Thaksin Battles Independent Media

[Thaising]

From Index on Censorship

March 2003

Tom Fawthrop reports from Bangkok on a series of confrontations that recall the bad old days of pre-democratic Thailand.

Thailand's reputation as a haven of press freedom in Southeast Asia has been endangered by the Thaksin government's aggressive media control strategy, and attempts to intimidate local and foreign critics.

After a series of critical reports on the Thai government by the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER),"Thailand Inc" hit back. The January 10th issue of the magazine was deemed by Thai Special Branch police to be a "threat to national security" and the magazine was banned.

Another critical report on the Thai government's handling of the economy on February 7th, and the Special Branch were ordered by the PM's office to blacklist FEER's two Bangkok-based reporters and threaten them with deportation. State security agencies had been used in this way by a Thai government since the dark days of rule by military rule.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the telecommunications tycoon who was elected Thai prime minister last year, believes the nation should be run in the same way as he runs his Shinawatra Corporation boardroom - the boss gives the orders and his minions obey. In his vision of the new Thailand Inc, there is little room for dissent and opposition.

In March came further evidence that Mr Thaksin's drive to tame the media was turning the clock back to a previous era of dictatorship, when the government pressured the 24 hour cable news channel UBC8 to drop an independent news service provide by the Nation media group.

Since Mr Thaksin,the leader of Thai Rak Thai (Thai Love Thai party) took over as PM, most media have either been intimidated or won over with government largesse. Thaksin's conflict of interests and control over the media - his corporation owns the iTV channel - is comparable to Silvio Berlusconi's role in Italy.

Thaksin denied the action taken against the Nation news service was political, but once again warned the media to be "constructive" in its reports. At the same time Special Branch censors were soon at it again with a threat to seize all copies of the March 2nd issue of the Economist with its special survey on Thailand if it was distributed.

Thai police spokesman Major General Pongsapat Pongcharoen went further and insisted that the Thai authorities would demand that the London-based weekly remove its "Survey on Thailand" from the Web - in a manner that reeked of Singapore-style media control and internet censorship. The Economist has not complied.

It appears that Thaksin's popularity is also on the wane, according to a opinion poll released in February. Shortly after the poll was released Assumption University's Abac Poll team were surprised to receive a series of visits from high-ranking military officers and Special Branch police.

Anger over the anti-independent media campaign was fuelled days later by the revelation that AMLO- the Anti-Money Laundering Organisation - had secretly ordered commercial banks to release confidential details of the assets and transactions of certain Thai journalists,and NGO leaders of rural poor organizations. They all had one thing in common - they are all known as vocal critics of the Thaksin government.

AMLO's mandate is supposed to be the investigation of unusual wealth derived from such sources as drug-trafficking, prostitution, illegal gambling and fraud. Many Thai journalists and NGOs don't have to cast their minds back very far to remember the dark days of Thai military dictatorships, bloody coup d'tats, and the silencing of the media. After the 1992 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, Prime Minister General Suchinda Krapayoon was forced to resign, democracy was restored, and a new constitution was approved in 1997 which for the first time fully recognised citizens' rights and enshrined press freedom.

FEER magazine, which is owned by Dow Jones Group, eventually made an ambiguous apology for "any misunderstandings" concerning their report that "the Thai king was highly critical of the prime minister's performance". This enabled the Thaksin government to save face and permit their two Bangkok-based correspondents to stay in the country.

Thai journalists associations backed by SEAPA (South East Asian Press Alliance) are currently mobilising international support for what looks like a long battle.