Economist magazine blocked in Thailand again

Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:20am GMT
By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The Economist’s distributors in Thailand are refusing to circulate the current affairs magazine for a second week running because of an article critical of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the army.

The article, entitled ‘A sad slide backwards’, takes Thailand to task for its “astoundingly callous” [...]

A Cat Can’t Look at a Queen

 
Written by Our Correspondent
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
 
Not in Thailand, anyway, or it can get you arrested
Additional names of individuals in jail have surfaced in Thailand on charges of insulting the royalty, for offences as slight as not standing up for the royal anthem in a movie theater in Bangkok. According to a Thailand-based website [...]

FACTBOX: Lese majeste cases in Thailand

 
Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:16am EST
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai police formally charged leading leftist commentator Giles Ungpakorn on Tuesday with insulting the king, the latest in a slew of lese majeste cases critics say are stifling dissent and freedom of speech.

Following are details of some of those who have recently fallen foul of the law, [...]

Author guilty of Thai king insult

Monday, January 19, 2009 11:09 Mecca time, 08:09 GMT

Nicolaides said the novel was his take on political and social life in contemporary Thailand [Reuters]

 

A court in Thailand has sentenced an Australian author to three years in jail after finding him guilty of insulting the country’s royal family.
Appearing in a Bangkok court house on Monday, Harry [...]

Thai writer: End prosecution for ‘insulting king’

By GRANT PECK , 01.13.09, 11:18 AM EST
A Thai academic facing charges of insulting the monarchy called Tuesday for a campaign to abolish the law under which he could be jailed for 15 years.
Ji Ungpakorn, a prominent activist and political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said police have asked to question him over a book [...]

Thai man arrested for Internet comments on king

The Associated Press
Published: January 15, 2009
BANGKOK, Thailand: A Thai man has been arrested on charges of insulting the monarchy and could face up to 15 years in prison under a harsh lese majeste law that is being used with more frequency, police said Thursday.
Suwicha Thakhor was arrested Wednesday for allegedly posting messages insulting the monarchy [...]

Thai PM defends appointing airport siege leader as adviser

Jan-13-2009
BANGKOK (AFP) — Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva has defended his decision to appoint as adviser to the government a member of a protest group that was behind a siege of Bangkok’s airports last year.
The appointment risks causing further divisions with supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, whose allies were driven from government partly as [...]

Thai Critic Ungpakorn to be Charged with Lèse Majesté

 
Written by John Berthelsen   

Monday, 12 January 2009

The government goes after a prominent academic and government gadfly
Recent Articles by Giles Ungpakorn:

Thailand’s Democrat Putsch
Thailand and the Coup for the Rich
Democracy Threatened at Bangkok International Airportmore articles by Giles…

Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a political science professor at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, has been ordered to [...]

Thais block ‘anti-royal’ websites

By Jonathan Head BBC News, Bangkok

The government of new PM Abhisit, pictured, contains many ardent royalists

The new Thai government has ordered ministries to act more decisively against those who violate laws protecting the image of the monarchy.
The new minister for information and technology said the government was already blocking 2,300 websites deemed offensive [...]

Thailand blocks thousands of websites for ‘insulting’ king

The Thai government has blocked 2,300 websites deemed insulting to the country’s monarchy and is planning to block 400 more.

By Thomas Bell in Bangkok Last Updated: 11:29AM GMT 06 Jan 2009

Thais have long been offended by insults against their king but the issue has become particularly sensitive during the political upheaval of recent months [...]