Indian protests after cartoon is reprinted

There have been protests in India following the reprinting of a Mohammed cartoon by the Tamil newspaper Dinamalar on 2nd September. A dozen highly controversial Mohammed caricatures were originally published in Jyllands-Posten in 2005, and widely reprinted the following year.

sameskybooks.org blocked again?

Today's edition of The Nation reports that access to the sameskybooks.org website has been blocked within Thailand. However, the site is currently accessible, so perhaps the blocking is only intermittent. (The site was investigated by the Thai police in May, following an accusation of lese majeste; it was temporarily shut down in January.)

400 more websites blocked

Thailand's MICT announced yesterday that approximately 400 websites have been blocked for contravening the Computer Crime Act. 344 of these sites apparently contain material that is "contemptuous" of the monarchy, according to today's Bangkok Post.

novelist arrested

Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer, has been arrested in Thailand and charged with lese majeste. The charge relates to his novel Verisimilitude, which includes a description of Prince Vajiralongkorn's "coterie of concubines".

The Jewel Of Medina banned in Serbia

The Jewel Of Medina, the novel by Sherry Jones about Mohammed's child-bride Aisha, has been withdrawn from sale in Serbia. It had been published by Beobuk in Belgrade in a Serbian translation, though it has not yet been published in any other country following its cancellation by Random House.

The Jewel Of Medina cancelled

Publication of The Jewel Of Medina: A Novel, written by Sherry Jones, has been cancelled by Random House, due to fears of possible attacks by extremist Islamic groups. The novel is a fictionalised biography of Aisha, Mohammed's eleven-year-old bride. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal printed a quotation from the novel, describing Aisha's wedding night experience: "the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life". (Their conjugal relations were also the subject of an especially provocative Nekschot cartoon.) The prologue to The Jewel Of Medina is available online, and a Serbian translation of the book has been published by Beobuk in Belgrade.

Mohammed cartoons publisher cleared

The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, Canada, has rejected a complaint by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Canadians against Ezra Levant, the former publisher of Western Standard magazine. A previous Commission investigation into Levant was dropped after Sayed Soharwardy withdrew a complaint against him. Western Standard published the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons on 13th February 2006, one of many magazines which reprinted the images.

Bangkok Post letter

Today's Bangkok Post newspaper has printed a letter I wrote regarding Grand Theft Auto.

Grand Theft Auto withdrawn from Thailand

The distributors of Grand Theft Auto have withdrawn all versions of the game from sale in Thailand, after a taxi driver was stabbed by a man who says the game inspired him.

Phalawat Chinno, a student, admitted murdering Khuan Phokaeng, saying he was motivated by a sequence in the game in which a taxi driver is also murdered. Phalawat stabbed Khuan more than ten times with a kitchen knife. It's not clear exactly which version of GTA (I-IV) he played, although there is a sequence in Grand Theft Auto II titled Taxi Drivers Must Die!; Grand Theft Auto IV had not yet been released in Thailand, and its release has now been cancelled.

Blaming media violence for real-life violence is an easy, knee-jerk response, but it doesn't address the social causes. It could be argued that GTA gave Phalawat the idea to select a taxi driver as his victim (rather than a postman, or a shopkeeper, for example), but the act of playing a game cannot turn someone into a murderer. Violent games can, in contrast, be cathartic, allowing us to release our natural violent feelings in a controlled situation, thus making us less violent in real life.

Violence has always been a part of human nature, and murders were committed long before video games were invented. Violence in the media is reflecting the violence which already exists in real life, not influencing it.

Just because a criminal uses a computer game as an excuse does not mean that the person is any less culpable, unless the person is either so young, or so mentally unbalanced, that they cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. Phalawat's mental state, personal morality, and socio-economic background are the real causes of this crime, not GTA.

Baltic outraging public decency?

An installation by Terence Koh, Gone Yet Still, may result in criminal charges against the Baltic art gallery. Koh's work, a statuette of a tumescent Jesus, was shown earlier this year, and, in a private prosecution, a member of the public has accused the gallery of outraging public decency. Gone Yet Still also attracted controversy when it was shown in 2005, and a similar Koh sculpture, Medusa, was withdrawn by the Saatchi Gallery in 2006. Baltic came under fire last year for a Nan Goldin photograph, though the image was eventually cleared of obscenity.

Art Monthly Australia criticised

Art Monthly Australia magazine has been criticised by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after it printed a photograph of a nude child on this month's cover. The photograph was published in protest at the closure of a Bill Henson exhibition (which was subsequently cleared of obscenity last month).

The cover photo shows six-year-old Olympia Nelson posing in front of a painted landscape; it was taken by the girl's mother, Polixeni Papapetrou. The magazine now faces losing the state funding it receives.

youtube.com blocked by TOT

TOT, the Thai state-owned ISP, is currently blocking every youtube.com video. The website itself is unblocked, but any attempt to access a video results in a black screen and an apology: "We're sorry, this video is no longer available".

The videos are available, of course; the message is simply a smokescreen to hide the fact that they are being blocked. The message should be extended to: 'This video is no longer available to anyone unfortunate enough to have a TOT internet account'.

(The entire youtube.com site was blocked by all Thai ISPs in May last year, and finally unblocked last August.)

Wilders charged; Wilders acquitted

Today, Geert Wilders was charged with anti-Islamic blasphemy by a Jordanian court, following the online release of his inflammatory film Fitna earlier this year. Wilders faces three years in prison, and may be arrested by Interpol if he leaves his home country, the Netherlands. Yesterday, however, Dutch prosecutors acquitted Wilders of all domestic charges filed against him.

Xiao Yun photos: not on Thai sites

Thai webmasters have been warned by the police that they will face prosecution if they post pictures of Xiao Yun online. Xiao Yun is a young Chinese lady who has performed a sponsored online striptease to raise money for victims of the Chinese earthquake earlier this year. Many Thai websites (with the notable exceptions of telewizmall.com and madoo.com) have indeed refrained from posting the racier Xiao Yun images.

t-shirt leads to arrest

A teenager (whose name has not been revealed) has been arrested in Helensvale, Australia, for wearing an 'offensive' Cradle Of Filth t-shirt. Amazingly, in news reports about the case, Rev. Matthew Hunt of Helensvale Church is quoted in support of the arrest. I assure you that this Matthew Hunt is not me, because I actually own this t-shirt.

Deia Juan Carlos case resumes

Spain's National Court has resumed legal proceedings against the satirical magazine Deia, despite the case being dismissed in April. The magazine's controversial photomontage of King Juan Carlos was originally published in 2006. (In a parallel case, two El Jueves cartoonists are appealing against their convictions after they were fined 3,000 euros for their cartoon of Prince Filipe.)

appeal against Jyllands-Posten acquittal fails

An appeal by a group of Danish Muslims against Jyllands-Posten has been rejected. The appeal was launched following the dismissal of a lawsuit against the newspaper in 2006. Jyllands-Posten printed twelve Mohammed cartoons in 2005; the illustrations ignited an international controversy and were widely reproduced.

(A similar appeal, against the acquittal of French magazine Charlie Hebdo, also failed.)

textbook withdrawn for Mohammed cartoon

A new school textbook has been withdrawn from publication in Norway, as it reprints a Mohammed cartoon and makes an inaccurate claim about the Danish newspaper which originally printed it.

Henry Notaker's book, Eksistens, includes the infamous caricature of Mohammed drawn by Kurt Westergaard, which was originally printed in Jyllands-Posten alongside eleven other caricatures in 2005. Notaker writes that Jyllands-Posten also printed a cartoon of Mohammed with a pig's tail, though this is incorrect and no such illustration has been published.

Westergaard's cartoon came to symbolise the controversy surrounding the twelve original Jyllands-Posten drawings. It was removed from the online film Fitna in April, reprinted by European newspapers in February, and redrawn for the BBC last year.

if you don't stand up, you're mad!

Another person has been arrested for refusing to stand for the royal anthem at a Thai cinema. Rachapin Chancharoen has been accused of lese majeste by other members of the audience, in a case echoing that of Chotisak Oonsoong (who is facing the same charge following his refusal to stand at a cinema last year). Surely if someone chooses not to stand up, it should be nobody else's business?

Furthermore, the police have speculated that Rachapin may be mentally ill, as if a sane person would never refuse to stand. They should realise that standing up (or rather, sitting down) for your beliefs is not a sign of madness.

El Jueves cartoonists appeal

Two Spanish cartoonists, Guillermo Torres and Manel Fontdevila, are appealing against their 3,000 euro fines and lese majeste convictions. They were responsible for a banned cartoon of Spain's Prince Filipe published in 2006.

1,893 websites blocked

According to the Thai government, access to 1,893 websites is currently blocked within Thailand. The figure was provided under the Official Information Act, following a request from FACT. (The Act stipulates that all enquiries must be answered within two months; FACT had to wait for over a year.)

The official total of 1,893 blocked sites is a mere 10% of the unofficial MICT blocklist, leaked by FACT last year. Also, the Computer Crime Act forbids the blocking of any website without a court order, and so far only one such order has been applied for: to block a website selling Beagle Buddha merchandise. (The ICT Minister had previously encouraged hackers to illegally disrupt potentially offensive websites; the Beagle Buddha site is unblocked, as the court order has not [yet] been granted and the site has not [yet] been hacked.)

Bill Henson photographs not obscene

The twenty Bill Henson photographs removed from an Australian gallery last month have been cleared of obscenity. The gallery's Henson exhibition (Proof Of Age) has now finished, though the controversial images will be on view again in the near future.

BBC journalist accused of lese majeste

Thai police officer Wattanasak Mungkandee has submitted evidence against BBC journalist Jonathan Head, after accusing him of lese majeste and, incredibly, of being in league with Thaksin to destabilise the monarchy. Wattanasak identified eleven 'inappropriate' BBC News articles, some of which commit the 'crime' of positioning photos of Thaksin above photos of the King. He also cited a 2007 FCCT seminar which Head moderated; at the seminar, Head broached the unmentionable subject of succession: "the King is now eighty; he will not be around forever". Wattanasak was also the officer who first accused Jakrapob of lese majeste, again after an FCCT speech: clearly, he is either paranoid or angling for a promotion.

Protect Our Internet petition

An online petition has been launched, to protest against the Thai police investigation into websites with potentially lese majeste content. The police were alerted by Democrat Assistant Secretary-General Thepthai Senpong, and the petition demands that lese majeste must no longer be used as a party-political weapon. Visit gopetition.com/online/19589.html to sign the petition.

Bill Henson photographs removed

Works from a photography exhibition by Bill Henson have been removed by Australian police from Roslyn Oxley9, a Sydney art gallery. The confiscated photographs are images of a naked teenaged girl. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described them as "revolting", and censored versions of some images have been shown by ABC TV in Australia. (Nude images of minors have been removed from galleries in the past, most recently the Nan Goldin photograph investigated, and subsequently exonerated, by UK police last year.)

websites under investigation

Twenty-nine websites are currently being investigated by Thai police, due to concerns that they contain lese majeste content:

1. youtube.com/stoplesemajeste
2. 2519me.com
3. hellosiam.blogspot.com
4. rukchard.blogspot.com
5. chakridynasty.googlepages.com
6. midnightuniv.org
7. sameskybooks.org
8. prachatai.com
9. newskythailand.com
10. chupong.net
11. sapaprachachon.blogspot.com
12. pccthai.com
13. datopido.newsit.es
14. serichon.com
15. sapaprachachon.org
16. s125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/nicolejung99/?
17. weloveudon.net
18. mvnews.net
19. cptradio.com
20. thaipeoplevoice.org
21. nationsiam.com
22. arayachon.org
23. siamreview.net
24. warotah.blogspot.com
25. killerpress.wordpress.com
26. gunner2007.wordpress.com
27. tltglobal.com
28. thaijournalistdemocraticfront.com
29. secondclass111.com

A few of these twenty-nine sites are currently blocked: sameskybooks.org (accused of lese majeste earlier this month), youtube.com/stoplesemajeste (blocked since last month), and chakridynasty.googlepages.com. Despite removing contentious content, sapaprachachon.org is also blocked. Prachatai.com was briefly blocked last week, though is now accessible. Some sites have been deleted by their webmasters: gunner2007.wordpress.com, thaijournalistdemocraticfront.com, pccthai.com, and sapaprachachon.blogspot.com.

Under the terms of the Computer Crime Act, a court order is required before a website can be blocked, though ICT Minister Man Pattanothai has assured ISPs that they will face no penalties if they block 'offensive' sites. He has even admitted that, because applying for a court order would lead to accusations of censorship, he considers it better to (illegally) suppress provocative sites. (Man is the replacement for Sittichai, who resigned as ICT Minister last year.)

Dutch cartoonist arrested

Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot has been arrested on suspicion of producing anti-Islamic cartoons. (He is the author of the book Misselijke Grappen, which includes provocative images of Mohammed.) Police have insisted that he remove eight cartoons from his website, though all eight drawings have been published in this week's issue of HP/De Tijd.

sameskybooks.org & prachatai.com accused

Two websites, sameskybooks.org and prachatai.com, have been accused of lese majeste by Sunimit Jirasuk, a Thai citizen. Sunimit claims that both websites have hosted comments from people who support Chotisak Oonsoong (who was accused of lese majeste after he committed the 'crime' of refusing to stand up for the royal anthem).

Same Sky's website was shut down earlier this year; it moved to a temporary host, then returned to its original location. Yesterday, the site was inaccessible, though a barebones version is available now; it will be fully restored in the next few days. Prachatai's website has featured extensive news coverage of the Chotisak case (significantly more than the mainstream Thai media), including an article by Sulak Sivaraksa.

Sunimit is a private citizen, yet he can accuse anyone of lese majeste whenever he likes. Lese majeste carries not only a potentially long prison sentence but also a huge social stigma in Thailand, yet such accusations can be made by anyone against anyone. (Chotisak was also accused by a private citizen, Navamintr Witthayakul.)

For libel or slander, only the person who has been directly affected can bring charges. Maybe this rule should also be applied to lese majeste. The law itself is rather anachronistic, anyway, because those found guilty are routinely pardoned. This reinforces the image of royal benevolence, though it might be simpler to repeal the law.

Deia Juan Carlos case dismissed

A Spanish court has ruled that a satirical photomontage of King Juan Carlos published in 2006 does not constitute lese majeste. (A similar case, however, did result in a conviction, when two El Jueves cartoonists were fined 3,000 euros last year for a cartoon of Prince Filipe.)

petition for Chotisak

In Thai cinemas, the royal anthem is played before every film. While the anthem is played, it is customary for the audience to stand, as a mark of respect for the King.

Every time I've been to the cinema here, I've always stood up when the royal anthem is played, and I've never noticed anyone not standing up. However, on 20th September last year, Chotisak Oonsoong remained seated during the anthem, and now a member of the audience has accused him of lese majeste! The police have, incredibly, accepted the case, and Chotisak faces up to fifteen years in jail if he is convicted!

Surely standing up for the anthem is a courtesy, not a legal requirement? An online petition (petitiononline.com/Chotisak) has been launched to protest against this vindictive misuse of the law.

youtube.com user blocked in Thailand

Two websites (youtube.com/stoplesemajeste and 15yearsprison.blogspot.com) by a youtube.com user criticising Thailand's lese majeste law have been blocked by TOT.

Syndromes & Century (Thailand's edition)

Following the rejection of his appeal against the Thai censorship of his film Syndromes & A Century, Apichatpong Weerasethakul has agreed to present a censored version of the film for Thai audiences. It will be screened at Paragon Cineplex, starting today (preceded by a panel discussion with Apichatpong at 6pm), for the next fortnight.

Silent leader footage will be projected in place of six censored scenes, to draw attention to the censorship of the film. In a stroke of genius, each ticket comes with a free Syndromes & A Century postcard, which features photographs of the censored scenes and links to youtube.com where the censored footage can be seen, thus making a mockery of the censor's decision.

Hrdlicka's painting removed

An exhibition of religious paintings by Alfred Hrdlicka, Religion Fleisch & Macht, at Vienna's Dommuseum, has provoked criticism from Austrian Catholic leaders. One of the paintings, a homoerotic version of Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini, has been removed from the exhibition. The exhibition also includes paintings featuring a crucified (and, in at least one instance, erect) Jesus being simultaneously groped and tortured. (Tumescent Christs have caused several previous artistic controversies, including statuettes by Terence Koh and cartoons published in The Insurgent.) The exhibition opened on 12th March, and is scheduled to close on 10th May.

Fitna

Fitna, a short film by Geert Wilders, has been released online. Wilders had previously attempted to screen it on Dutch television, without success. After Fitna's official website, fitnathemovie.com, was deleted by its host company, the film was finally hosted by liveleak.com (though even they removed it for one day, due to security concerns). There have been demonstrations against the film in Islamic countries.

Fitna begins as an attack on the Koran. Passages from the book, which seem to incite violence, are followed by images of Islamic terrorism. Wilders presents Islam as a violent, intolerant religion; what he does not acknowledge, of course, is that there are some equally blood-thirsty passages in the Bible. Kurt Westergaard's Mohammed cartoon (reprinted in February) was originally featured as Fitna's first image, though it was later replaced by a new caricature of Mohammed carrying a bomb.

The second half of the film, however, degenerates into a racist anti-immigration polemic. Wilders directly condemns the rising Muslim population in Europe in general and Holland in particular, and is clearly resentful of the influences immigrant Muslims have in Dutch society.

Thus, while the first half is provocative and interesting, the second half is no better than the hysterical 'flood of immigrants' headlines in UK newspapers such as the Daily Express.

Indian author arrested

Rabindra Prasad Panda, author of Hajarat Muhammad, has been arrested in Cuttack, India. His book features an image of Mohammed carrying a sword on its cover.

Bangladeshi cartoonist released

Arifur Rahman, the Bangladeshi cartoonist who was jailed last year following his innocuous "Mohammed cat" cartoon, has now been released after the prosecution failed to pursue the case against him.

appeal against Charlie Hebdo acquittal fails

In 2006, the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a collection of Mohammed cartoons and was sued by a group of French Muslims. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2007, and yesterday an appeal against the dismissal was rejected, completely vindicating the magazine.

MICT will hack websites!

The previous ICT Minister, Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom, was an elderly Luddite. He claimed that he had no knowledge of blocked websites, and didn't really seem to understand the internet at all. The new Minister, however, appears to be more hands-on. Mun Patanotai, Sittichai's replacement, has announced that he is planning a 'hack and crack' policy to target unacceptable foreign websites.

The Computer Crime Act enables MICT to block websites after court approval, however it only applies to websites hosted within Thailand. Mun's (certainly illegal, and probably unworkable) solution is to hire a crack squad of thirty hackers, who will attempt to delete any 'offensive' websites altogether, without waiting for pesky legal permission.

Mum's first target, apparently, is a company selling Beagle Buddha merchandise via cafepress.com/pocketlama/1805170. Their goods feature an image of the Buddha with the face of a beagle dog. I'm sure the webmasters are quaking in their boots at the prospect of an MICT hack...

Syndromes & A Century appeal fails

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's appeal against the Thai censorship of his film Syndromes & A Century has failed.

Last year, Thai censors insisted that, before the film could be released, four (completely harmless) scenes must be deleted. Admirably, Apichatpong refused to make any cuts, and consequently the film was not released in Thai cinemas. Apichatpong then formed the Free Thai Cinema Movement to campaign against state censorship.

Syndromes & A Century was one of the most critically-acclaimed films of 2007, following widespread international screenings last year. Also in 2007, two paintings critical of the monkhood won major art prizes in Thailand; Syndromes & A Century's representation of Thai monks is tame in comparison.

Despite this, the Thai appeals committee yesterday announced not only that they upheld the previous decision to cut four scenes, but that they also required an additional sequence to be cut. They objected to statues of Princess Galyani and Prince Mahidol appearing within the context of the film. [Whereas some might object instead to the power wielded by the censors, and to their sanctification of the monarchy and the monkhood...]

Indie Sex

Indie Sex is a series of documentaries broadcast on America's Independent Film Channel last year. Each episode deals with a different theme: Censored, Taboos, Teens, and Extremes. Each show features critics and directors discussing the history of (almost exclusively heterosexual) sex in cinema. Most of the film clips (with a few exceptions) are very tame, though the DVD includes more graphic sequences.

The first episode, Censored, gives a detailed history of American film censorship (and is less polemical than This Film Is Not Yet Rated). There is quite a lot of overlap, though, with the same points being made, and the same films being discussed, in several episodes. Among the directors interviewed are John Waters (discussing A Dirty Shame), Fenton Bailey (discussing Inside Deep Throat), Catherine Breillat (discussing Anatomy Of Hell), and John Cameron Mitchell (discussing Shortbus).

Berlin gallery cancels exhibition

An exhibition at Galerie Nord, Berlin, has been closed ahead of schedule following threats of violence from a group of Muslims.

The exhibition, ZOG, by a Danish duo known as Surrend, satirises religious and political extremism. It opened on 22nd February, and was due to run until 29th March. However, a group of six Muslim men threatened gallery staff with violence last week, prompting the gallery to close the exhibition early.

The men demanded the removal of one artwork from the exhibition: a poster-sized photograph of the Kaaba (Islam's holiest site, a granite cube in Mecca's Masjid Al-Haram mosque). Above the photograph of the Kaaba are the German words "Dummer Stein", meaning 'stupid stone'.

Calling the most sacred site in Islamic culture a stupid stone is, of course, offensive to any Islamic person. But if you're offended by an art exhibition there's a very easy solution: don't visit the gallery! No-one should have the right to demand the removal of 'offensive' art. If I was offended by an exhibition (unlikely, I know), then I probably wouldn't go to see it, and I certainly wouldn't interfere with other people's right to see it.

The happy irony is that, while only a small number of visitors chose to view the poster at the exhibition, potentially millions of unsuspecting people have seen it reproduced in the media following the news of the exhibition's closure.

uncensored poster provokes death threats

The editor of a Swedish newspaper has received death threats after he published a poster featuring Satan defecating on Jesus.

The poster, advertising the Navar Igen IV: Punx Against Christ! festival, was censored by the local council, though the Ostgota Correspondenten newspaper published it uncensored yesterday.

Comrade Journal blocked

Comrade Journal, a radical Socialist e-journal published in Thailand, has been blocked by the Thai state-owned internet service provider, TOT. The March issue of Comrade Journal is not accessible via TOT.

Zgoda editor released

Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, editor of the Belarus newspaper Zgoda, has been released from jail. He had been sentenced to three years in prison, after his newspaper reprinted the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons.

Tunisian comedian jailed

Hei Ouled Baballah, a Tunisian comedian, has been jailed following a performance in which he impersonated Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, the country's President. An audio recording of the performance has been circulating unofficially in Tunisia, where political satire is not tolerated.

complaint against Levant dropped

Syed Soharwardy has dropped his complaint against Canadian publisher Ezra Levant. Levant's magazine, Western Standard, printed the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons on 13th February 2006.

Mohammed cartoon reprinted

The most controversial of the twelve Mohammed caricatures published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 has been reprinted today by various European newspapers. Kurt Westergaard's cartoon, of Mohammed wearing a bomb instead of a turban, came to symbolise the entire controversy. (He was filmed by the BBC drawing a new version of the image last year.)

Danish police have arrested three people who were allegedly plotting to murder Westergaard. To show solidarity with the cartoonist, and to defend free speech, his cartoon has been reprinted today by as many as seventeen Danish newspapers (including Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, and Ekstra Bladet, as well as Jyllands-Posten) and by newspapers in Spain, Holland, and Sweden. (All twelve of the original cartoons were reprinted extensively in 2006.) Politiken has printed a partially-drawn version of the Westergaard image on its front page.

Turkish cartoonists on trial

Two Turkish cartoonists, Musa Kart and Zafer Temocin, are on trial for defamation, after the Cumhuriyet newspaper published their caricatures of Turkish President Abdullah Gul. Kart's cartoon, depicting Gul as a scarecrow, was published on 28th November 2007. Temocin's caricature, of Gul in an envelope, appeared the next day. If they are found guilty, they face four years in jail.

A Coup For The Rich banned

Giles Ji Ungpakorn's book A Coup For The Rich: Thailand's Political Crisis, about the aftermath of the 2006 coup, has effectively been banned by the Thai police. Thammasat University Bookstore, the only outlet brave enough to sell the book, has received a letter from the police to the effect that the book is being investigated for lese majeste (because it quotes one word ["pseudo-economics"] from The King Never Smiles) and should therefore be removed from sale. But if the investigation is still ongoing, and the author has not been found guilty (yet), the police have no right to withdraw the book. The police request letter has been obtained and published by the FACT website.

editor jailed for reprinting cartoons

Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, editor of the Belarus newspaper Zgoda, has been imprisoned for three years. His 'crime' was to have published the caricatures of Mohammed which were first printed by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Zgoda was one of many newspapers which reprinted the cartoons in 2006.

Sulak challenges book ban

Sulak Sivaraksa, whose book ค่อนศตวรรษ ประชาธิปไตยไทย ที่เต็มไปด้วยขวากหนาม was banned by Thai police last October, is challenging the ban in court. Police chief Sombat Suphajiva and CNS-appointed 'Prime Minister' Surayud Chulanont, no less, will give evidence to support the ban. I bought the book from se-ed.com last year, though it is no longer on sale within Thailand.

sameskybooks.org shut down

Same Sky's website, sameskybooks.org, has been shut down by its host server, following a demand from MICT.

The site's forum contained comments which have been interpreted as anti-monarchy. For example, some members noted that recent Thai newspaper headlines about the whole nation mourning the death of Princess Galyani Vadhana were exaggerations.

Under the terms of the Computer Crime Act, a court order is required before a website can be blocked, so MICT's actions may be illegal. Fortunately, some forum pages are still online, and a new Same Sky forum has opened at getmorestudio.com/samesky.

TITV Thaksin interview pulled

An extended interview with Thaksin, conducted by Jom Petchphradub in Hong Kong on 24th December last year, was commissioned by TITV and due to be broadcast two days later. However, after an un-named government officer telephoned the channel, the interview was not broadcast. Of course, the same thing happened this time last year, when CNN's interview with Thaksin was blocked from Thai television.

Film & Video Act

Thailand has passed the Film & Video Act, which will introduce age classification to Thai cinemas for the first time. Classification has been called for by the