Friday, May 11, 2007

The Thai government have rushed through a "cyber crime" act. The "crimes" in question though don't concern fraud, predators or discrimination, they concern people using 'tricks' to get around the MICT censorship. So for looking at a web forum critical of the junta via a proxy server, you could to jail.

The act was rushed through with votes of 119 to 1. Nobody has raised objections to the dubious speed of the act, the total lack of opposition or the idea of the junta enacting a law forbidding criticism of the junta's self appointed censorship duty that was voted through by errrr, the junta.

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A Buddhist woman was shot and burned alive in the south of Thailand, shortly before the idea of amnesty for terrorists was propagated.
My heart goes out to the deceased and her family.


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On a more positive note, the student newspaper that printed a story about the police extorting money from students has been cleared of police complaints. The police suggested the student paper was not registered under the 1941 publications act, surprisingly this warning came after the aforementioned article concerning police extortion. The National Press Council cleared the newspaper yet the fear of further police action remains.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sitthichai himself said he would welcome criticism of the junta if the people used reasonable language. There are some very confused messages coming out here now.

Are they going to arrest a school kid for using a proxy server to log onto MySpace (which may be blocked at school?). How can such a law possibly be enforced?