Thai Website Director Goes to Trial Over Content

By Kee

Flickr Creative Commons | Colleen Curnutte

The Associated Press | February 4, 2011

BANGKOK – The head of a popular Thai political website went on trial Friday, charged with violating the country’s tough cyber laws in a case seen as a bellwether for freedom of expression in the politically troubled nation. Chiranuch Premchaiporn, manager of the Prachatai website, faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment on 10 separate charges of failing to promptly remove from the website offending comments posted by readers. The 2007 Computer Crime Act addresses hacking and other traditional online offenses, but also bars the circulation of material deemed detrimental to national security or that causes public panic. Several people have been prosecuted under the law, but Chiranuch is the first webmaster to be tried, and her case has garnered the attention of free speech advocates around the world. Thailand’s freedom of speech reputation has taken a battering in recent years, as successive governments have tried to suppress political opposition. Its standing in the Press Freedom Index issued by the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders slid to 153 last year from 65 in 2002, when the ratings were initiated. Prachatai, which was founded by several respected journalists, senators and press freedom activists to serve as an independent, nonprofit, daily Internet newspaper, has often run afoul of the government. Police arrested Chiranuch in March 2009 for an offense that allegedly occurred five months earlier. The controversial comments posted by members of Prachatai’s webboard were said to have defamed the country’s monarchy. She was accused of not deleting the comments for several days. “I’m not sure if Prachatai was targeted specifically,” Chiranuch told The Associated Press earlier this week. “All I can say is, given the circumstances, we were doing our job as we would normally do.” Prachatai was one of scores of websites the government barred access to last year during political unrest in Bangkok that turned violent and left about 90 people dead. The government claimed the sites stirred up unrest among the so-called Red Shirt protesters who were calling on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to hold early elections. Supinya Klangnarong, a media reform activist, said that the Computer Crime Act “has become a political tool of the state to close down websites and arrest people. “The Thai state has been intensely using the act as political punishment, instead of curbing actual computer-related crimes,” she said. Chiranuch late last year was charged with another set of offenses, including lese majeste — defaming the monarchy — another controversial area of law. Thailand’s lese majeste law mandates a jail term of three to 15 years for “whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the regent.” Critics say it is mostly used as a weapon by political opponents to try to punish each other, since almost any critical comment touching on the monarchy can be construed as disloyalty to the institution. As in Friday’s case, Chiranuch denies breaking the law.

Asia-Pacific Governments Chip Away at Internet Freedom

By Kee

Flickr Creative Commons | Jared Tarbell

By Adrian Addison | AFP | November 5, 2010

HONG KONG (AFP) – The tentacles of government censors are creeping ever further across the web in the Asia-Pacific region as officials from Thailand to Australia try to control what people say and do online.  Aside from China, which has a vast army of censors operating behind what has been dubbed the “Great Firewall”, other countries are also taking steps to restrict access to the Internet.

A massive cyber attack has crippled the web in military-ruled Myanmar ahead of Sunday’s controversial election, IT experts say, raising fears of a deliberate communications blackout for the vote.  But moves to rein in Internet freedoms in other countries in the region are often presented as being well intentioned.

Australia proposes introducing an Internet filter to block sites containing material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse.  Prime Minister Julia Gillard has defended the plan as a moral move which will bring the web into line with TV and film which have long been censored by the state.

“My fundamental outlook is this: it is unlawful for me as an adult to go to a cinema and watch certain sorts of content, it’s unlawful and we believe it to be wrong,” Gillard said recently.  “If we accept that then it seems to me that the moral question is not changed by the medium that the images come through.” 

Yet the plan has been heavily criticised as setting a precedent for censorship and has even been attacked by web giants Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.  Australian anti-censorship campaigner Geordie Guy said while the filter was not designed to control political dissent it was a case of the state “putting its foot down on what the population can see”.

In another Asia-Pacific democracy, the Philippines, several bills have been filed seeking restrictions on the Internet, mainly focused on pornography and the trafficking of women.

And in Thailand, a wide-ranging campaign of government censorship has shut down thousands of Internet sites.  It is a reflection of the deep political divide in the country, where 91 people died and nearly 1,900 were hurt in clashes between Red Shirts and troops during two months of protests, which ended with a bloody army crackdown in May.  Thousands of web pages have also been removed in recent years on the grounds that they were insulting to the Thai royal family.

In April, a Red Shirt sympathiser was arrested and charged for allegedly insulting the monarchy on Facebook — a serious crime punishable by up to 15 years in jail.  He remains in detention awaiting possible trial.  The editor of the popular Prachatai website could face up to 70 years in jail after she was arrested on charges of insulting the monarchy and breaching computer law — for comments posted by users of the site.

John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, says online censorship and surveillance are growing around the world.

“This increase in control is taking place concurrently with the growth of the role that the Internet and digital media are playing in the ways that people live and societies function,” he told AFP.

“Oftentimes, these online controls grow out of well-meaning online protections designed to help keep children safe.  But the same mechanisms that we use to keep our children from unwanted content and contact can be used to keep dissidents from communicating with one another or with the world outside their own society.  The tools that prevent harmful forms of pornography from being published can also keep a political manifesto from reaching its intended audience.  The same tools that bring a terrorist to justice before he can harm his targets can also be used to put a muck-raking journalist in prison for something that she said in an email or a web chat.”

Sometimes calls for censorship of the Internet are for religious reasons.

Hundreds of Indonesian Islamists rallied in central Jakarta in June to demand the stoning to death and public caning of celebrities who allegedly appeared in homemade sex videos circulating online.  About 1,000 protesters led by radical group Hizbut Tahrir shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greater) and brandished black flags and banners with slogans such as “Arrest those who commit promiscuous sex”.  Hizbut Tahrir spokesman Mohammed Ismail Yusanto said the Internet was a threat to Islamic values in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

“The widespread circulation of the celebrity sex videos shows the bad side of uncontrolled information technology, which will surely become one of the most terrible destroyers of morality,” he said.  “Based on sharia law… those who are married should be stoned to death and the unmarried should be caned 100 times in public.  With that kind of punishment it is guaranteed promiscuous sex won’t spread wildly like it is now.”

Radical groups like Hizbut Tahrir have little popular support among Indonesia’s 240 million people in a state which is constitutionally secular and culturally moderate.  But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has backed calls for tighter controls on the Internet in response to the sex video furore and has warned that the nation risked being “crushed” by the information technology “frenzy”.

While China is a major censor of the Internet in the region, communist Vietnam has also cracked down, arresting bloggers who have criticised the government’s relationship with Beijing.  “Some of the most advanced forms of Internet censorship and surveillance are carried out in Vietnam, following the lead of neighbouring China,” said Harvard University’s Palfrey.

“Over the next five to ten years, I see an escalating struggle between states that wish to control the information environment and citizens who wish to communicate privately and freely with one another.  I expect that we will see substantial growth in the ability of states to listen in on conversations online.”

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.

Internet is Latest Battleground in Thailand’s Heated Political Landscape

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | SpecialKRB

By Ron Corben | Voice of America | August 11, 2010

The Internet is the latest battleground in Thailand’s stormy political climate as the government attempts to shut down Web sites critical of it and the monarchy. The government is using tough laws to silence online criticism, but net users are finding ways to be heard.

During months of political protests earlier this year, the Thai government shut down thousands of Web sites it said fanned the protests or criticized the royal family.

May protests

The protests, which left 90 people dead and more than 1,400 injured, ended on May 19 when the army dispersed the crowds.

But the battle over the Internet continues.

Internet crackdown

Using the Computer Crimes Act and an emergency decree, the government shuts sites it thinks support the red-shirt protest movement. Media rights groups say more than 50,000 Web sites have been closed.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn is a director with Prachatai.com, an on-line news site the government shut down in April. A big concern for the government apparently was the site’s discussion boards.

She says Prachatai shut the discussion board in July. Chiranuch faces charges under the Computer Crimes Act and if convicted could go to jail.

“Even I believe in the freedom of expression or free speech but I understand some limitation and we also set up a kind of system to moderate some content that can be considered violate the rights of the people or violate the law,” Chiranuch said.

Government position

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanaygorn defends the Internet censorship policy.

“The situation under the emergency decree is very different,” said Panitan. “On one hand we still keep the freedom of the media. But on the other hand we do look into certain messages that create tension, confrontation and push people to confront among one another and that activity is monitored.”

A decade ago, it was easier for the government to control the media. TV and radio have long been state-controlled.

And newspapers faced attacks during Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s administration earlier in this decade.

Tough to control

Chris Baker, an author and political analyst on Thailand, says new technologies are harder to control.

“In the past the government was able to control all broadcast media very closely and generally could influence the press,” Baker said. “But that situation has totally changed with cable and satellite TV spinning out of control, community radio and the whole Internet as well.”

Prachatai.com is an example of that. Pinpaka Ngamson, an editor for the site, says the government could only shut it temporarily.

“Now it’s not difficult for us to work anymore, we know how to cope with this kind of order from the government,” said Pinpaka. “We just change our server and use another URL [Uniform Resource Locator] and go on with our work.”

Media plea

Thai media commentators have called on the government to rethink on-line censorship. They say it reinforces international opinion that Thailand’s media is increasingly less free.

Supinya Klanarong, a media activist, says the Computer Crimes Act is applied too broadly beyond insults against the royal family. Supinya says more media restrictions have emerged since the anti-government protests ended in May.

“It means a general opposition Web site related to the red-shirt movement or the critics of the government are also being blocked as concern for national security, too,” Supinya said. “So it’s not only about the issue related to les majeste but is also about political Web site in general, especially the dissident point of and the opposition.”

Some of the concerns appear to have been heard.

Improvements

Government leaders say they hope to improve draft legislation on the Internet laws.

Panitan, the government spokesman, says the there is a need to balance security and Internet freedom.

“On the one hand we regulate these activities in such a way that it’s not going to harm our national interests,” Panitan added. “Specific activities may not be allowed to be in those Web sites. But on the other hand we want to keep other communications open.”

But media groups such as the Southeast Asian Press Alliance say the government has been intimidating Web users who engage in “sensitive political discussion”. The group warns that shutting down Web sites may backfire and lead to the radicalization of those who post political comments on-line.

Three Years On, Cyber Crime Law Stifling Debate – Critics

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Tim Parkinson

By Lynette Lee Corporal | The Asia Media Forum*| July 23, 2010

BANGKOK, Jul 23 (IPS) – Many netizens worldwide have long realised that the Internet is not completely without fetters, but those in Thailand say a three-year-old law is now practically choking Thai self-expression and right to information in cyberspace.

More to the point, Thai netizens, journalists and media advocates say that the country’s authorities have taken advantage of ambiguities in the Cyber Crime Act (CCA) to censor or close down altogether websites or forums that the government deems “offensive”.

“The problem with the cyber crime law is its lack of clarity, which leaves it wide open to misinterpretation,” Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the yet-to-be-unblocked independent news website Prachatai (‘Free People’), told a discussion here this week to review and propose amendments to the law.

Already, reports of prosecution under the computer crime law have driven much political discussion underground. Others worry this is discouraging people from debating key issues in the public sphere, especially amid the political divisions in Thailand that led to the largest protests in decades by the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship and the military’s subsequent crackdown in May.

Already, “the authorities’ actions are driving the growth of underground forums and space,” adds Chiranuch.

The actions of Thailand’s online censors “will cause people to drop off from the discussion of issues”, agrees South-east Asia Press Alliance Executive Director Roby Alampay. “Only the truly determined and technologically savvy will continue to find ways to express their voices online,” he adds.

Critics say that the government has been on an intensive cybercrackdown in the last two years. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says that in July 2009 alone, the information and communications technology (ICT) ministry, citing threats to national security, blocked more than 16,944 websites.

Internet freedom activists say that as of this year, the number has reached more than 50,000, adding that it is difficult to get a clear figure of exactly how many websites have been blocked.

Likewise, “it is difficult to say how many have been charged under the CCA.” said independent media lawyer Sinfah Tunsarawuth. “There are at least 10, but we don’t know if there are more as defendants don’t want to talk and would rather settle out of court. It’s also difficult to track down individual court cases.”

Thailand, a country of 68 million people, has 13.4 million Internet users, with 113 Internet service providers (ISPs) licensed as of July 2009.

Netizens say the CCA has enabled authorities to step up the online clampdown. Other regulations in place that affect the online community and media include the emergency decree that the government imposed in April and remains in effect in Bangkok and several provinces, and which allows it to shut websites deemed to detrimental to security.

Among the websites that have been blocked since April is Prachatai. Even before that, Chiranuch herself was charged with violating Section 15 of the computer crime act for postings made on Prachatai’s web board that were allegedly in breach of the lese majeste law.

CCA critics also cite the law’s Section 14 as being problematic. It covers offences such as the uploading of material deemed “likely to” threaten any person as well as national security or sow panic among the public, Sinfah’s report says.

“If anyone is seen as ‘likely to’ harm national security, it doesn’t have to happen but that person is already liable,” he told IPS recently. Against the backdrop of legal restrictions on expression, Thai Netizen Network committee member Sarinee Achavanuntakul says that there is a need to distinguish between threats to national security and the expression of opinion. “We should be able to define what constitutes dangerous content,” she says.

But one hindrance to this, says Thai Journalists Association president Prasong Lertratanawisut, is that implementing bodies such as the ICT can easily be “led by political agendas”.

Political analyst Suranan Vejjajiva adds that the Thai authorities’ notion of control is through the use of propaganda. “The bureaucratic system has so many laws, rules and regulations that give universal power to the person holding office,” he also says. “They think that control or shutting down websites, for instance, gives more security but, in fact, reflects insecurity.”

TNN’s Sarinee believes as well that the government does not really understand the nature of the Internet and that, unlike the more traditional forms of media, it simply is impossible to censor it.

At the same time, she worries that “unless you make it a very personal thing” and show people how censorship affects their own lives, they would not to care to react to the government’s current sweep through the Web.

Prachatai, however, seems to be waving a white flag, and is closing down its controversial web board end of July. Chiranuch, who says past comments on the board have led to the arrest of several people, explains, “We don’t want to mislead users that we can protect them online.”

“We’d rather shut down the web board than collect our users’ personal data,” she also says, referring to a provision in the law that directs Internet providers to collect and store online users’ personal information for 90 days.

Comments Suranan: “Sharing is the heart of the new Internet culture where everybody is a stakeholder. Unfortunately, the government and other organisations can’t seem to come to grips with this and are refusing to understand that the world has changed.”

*The Asia Media Forum (http://www.theasiamediaforum.org) is a space for journalists to share insights on issues related to the media and their profession. It is coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific.