Fear Among the People

An article on prachatai.com discusses the climate of fear that is being established in Thailand as a result of these censorship laws. After the arrest of one of their editors, prachatai now has to cooperate with government officials on their content and further investigation of their site.

The monitoring of these sites is only getting worse. Now internet cafes are require by law to have users type in their ID information before using a computer. As of now more than 2300 websites have been blocked, and there will most certainly be more.

These new occurrences are causing an increasing amount of fear among citizens and journalists of Thailand, as well as other countries who have become involved. A new concern is that these practices are pushing anti-monarchy forces underground, only making citizens further vulnerable to attacks by the monarchy. Some believe that this will result in an even more anonymous way of distributing their news, such as by pamphlets they could toss out into the streets. Though this would get the word out, it would not solve all of their problems with censorship.

One of the main problems with this law against anti-monarchy comments is that it is too difficult to decipher between remarks that are constructive and those that are offensive. Their solution is to punish all who speak of the monarchy, when the best solution would probably be to punish no one. This would help to alleviate some of the anger of the people as well as keep the innocent free.