The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ongoing legal harassment of BBC correspondent Jonathan Head. Police Lt. Col. Wattanasak Mungkandee filed a third criminal complaint this year against Head on December 23, alleging he had insulted the Thai monarchy in his reporting.

The latest charges are related to a December 3 article in which Head speculated that the royal palace and figures close to the palace may have provided tacit backing to anti-government protest group the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which laid siege to Bangkok's main international and domestic airports from November 26 to December 3.

Thai law allows any citizen to bring complaints against anyone they believe has insulted the country's monarchy. Wattanasak has brought all three complaints against Head in his personal capacity rather than as a senior ranking police official, according to Head. Violations of lese majeste laws are a criminal offense in Thailand, punishable by three to 15 years imprisonment.

It is time for prosecutors and investigators in Thailand to immediately drop these outrageous and punitive charges against our colleague Jonathan Head, said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator: Head's reporting has raised important questions about Thailand's deteriorating political situation and he should be allowed to report without fear of official reprisals.

Local and foreign journalists have been under attack this year as a political crisis led to three changes of government in as many months. Head, a well-respected figure in Thai journalism has specifically been targeted. The first complaint against Head was filed on April 9, and was related to comments the reporter made in December 2007 while moderating another event at the FCCT titled Coup, Capital, and Crown. The discussion touched on the monarchy's role in Thai society in light of the 2006 military coup. The second complaint against Head, filed on May 30, included charges that his reporting over a two-year period had intended to criticize the monarchy several times and that his writings have damaged and insulted the reputation of the monarchy, according to an English-language translation of the charges obtained by CPJ.

The May 30 complaint against Head cited 11 different articles from the BBC's Web site, several of which he did not author. Thai authorities have in recent months cracked down on hundreds of Web sites for posting materials considered offensive to the monarchy. Both the complaints are still pending.

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) has just received secret blocklists leaked from Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology.

Under conditions imposed by the Computer-Related Crimes Act 2007, no website may be legally blocked without a court order. In fact, this pesky legal stipulation is not rigorously adhered to and both the Royal Thai Police and the more than 100 Thai ISPs typically block as they wish.

However, the leaked blocklists totalling 1300 sites blocked between June and December 2008 are accompanied by court orders detailing applications of the Ministry which authorise most of the websites censored. The court orders to ISPs cite reasons of lese majeste and national security..

Court orders are not customarily sealed from public view. In fact, maintaining such documents via an open judicial process as a matter of public record is a crucial democratic cornerstone.

Every site requested for blocking has the stated reason of lese majeste, however, it is obvious that many sites were blocked for quite different reasons. It would appear, in fact, that the court did not examine each site before issuing its order but instead relied on MICT’s judgement.

Although we have not yet found the opportunity to examine each website censored, as in the past, an eclectic mix of censorship has been revealed resulting in overblocking of many benign webpages.

Along with the obligatory YouTube videos and their mirror sites alleged to be lese majeste in Thailand, numerous blocks to Thai webboard pages, particularly at popular discussion sites, Prachatai (45 separate pages) and Same Sky (56 separate pages). Also blocked are weblogs referencing Paul Handley’s unauthorised Biography of Thailand’s King, The King Never Smiles, and its translation into Thai along with Thai Wikipedia entries.

The webpages of respected Thai Buddhist social critic, Sulak Sivaraksa who is currently on bail for his fourth accusation of lese majeste, and Matthew Hunt, respected Thai journalist, anticensorship activist and FACT signer, are also blocked as are pages of the respected international newsmagazine, The Economist.

A total of 860 YouTube videos have been blocked, far in excess of the blocking conducted by The Official Censor of the Military Coup; a further 200 pages mirroring those videos are also blocked.

Curiously, bum fight movies, Hillary Clinton’s campaign videos, and 24 Charlie Chaplin videos have also been blocked, perhaps due to their Web location at Clown-Ministry.

Update: 2300 Total

31s December 2008. See article from iht.com

The Thai government has blocked more than 2,300 Web sites over the past year, often for criticising the constitutional monarchy political system, a senior official said.

The sites, more than 90% of which were registered abroad, were also blocked for pornographic content and supposedly threatening national security, said Sue Lo-uthai, an official at the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology: Most of the cases are lese majeste ones which have rapidly increased this year. I personally believe that the reason behind the increase is the political conflict in Thailand.

This week's edition of the Economist magazine has been banned in Thailand for articles critical of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, bookstore staff said, although it was unclear who ordered the ban.

Neither the police, Foreign Ministry nor Culture Ministry - home to the official censor - said they knew of a formal ban on the magazine, which acknowledged in the article that many Thais would 'squirm' at its breaching of the taboo on discussion of the king's role in politics.

Free speech activist CJ Hinke, who runs Freedom Against Censorship Thailand, said the most likely explanation was distributors deciding themselves not to sell the edition, which questioned the palace's official position above politics.

This is one of those 'cultural harmony' bans, where the book distributors and stores take it on themselves not to distribute, Hinke said.

The government's concern, as usual, is all about saving face. Thais do not want their dirty laundry aired in foreign languages overseas. They don't want foreigners discussing Thai issues and Thai problems, he said.

The two articles in question remained freely available via Thai Internet servers four days after first being posted.

Update: Official Complaint

13th December 2008. See article from nationmultimedia.com

Ministry spokesman Director General Tharit Charungvat has sent a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, expressing his concern and disappointment over the contents of two articles, A right royal mess and The king and them published in the 6-12 December 2008 issue.

In the letter, Tharit also pointed out and clarified the inaccuracies in the articles and calling for measures to rectify the situation.

Tharit concludes: By neglecting facts and simple logics like these, your articles blatantly make wrongful accusations regarding the Thai King and inexcusably offend Thais. They deserve our protest in strongest terms.

Harry Nicolaides is languishing in Bangkok Remand Centre, yet to face trial, over a few sentences in an unread novel.

On August 31 this year, Nicolaides was at Bangkok airport waiting to board a flight to Melbourne when he was detained by Thai police on charges of lese majeste, the crime of insulting the monarchy. The arrest warrant alleged Nicolaides had insulted the Thai royal family in his second book, Verisimilitude, a novel Nicolaides self-published in Thailand in 2005.

For the past 82 days, Nicolaides has been held at the Bangkok Remand Prison, where he shares one toilet with up to 60 other prisoners, including men accused of violent and sexual crimes. He was only formally charged yesterday.

He has retracted the book and publicly apologised to the royal family and the Thai people for any offence caused by his reckless choice of words, but bail has been denied three times.

Few novels as commercially unsuccessful as Verisimilitude — only seven copies were sold — can have caused so much strife for their authors. The alleged offence is believed to concern three sentences in the book in which the narrator refers to rumours concerning the romantic life of an unspecified crown prince.

It is simply one of the most bizarre cases I’ve ever come across, says Arnold Zable, author and president of the Melbourne branch of International PEN, an organisation that campaigns on behalf of writers in detention around the world.

Nicolaides’ case is more unusual than the average unusual case, says Dr David Streckfuss, a historian from the University of Wisconsin who lives in Thailand and specialises in the country’s lese majeste laws: It’s not clear that any Thai ever read the book in the first place.

When he published Verisimilitude three years ago, Nicolaides took the precaution of sending his book to the National Library, the Thai Ministry of Culture, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of the Royal Household to check that its contents were acceptable. He received no response. When his book was released no one reviewed it and hardly anyone read it. Only 50 copies were printed. There was nothing to suggest that the novel, which was only published in English, hadn’t sunk directly into deep obscurity.

But Thai authorities issued a warrant for Nicolaides’ arrest on March 17 this year. He was not told he was under investigation. Between March and August, Nicolaides left and re-entered Thailand five times with no sign of trouble. When he was pulled aside by police at passport control on the night of August 31 he was, his brother, Forde Nicolaides, says, alarmed. When Australian embassy staff arrived and explained the allegations, he was absolutely astonished.

Update: Bail Refused Again

11th December 2008. See article from prachatai.com

Reporters Without Borders repeated its call for the release of Australian author Harry Nicolaides, facing a charge of the crime of lese-majesty, after he was yesterday refused bail by the Bangkok criminal court for the fourth time.

Nicolaides, aged 41, who was formally charged on 21 November 2008, has been held at the capital’s remand prison since 31 August. The charge relates to his book, Verisimilitude, which came out in 2005 in which he referred to the way an unamed Crown Prince treated one of his mistresses. Only 50 copies were ever printed.

A group of MPs from the opposition Democrat Party have proposed a draft legislation that would penalise people making defamatory remarks or contemptuous tones against the monarchy on the Internet or via computers.

The proposed law would also punish those who wrongly accuse or attempt to frame up others of such a wrongdoing.

Under the proposed law, anyone putting inaccurate content about the monarchy on the Internet or a computer system faces a jail term of between three to 20 years or a fine ranging from Bt200,000 (£3800) to Bt800,000 (£15,400).

Those uploading defamatory or contemptuous content about the monarchy face an imprisonment of five to 20 years or a fine of between Bt300,000 to Bt800,000.

The law will also punish anyone falsely accusing others of such wrongdoings, with imprisonment of three to 20 years and a fine ranging from Bt200,000 to Bt800,000.

The law also seeks to punish people hiring others to do the job for them, the Internet service provider or computer system administrator who fails to cooperate, as well as repeat offenders.

Based on article from bangkokpost.com

Critics have blasted the Democrat proposal.

Boonsong Chaisinghananon, a Silapakorn University philosophy lecturer, said the amendments were more likely to serve or be exploited by the Democrats and the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has often accused others of insulting the monarchy.

The proposers rejected a political movitation behind the amendments and said the ICT minister appoint military personnel to help track internet violators.

The Information and Communications Technology Ministry is to introduce an internet gateway system to block websites containing content Thailand doesn't like. ICT Minister Mun Patanotai will also hold a meeting with webmasters today to discuss measures to suppress lese majeste material.

The gateway system, which could cost between 100 and 500 million baht, could will be used to block websites considered inappropriate, such as those of terrorist groups or selling pornography.

However, the ministry will focus first on websites with content deemed insulting to the Thai monarchy, Mun said. Ministry officials are looking into about a thousand websites, he said. Mun said the ministry has been working with the National Intelligence Agency and the police in cracking down on anti-royal sites.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said he has assigned relevant agencies, particularly the ICT Ministry, to take strong action against offenders.

Special Branch Police are monitoring five community radio stations that are also airing political content that could be considered lese majeste, a source said.

Ayutthaya Governor Preecha Kamolbut has ordered authorities to monitor all provincial community radio and cable TV stations around the clock.

The police ordered officers to take immediate action against offenders without waiting for complaints.

The Thai government is under pressure to stop a scheduled appearance by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on a political talk show on its TV station next Saturday.

Critics believe Thaksin's comments could be divisive and encourage a confrontation on the streets. They want the government to drop plans by state-owned broadcaster NBT to air the talk show, which will be broadcast from the stage at a political rally at Rajamangala National Stadium in Hua Mark.

Thaksin plans to phone the show Kwam Jing Wan Nee (The Truth Today) from London. The programme is a regular weekly fixture on NBT, which on Nov 1 will move to the Rajamangala stadium to cover a rally by red-shirted, pro-government UDD activists.

Academics and media advocates say Thaksin may try to fan political divisions by criticising his conviction in court this week. Thaksin told the global media on Thursday that his conviction was politically motivated.

In a letter to the international media, Thaksin said he was being persecuted by privileged elites who believe in anything but democracy. I am a threat to them because I represent the principle of liberal democracy.

Update: Thaksin Rings Off

Based on article from bangkokpost.com

The United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) has abruptly cancelled a plan to broadcast a speech by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra live on television next Saturday.

People Power party member Jatuporn Promphan did not explain the change in plan, saying only that the political talk show Kwam Jing Wan Nee (The Truth Today) would not on air on Saturday on state-owned NBT, formerly Channel 11.

Update: Calm

Based on article from bangkokpost.com

Thaksin spoke for 10 minutes to tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered at the Rajamangala National Stadium on Saturday, at a rally organised by the pro-government United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD).

In one of the most controversial parts of his speech, he said: No one can bring me home apart from royal kindness or the power of the people.

He also talked about the injustice in Thailand which he said had caused him suffering.

Supreme Commander Songkitti Chakkrabat said he needed to check the full details of Thaksin's address.

The armed forces will not stand idle if Thaksin's remarks are found to have offended the royal institution, Gen Songkitti said.

Udomdej Krairit, president of the Lawyers Council, said the council has made a record of Thaksin's remarks during the political talk show to see if his words had tarnished the reputation of the judiciary.

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Thai authorities to launch an immediate investigation into the shooting death of Jaruek Rangcharoen, a journalist with the daily Thai-language newspaper Matichon.

Jaruek was shot and killed on September 27 in a market in the Don Chedi district of Thailand’s western Suphanburi province, according to the Thai Journalists Association, a local press freedom advocacy group.

The association said in a statement that the murder was believed to be linked to Jaruek’s reporting on corruption issues in a local administrative organization, and that he had previously expressed his fear to provincial Governor Somsak Phurisrisak that people were plotting against him.

Local police have not yet commented publicly on the case. CPJ continues to investigate to determine if Jaruek’s murder was clearly related to his work as a journalist.

The murder of Jaruek Rangcharoen is another disturbing indicator of the disintegration of law and order and protection of press freedom in Thailand’s provincial areas, said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator: We call upon the relevant national Thai authorities to swiftly bring the perpetrators in this case to justice.

Jaruek is the third Thai journalist to be killed in the past two months. Atiwat Chaiyanurat, also a reporter with Matichon, was shot to death in his home on August 1 in the southern Thai province of Nakorn Sri Thammarat. Shortly before his death, he had reported on local corruption and a police manhunt for an alleged assassin who had arrived in the area in the run-up to a local election.

Chalee Boonsawat, a reporter with the country’s largest Thai-language daily, Thai Rath, was killed on August 21 while covering an explosion in Thailand’s violence-plagued southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia, where Muslim insurgents and government forces have been locked in a violent struggle over autonomy issues since 2004.

The movie Children of the Dark has been disqualified from being screened at the Bangkok International Film Festival.

A month ago, film selectors of the film festival working under no influence from the main sponsor, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), selected Children of the Dark for the line-up. The film is Japanese, and tells the story of a journalist and an activist who arrive in Bangkok and try to help young Thai boys and girls from a ring of child prostitution.

Naturally, the movie makes it clear that there are children being forced into the sex trade here, though in the end, it points the accusing finger at foreigners, Japanese and Western, who prey on the weaknesses of a less developed society and help perpetuate this contemptible practice.

In early 2007, the Japanese producer of the film went through the proper channels by applying for permission to shoot in Bangkok. After reading the script, the Thailand Film Office, the agency supervising foreign film shoots, denied the permit on grounds it contained unsavoury scenes that are difficult to stomach. Yet by some sort of Japanese black magic, Children of the Dark was shot in Thailand anyway.

When the Film Office learned the movie they'd denied a permit for would be screening here, they notified the TAT and the Ministry of Culture. After a deliberation, the festival organisers decided to axe the movie from the line-up because it is, according to them, inappropriate.

The Thai public is never made aware of the extent of Internet censorship because the ICT ministry operates as secret government.

Recently, MICT announced that it had been blocking 1,200 websites.

No article we've seen points out that the further 400 sites recently blocked by court order on application of MICT are in addition to the original 1,200.

If these figures can be called accurate, MICT is responsible for blocking at least 1,600 websites.

The court order was never made public because, of course, MICT would then have to reveal exactly which sites were being blocked and the reasons for so doing.

The Thai Culture Ministry has finally finished drafting film rating regulations for all movies before they are released in theatres. The regulations will be forwarded to the National Film and Video Committee and the cabinet for approval. They are expected to be put into force next month.

Under the proposed film rating system, movies will be grouped by age. Classifying audiences will give film directors the opportunity to fully express their creativity, said Somchai Seanglai, ministry deputy permanent secretary.

Since films will only be screened before the appropriate age group, movies will no longer be cut or censored, he added.

Once the regulations come into effect, movie theatre operators will have to inform their customers about a film's rating, Somchai  said: And if staff allow in people who are not supposed to see a movie, the operator will face at least a one-year jail term or be fined up to 100,000 baht [£1650], or both.

The ratings regulation will also be applied to DVDs and VCDs, which will display the rating on their packaging.

The draft of the film rating regulation divides movies into seven categories, including violence-free movies, movies that should be promoted to all audiences, movies for people with a minimum age of 13, 15, 18 or 20, and films that are banned for containing content deemed insulting to the monarchy, national security and moral decency.

Video game repression has surged in Thailand following last month's killing of a taxi driver by a 19-year-old man who told police he was re-enacting Grand Theft Auto.

Jesada Chandraprasert  who pens Cnet's Technology Thailand blog, reports that five games have been officially banned by the Ministry of Culture:

• Hitman
• 300
• Killer Seven
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Fifty Cent: Bullet Proof

In a story broken by GamePolitics, Thailand stole its list of "dangerous" games from an outdated list offered by Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy during the 2007 holiday season. The five banned games constitute half of the list.

Their official press release at the Government's Web site clearly states that they see gaming as a problem which is obsessive and has an (adverse) effect on the behavior of children and teens....

Chandraprasert also reports on a recent government and law enforcement conference which was held to discuss the video game issue - with ominous overtones:

The conference, held at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center on August 21, had an audience of over 1,500 people, mostly public officials and the police. The main focus of this conference was to find solutions to unregistered gaming stores (basically an Internet cafe like a setup where people can go in and game all day long on computers, not the traditional arcade) and "dangerous games". Their aim is to eliminate the "dangers" associated with said problem within 90 days of the conference.

An Australian writer has been arrested in Thailand and faces a lese-majeste charge for publishing a novel deemed defamatory to the country's royal family, police and the Australian embassy said.

An embassy official identified the man from Melbourne and police named him as Harry Nicolaides, who was unaware there was an arrest warrant out for him when he tried to fly out from Bangkok to Australia.

An arrest warrant was issued in March for a book he wrote in 2005 deemed defamatory to the crown prince, Police Lieutenant-Colonel Boonlert Kalayanamit told Reuters.

He has been charged with lese-majeste, a crime that can carry a 15-year jail sentence in Thailand, and was being held at a remand prison pending further interviews, Boonlert said.

Nicolaides, a regular visitor to Thailand and briefly a resident, when he taught English and wrote for Australian newspapers, had not been granted bail, police said.

Police identified the novel in question as Verisimilitude, described  as a trenchant commentary on the political and social life of contemporary Thailand.

Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry has sought court orders to shut down about 400 websites and 'advised' ISPs to block 1,200 sites supposedly as a danger to national security or disturbing social order.

ICT minister Mun Patanotai said the department had advised ISPs to immediately block these websites, which it claimed were detected between March and August this year, and had sought court actions against them under article 20 of Thailand's Computer Crime Act.

This move to shut down online dissent follows the Thai authorities' declaration of a state of emergency as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand the government's resignation.

Thai prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, announced sweeping curbs to civil liberties to maintain calm, after which the ICT Ministry said it had detected more than 1,200 websites that violated the Computer Crime Act.

In addition, a Thai court issued three orders to shut down about 400 websites, 344 of which, it claimed, carried material that was supposedly contemptuous of the country's royal family.

The ICT ministry, the Bangkok Post reported, also sought help from the police to bring all the violators to trial.

Polwat Chinno killed taxi driver Kuan Pohkang with his bare fists and knives in a grisly 2am plan to steal the hard-earned money of his victim. The media descended on this story of bloody murder when the killer confessed, but pleaded that a video game made him do it. Authorities took him at his word, issued a hasty ban on exactly 10 games and vaguely promised new restrictions further down the line. Far from showing concern, this reaction emphasised the huge gap between the real technology revolution and what the country's leaders appear to know about it.

First of all, it is most troubling that authorities and the media latched on so quickly and conveniently to the alibi of a confessed, vicious killer.

They were far too quick to accept the word of Mr Polwat. He is an adult who told police he planned and carried out a reprehensible killing for a small amount of money. His claim that the video game Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime sounds more like a novel legal defence than a credible motive. Tens of millions of people around the world play that game - tens of thousands in Bangkok.

Early evening on any given day, the top floors of the city's many shopping malls are filled with youths playing a myriad of computer games - many of them violent.

An earlier ban on this particular violent game would not have saved the murdered driver. More to the point, there is no evidence or reason to believe the ban will save any lives in the future.

The Public Health Ministry quickly assembled a list of Top 10 Violent Games - not by research or reason, but by a quick Googling in which bureaucrats accepted the first hit, an obscure list from a local US politician trying successfully to get his name in the newspapers and his face on the TV news in an election cycle.

Such a ban is also self-defeating, since new games come on the market regularly. In any case, a police ban is only another business hitch to the video pirates and shop owners involved in underground distribution.

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will ask the Culture Ministry to form a panel to rate computer games, following the Aug 8 murder of a taxi driver by a teenage schoolboy.

Yannapol Youngyuen, head of the DSI's bureau of technology and cyber crime, suggested distributors of computer games be asked to help screen game content, saying the planned rating panel would find it very hard to keep pace with new computer games.

'Rating by the ministry has proceeded at a very slow pace. The ministry should study overseas ratings as a guideline and adjust them to suit Thai culture and values,' he said.

Police Colonel Yannapol also said there are many computer games which are more violent than GTA, such as those which focus on cop killing or rape. He maintained, however, that on-line games are not the major cause of teen problems.

Yannapol also  pledged to make a serious effort to suppress illegal on-line games.

Lertchai Kanpai, managing director of Asiasoft, said currently there are 57 games active in the Thai cyberspace. Though all of them passed Microsoft's screening, some are quite violent: A bigger threat, however, is illegal game software which bypasses the violence rating.

From Aug 23, private firms, organisations and government agencies will be required to store all internet traffic data for 90 days so it is available as digital evidence for police. Pol Col Yannapol Youngyuen, commander of the Bureau of Technology and Cyber Crime at the Department of Special Investigation, said the IT Ministry order has no exceptions and will include banks, hotels, schools and internet cafes.

He said digital evidence gathered from computers is useful in tracking those engaged in cyber crime.

Cyber offences, ranging from email forwarding of pornographic pictures to posting libellous messages on forums, are on the rise, Pol Col Yannapol said, but police agencies find it hard to gather the evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice.

He said internet cafes will also be required to collect information to identify computer users, such as ID cards, time of logging in and sites visited. Shops that fail to heed the rules will face fines up to 500,000 baht, he said.

Creators of violent video games should be prosecuted if copycats take their content into real life.

It's high time game makers face the legal consequences of their creations, a top Thai government official says.

This reaction comes in the wake of a brutal slaying of a city taxi driver by a teenager obsessed with blood-and-guts shoot-'em-up game Grand Theft Auto.

When a player copycats a crime he or she sees in the game, the game maker should be prosecuted, says Somchai Jaroen-amnuaysuk, the deputy director of the Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups Office.

Prosecutions will automatically force game makers to act more responsibly, Somchai says.

Dr Somprot Sarakosas, a former spokesman of the Human Security and Social Development Ministry, agrees the government should explore legal avenues against all parties responsible for such violence: At the same time, everyone, especially the Education Ministry, should make children aware that games and real life are two different things.

National Culture Commission chief Preecha Gunteeya says the government has to do something to control violence-packed games, including imposing a rating system. We must regulate gaming cafes, too he says.

The Thailand Department of Special Investigation will host a conference on violent computer games and youths on Thursday, in a bid to find measures to address the issue.

The move follows a brutal murder of a city cabbie by a schoolboy copying Grand Theft Auto. Experts will brainstorm ways to end this kind of behaviour.

No doubt some kneejerk policies will result

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reports that an association of Spanish taxi drivers has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto.

Josep Maria Goñi, secretary general of the Catalan Taxi Federation, has requested that the Spanish government pull GTA titles off the market.

Goñi makes it clear that the Taxi Federation's request is based on the Thailand murder case.

The cabbie spokesman didn't stop at GTA, however, calling for a ban on all games with a high level of violence or which "celebrate" drug trafficking or prostitution.

GameSpot points out: There are no actual missions in GTA IV which require players to rob, stab, or kill a taxi driver...

Malaysian Ban It

Based on article from gamepolitics.com

The head of a Malaysian consumer rights organization has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto and similarly violent video games.

The move comes following the murder of a Bangkok cabbie last Saturday. Thai government officials were quick to link that killing to what they said was the 19-year-old suspect's Grand Theft Auto play.

In an op-ed for the Star Online, Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang, writes: It was recently reported that the Thai authorities have banned a computer video game known as Grand Theft Auto... Violent video games and television programmes have previously been linked to expressions of violence and aggression in young viewers. It is time for the authorities to act.

If this particular video game is available in Malaysia, CAP calls on the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs to immediately halt its sales and ban this game. The Ministry should also warn the public and any stocks that have already been sold should be recalled.

As if pulling Grand Theft Auto IV from Thai shelves wasn’t overreacting, the Thai Ministry of Health has drawn up a shortlist of the ten most dangerous games.

1. GTA
2. Man Hunt
3. Scarface
4. 50 Cent - Bullet Proof
5. 300
6. The Godfather
7. Killer 7
8. Resident Evil 4
9. God of War
10. Hitman

Game Politics has cheekily pointed out that this is is exactly the same as that produced by Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy also used to blame all the world's ills on video games.

I have been seeing a lot of coverage on the killing of a taxi driver by a Thai teen who says he was inspired by the new release of the violent video game called Grand Theft Auto. The English language news stories left out much of the detail about the victim and the accused murderer. The Thai news had interviews of the families and other people involved.

The story is very sad for many reasons. On the victim's side, they are a poor family and the man was the only person making any income, and not much because driving a taxi does not pay very well. He became the chosen victim because he was older and smaller than the first taxi driver the killer approached.

The killer's family is also poor but the teen had always been known as polite and very nice, even getting the dek dee (good child) award at school. The mother was a house maid and the father a security guard. The kid was alone a lot and the parents never really knew what he was doing all that time he was playing violent video games.

The 18 year old confessed to the killing, which means he won't face the death penalty as some western media incorrectly reported. He gave a detailed account of how he planned for the robbery and chose the victim, although he said the killing was not originally part of the plan but he did it when the victim fought back.

The distributor of the game in Thailand has stopped all sales and is requesting that internet shops return the game for replacement with a different game.

I saw on TV this morning that GTA has been declared illegal. Police will search internet cafes and if any are found to be making the game available they will be fined 20,000 to 100,000 Baht.

Distributors of Grand Theft Auto yesterday suspended sales in Thailand after a teenager allegedly killed a taxi driver in a bloody frenzy, re-enacting scenes from the blockbuster video game.

Police who caught the 18-year-old at the scene said he confessed to having planned the attack to find out if robbery was as easy as depicted in the violent game.

Phalawat Chinno, who played the game obsessively for hours every day, bought two knives and chose his 54-year-old victim carefully as he believed he would be too old to fight back, police said.

The secondary school student said the killing was a robbery that went wrong. New Era Interactive Media, the Thai distributors of Grand Theft Auto, which recently launched its fourth edition, has asked shops to withdraw copies from sale and video arcades to suspend the game.

We are sending out requests ... to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games, said Sakchai Chotikachinda, the marketing director of New Era.

A Thai student has stabbed a taxi driver to death supposedly acting out a robbery he copied from the online game Grand Theft Auto.

Neighbours called police in Bankok about 2.30am after being woken by a constantly blowing car horn and saw people struggling inside a pink taxi.

Police arrived and saw Polwat Chinno, 19, trying to steer the taxi backwards, but the street was a dead end. The teen locked himself in the car but they finally persuaded him to get out.

There was blood all over the vehicle. The body of the taxi driver, Kuan Pohkang was on the back seat. He had been stabbed about 10 times. Two sharp knives were found nearby.

Police said Polwat confessed to being addicted to the online game GTA and said killing seemed easy in the game. He imitated a scene where a criminal kills a driver for his car to escape police.

I needed money to play the game every day. My parents give me only 100 baht a day, which is not enough. I am also fed up with them fighting. They are civil servants and do not make good money, he said.

Today [Saturday] my mother gave me 500 baht, so in the evening I went to the Lotus superstore and bought knives. He flagged down a taxi and when it arrived at the destination, he pulled out a knife and held it against the driver's neck. He said he did not mean to kill him but the driver reached for a metal bar under a console and tried to hit him. He stabbed the driver several times, killing him, then dragged the body onto the back seat and sat behind the wheel.

He could not drive, but thought it would not be hard. He was still struggling with the car when police arrived.

Thailand's Interior Minister Chalerm Yubamrung has kicked off a new censorship row with an order to cable-TV broadcasters to block the opposition's ASTV station. He has now denied that he intends to try to close the satellite and Internet based TV station.

ASTV, owned and operated by People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) founder Sondhi Limthongkul, is currently broadcasting saturation coverage of the PAD's anti-government rallies in central Bangkok.

Pol Capt Chalerm told provincial governors to order all cable-TV operators in the provinces to stop carrying the ASTV signal, and threatened to jail any operator who defied him.

He claimed he ordered the ban because PAD members and supporters called for the overthrow of the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and used "rude words".

However, it is far from clear that the minister has any authority to halt or otherwise control broadcasts by satellite TV.

Several cable TV operators in provinces immediately suspended broadcasting the ASTV coverage of the PAD rallies following his threat of taking legal action.

The PAD decided late Friday to file a complaint with the Administrative Court against  Chalerm becase of his issuing the order.

Police have arrested a webmaster for posting pornographic photos for trade and distribution on his website, one of 200-300 sites containing sexually explicit content based in Thailand.

Boonyarit Arunsap the webmaster of www.nisitgirl.com, was apprehended in the CAT Telecom building on Charoen Krung road in Bang Rak district.

Police from the Children, Juveniles and Women division and Information and Communications Technology Ministry officials allegedly found him using his computer to download and share lewd content via Bit Torrent, a file-sharing programme.

Police charged him with allowing sexually obscene content into a computer system under his supervision for public access with the purpose of trading or sharing pornographic photos.

The offence under the Computer Crime Act is punishable by up to five years in jail and a 100,000 baht fine.

Police seized seven computers from his office and 14 more from an office on the 14th floor for examination.

According to police, Boonyarit said his website was intended for the public to exchange their views. But at least 10 porn websites had used his site to post sexually-explicit photos, messages or links to other obscene sites, police said.

He and other webmasters were aware of the problem and tried to erase the obscene content, but they could not keep up as more than 10,000 porn messages popped up each day.

Police said he agreed to improve the content-screening system and inform police of the offensive sites.

A web developer has spoken of how someone he knew spent a night in jail: A couple had an argument and the boyfriend proceeded to post compromising pictures of his girlfriend to a web site. The girlfriend went to the police and it was the webmaster who spent the night in jail, pending bail, for not being able to provide the logs and names necessary under the new Thai law.

Indeed, the only thing the law has accomplished is to make it easy for people to attack their enemies by posting dubious content on web sites in order to get the hosting company in trouble.

Even the big operators are not immune. Pantip.com requires an ID card number to be registered before posting pictures, but one web developer said that someone had used his ID card number in an online game, a classic case of identity theft. Without a way to check someone's identity, an ID card number is useless. But if the number could be checked easily, the opportunities to abuse the system are immense. If the Ministry of Interior opens up its database for webmasters to check ID numbers, then what is there to stop someone from mining the information.

Another hosting company was effectively shut down when police raided it and seized its servers because one of its clients was selling counterfeit goods. All the other clients suffered too, but one wonders how police would treat a grid or a virtual machine running in a cloud of computers. Chances are they would probably seize it first and then come back asking how to turn it on later.

When the law first came into effect, the head of Thailand's largest hosting company, ISSP, said that the law was a death sentence for small Thai hosts and that it would only drive the Internet economy overseas. In a draconian move, if the host is overseas, the onus of supplying a name to match an action then falls on the ISP.

So, what does the future hold for web development in Thailand?

The current interpretation of the cybercrime law puts far too much emphasis on the medium; it punishes the messenger and ignores the message. It is convenient for law enforcement. It is perfect for a police state.

It makes for a situation where every hosting company and every ISP is operating in a grey area and the government of the day can pick and choose who to persecute, sorry, prosecute, at will. Since every forum is probably unable to prove compliance, governments can selectively turn a blind eye to pro-government sites and shut down those that are critical of its policies.

Only those who use it to speak of things that the state disapproves of ever need fear prosecution.

Thailand's Internet is stuttering with a series of unexplained outages and slowdowns that suggest that the government is running a far-reaching program to monitor its citizens' online activities, one similar to the US Carnivore e-mail policeware program.

This can be seen in the way YouTube is now all but unusable for TOT subscribers, and how sending large e-mail messages through a foreign server on port 25 often fails, while encrypted, non-standard ports or VPN access over the same network works fine.

A former security-consultant-turned-businessman in Thailand, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the entire situation was seriously damaging business confidence and may be on the verge of being illegal, especially for foreign businesses operating in Thailand.

In many industries, a user has a duty to alert his company or his authorities if he knows that data has been compromised. But what if the leak is to a foreign government? That said, in most countries, national security laws override privacy laws.

He first noted earlier this year that e-mail sending slows down as the work day progresses and fails almost entirely around lunchtime. His company uses a corporate e-mail server located overseas. Analysis of the traffic suggest that the authorities are intercepting anything on standard SMTP port 25, regardless of the destination IP address. He said he has the IP numbers he suspects to be the sniffing machines as the latency incurred there is far too long to be a regular switch.

To circumvent this monitoring, users can simply use a VPN to access their corporate network overseas, use SSL encrypted e-mail ports or even encrypt on an end-to-end fashion. Gmail remains secure when accessed via HTTPS.

That said, the former security consultant said that there was a legitimate need for governments to monitor e-mail for national security but that the way the Thai government had done it had failed miserably.

Rather it should have been done professionally and be totally invisible without the terrorists or the public knowing.

Rather than announce to the world that they were intercepting and monitoring e-mail and thus making everyone use encryption, it would have been much better if the government had kept quiet and had done traffic pattern analysis on individuals to learn more about their network, he said.

For instance, if one person was using encryption all the time, the government should keep a close eye on him and who he contacts, but by botching up this project, it means that everyone has to use encryption and VPN and thus the government has lost its ability to gather information and protect the people.

Another question was who had access to the information being gathered. In the past, the US government launched Echelon and Carnivore, projects aimed at wiretapping the Internet in the name of security. But at least they had clear objectives and responsibilities, unlike the clandestine Thai system that appeared to be in place, he noted.

The long wait for Thailand's first film rating system will continue for at least another few months.

The ministerial regulations on audience age restrictions have not yet been finalised. The rating system had been due to start in June, as stipulated in the Film Act passed by the National Legislative Assembly in December.

The sub-committee has finished drafting the regulations, but we will have to submit it to the cabinet before they become effective, said Somchai Seanglai, the deputy permanent secretary for culture.

Under the Film Act, the Culture Ministry will replace the police as the body that oversees theatre screening of movies.

The law specifies six ratings: G (fit for all age groups); 13-plus; 15-plus; 18-plus; 20-plus; and a special "P" rating for films that deserve to be promoted to all audiences. The authority will retain power to cut or ban films.

The rating committee will comprise government officials, academics and film industry representatives.

Twenty nine "inappropriate" websites are being investigated for content deemed to be critical of or offensive to the Thai monarchy.

A police source at the High-Tech Crime Centre said a list of inappropriate websites, compiled about a month ago, has been handed over to the Special Branch Police.

The SBP is working with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in tracking down operators or owners of those websites, the source said.

Note that Lese Majeste accusations are sometimes more to do with settling personal scores rather than strident attacks on the monarchy.

The newspapers published the list of sites under investigation. Having compiled the list, the thorny issue of how to block them seems to be causing problems. The recent law suggests that blocking should be via court orders but these have not been obtained. So it seems that the blocking has been delegated to ISPs with assurances that they will not be prosecuted.

See full article from Prachatai

Information and Communications Technology Minister Man Pattanothai said that so far internet service providers had not dared to block websites found to have lèse majesté content for fear of breaching the National Telecommunications Commission law that forbids blocking information flows, with a maximum penalty of licence revocation.

After consulting with the National Telecommunications Commission, the ICT Ministry has assured all ISPs that they will not be subject to the penalty if they block the truly offensive websites, said the Minister.

The National Telecommunications Commission has confirmed with the ministry that blocking websites offensive to the royal family can be carried out without breaching the law. Therefore, the ICT Ministry can guarantee all ISPs that their licenses will not be revoked, said the Minister.

ICT Minister said that there had been an order from ‘high above’ not to block the websites and to allow the free flow of information, on the grounds that foreigners do not understand the blocking and may form negative perceptions.

See full article from Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed about the comments made by Man Pattanotai, the Thai minister of information and communication technology (ICT), in a radio interview on 14 May. He said prosecuting websites because of their content would cause a “big scandal” and that it was better to just “suppress the news” by closing them down or blocking access.

By voicing a preference for radical censorship measures, the minister is in complete contradiction with the Computer Crime Act, which has been in force since the summer of 2007 and which requires the authorities to bring a complaint against a website before requesting its closure, Reporters Without Borders said: We condemn the reinforcement of online controls, which includes the creation of a toll-free number for people to call to denounce any website criticising the monarchy.

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..

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 cyber-dissidents 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.

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.

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.

However, both Prachatai and Same Sky 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.

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has conceded it can do nothing about some of the content of the YouTube website considered as lese majeste and against the Thai monarchy, apart from seeking cooperation from the webmaster.

Pol Col Yarnpol Yangyuen, the chief of the DSI's office of technology cases and examination centre, said YouTube is an international website based in another country, so the DSI cannot take legal action against it for lese majeste.

But the DSI has asked YouTube's webmasters to block such content on their website and expects to soon reach agreement about the lese majeste content on the site, said Pol Col Yarnpol.

The Surayud Chulanont government last year slapped a ban on YouTube after clips about the royal family were posted on the site. The ban was later lifted after YouTube operator Google agreed to install filters to bar people in Thailand from gaining access to those clips. However, some controversial content remains on the website.

Pol Col Yarnpol also said that the DSI would not meddle with politically motivated websites and would maintain its neutrality. He added that the DSI would not take action against the publication of internet content aimed at discrediting politicians or websites considered as politically motivated. The department does not want to become a political tool for any political group [by interfering in politically-motivated websites],' said Pol Col Yarnpol.

Thailand's new Film Act will go into effect on June 4. And though nothing ever goes as planned when it comes to the Culture Ministry, moviegoers should brace for the historic introduction of the rating system, which is likely to be accompanied by confusion and clamour.

The Film Act was actually passed last December, but the Ministry Regulations, the practical rules that will implement various provisions of the law, are being written by the scribes at the ministry.

When the new law is applied in June, each movie, Thai and foreign, will be assigned one of six ratings:

• G (fit for all age groups)
• 13-plus
• 15-plus
• 18-plus
• 20-plus
• ''P'' an unusual label designed for films that deserve to be promoted to the society because of its content. For instance, a historical Thai movie that everyone including young children should be encouraged to see it because of its historical and patriotic values.

What's not clear right now is how the ratings and filtering will be enforced. As it is understood, theatre staff at the box office will check the IDs of customers before letting them buy tickets. But since nobody has seen the Ministry Regulations, it's not certain whether the age classifications are simply a guideline for parents and multiplexes, or are actual legal restrictions with punishment clauses.

It's rumoured that the ID check will be carried out only with the 18- and 20-plus movies. But if, say, a 19-year-old wants to see Rambo 4 with his father, will he be allowed to go in? And if not, why? Because when he goes to an election booth, a process more detrimental to his mental health, he doesn't have to bring his dad in there with him to tell him which box to tick or which politician is a thief.

I feel itchy about the 20-plus rating, itchier and sadder still that the new Film Act still has the cutting and banning provisions. Hardly any country in the world restricts access to cinema for its 20-year-old people, except, well, Singapore. What's very funny in the Thai law is that the 20-plus rating will not be applied to those who have reached their legal age of consent by marriage. So if you're a 17-year-old girl who's already married, you can breeze into the theatre to see a 20-plus film, supposedly because since you've already had sex, nothing else can shock you. Just remember to carry your wedding certificate as proof.

Rape is a crime punishable with lengthy prison sentences in a court of law in Thailand. Yet this criminal act seems to be legal and accepted in the country's most popular night-time TV soap operas. This perpetuation of an inhumane act must end and only the main television networks have the power to do it.

Here the author makes a specific call to Channel 3 and Channel 7 to terminate any future soap dramas containing plot lines that justify rape. The script writers of our television dramas are better than this. They can do more than recycle old storylines written in a backward time when apparently, and unfortunately, men were seen as superior to women and invincible to the application of the law.

I am not going to lie and tell you that I don't enjoy the verbal spat between Teeradej Wongpuapan (Ken) and Ann Thongprasom (Ann) on screen. The exchanges are dramatic and the scenes are excitingly heated every Wednesday and Thursday evening on Channel 3. The lead character is the troubled son of a rich businessman who apparently has not been brought up properly. The father's role is especially craftily acted by veteran actor Dilok Tongwattana. The self-obsessed son attempts to gain the attention of his multi-time married father while trying his best, for the major part of the series, to make his father's new wife jealous of his increasingly intense relationship with the lead female character played by Ann. The plot of Sawan Bieng (Heaven Unwilling) is an old one. It is normal practice among TV drama production companies to recycle famous though perennially used screenplays, with a bit of adaptation.

All that is fine and these soaps draw huge ratings. The drama of Sawan Bieng, however, in the end becomes based on a love that is spawned by the sexual violence between the lead male and female characters. Ken vengefully rapes Ann to get back at her sister who happens to be his dad's new wife. Still, as time passes, Ann falls in love with Ken. He is not prosecuted for his criminal invasion of another person's sexual inviolateness. Worse, soon afterwards he gets away with the act by having the victim come to terms, to "appreciate" what has been done to her. She effectively falls for him as a ridiculous "logical consequence" of the sexual violence perpetrated on her. Such is the storyline of the country's most popular TV drama series at the moment.

The other one, on Channel 7, is about slavery during the latter years of King Rama V's reign. And, guess what, a slave girl's falling in love with her master is the central premise of this very popular remake. It is great that Nang Thas (Female Slave) does not necessarily justify rape; it however posits the possibility of a slave being able to come to "appreciate" her being owned and then being impregnated.

For these to be the highest-rated and most talked-about evening series in this country is for us to accept that our culture enjoys sexual violence and hierarchical dominance over women. This is something I don't think I or the people of this country should accept.

Enough is enough. It is time for a change. Change in this sense does not have to be time-requiring. The entertainment industry is packed with talented writers who can put together some of the most socially-adaptive, humanely-appropriate, as well as mass audience-acceptable screenplays. Why rehash ancient scripts from recycled plots which have all been used before? Why not have storylines that move along with a culture that presumably progresses?

Some say art imitates life, but what if - just what if - life in practice actually imitates art? We, as people working in the media and entertainment industry, owe it to our culturally advancing society to influence the Thai nation in the best ways possible.

There is no conceivable way to comprehend a boy growing up watching his favourite soap and all the while learning from that drama that the best way to get a girl is to hold her captive and rape her. If these soaps don't change, boys will grow up to become men who think and act like the lead characters in Sawan Bieng.

The Thai Information and Communications Technology Ministry is to ‘hack and crack' foreign websites deemed offensive to Thailand's revered institutions.

A March 15 report in Krungthep Turakij newspaper (www.bangkokbiznews.com) quoted a source at the ICT that the ministry could pursue legal proceedings only with websites registered in Thailand, and is now planning a ‘hack and crack' programme to hack offensive websites hosted abroad and delete their contents, because the legal process would take too long.

This approach may be somewhat illegal, but sometimes it might be worth it, if [the websites] are really unacceptable, the source said.

One website registered abroad has been found to advertise merchandise including calendars, dolls, bags, hats, glasses, watches, trousers and underwear, all with a logo of the Buddha meditating on a lotus, with the face of a dog. It was reported to have upset some Buddhists.

The Technology Centre has found that the website has its server in California, USA, and the centre has twice asked the ICT Ministry in writing to shut down the website, but it is still online. The centre has also asked the Foreign Ministry's Information Department to address the problem through diplomatic means.

If within one month the problem is still not solved, I will ask for cooperation from ‘internet cop' Pol Col Yanapol Yangyuen, Commander of Office of Technology and Information Cases under the Department of Special Investigation, to shut it down, said Booncherd. He added that his centre has cooperated with relevant agencies in shutting down 5 similar websites which made commercial use of Buddhist symbols.

After dealing with the censorship of his film for nearly a year, Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul will finally screen his acclaimed Sang Sattawat (Syndromes and a Century), with silent, black frames to replace six scenes the Board of Censors found objectionable.

It's cynical, but actually it's a statement for the audience to make them aware that they are being blinded from getting information in this society, says the director.

Apichatpong first planned to show Syndromes last April in a limited release in Bangkok cinemas, but he cancelled the screenings when the censors said four scenes had to go. A petition against the action was started, and the director formed the Free Thai Cinema Movement to call for better treatment for filmmakers.

With the election of a new government and a new film law on the books, Apichatpong said he submitted his film to the censors again, hoping they would view it differently. The censors asked that two more scenes be excised.

I was wrong. It's worse than the first time, but it was still worth the effort. I learned that the problem with the new film law is not the law itself, but the people who will be enforcing it, he says.

For a limited-release screening by the Thai Film Foundation, Syndromes will have the six censored scenes replaced by silent, scratched black frames - the longest of which runs for seven minutes.

More than 600 Muslims gathered in front of the Danish embassy in Bangkok on Wednesday to protest 17 Danish newspapers for reprinting cartoons mocking Mohammad.

The Muslims are also displeased with the Danish government for ignoring the matter as it cited that this is the freedom of expression of the press.

A few hours later, the protesters dispersed peacefully. They said they would present a letter to Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama on this issue.

They also urged Muslims around the world to boycott products from Denmark.

The Thai censorship appeals committee has upheld the decision to cut four scenes from the art-house movie Saeng Satawat (Syndromes and a Century) and ordered the director to cut an additional scene as well. We upheld the verdict because the movie contains inappropriate images of doctors and monks, said Police Major-General Somdej Khaokam of the Central Investigation Bureau, who chaired the hearing yesterday.

The film's director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, appealed after the Censorship Board ordered him to cut four scenes from Saeng Satawat last April.

These scenes featured a monk playing a guitar, doctors drinking whisky, doctors kissing and two monks playing with a radio-controlled toy.

The appeal committee ordered him to also cut a scene showing statues of Prince Mahidol of Songkhla and the late Princess Mother.

Apichatpong, who defended his case before the committee, expressed his extreme disappointmentL It was like I was on trial for being a communist. But he said he would cut the film as instructed: I will release the mutilated version as a statement and as a historical record of Thailand.

The author of the book on which the popular soap opera Songkhram Nang Fah (Air Hostess War) was based has been arrested for defamation.

The Children, Juveniles and Women's Division police yesterday pressed the defamation charge against Royrudee Kenny.

Ms Royrudee was taken in for questioning after acknowledging the charge, but was later released on bail.

The charge was filed by Patchara Silapapreecha, a flight attendant, who claimed Royrudee had posted her photograph tagged as ''Cherry'', a villainous female character portrayed in Songkhram Nang Fah, on a website. Patchara said the posting had damaged her image.

However, Ms Royrudee denied the charge and said she had no idea how the photograph had made it to the website.

Police also searched the writer's apartment in the Sathorn area and impounded a computer.

The Thai Prime Minister’s Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair has ordered the Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) ministry to keep a close watch on the use of social networking site www.hi5.com after it emerged a Buddhist monk had been using the site to woo women.

I am upset by this, he said: Any sort of misdeed caused by monks results in the deterioration of Buddhism.

Jakrapob has already consulted with ICT ministry officials to lay down possible measures to ensure that something like this does not recur: We are still determining the pros and cons of blocking the site altogether.

A new cyberlaw passed last year would require court permission to block the site, although the government has broken this law hundreds of times, and several thousands of websites are blocked without court order or explanation.

It seems that Thai-Anxiety is getting blocked by the ISP CyberPoint.

CyberPoint are a public WiFi service accessed with a pre-pay card that seems to be getting installed in a lot of hotels as it's obviously a fair bit cheaper that cabling up all the rooms.

The blocking seems to be of a single page: www.thai-anxiety.com/sexa08a.htm

Surely a sex related page but only in an informational way.

I wonder what offends the censors?

Update: Blocking 'Sex'

13th March 2008

It turns out that the naff CyberPoint censor URLs with sex in the name. I shall have to rename the pages.

Just went to see Sweeney Todd, Demon barber of fleet street at Big C in Pattaya last night. The movie was very well done but I recommend that everyone save there money and not see this movie in a Thailand Theatre as the Thai censors have pixellated out all the scenes of graphic violence.

They censored out many of the highlighted scenes of the movie. It was irritating and would give a second thought to seeing another movie in a Thailand Theatre before putting down my ever weakening dollar for a ticket. The censorship blotting really ruined the movie!

What was even better they censored the label from the drink the boy had when he was drinking then in the following two scenes where the bottle was on the table next to him they showed it. It said Gin. The woman had already said it was gin, the bottle said it was gin; did they think that when he put it into his mouth we wouldn't guess he was drinking Gin?

...I walked out after half an hour, completely unacceptable censorship...

...I just saw the movie, with the censored throat slashings. It is an insult to the movie makers and the audience. Either allow the film or ban it. I think I might have turned my eyes away at the raw film, but that is part of the authentic experience of watching a movie. My reaction to the frequent pixilation was WTF!

In a couple of months' time, the horrors of censorship depicted by George Orwell in 1984 will seem like childish pranks compared to the powers granted to the Russian authorities.

According to the Guardian, Russian internet users, will be completely locked off from foreign traffic, which can be used to access the majority of free information, as currently happens in China. Those whose work requires access to foreign sites (ministries, departments and state companies) will have to be approved by the Special Services.

In practice, this will be achieved by the introduction of Cyrillic domain names, which will automatically cut the whole of Russia off from the World Wide Web and the Internet's other services.

The 'Russian Internet' project will look at the question of how they can best communicate within their own country. The internationalization of domain names will give them the chance to do what is being attempted in China, where three top-level domain names, written in Chinese characters, are used: .net, .com and .cn, says Wolfgang Kleinwachter, member of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance, explaining the technical details.

The key question here is whether Russia's own root servers will use Russian international domain names when deciding where to direct their enquiries on the Internet -- that is will they be autonomous from the already existing root servers of the net, which are mainly based in the USA (5 in the USA, 2 in Northern Europe).

In Kleinwachter's opinion, the worst case scenario would be everyone having to register domain names using the Cyrillic top-level domain .rf. Then Russian would have its own root name server, and it is much easier to control a top-level domain than a hundred thousand subdomains, says the expert.

According to Kleinwachter, it has been suggested that people will be able to access Russian sites freely but will require a password sanctioned by state authorities to access the global Internet. In this way, the Kremlin will be able to control each citizen's contact with the outside world.

The authorities however assert that this will make tracing "cyber-criminals" easier. Anyone wishing to read the European press, including the Ukrainian, will now become a dangerous criminal.

Western IT specialists point out that this innovation would also make all Russian hackers absolutely untraceable without cooperation from the Russian authorities. [Perhaps The ASCII internet world would the have to block all communication from untraceable sources]

The Author of A Coup for the Rich, Professor Giles Ji Ungphakorn, writes:

I have just been informed today by Thammasart University bookshop, the only bookshop to agree to sell my book, that the Thai special branch have issued a letter to the shop banning the sale of  Coup for the Rich.

This book, which was published in January 2007, has sold over 900 copies, almost its entire print run. Mostly the book was sold directly by myself or by Thammasart University bookshop. This is because my own university bookshop refused to sell the book, citing “incorrect procedure”.

A Coup for the Rich criticises the military coup and the liberals who supported the coup. It discusses the role of the Thai Monarchy, citing the work of Paul Handley (The King Never Smiles). There is a chapter on the politics of the Peoples’ Movement. The final chapter deals with the crisis in the South.

Bangkok Metropolitan Police, acting under an appeal from the Special Branch to investigate my book, have issued a letter to the Thamasart bookshop banning the sale of A Coup for the Rich. According to the letter, dated 18 January 2008, the book is currently under investigation concerning charges of lèse majesté. The letter, signed by deputy police chief Chutti Tamanowanij, states that the continued sale of the book risks creating a “misunderstanding” about the Monarchy among the Thai population.

The spat over the Air Hostess War TV soap ended yesterday after a talk hosted by Culture Ministry.

The producers, Exact, agreed to remove any fight scenes of characters in flight attendant uniforms, to make the uniform skirts two inches longer and to add some scenes showing cabin crew working hard for passengers.

Battle of Angels director Nipon Phewnena said the changes were not seen as damaging because he wanted everyone to be happy and feel better about the soap opera, and he affirmed this would not affect the story's intensity, continuity and entertainment.

Nipon admitted audience ratings had actually increased following the flight attendant's movement against it, although he insisted it was not the kind of ratings boost the producers were proud of. He said this had taught drama producers to work more carefully.

The Thai Airways International (THAI) Union acting chairman Somsak Srinuan said the union was satisfied with Exact's proposal and would keep a close watch for such improvements in the soap opera.

The makers of a sexy Thai television soap opera have apologised to aircrew who say it demeans them, and have promised to tone it down.

The Air Hostess War details love rivalries and jealousies among the crew of a fictional airline.

After an outburst of protest, the programme makers have now promised longer skirts and no more "catfights".

But they ruled out cancelling the show, as flight attendants had demanded in an official complaint to the government.

There won't be any more catfight scenes between flight attendants while they are on duty or in uniform in public, said managing director Tokankiet Viravan of the programme makers, Exact.

He added: The skirts our actresses wear are not shorter than those worn by hostesses at other international airlines. But we will make our skirts longer.

The Thai government says it plans to bring all sides together later in the week to resolve disagreements.

OKNation is a Thai blog hosting company associated with the Nation newspaper group. They have recently been deleting blogs without warning.

For instance Lalida's blog about the "3rd gender" (lady boys) was shut down yesterday with no warning. Even the posts about Lalida’s transgender blog have been deleted.]

The blogger wrote: Lalida is banned because it targeted on the “3rd gender” that falls under our rule which wants to keep out attacks on personality and debates that involve racism or sexism.

Putushon of the Republic of Poetry blog recently reported the deletion of his blog on OK Nation. His account has been restricted on December 20. On January 8, the blog has been entirely deleted without warning.

Previously Wayward's blog has been banned due to strong language. Independent Press, an anti-junta government blog, has also been deleted by OK Nation.

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Flight attendants are upset over the way their profession is portrayed in a new TV soap opera, Songkhram Nang Fah (The Air Hostess War), and will today make their feelings public.

Cabin crew led by the Thai Airways International labour union will petition Culture Minister Khunying Khaisri Sri-aroon to get the drama pulled off the air.

Acting union president Somsak Srinual said the Channel 5 show, in which female flight attendants battle to win the heart of a pilot, is humiliating and hurts their image. It would also discourage young people from entering the profession

They will petition the television station and the National Human Rights Commission. Thai Airways president Apinant Sumaseranee and air force chief ACM Chalit Phukphasuk will also get an earful.

The drama first aired on the channel last Tuesday and ran for three days last week. Songkhram Nang Fah is scheduled to air Monday to Thursday at 8.25pm. The female lead is a charming air hostess, the envy of her co-workers, and a married pilot takes a fancy to her. The melodrama contains many scenes in which characters exact revenge, get jealous and fight each other.