We’re still trying to make some sense over Thailand’s recent tsunami of political repression.

Background: The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) took a downturn of 24.55 points on October 14 and international financial analysts Bloomberg News wrote about it. Of course, it is Thai stock traders’ coin to be interested in such trends and the article was translated into Thai. However, was this weakening really the result of “panic selling”? In any case, it is hardly the first such drop in SET without any rumors at all.

SET’s downturn was immediately blamed by politicians on rumours of our ailing King’s demise. King Bhumibol has, after all, been in hospital for more than a month and he is 81. Conveniently, only a few days later, two securities traders were found to have posted information to two public webboards, Prachatai and Same Sky, which since their inception as public, independent news voices have been nettling to insincere politicians and bad government.

The two stockbrokers were promptly arrested but not under the Securities Act which compasses financial manipulations but under Thailand’s draconian cybercrime law because the brokers posted to Prachatai and Same Sky. Troublesome as reality is, in both cases the Bloomberg translation was posted after SET took the dive! In fact, SET rallied after publication of the original Bloomberg article in English. Nevertheless, reputations and conformity mean a great deal in Thai society and the two brokers have been fired from their jobs.

News articles characterised Prachatai and Same Sky as mouthpieces for the populist Red-shirt movement The Red-shirts seek the return to glory of Thailand’s last elected prime minister, a billionaire international fugitive from Thai convictions, Thaksin Shinawatra. A further troublesome fact is that both Prachatai and Same Sky have been unwavering in their criticism of Thaksin, as was the case in April 2009 when FACT’s website was blocked along with 70 Red-shirt websites.

However, Prachatai’s webmaster, FACT signer Chiranuch Premchaiporn, was arrested and stands accused of lèse majesté for not being quick enough to delete public postings some bureaucrat somewhere found critical of Thailand’s monarchy. (Gee, we thought that was government’s job…) Same Sky’s public webboard refuses to delete any public posting but comments on the monarchy are couched in oblique terms intelligible to anyone in the Thai community. Same Sky’s Thai language journal, Fah Diew Kan, has been banned under the Printing Act for alleged lèse majesté.

Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act was the first law passed in 2007 by the military coup-appointed national assembly. Its provisions have frequently been used as a tool of political repression with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. The Bangkok Post accurately described the law as “a catch-all…to stifle criticism and intimidate the media”.

Thailand’s lèse majesté laws have been used even more frequently for silencing political dissent. One recent sentence was 18 years. Although these recent arrests under the cybercrime law did not specify lèse majesté, we must be under no illusion that this repression is meant directly to deter Thai citizens from any expression which could, even outlandishly, be thought to be critical of Thailand’s Royals. This is crucial to government’s attempt to intimidate Prachatai and Same Sky.

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) calls for the immediate and unconditional repeal of these three laws, and others such as the Internal Security Act and Film Act, which only purpose is to stifle free expression not protect the Thai public. Not coincidentally, all these laws and many others were enacted by the military coup d’etat, many in 24 hour sessions just before Thailand’s return to elected government.

Thai police have not only arrested the two unwitting stockbrokers but the third arrest under the cybercrime law for rumours sparking a SET crisis was the owner of a pool hall in Chonburi, a province with longtime criminal association. The snooker fan claims to have only written the material on his own computer and to have never posted it to the Internet. (Yes, the cybercrime law even anticipates this possibility!)

Thai police claim to be closing in on snooker-man’s associates, whom they say made a five billion baht profit from SET’s downturn.; that’s roughly $149,633,394.07 U.S.

No one loves a conspiracy more than politicians, as long as they don’t show up behind it. It will be most entertaining to see what fanciful fictions they come up with to explain how all these pieces fit together.

And now the minister of the Orwellian-named Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has threatened to close any of Thailand’s 100+ ISPs which permit Internet access to unspecified “offensive websites”. Only casually veiled, this indirect threat is obviously the means to shut down Prachatai and Same Sky as users will transit every ISP to access these sites whether or not their host servers are outside Thailand.

The ICT minister was most famously named Official Censor of the Military Coup. The Computer Crimes Act requires all Web censorship to be by court order. However, an estimated 55,000 websites have been blocked preemptively or on an emergency basis by Thai government.

The Thai finance minister has also stated that the ICT ministry can make the decision to close down Prachatai and Same Sky which cannot be seen to be other than a direct threat. It would be hard to imagine Thailand without the independent news voices of which Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) is one.

Politicians have turned Thailand’s national security into national insecurity. National security, never defined, is always government’s ready excuse for political repression.

Thailand’s continuing blatant attacks on free expression shows government’s total disregard for Thai citizens and Thailand’s standing in the world community.

As Bangkok Pundit puts it so succinctly: “First they came for BBB…” “and I did not speak out because I was not a _____________…Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me”. It’s time for you to speak out before it is far too late.

SET them FREE! : Thiranan Viphuchanan, Katha Pajajiriyapong, Somjate Itthiworakul.

We’ve been thinking of buying some stock, perhaps in ISPs. Think we’ll go play some snooker first though…

CJ Hinke

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

We have just discovered free Thai language news site Liberal Thai blocked by a transparent proxy redirecting users to Thailand's ICT ministry.

Liberal Thai is a new websites which has been translating news articles in English into Thai making them accessible to Thai readers, particularly those from Political Prisoners in Thailand.

The only news article which might be suspect is LT's Thai translation of “Thailand's Political Muddle” from October 28's Asia Sentinel. PPT's coverage of this article and, indeed the article itself in English, are not blocked.

Might such banal commentary as “feckless heir” (รัชทายาทที่อ่อนแอ) now constitute lèse majesté?

Incidentally, dictionary definitions for “feckless” from Scots Gaelic are weak, feeble, ineffective, incompetent, futile, worthless, careless, irresponsible, indifferent, lazy, having no purpose or worth, unlikely to be successful.

We hardly think that any of these definitions can be applied to Thailand's succession. The truth is, we simply don't know because Thailand's next king has not been tried.

However, suppressing the news by blocking websites does not make the news just go away. Thailand has much to learn in its domestic policies (we have a foreign head of state advising us on the Patani insurgency) and its international relations. No matter how deep Thai government tries to bury our heads in the sand, what others think of us matters.

Liberal Thai is one of the few websites trying to allow Thais access to all opinions so that we can make responsible decisions for ourselves, as a community of peers.

We call on the ICT ministry to justify such censorship and demand the court order blocking Liberal Thai as required under Thai law.

The Thai translation and article in English are still accessible by anonymous proxy & VPN:

เอเซียเซนทิเนล: การเมืองอันยุ่งเหยิงของประเทศไทย

From the Great Firewall to the Myanmar Wide Web, Asia is well-known for its practices in Internet filtering. China has long taken the lead in blocking Web sites, filtering sites across the spectrum - from social to political content, pornography to Internet tools. The OpenNet Initiative (full disclosure: I'm involved) has been studying the Internet in Asia and around the world since 2002, and has just released its latest reports on Internet surveillance and controls in Asia, and specifically in China.

New research from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) reveals accelerating restrictions on Internet content as Asian governments shift to next generation controls. These new techniques go beyond blocking access to websites and are more informal and fluid, implemented at edges of the network, and are often backed up by increasingly restrictive and broadly interpreted laws.

According to an recent ONI press release:

“Since 2006, many Asian governments have quickly realized the potential benefits of exploiting opportunities for conducting propaganda or public relations strategies over the Internet, even while cracking down on independent and critical voices thriving in these online spaces- an example of the evolution towards next generation controls,” said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and one of four principal investigators at the ONI.

These controls were evidenced recently in ONI's analysis of China's latest attempt at controlling the flow of information, Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software mandated for pre-installation on PCs sold in China starting July 1. “However, even China's example demonstrates that restrictions on information are far from uniformly effective, and will meet resistance and be contested by the very groups they are intended to silence,” said Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of the SecDev Group and co-founder and principal investigator of ONI and ONI Asia.

The reports for Asia, as well as Burma, China, Pakistan, and South Korea will be featured in a forthcoming MIT Press volume, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Rights, Rule, and Power in Cyberspace, to be published by MIT Press (2010). Access Controlled will include a series of analytical chapters and regional overviews that contribute to the developing discourse around global Internet regulation and censorship raised in the first ONI volume Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, (Cambridge: MIT Press) 2008. ]]> http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/17/opennet-initiative-releases-results-on-filtering-in-asia/feed/ 0 http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/04/17/thailand-nine-new-charges-against-prachatai-webmaster/ http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/04/17/thailand-nine-new-charges-against-prachatai-webmaster/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:17:34 +0000 CJ Hinke http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=993

FACT charges conspiracy against Prachatai and online freedom

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Thai online news portal Prachatai, was arrested on March 6 under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act.

Her charges resulted from allowing comments posted by readers of Prachatai’s online discussion fora alleged to be lèse majesté.

On April 7, Chiranuch was called to Royal Thai Police headquarters for further investigation. She was accompanied by Prachatai director Chuwat Rerksirisuk and her two lawyers. Thai police laid nine new charges against Chiranuch resulting from the information she herself gave them after her arrest.

Police claim the alleged illegal postings were allowed to remain on Prachatai fora for periods of one to fifteen days. Police consider each posting to be a separate violation of the computer law even though these were removed promptly after notification by Thailand’s ICT ministry.

None of the webboard posters have been arrested. FACT considers extra charges were laid against Chiranuch for two reasons. Firstly, police waited so long that the original forum postings had been deleted from Prachatai. Therefore they could not locate the actual posters by IP address. Secondly, they had such success in securing a draconian 20-year sentence against blogger Suwicha Thakhor on April 3.

Additional charges under the cybercrime law mean that Chiranuch is facing 50 years in prison for comments she did not create. Chiranuch is facing 50 years for not self-censoring webboard posts fast enough for government censors.

Police also told Chiranuch that six more persons will be charged later this month under the computer act.

Thai government is engaged in a political conspiracy to silence independent news and free expression. Government thinks they can silence freedom activists.

If we allow Chiranuch to go undefended by our words and actions, all of us face prison for free speech. How is Thailand different from Burma?

FACT demands all charges against Chiranuch Premchaiporn be withdrawn! Free media, free Thailand!

Prachatai is an independent and popular website in Thailand. It is an important source of alternative news in Thailand. The website has been censored many times. More than 20 pages on Prachatai have been blocked by authorities in the last five months. The arrested editor has been summoned by the police for eight times already to answer questions about the content of the website.

In Thailand, there is a “draconian” computer crime bill that states that any service provider who deliberately let a third party post anything that violates the law is also subject to the same liability as the person who committed the offense. Excerpts from the 2007 Computer Crime Act which the Prachatai editor allegedly violated:

Article 14. If any person commits any offence of the following acts shall be subject to imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than one hundred thousand baht or both:

(1) that involves import to a computer system of forged computer data, either in whole or in part, or false computer data, in a manner that is likely to cause damage to that third party or the public;

(2) that involves import to a computer system of false computer data in a manner that is likely to damage the country's security or cause a public panic;

(3) that involves import to a computer system of any computer data related with an offence against the Kingdom's security under the Criminal Code;

(4) that involves import to a computer system of any computer data of a pornographic nature that is publicly accessible;

(5) that involves the dissemination or forwarding of computer data already known to be computer data under (1) (2) (3) or (4);

Article 15. Any service provider intentionally supporting or consenting to an offence under Section 14 within a computer system under their control shall be subject to the same penalty as that imposed upon a person committing an offence under Section 14

Thailand has been very strict in implementing the lese majeste law. It jailed an Australian writer for “insulting” the Thai King who is the most beloved figure in the country. A Bangkok-based academic recently fled the country to escape prosecution (and “unfair trial”) for the same crime. Almost 5,000 webpages have been blocked since March last year because they contain content deemed insulting to the royal family.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej is a revered figure in Thailand. Picture from the Flickr page of ccdoh1

What are some of the comments of internet readers and bloggers?

Hobby believes the arrest will worsen the political climate in Thailand:

They are just making things worse for themselves - will they never learn? It might have been possible in the old days to have the total control they want, but those days are long gone - unless they want to be like Burma or North Korea, in which case they can kiss the tourism golden egg goodbye!

Bob notes that the arrest was made on the same day the Prime Minister vowed to honor press freedom:

How ironic that on the same day that Thailand's most active and informative news website is being threatened and its editor arrested, the Prime Minister is simultaneously making a speech in Bangkok about increasing Press freedom in Thailand

Asian Human Rights Commission believes this is part of the government agenda to intimidate critics:

There can be little room for doubt that this raid is part of the systematic ultraconservative agenda since the 2006 army coup to intimidate and silence critics, human rights defenders and social activists in Thailand. In fact, the odious law under which the raid and arrest warrant have been issued is one of the main planks in the platform designed to be built over the heads of dissenters in Thailand that was given effect by an assembly of military appointees in 2007.

FACT - Freedom Against Censorship Thailand accuses authorities of stifling freedom of thought in the country:

Thai authorities want to stop freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, free discussion and free expression in Thailand, whether voiced on the Internet or through books, news, opinion and editorial articles, films and broadcast media. What kind of society can be have without being able to freely dialogue with one another?

Teeranai Charuvastra suggests that the real target of the police is the web commenter, not the editor:

It has been suggested that perhaps the real reason behind this raid is that the police want to get hold of a certain webboard user, hence the explanation for why the Computer Crime law was used - not the infamous Lese Majeste - and the fact that only Ms. Chiranuch, who’s the webboard administrator, is arrested.

Anyway, I have no clue how to deal with this. Any protest won’t turn out fruitful, you know the Thai media.

Siam Report blames the vagueness of the law which allows authorities to use it against perceived enemies of the state:

It seems the lack of clarity creates conditions rife for political manipulation and abuse. I suppose if it is clearly defined, then I could be guilty for ignorance of the law.

Breaking Tweets gathers reactions from Twitter.

Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Official Censor of the Military Coup, has blocked at least 17,775 websites which, along with blocking by the Royal Thai Police, resulted in more than 50,000 websites blocked in Thailand. Public webboard discussions, circumvention tools, voices from Thailand's Muslim South and critical commentary of Thailand's monarchy were particularly targetted for censorship.

Thailand's military government also passed a Computer-Related Crimes Act (PDF) with draconian penalties and onerous data retention provisions abnegating privacy and anonymity and chilling public discussion of vital issues among Thais. The result of this cybercrime law was to criminalise circumvention with one notable exception, the Virtual Private Networks (VPN) relied on by business to create a secure, private, encrypted channel.

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) is pleased to provide links to two new, easy tools for private citizens to legally ignore Thailand's Internet censorship. Virtual Private Networks have been complicated to set up and difficult to maintain. However, with these two free, public tools, VPN is available to everyone.

Your own private network is located overseas beyond the reach of Thai censors using an encrypted tunnel so that governments and ISPs won't even be able to see where you're surfing. Unlike anonymous Internet proxies, criminal under the cybercrime law, using VPN makes streaming video and audio freely available.

Two simple, free VPN applications are HotSpot Shield (Mac and Windows) <> AlwaysVPN (Mac, Windows, Linux) and Social VPN (Windows, Linux). Run the installer and they just work with one click every time you get to a blocked website.

The United States has plans to create a national broadband network which will censor all “pornography” and Australia is planning on spending $189 million on a firewall to ensure pornography cannot be accessed there.

Both Sweden and England have announced plans to capture every electronic communication passing their borders.

The Thai government has announced plans to set up a national firewall to block lèse majesté content along with “pornographic, obscene and terrorist websites” with a budget of 100 to 500 million Thai baht or $2.9 to $14.6 million. Current law requires government to obtain a court order to block websites. This is most often accomplished by rubber-stamp orders. The new censorship plan would illegally block websites without court order.

Can any country afford such measures to censor free expression?

Would this money not be better spent on amazing Thailand's amazing social crises, such as peace, justice and reconciliation in the South, or even Internet education?

Thailand's prime minister deposed by fiat had plans to block 800,000 websites here. His legacy in the current government claims to block “only 2,300″ sites, emphasising censorship of sites critical of Thailand's monarchy with plans to block a further 400. A video insulting the Thai King resulted in a seven-month ban on YouTube by the coup government. This ban resulted in dozens of copycat videos.

Google cooperated with the Thai government's requests in secret, creating geolocational blocking; when users attempt to access a blocked video, a message states, “This video is not available in your country,” and occurs along with government redirection by transparent proxy. Much of the Internet censorship is directed at the dozens of videos satirising, criticising, insulting, demeaning, defaming or merely commenting on Thailand's monarchy, particularly the prolific and irreverent StopLeseMajeste YouTube channel.

There are now wholesale accusations of lèse majesté in Thailand with each faction claiming to act for the protection of the monarchy. Two webboard forum posters were arrested under the cybercrime law for their comments about the monarchy after being tracked by their IP address. At the time of King Bhumibol's 60th anniversary celebrations, there were more than 60 persons under charges of lèse majesté. Currently there are at least 34 charged but this figure is misleading as accusations of lèse majesté have resulted in numerous bans of critical media, including books, film, television, radio and websites.

The King himself has invited criticism but Thai people love their King but never listen to his words. Lèse majesté charges always result from petty bureaucrats and policemen.

Governments believe they can censor free speech with impunity. VPN proves they cannot.

HotSpot Shield(Mac and Windows)

AlwaysVPN (Mac, Windows, Linux)

Social VPN (Windows, Linux)

By virtue of our long-standing campaign against all censorship, in Thailand, and everywhere else, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) is looked upon to comment sensibly upon the sentencing of Australian novelist and academic, Harry Nicolaides, for lèse majesté. His sentence was six years, merely reduced to three by virtue of his guilty plea, which is common to Thai courts.

This single case has caused more comments to FACT website than ever before. When Thais are arrested for lèse majesté, the world community stands aloof.

Freedom of expression comes with responsibility to the wider virtual, and human, community. FACT will never tolerate insult (some conservatives might say defamation) to any individual be they Royal or commoner. We're all in this together. Although public figures in every country must accept a wider latitude in criticism, insult, gossip and slander should never be tolerated.

Therefore, for the first time, we have felt obligated to edit comments to FACTsite, primarily due to profanity but also due to direct defamation. No one, be they King or commoner, deserves such brainless vitriol.

FACTsite is a forum for readers to discuss all censorship issues. It is not a playground for people to hurl insults. Such insults only stifle free discussion and waste everyone's time.

Thai Monarchy 101

Many of FACT's foreign readers have little understanding of the complex realities of Thai existence. We have no doubt whatsoever that His Majesty King Bhumibol is a good person who has tread a treacherous political landscape for 60 years. The monarchy has prospered under King Bhumibol with a following among Thais which grew exponentially until our situation became the cult of Royalty which exists today.

There was a long hiatus in Thai royalty when Rama VII abdicated in 1935 after Thailand was reinvented as a Constitutional monarchy. This left Thailand without a monarch during the Japanese occupation. King Bhumibol's elder brother, King Ananda Mahidol, took the throne in 1946 after growing up abroad, to the great joy of Thai people.

Conspiracy theories abound, the subject of many books banned in Thailand, but King Ananda was found dead of a gunshot wound and his younger brother, King Bhumibol, was crowned Rama XIX. One premise of the title of The King Never Smiles by Paul M. Handley is that King Bhumibol never really recovered from the pointless death of his beloved elder brother.

Rama VIII's death was particularly pointless because this 20-year old king, raised abroad, had no real power or even influence. In fact, Thai people were really just getting used to the idea of having a king again. All facts point that Thais were thirsty for a monarch, be he Constitutional figurehead or real leader.

King Bhumibol, Rama XIX

King Bhumibol has been both symbol and leader with great finesse. Like any leader he has had to make difficult, fearless political decisions. That a cult of Royalty has grown around him has nothing to do with Bhumibol the King or the man himself.

Some of us in Thailand may not like some of the choices our King has made but that is true of any leader in any country. King Bhumibol is not in any way responsible for the lèse majesté cancer which blights our nation. The Royal cult and its position of attempting to crush all dissent through censorship is not Bhumibol's choice. In fact, the King is famously quoted as inviting the criticism of his people, saying that any less would mean he is less than human.

The Thai elite, in particular, Thai government bureaucrats, love the King as symbol but never listen to his meaning.

In a word, it's all about money. Many Thais have sought to promote their own prosperity by appearing close to the monarchy. This is simply a craven, greedy culture of appearing more Royal-than-thou. After all, who would not wish to appear friends with the world's richest Royal? Some critics have opined that the cult of monarchy was created to be a self-perpetuating money machine. So what?

In 1974, King Bhumibol took the unprecedented step of seeking a change in the Thai Constitution to declare his eldest daughter Crown Princess. The Rama lineage now includes daughters as well as sons.

Lèse majesté and censorship

What is curious to us is that lèse majesté only consists of opinions expressed in public. Speeches, writing and even quotations for a general audience are all considered lèse majesté. Our observation is that Thais are more distressed if these comments are in English; comments in Thai, if expressed responsibly, are far more tolerated. Believe me, we in Thailand talk about all these issues in private, among our family, colleagues, peers and even students all the time and no one finds it disrespectful.

What we at FACT find incredible is that Thai government thinks there are at least 2,700 people in the world who care enough to defame the Thai monarchy. This figure consists of the 2,300 websites our ICT ministry claims to block, by court order as required by Thai law, plus the 400 further websites it seeks to block. Really, nearly 3,000 people give a damn about Thai monarchy? The Thai justice minister places the figure at 10,000. Patently absurd!

We are being played for patsies. At the time of King Bhumibol's 60th anniversary celebrations, Thai police were quoted as saying 60 lèse majesté cases were pending. Today, we know of at least 32 lèse majesté cases and we suspect that is just the tip of the censorship iceberg. Many of these “perps” wish to remain anonymous due to the enormous social stigma of such allegations in Thailand.

Thailand was once again brought to world attention when yellow-shirted thugs shut down Bangkok's international airport. They wore yellow shirts because the King was born on a Monday and the colour for that day is yellow. This had been going on for a year before the 60th celebrations, at least every Monday, a huge yellow industry had been created and most of us had grown pretty tired of yellow well before the mob.

The mob calls itself the People's Alliance for Democracy. Its supporters' core belief is that stupid people always vote for the wrong guy so we should disenfranchise stupid people and only allow the educated elite (read: rich) to vote. (That would give those bean counters a lot less work!)

Their equally thuggish counterparts are the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship. They find it undemocratic that our hugely-elected prime minister was deposed by military coup d'etat in 2006. Of course, he must have been elected by stupid people!

Note that the common element here is “democracy”! Not only do both sides claim to be fighting to restore “democracy” (whatever that is) to Thailand but both sides claim to be doing so to defend the monarchy.

We pose a crucial question: Does King Bhumibol need our defence? Commonly, a leader needs support from a position of weakness and King is indisputedly a very strong leader.

Harry Nicolaides

So why did Thai government seek to pursue its lèse majesté case against Harry Nicolaides? They did it to appear tough, to declare open war on any commentary surrounding the monarchy and to create a climate of fear in Thailand in which censorship would be accepted as necessary.

Harry's case may not be about a need to protect our King. It is far more likely that government is paving the way to protect the next king, or queen, Rama X, who will be a completely untried and untested monarch when they succeed the throne.

Many people have criticised King Bhumibol for not speaking out. After all, he could stop this lèse majesté insanity with a few words. But the King in 60 years has never given direct advice to his people although he has intervened in several crisis situations. Our King simply does not think that it is the role of a Constitutional monarch to manage the country. He does not think it fruitful to be involved in the pettiness of Thai politics. We can accept the King's role as it is.

Verisimilitude

The Harry Nicolaides case raises vital issues, procedurally, legally and in Thai society. Was Harry arrested because he wrote in English and therefore his self-published expat bargirl novel of 50 paid-for vanity copies of which seven (we repeat, seven) copies were actually sold, represented a clear and present danger to the Thai monarchy from the world community?

Seven copies sold is being generous: Harry's book, Verisimilitude, actually has an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), the identifier for all books published since 1966. The book also bears the imprimatur, “Printed in Thailand”.

All ISBNs are attached to publishing houses, even one-time wonders; so far, we have been unable to find the numerical prefix relating to any Thai publisher. As to “Printed in Thailand”: despite great investigation, we have been unable to uncover the printing house responsible for this largely-unedited novel.

Let's repeat that, too: a novel. As in, work of fiction. Other than cleverly (but thinly)-disguised reminiscences of Harry's fascination about the way pay-for-play sex works in Thailand and his all-too-human fascination with the birds-and-the-bees of Thai interrelationships, there is (drumroll, pregnant pause) one paragraph, precisely 103 words (if one can count “a”, “and” and “the”) of commentary regarding a fictional crown prince. One paragraph of 226 pages, with no further explanations. (The offending paragraph may be read here).

Now, because Harry's novel is set in Thailand, the reader might presume this fiction refers to our crown prince. But…wait a minute: The law is very precise as to proof and the fat lady has most definitely not even started singing on this one!

The charges against Harry are the supposition that his paragraph refers to a real person. Where Harry really went wrong were that he thought he understood Thai values, culture and sensibilities after short stints teaching at two Thai universities. Most Thais don't even understand Thailand!

Verisimilitude is not banned in Thailand

Furthermore, ever since Harry's arrest, we've been trying to get hold of a copy of Versimilitude. Harry's friends, family and lawyer couldn't get us one. Finally, we were pointed to a copy on public shelves at Thailand's National Library where it remains today. Thailand's Printing Act is very specific in regards banned books. They must be presented to Parliament and listed in the Royal Gazette. As this has not (yet) occurred, Verisimilitude is not a banned book.

Let us charitably say that Harry was a bit infatuated by authorship. In Thailand, as in every country subscribing to international copyright conventions, a publisher is required to submit two copies of a printed work to the national library.

However, that just wasn't good enough for Harry. He submitted copies to the Royal household, the Ministry of Culture and the Foreign Ministry. Eventually, some bureaucrat must have found themselves bored enough to read Harry's book. Which is where Harry's troubles started. Who in Thai government had an agenda?

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) committed itself to posting Harry's book, Verisimilitude, online at FACTsite in advance of his trial. However, Harry's lawyer requested we not do so.

While we waited on this issue and received literally hundreds of requests for the book, we realised that making Verisimilitude available was simply not the point. The point is its censorship and that every person has the basic human right to free expression.

Read Verisimilitude for yourself

Verisimilitude will be posted to FACT's Banned Books Project: Celsius 233 at Internet Archive with mirror sites at six universities if you want to wait.

Meanwhile, the book is available here:

http://media.portland.indymedia.org/media/2009/01/385164.pdf and here http://psydj.tv/text/verisimilitude-harry-nicolaides.pdf and here http://www.final4ever.ws/showthread.php?p=649131

Further references may be found on Wikileaks.

Harry has been quoted numerous times about how hard he's doing in Thai gaols, fifty men to a cell, and so forth. Yep, Harry, that's what gaol is all about. Find yourself in there, you're a smart guy, start to work the system to make it better for everybody and, by so doing, by offering up that compassion, also make it better for yourself. Our sympathies lie in the fact that it must not be easy explaining yourself, that you love the King, to 3000 father-rapers who all say they're not guilty.

So Harry, or perhaps his family, picked an Australian SC, Senior Counsel, to “defend” his case. It didn't matter that Mark Dean knew absolutely nothing about Thai law or Thai sensibilities or that Thai courts are conducted in Thai-duh! Of course, Harry had a Thai counterpart but Mark Dean made all Harry's decisions. Mark Dean's decision to plead Harry guilty was exactly the same decision a for-profit lawyer would have made in convict Australia: “C'mon, just plead guilty and the judge'll go easier on you.”

We all know that, in any country, that's simply not true. The judges simply start at a higher number and the prisoner serves the same. Justice is served, cold and bland, thank you very much, next case.

Of course, in Harry's case, the eyes of the world had already been focussed on Thailand because of our crazy political conflicts. So the international press was hanging on Harry's decision, to make Harry news, no matter what happened. Do we care how we look to the rest of the world?

What is lèse majesté law?

There is not really a legally-defined lèse majesté law in Thailand. lèse majesté falls under several sections of the Thai criminal code, principally Article 112. However, Article 112 was never intended to cover the printed word. It covers speech. That's not what our Harry was charged with.

If one defames, insults, etc., the Thai monarchy on the Internet, for example, there are provisions for one's arrest under the military-promulgated Computer-Related Crimes Act 2007. This cybercrime law's data retention provisions enable Thai police to hunt you down from your IP address.

Similarly, Printing Acts were brought into force both in 1941 and 2007. The 1941 act initially provided for the detention of offenders but this act was later amended so that the stipulation was that all copies of an offending work and its printing plates (trickier in the 21st century) be seized. After some period of unsuccessful appeal, the publications were to be destroyed. The 2007 Printing Act retained those provisions.

There is no provision in Thai law for the arrest and detention of an author or publisher. So Harry was wrongfully charged. Thai law specifies that no one may impugn a Thai court judgement. But the judges were considering Harry's case under the wrong law.

Thai academic Giles Ungphakorn is similarly wrongly charged over his book, A Coup for the Rich, which is still widely available on the Internet.

The book in English may be downloaded here and in Thai, English and French here.

The paragraphs with with Ajarn Giles has been charged may be found in English here.

Most books, including Verisimilitude and A Coup for the Rich, develop little following until they are banned. Similarly, websites never become popular until they are blocked. Then everybody wants to read them! Before the censorship, who would even know about them or even stumble across them.

The censors’ plans always backfire but they keep banning books and blocking websites over and over again acting, in effect, like an advertising agency for banned content! (Maybe they’re some of the people should not be allowed to vote!) We hope Harry will sell a lot of copies on his release!

Harry was a pawn in their game. Thai government is not going to find Thai activists such pushovers. Many so accused will turn and fight.

And Harry pled guilty. Pleading guilty in any country means that an accused forgoes their innate human right to presumption of innocence.

Harry pled guilty to a crime he did not commit under Thai law.

Harry's arrest and sentence are about the structure of Thai power politics and the financial security of those who think government censorship works just fine for them. But nothing to do with justice.

FACT’s position statement

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) demands the repeal of lèse majesté law, in the Criminal Code, in the Computer-Related Crimes Act and in the Printing Act. lèse majesté law does not serve Thai society and is only used by self-serving bureaucrats for political ends. FACT demands the unconditional release of all Thailand’s lèse majesté prisoners now.

Harry Nicolaides is Thailand’s latest political prisoner. Free Harry NOW!

CJ Hinke

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

http://facthai.wordpress.com

email. facthai@gmail.com

Readers may also wish to look to other sites supporting Harry:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14684343@N00/3210354556/

http://hocuslocus.blogspot.com/2009/01/speak-up.html

According to news reports, the Communications Ministry has received more than 1,000 complaints on websites which are considered offensive to the royal family. Thailand, a constitutional monarchy, has severe lese majeste laws that have custodial sentences of between 3 to 15 years for whoever “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the Regent”. However, actual prosecutions are said to be rare.

Thailand is said to be already be blocking websites, although this is executed on a case-to-case basis by Internet service providers with reference to a blacklist furnished to them by the authorities. Furthermore, a Computer Crime Act, implemented last year, gives Thai police the power to enforce censorship of the Internet, and provides penalties for circumventing the provisions of the legislation.

However, the planned gateway to monitor and block online anti-monarchy sentiments will also do the same with pornographic or terrorism-related sites, according to Communications Minister Mun Patanotai. The project has an allocation of between 100 million and 500 million baht ($2.9 million and $14.6 million).

Mun was reported to have said that his ministry will also discuss the issue with intelligence units and state telecommunications companies. He also added that more than 80% of the offending websites are based outside Thailand.

Thailand’s Official Censor never got that far but he did manage to block 17,793 sites before a general election. In addition the Royal Thai Police claim to block a further 32,500. The junta obviously considered the Internet a dangerous place as its ICT Ministry introduced a Computer-Related Crimes Act to the military-appointed parliament as its first law.

The first draft of this cybercrime law included the death penalty, though, on final passage, the strictures were reduced to “only” 20 years for some computer crimes.
Censorship in Thailand has always been accomplished by government in secret. The number of websites blocked, its blocklists and the methods it uses to block have never been disclosed to the Thai public which pays for it.

However, the new cybercrime law required that the government seek a court order before blocking. However, since passage of the law, Web censorship has become far murkier, with Thailand’s 100 ISPs blocking blocking independently in order to avoid being criminalised under the law for illegal content transiting their servers and no court orders have been requested.

Now ISPs are required to keep all Internet traffic logs for 90 days. Two cyberdissidents have already been arrested under the new law tracked by their IP addresses for comments they made on Thailand’s monarchy to public Web discussion boards.
Most famously, Thailand’s official censor blocked YouTube for seven months in 2007 for sophomoric anti-monarchy videos posted to the site. The ICT Ministry blocked not only YouTube’s domain but 75 separate YouTube URLs before securing Google’s cooperation, in secret, to implement geolocational blocking at Thai government’s recommendation.

The difference between Internet censorship in Thailand and that in the Middle East, Myanmar and China is that Thailand is famously a Constitutional monarchy. We claim to be a democracy but operate government-in-secret, above the law.

Make no mistake: Internet censorship is illegal in Thailand under at least 11 articles of the 1997 Constitution, by decree of the lawmakers’ Council of State and by order of the Administrative Court. Has this stopped the censors? Didn’t even slow them now.
The 2007 YouTube block, hundreds of links to an unauthorised biography of King Bhumipol (The King Never Smiles, published by Yale University Press), anticoup Websites, sites in support of our deposed prime minister and voices from Thailand’s restive Southern provinces under the military junta were merely a harbinger of censorship to follow.

Now Thailand’s newly-elected government and its new ICT Minister are using lèse majesté as its ongoing excuse to block freedom of opinion and expression by Thais on issues vital to our society.

The past few weeks have seen YouTube blocked again as well as Prachatai, Thailand’s foremost independent news portal and Same Sky, a journal of social criticism. Both sites have popular public Web discussion boards. In the past, both sites have been warned by MICT to self-censor “sensitive” public comments.

At about 00.00 of 15 May 2008, internet users of TOT in the North, Northeast and South reported that their attempts to access “Prachatai” were blocked, and the following message is shown on the [above] screen (source: Prachatai.com)

However, both were closed this week without court order by the ICT Minister who was interviewed on May 14 on the Khao Den Praden Ron radio news programme. His comments reveal that, not only was he completely aware he was acting above the law, but that suggestion for the censorship came from those higher up in Thai government.

Quoting the Minister: “[Pursuing legal action] will…become a big scandal. We’d better suppress the news. Someone higher than me is of this opinion”. This means, of course, that the rose-apple is rotten to its core and that Thai bureaucrats engage in criminal acts with impunity.

Recently, the lèse majesté issue has been in the forefront of public discussion due to the arrests of Chotisak Onsoong and Chutima Penpak on several lèse majesté charges which could result in a minimum of 15 years in prison. They had refused to stand in respect for the Royal anthem at a cinema.

But Chotisak and Chutima are the tip of the iceberg; scores of lèse majesté hang over many from respected academics to our former prime minister to serving government ministers to a BBC reporter. Any person is free to charge another with lèse majesté and these laws have historically been used as a tool for tarnishing political rivals.

We must make very clear that, juvenile YouTube videos notwithstanding, Thailand’s King Bhumibol is not behind any lèse majesté charges. The King has publicly invited criticism and has a long tradition of pardoning those sentenced for lèse majesté.

This vendetta against Thai people is being conducted by Thai bureaucrats as an excuse for repression of free speech and to create a climate of fear in which all of us will be afraid to voice any opinions. They are presuming to speak for the King which is a primary definition of lèse majesté.
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) has petitioned the National Human Rights Commission on November 15, 2006 and Thailand’s freedom of information body, the Official Information Commission, on March 23, 2007, over Internet censorship, both to no definitive result.

FACT has also made available a CD of circumvention tools “Beat the Censors - Unblock ICT!” for download. Using such tools makes Internet censorship obsolete.
FACT’s petition (also here) against all censorship is still active and I urge all readers to sign it in our support. Without your help, we will never have free speech.

The canary in the coal mine and the dove of peace are both dying in Thailand. Censorship is the barometer of freedom and it is being used wholesale to bludgeon the public into submission.

The editor of Same Sky told the daily web newspaper Prachatai that “the ICT forced the host server to stop hosting his website, otherwise the company would not be able to access its servers to continue providing a service to other websites.“

According to Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) the closure of Fah Diew Kan is illegal under Thailand’s new Computer-Related Crimes Act. “All such censorship must occur solely by court order and no application was made for one. Court application must be preceded by a letter of inquiry, not immediate closure.“