Culture Ministry slammed

BANGKOK: -- Former senator Kraisak Chonhavan called on the Culture Ministry yesterday to clarify its threatened censorship of the opera "Ayodhya" as he prepared to discuss with the artists' network how to prevent it.

Kraisak said the ministry's reason not to allow demon-king Thotsakan's death on stage as it broke tradition and would bring bad luck to the country was outrageous.

He said he and many artists won't accept the censorship of "Ayodhya", composed and directed by Somtow Sucharitkul. What the ministry did was controlling not promoting culture, he said. It also threatened artistic freedom.

Somtow said he had informed the ministry the script would be modified slightly, but before the show premiered he received a letter from the ministry saying it might send security officers to shut it down if it was different from "decent literature".

-- The Nation 2006-11-20

see also here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...c=93329&hl=

LaoPo

Firstly, if you need a "Ministry for Culture" then you don't have any. Simple.

A bit like the Orwellian-sounding "Ministry of Information"???? Which censors everything.....

Wasn't there a story last week about the top brass flying to Chiang Mai to consult an astrologer?

Now here's another story about mystic goings-on. Is this all part of a plan to reclaim Chiang Mai political power from Thaksinites or are they (the CNS) highly superstitious like their Burmese counterparts? I'm sure the papers are only reporting half of the story here.

Culture Ministry slammed

BANGKOK: -- Former senator Kraisak Chonhavan called on the Culture Ministry yesterday to clarify its threatened censorship of the opera "Ayodhya" as he prepared to discuss with the artists' network how to prevent it.

Kraisak said the ministry's reason not to allow demon-king Thotsakan's death on stage as it broke tradition and would bring bad luck to the country was outrageous.

He said he and many artists won't accept the censorship of "Ayodhya", composed and directed by Somtow Sucharitkul. What the ministry did was controlling not promoting culture, he said. It also threatened artistic freedom.

Somtow said he had informed the ministry the script would be modified slightly, but before the show premiered he received a letter from the ministry saying it might send security officers to shut it down if it was different from "decent literature".

-- The Nation 2006-11-20

If anyone has had to endure, as I have, the bum numbing agony of sitting through anything associated with the ludicrous Somtow Sucharitkul, one has a certain sympathy with the Ministry of Culture's censorship effort.