Political website director released on bail

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Tim Parkinson

By Achara Ashayagachat | Bangkok Post | September 26, 2010

The director of political news website Prachatai.com has been released on bail as media freedom activists blasted authorities over her arrest on charges of violating the Computer Crime Act and committing lese majeste.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, 43, who was detained by police at Suvarnabhumi airport on Friday upon her return from a conference in Hungary on media freedom, was granted bail about 1am yesterday.

Bail of 200,000 baht in cash was paid on her behalf and she was released on condition she report to the Khon Kaen Muang district police station – where she was taken for questioning after her arrest – on Oct 24.

She faces charges of lese majeste and violating the Computer Crime Act for allegedly disseminating content deemed insulting to the monarchy through Prachatai.com.

Chatpong Pongsuwan, the Khon Kaen police investigator overseeing the case, said on Friday that an individual whose identity was not disclosed had lodged a complaint against Ms Chiranuch in 2008.

Supinya Klangnarong, coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network, said she believed Ms Chiranuch’s arrest would draw international attention to the deteriorating state of media freedom in Thailand.

Thai Journalists Association president Prasong Lertratanawisute said he was concerned that proper procedure had not been observed in Ms Chiranuch’s case. He said his association has been calling for a review of the Computer Crime Act for the past few years.

Ubonrat Siriyuwasak, a journalism academic, said Ms Chiranuch’s arrest was not conducive to the “government-sponsored media reform atmosphere”, referring to the Abhisit government’s campaign to reform the media as part of national reconciliation efforts.

Ms Ubonrat said the government had exploited media technology for its own political purposes, yet it wanted to prevent Thailand’s online society from becoming vibrant and healthy for fear of a backlash.

There were efforts to curb free speech rather than promote and protect an open atmosphere for political discussions in cyberspace, she said.

Amnesty International yesterday released a statement condemning Ms Chiranuch’s arrest.

“The Thai government has frequently used the 2007 Computer-related Crimes Act to uphold the country’s lese majeste law in a growing trend of censorship to silence peaceful political dissent,” the statement said.

“The lese majeste law goes beyond reasonable restrictions on freedom of expression provided for under international human rights law.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also condemned Ms Chiranuch’s arrest. Shawn Crispin, its senior Southeast Asia representative, said the government should stop using anti-monarchy charges to suppress legitimate criticism.

Ms Chiranuch was arrested on March 6 last year when police raided Prachatai’s Bangkok news office and seized computer equipment.

She was later released on bail, but remains involved in court proceedings over comments allegedly critical of a member of the royal family posted on one of Prachatai’s discussion forums.

The latest charges against Ms Chiranuch come amid an intensifying crackdown on Thai media, according to CPJ research.

Since imposing a state of emergency on April 7, the Abhisit government has closed a satellite television news station, community radio stations, print publications and websites aligned with the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship movement, said the CPJ.

Rwanda ‘assassins’ kill reporter Jean Leonard Rugambage

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Sinistra Ecologia Libertà

BBC News | June 25, 2010

A journalist working for a private newspaper has been shot dead in front of his house in the Rwandan capital.

Witnesses say Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was fired on by two men who then fled in a car.

The authorities had recently suspended the paper, prompting it to start publishing online instead.

Police say they do not know who was behind the attack – the paper’s exiled chief editor has blamed the government.

‘South Africa shooting link’

Editor Jean Bosco Gasasira, who fled to Uganda in April after his paper was suspended, said Kigali had master-minded the assassination of Mr Rugambage who died in hospital after the shooting.

“I’m 100% sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead,” he told US state-funded radio Voice of America.

Mr Gasasira said it was because of an article published on the Umuvugizi website relating to the attempted killing last weekend of former army chief Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa.

Rwanda has denied accusations it was behind the shooting of Lt Gen Nyamwasa.

He went into exile in South Africa earlier this year after falling out with President Paul Kagame, who he accused of corruption.

Mr Kagame denies these charges and his government accuses Lt Gen Nyamwasa of being behind grenade attacks in Rwanda earlier this year.

In April, Mr Kagame reshuffled the military leadership and two high-ranking officers were also suspended and put under house arrest.

Earlier in the month, Umuvugizi was suspended for six months by the press council for inciting opposition to the government.

Its website, launched in May, is not currently accessible through Rwandan internet providers; the authorities deny involvement in blocking it.

Mr Rugambage, who is survived by his wife and a child, was acquitted of genocide crimes by a local “gacaca” court in 2006.

The BBC’s Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says his death has shocked many journalists in the country.

Presidential elections are due in Rwanda in August – the second such vote since the 1994 genocide.

Human rights groups have accused the Rwandan government of repressing independent media in the country, which Kigali denies.

Mr Kagame’s government argues that it must take care to control the media and politicians to avoid a repeat of the genocide, in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.

Earlier this week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon appointed Mr Kagame to co-chair a committee of “superheroes to defeat poverty” – to push for progress in achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

He has been praised for trying to modernise Rwanda’s economy since coming to power at the end of the genocide.