The arrest of Prachatai.com’s webmaster by the police was a rush act without appropriate warning for the independent media site. Whether or not Prachatai is right or wrong, instead of protecting our beloved king as the outdated police force had hoped, it had now created an expanding ripple across International and Thai websphere, this could result in the further criticism against the Thai monarchy by International community as well as the younger generation in Thailand.
More and more people are mobilizing their reaction, anger as well as curiosity resulting in a rapid growth of Thai Les Majeste -related blog/news posts around the world. For example, groups of Thai students in Britain now are trying to prevent our PM from giving a talk at Oxford on Democracy while we have yet another Thai Les Majeste article on the Economist. If the national security people have a chief public image officer, the person will surely be gone by now. Our great king’s reputation is being compromised through these outdated and out-of-control government and police reactions.
This is not very useful in protecting our unique and important institution. The ripple is being reinforced and will be hard to stop, in fact, it just combine its power with the other ripples started with the YouTube ban several years ago.
At the end of the day, the Internet crack down of Thai websites and blogs in the name of Les Majeste might turns the techno-cultural ignorance of the police (and who ever influence them to do this) against the international social capital our king had built over half a century. They (the police and the extreme right) will be the one who are stimulating the insult against the king. This should not be acceptable to the Thai public for such fatally dangerous ignorance on behalf of those in power to continue.
To see how far this might goes, I’ve created a search feed at feedburner to track whatever is emerging out there in the websphere with the word ‘prachatai’. So we could visualize and analyse this trend further.
WALLINGFORD, Conn. - The princess of Thailand said Thursday that she does not believe protests in her home country are being staged to benefit the monarchy.
Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn talked about the importance of public service Thursday at the Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Wallingford. She later headed to the University of Pennsylvania for a U.S.-Thailand education discussion.
Her visit came amid the worst political violence in Thailand in more than a decade. Thousands of protesters have camped at the main government office complex to demand electoral changes and an end to corruption in Thai politics.
In violent clashes on Tuesday, 423 protesters and 20 police were injured, Thai medical authorities said. One woman was killed, and a man died in what appeared to be a related incident.
It was the worst political violence since 1992, when the army killed dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators seeking the ouster of a military-backed government.
The princess was asked at a press conference following her talk whether she agreed with protesters who say they are acting on behalf of the monarchy.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “They do things for themselves.”
Asked why the king has not spoken out, she said, “I don’t know because I haven’t asked him.”
Protest leaders have called for the prosecution of people who insult the monarchy. One leader wants to abandon Thailand’s popularly elected Parliament for one in which a majority of members would be appointed.
Some academics have said the plan would enhance the power of the country’s military and monarchy at the expense of the poor.
“There are a lot of political problems,” the princess said. “I told my friends, colleagues just to do what is their duty.”