The censorship in Thailand has now reached a new extreme. The BBC News reports that website editor and site founder Chiranuch Premchaiporn was arrested on charges of carrying content on her site the “threatened national security.”
The content that she is being charged for was deemed “too sensitive” to reveal, but according to a security officer who refused to be named, the content was posted by a reader relating to the monarchy. She reportedly had twenty days to take it down, but left it up for too long. Although there has been recent debate over a website editor’s right to control the comments posted on their site, it is still ridiculous to arrest someone over this kind of content.
This increasing intolerance for free speech against the monarchy has caused many writers to be charged and arrested, among them a well known academic who fled the country before he could be detained. These arrests are covered under the Computer Crimes Law that was passed a year and a half ago, and relates to sexual indecency and lèse-majesté (roughly translated as “the crime of injured majesty).
According to the English translation of Premchaiporn’s website, Prachatai (which I have to be honest- I have absolutely no idea what that word means. Tried to Google it. Failed. Sorry.), Premchaiporn received bail on Friday, March 6th. Also, according to their website, her office is currently being raided by the Crime Suppression Police, who as of yesterday were still copying her entire hard-drive.
Once again, this is new evidence that the monarchy is clearly feeling threatened by putting the monarchy into question. It just makes me wonder- what else needs to happen in order for a change in their censorship laws to take place?
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