EDITORIAL
Beyond the limits of decency or just bad taste?
The Nation


Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra with Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, third right, and Nobel laureate and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, second right, during at the Seventh Ministerial Conference of Community of Democracies

BANGKOK: -- The prime minister is suing a local newspaper cartoonist for defamation, reigniting the debate on free speech

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has filed a defamation lawsuit against Thai Rath cartoonist Chai Rachawat for comparing her to a prostitute. The Information Technology and Communication Ministry has threatened to exercise its authority to ban all allegedly libellous comment on the Internet.

Yingluck's lawyers have also filed a complaint against the cartoonist at Dusit Police Station.

The police have charged Chai on three counts - insulting an official during an official event, defaming another person publically and violating the Computer-related Crimes Act, which prohibits posting defamatory comments against others on the Internet.

This is the first time a Thai premier has sued someone for posting comments on the social media. Obviously, she wants to punish what she sees as an inflammatory opinion.

Chai, whose real name is Somchai Katanyutanan, posted on his Facebook page photographs of Yingluck delivering a speech in Mongolia with the caption: "Please understand that prostitutes are not bad women. Prostitutes only sell their body, but a bad woman has been wandering around trying to sell the country."

The Pheu Thai Party's big wigs were quick to spin this as an insult to all women and a "distortion of the truth".

Obviously, the prime minister is experiencing emotional distress as a result of criticism, thus the decision to initiate legal proceedings. But no one in their right mind believes that the country's prime minister and one of its richest women is a prostitute.

Furthermore, no one with a sense of decency would want the person mandated to govern the country to be compared to a prostitute.

Political cartoonists attack public figures all the time. Some of these attacks are in bad taste, such as the one that has angered Yingluck.

But is bad taste a crime? Taking legal action against such criticism might not achieve anything in this country. The premier and her supporters should use this case to educate critics, to encourage people to criticise in a coherent and constructive way. Laws against defamation have existed for a long time, but people still insult each other every day, and people still take offence, and this will continue until everyone learns how to criticise within certain boundaries and the targets of criticism accept such comment, again up to a certain limit.

We live in a country that values freedom of speech - at least that's what we tell ourselves. This kind of political comment is an example how we exercise this freedom.

Satirical commentary serves the public good in the sense that it allows people to look at public figure differently.

If Yingluck can take a cartoonist to court because she is distressed emotionally, then so can other public figures.

Obviously, when one person degrades another, the latter is going to experience some distress. It's easy to claim such distress and impossible to refute, and that is why it is difficult to set standards and limits of free speech.

Not everyone likes cartoonist Chai's choice of words in making reference to the prime minister, but what we all cherish is the fact that that we live in a country where we can decide for ourselves what constitutes good or bad taste.


-- The Nation 2013-05-07

Who actually cares what these windbags think or do?

...what we all cherish is the fact that that we live in a country where we can decide for ourselves what constitutes good or bad taste.

Which is no doubt why the Ministry of Culture weighed in last year to the dispute of the Thailand's Got Talent female contestant who did the topless painting, and the producers were called in to explain how they had allowed the segment to air.

"There must be limits on artistic expression. I was shocked when I saw the clip," Ms Sukumol [the minister] said. "The ministry will meet the organisers of Thailand's Got Talent to get an explanation."

They'll be claiming next that Thailand has a free press.

'the Computer-related Crimes Act, which prohibits posting defamatory comments against others on the Internet.'

I guess they don't know about this site then.

Maybe we can expect some new rules soon which will then make TV a very boring place.

Reminds me of the time when no newspaper in Thailand could print anything bad about Taksin Shinawatra. Are we returning to those dark days?

Reminds me of the time when no newspaper in Thailand could print anything bad about Taksin Shinawatra. Are we returning to those dark days?

Remember when a newspaper group critical of Thaksin was told they had just lost a lot of valuable advertising because they were printing adverse comments ? It seems in the Shinawatra dictionary there is no such thing as even " mild " criticism so agree completely or we'll send a couple of heavies round to point out the error of your ways.

Hands up everyone who saw the cartoon.

Now, hands up everyone who's gone off to look for the cartoon.

That's what I thought.

Someone really needs to send a memo to all public figures, reminding them how the term "Streisand Effect" came into being.

It was just yesterday that the editorial in the BP was complaining the the US organization Freedom House gave the Thai press a rating of "not free." The editor wrote that rating was completely off base. Does he or she even read or keep up on the news?

Reminds me of the time when no newspaper in Thailand could print anything bad about Taksin Shinawatra. Are we returning to those dark days?

U could possibly be right

Excellent example for the Mongolians, of how PM-Yingluck actually fights for freedom and democracy, by using the courts to suppress freedom-of-speech.

Yay for Red Freedom !

Free speech trumps hurt feelings.

Big mistake taking the cartoonist to court. This creates far more notoriety, and is a bad example. Criticise his comments by criticism, not by legal attacks.

Chai, whose real name is Somchai Katanyutanan, posted on his Facebook page photographs of Yingluck delivering a speech in Mongolia with the caption: "Please understand that prostitutes are not bad women. Prostitutes only sell their body, but a bad woman has been wandering around trying to sell the country."

Wouldn't it seem more logical to compare her to a " pimp" rather than a prostitute then ?

Reminds me of the time when no newspaper in Thailand could print anything bad about Taksin Shinawatra. Are we returning to those dark days?

Not returning ... apparently already there

No political leader, no matter who, should have to accept being compared to a prostitute! I am no fan of Yingluck, but IMO khun Chai crossed the line!

Hands up everyone who saw the cartoon.

Now, hands up everyone who's gone off to look for the cartoon.

That's what I thought.

Someone really needs to send a memo to all public figures, reminding them how the term "Streisand Effect" came into being.

Well Said.

And...Thanks to Thai politicians for bringing this to me attention.

Does anyone have a link to the cartoon? I haven't seen it.

Maybe we can expect some new rules soon which will then make TV a very boring place.

Not if the "usual suspects" behave themselves. Buchholz already gone

I would love spitting image to do a series here, heads would roll literally.

Maybe if the fellow presenting the cartoon had the same press coverage that the self servicing Political nitwits who run this country have, he could have explained what he meant and not what someone interperted he meant.

If it were not so pathetic this whole government could be depected via cartoon, Andy Capp, Calvin/Hobbes, Road runner/coyote, Beatle Baily, etc come to mind, just insert those most fitting the mode.

Chai, whose real name is Somchai Katanyutanan, posted on his Facebook page photographs of Yingluck delivering a speech in Mongolia with the caption: "Please understand that prostitutes are not bad women. Prostitutes only sell their body, but a bad woman has been wandering around trying to sell the country."

Wouldn't it seem more logical to compare her to a " pimp" rather than a prostitute then ?

It's defamatory comments such as these that will see TV being reported.

Isn't it the norm for newspapers not to repeat the alleged defamatory statement in verbatim as it amounts to "re-publishing" the defamatory statement ?

I wonder if Yingluck will have more success that BB did suing that young BP journalist for one billion baht for suggesting he may have benefitted financially from being PM.

The inference may have been tacky but KY has to remember Thai politics is tacky too.

Chai, whose real name is Somchai Katanyutanan, posted on his Facebook page photographs of Yingluck delivering a speech in Mongolia with the caption: "Please understand that prostitutes are not bad women. Prostitutes only sell their body, but a bad woman has been wandering around trying to sell the country."

Wouldn't it seem more logical to compare her to a " pimp" rather than a prostitute then ?

It's defamatory comments such as these that will see TV being reported.

Looks like he's asking a question not making a statement or comment about the PM.

Chai, whose real name is Somchai Katanyutanan, posted on his Facebook page photographs of Yingluck delivering a speech in Mongolia with the caption: "Please understand that prostitutes are not bad women. Prostitutes only sell their body, but a bad woman has been wandering around trying to sell the country."

Wouldn't it seem more logical to compare her to a " pimp" rather than a prostitute then ?

You have a good point and this touches on something very worrying about this law suit. "filed a defamation lawsuit [cut] for comparing her to a prostitute" .. he didn't say she was a prostitute, or was like one .. merely mentioned her and prostitutes in the same sentence. Whatever next?

Maybe we can expect some new rules soon which will then make TV a very boring place.

Not if the "usual suspects" behave themselves. Buchholz already gone

OMG! Again?

No political leader, no matter who, should have to accept being compared to a prostitute! I am no fan of Yingluck, but IMO khun Chai crossed the line!

Basically, I agree. but I would like to see the cartoon and get an accurate translation before making final judgement.

No political leader, no matter who, should have to accept being compared to a prostitute! I am no fan of Yingluck, but IMO khun Chai crossed the line!

Why? Why should a political leader not have to accept insults?

In any case:

1) The cartoon apparently said quite explicitly that prostitutes are not bad people.

2) The cartoon did not imply in any way that she was a prostitute.

Who actually cares what these windbags think or do?

If one listens long enough, you will understand that thee reason most of us don't care what they say, is that in general it's rubbish.

Now, how about a link to that cartoon..

Whether it was bad taste or defamation is not really the main message.

What is, is that people are getting to the stage where they are prepared to vent their anger against what this Govt is doing.

The lady boss tells me that the Thai social media web sites and facebook pages in Thai are full of what amounts to hate posts against Yingluck and the Govt, something she tells me she has never seen before.

Almost every day on Thai tele (not Govt channels) I see groups who are protesting about something or other the Govt or local authority has or has not done.

High tide may have passed for PT.

No political leader, no matter who, should have to accept being compared to a prostitute!

What really gets me is this broad condemnation of prostitutes without a single thought to the fact these are women who are victims of society and of circumstance. Everyone is so quick to say how it is the lowest of the low to be likened to a prostitute. Small minds. The prime minister as a woman should show empathy or solidarity to these victims. Her response and the response of so many only serves to illustrate the crass and unfeeling sentiment toward these women in plight.

Maybe the cartoon was in bad taste, however a better more politically correct response would be more appropriate than the current course of action.

sent from my mobile