Updated: Monarchy assessed by Australian television

Update: The video can be accessed here.

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The Melbourne Age (14 April 2010) publishes a story reporting on a controversial documentary on the Thai monarchy aired on Australian television. It says that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has, “by screening a report critical of the royal family, expos[ed] reporter Eric Campbell to a possible 18 years in prison” under Thai law. At present, the show is not yet posted at the Foreign Correspondent website.

The report says that the ABC’s Bangkok bureau office “was evacuated prior to the screening but it was not clear whether claims that journalists there were not involved would be enough to protect them from the lese majeste laws that prevent criticism of the country’s royals.”

The program is said to concern “problems inside the royal family – namely the succession from a popular king to his controversial son. The program played YouTube footage of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn with his semi-naked royal consort, Princess Srirasmi, at a birthday party for his favourite poodle.” The program also interviewed the brother of Darunee Charnchoensilpakul or Da Torpedo serving 18 years in prison for lese majeste, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, “who faces 50 years in prison for running a veiled criticism of the king on her website; and another man [Chotisak Onsoong] who faces prison for not standing as the national anthem played in a cinema.” Actually, as PPT understands it, Chiranuch is charged for failing to remove posts that were considered “offensive” in a timely fashion.

If we see a copy of the program we will post links.