army killed anybody. So, yes, the Yingluck government do get some progress.

Sure, the Yingluck government has “reached an accommodation with the military,” and with “the monarchy, aimed at ensuring her government’s stability.”  While many red shirts and PPT might fume about this, Yingluck’s government has lasted longer than the previous People’s Power government. So, yes, the democratically-elected government has been able to maintain office and see off the royalist elites for the moment.

That the Yingluck administration has gone belly down to “demonstrate its loyalty to the monarchy” is troubling but Pongphisoot alleges that “[c]harges under Thailand’s so-called lèse majesté law, which forbids insulting the monarch, have increased by 15-fold since 2006.” Yet almost every one of those charges occurred prior to this government coming to power. So, yes, compared to the previous governments, the Yingluck administration has dramatically reduced the number of lese majeste charges.

We could go on but the PFJ-like arguments are simply piled up.  It is reasonable to criticize the Yingluck government for being tenaciously supine and for failures on lese majeste; we regularly do this. However, to moan about “democracy” being reduced is as silly as when tea-sipping elite scion and Democrat Party bigwig Korn Chatikavanij argued that Thailand was becoming a police state.

It is clear that politics now is far superior to the period of the Abhisit regime or the post-coup regime established by the junta. At the moment, Thailand has a democratically-elected government and more press freedom and fewer political prisoners than under Abhisit. That seems noteworthy.

Old aristocrats bemoan the Western press

For several decades the old princes and aristocrats that circled the palace and promoted the monarchy and present king as the fount of all that was good for Thailand had it pretty much their own way. Supported by massive U.S. funding during the Cold War, the Western media, some of that also funded by the same source, engaged in reporting on Thailand that mirrored the palace’s blarney.

In recent years, however, the old royalist elite has become disgruntled as some media reports have begun to question the old received “wisdom” that amounted to posterior polishing and often was simply propaganda. Part of this questioning has to do with more information being available thanks to a handful of critical academics and journalists. Much of it has to do with Paul Handley’s effort in getting out a book that blew away some of the smoke and and reset some of the mirrors.

Some of the old royalists have become so angry that they have entertained some of the crankier ideas about international conspiracies and even turned on some former friends. Others have sought to wheel out Western flunkies who can still peddle the old palace nonsense with a straight face.

Sumet

And so it is that we come to a letter to The Nation by one of the royalist elite protecting his and their patch. The letter is by Sumet Jumsai, who is listed as being at  Cambridge University where he has recently provided a seminar, and who usually has “na Ayudhya” attached to his moniker. In his letter he gets hot and frothy about an article in French by Bruno Philip in Le Monde and which PPT posted in English.

Sumet has been a staunch royalist but is one of those who some might see as a “liberal royalist,” once acknowledging that republicans exist in Thailand and adding that he doesn’t mind “so long as we are not taken to the guillotine…”. He added, tellingly, that the “spirit of the age, of the new generation who spurn the 19th century hangover…” and is “tempted to agree, seeing that our monarchist role model England has moved on, while we are marking time.” On another occasion he joined eight “people with royal lineage” to sign a letter sent to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asking the government to change the lese majeste law because it was doing damage to the monarchy.

In his latest bout of letter writing he wants to take on Le Monde: “The biased view of the article, as in much of Western reportage on Thailand, needs correction.” Essentially, Sumet tells the Abhisit Vejjajiva version of events of 2010, and bemoaning the fact that red shirts weren’t put in jail. Of course, they were, and by the eager Abhisit regime, but that fact gets in the way. He avers that the “red-shirt riots in 2010″ were worse than the 2006 military coup.  And he rants about all the people killed who were not red shirts, again ignoring the facts of the body count in 2010.

Finally Sumet gets prickly about the article’s attention to the monarchy and king:

The article also tries to involve the King, putting him in the same camp as the military (at present controlled by the ruling government) and the Bangkok elite. In this regard it should be noted that the King has publicly declared that he is not above criticism and that he is against the lese majeste law, which he regards as detrimental to the institution. He even proposed that those arrested or jailed because of this law should be released. The question now must be why the present red-shirt government does nothing about it.

On the latter question, it is pretty clear why the present government doesn’t do anything substantial for those currently charged or in prison. However, Sumet ignores the fact that this government is not throwing this charge at every one of its political opponents and locking them up. That is not doing nothing, even if it isn’t enough.

Regarding the claim about the king and lese majeste, the last time Sumet and his blue-blooded lot made this claim, PPT wrote about this version of the king’s speech, and we challenged readers to make sense of it. Yes, the king talks about being wrong, needing to be criticicized and how he is troubled when people (foreigners?) go to jail for insulting him because he gets representations on it and Thailand is ridiculed. But the speech is essentially a criticism of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party following the 2005 election landslide.

Crispin on internet censorship

Shawn Crispin writing for the Committee to Protect Journalists has an article on the increasing tendency for governments to want to control the internet in the Southeast Asian region. Of course, that includes comments on Thailand. His verdict is pretty much the same as the one PPT noted yesterday: almost all of Thailand’s censorship of the internet in Thailand is about the monarchy:

The authorities had already applied the law’s vague and arbitrary national security-related provisions to censor tens of thousands of anonymously posted Web pages, mostly for material deemed offensive to the monarchy.

Crispin also makes a point that scholar David Streckfuss made at the FCCT: the 2006 military-palace coup made lese majeste and the computer crimes law. In the latter, it was the junta’s administration under on-again, off-again privy councilor Surayud Chulanont that passed the flawed computer crimes law, and it is essentially that regime and the one led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, also hoisted to power by the military-palace complex, that made the law a political weapon of choice.

Part of his account is of the “legal calisthenics” that lese majeste and computer crime laws involve. For example, in the case of Chiranuch Premchaiporn’s conviction was a:

… landmark verdict [that] effectively shifted the onus of Internet censorship in Thailand from government authorities to Internet intermediaries. Judges ruled that by failing to remove the comment quickly enough–it remained on Chiranuch’s Prachatai website for more than 20 days–she had “mutually consented” to the critical posting….

On the Abhisit regime, Crispin observes:

In 2009, in the name of shielding the monarchy from criticism, the previous Abhisit Vejjajiva-led government began a controversial Internet monitoring scheme that trained civilian volunteers, including university students, to serve as “cyberscouts” assigned to comb the Internet for anti-royal material. The number of lèse majesté complaints filed under Abhisit’s tenure nearly tripled year on year from 2009 to 2010, rising from 164 to 478 cases, according to Thai court records.

Crispin then moves to the Yingluck Shinawatra government, where the comments become less fact-based, claiming that the government’s Internet surveillance capabilities were expanded “in 2011 through a US$13 million investment in an undisclosed ‘interception’ system, according to local news reports.” It would be good to know if there has been more surveillance rather than simply reports. It is correct that in 2011″cabinet approved a directive that allowed the national police Department of Special Investigations to collect evidence, including through the intercept of Internet-based communications, without a court order in Computer Crime Act-related investigations.” It remains unclear how this power is being used.

On lese majeste, Crispin reports that:

Yingluck also established a 22-member committee dedicated specifically to suppressing lèse majesté content online. By mid-2012, MICT authorities claimed to have blocked 90,000 Facebook pages because of anti-monarchy content. That censorship followed on a late-2011 warning by MICT Minister Anudith Nakornthap that Internet users could be charged under the Computer Crime Act for “liking” online comments critical of the royal family.

While the latter is true, the claim to blocking a large number of Facebook pages has not been confirmed. One thing is clear: the number of allegations and charges of lese majeste has declined precipitously.

If any readers have better data on blocking by the current government, we’d be pleased to post it. Blocking of PPT is far less rigorous than it was under the Abhisit regime, but we continue to see some blocking by ISPs.

Abhisit and amnesty

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the man who presided over the arrest and jailing of hundreds of red shirt political prisoners while watching over double standards that allowed yellow shirts to run free, usually burbles a bit about amnesty for those who remain imprisoned from his regime.

As we have pointed out before, Abhisit is remarkably stubborn and, like many in the royalist elite, cannot conceive of the possibility that he is ever wrong. Back in 2010, as the Army shot red shirt protesters, Abhisit stated:

What the government and the security agencies are doing at the moment is necessary…. We can’t allow a situation where people set up armed groups and overthrow the government because they don’t agree with it…. We cannot retreat because what we’re doing is for the good of the majority of the people…. We will not retreat….

Earlier, the day prior to the events that saw the first deaths on 10 April 2010, Abhisit vowed: “I shall not give up.” He was critical of the military and security forces and demanded action from them against protesters, saying they have “no right to fail…”.

No retreat, ever. At The Nation, Abhisit continues this line: “The Democrat Party will not waver in its resistance to a sweeping pardon for political protesters even if it has to go it alone…”. With his fixation on Thaksin, Abhisit stated: “… leniency should be reserved for violators of the emergency decree…. Those rally organisers involved in instigating arson attacks, violence, firings at crowds and the killing of people, as well as graft, should not be covered…”.

It is all about Thaksin and punishing those who dared to oppose him and his government. He has always wanted and continues to want retribution against those he views as enemies. It is schoolboy-like desire for retribution against those of the lower class who rebel.

RWB on press freedom

Reporters Without Borders has released their latest ranking of media freedom around the world. Thailand makes a very, very small improvement after a considerable leap last year, but remains in the lower ranks on this particular table, at 135 of 179 countries.

As far as PPT can tell from the press release and the full report (downloads a PDF), Thailand is not mentioned except in the rankings table. However, the Bangkok Post has some commentary. It says:

“The press is much freer in Thailand than in neighbouring countries,” the report said, but then attacked the government for its treatment of internet media.

“Online freedom of expression began to deteriorate from the moment the new Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra assumed power in July 2011,” said the report by Reporters Without Borders.

It cited in particular prosecution under the lese majeste law and commented, “Apparently the government has forgotten its promises to amend Article 112 of the Thailand Penal Code.”

Apparently, the Bangkok Post confuses the new report with the one from last year. When that report came out last year, PPT took issue with the RSF report. Like others, RSF claims that:

online freedom of expression began to deteriorate from the moment the new Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra assumed power in July 2011. Abusive recourse to the politically exploited lèse-majesté law has led to an increase in litigations and strict censorship.

We noted that only part of that was true. While there has reportedly been an increase in URL blocking (including PPT), we did not see evidence of any increase in litigation on lese majeste under the Yingluck government. That remains largely true. The claims also took attention away from the upgrades Thailand received in the ranking that year following the end of the repressive Abhisit Vejjajiva regime in mid-2011.

As RWB said in that 2012 report, “Other than for monarchy-related issues, the media are relatively free in Thailand.” It is the lese majeste and related computer crimes legislation that undermines the media in Thailand (and the judiciary and the monarchy itself). The recent conviction of Somyos Prueksakasemsuk is just one more example of the draconian lese majeste law being used to demonstrate that journalists, and anyone else who thinks they should have a voice, must self-censor on the monarchy.