Slashdot Mirror
Thai Government To Close 400 Anti-government Sites
Will Lord writes "The Guardian is reporting that the Thai government plans to close down 400 anti-government websites and is asking ISPs to block 1,200 more. The response follows a declaration of a state of emergency which has seen troops take to the streets of Bangkok to police anti-government protests.
With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent, do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
You have missed some news. The supporters of the previous prime minister won the recent election and got the power back from the military. Now it is the People's Alliance for Democracy that is revolting.
TRT = the old elected government deposed by the military
PAD = the wannabe government that called for the military coup
The leader of PAD owns a TV station (manager TV) this station promotes his cause. He claims to be democratic, but calls on the King and military to take control of the country away from Thaksin Shinawatra and the TRT party. His excuse was 'vote buying'. King said no, that would be undemocratic.
So Thaksin calls a snap election, says PAD should monitor elections closely, wins easily, but not an outright majority. Goes to King, King tells him, for the sake of unity of country step down anyway, even though you won.
Thaksin says OK, preps another election without him.
PAD claims he'll rig election for his successor, suggests maybe he'll do a U turn and not step down. Military decides to have a coup.
So PAD got it's coup, and the miltary took over, they rewrote the constitution, banned TRT, arrested a lot of its leaders.
The military leadership was crap, nothing got better, a lot of the allegations against Thaksin evaporated as false. Things they blamed Thaksin for got worse under the army. Especially the muslim insurgency in the south.
But with TRT banned and leaders locked up, PAD is sure to win right? Right?
Military ran elections closely monitored by the military and police.
Old TRT members that were not arrested formed PPP and won the election.
PAD are seriously pissed off, continue to make ever more serious allegations against the government, call for protests and demonstrations to bring down the government.
Thailand more divided than ever.
PAD+ military won't let the government rule, but people won't vote for PAD. The D in PAD stands for democracy, but their leader can't take it when they don't vote for him.
The current king most of all. I was over there in 2005 for quite awhile; the only place I have ever went that before a movie, you had to stand and honor the king while a clip played reviewing his life. To not do so would have gotten you some harsh stares and probably in trouble. You do -not- slight the king in Thailand. (Or the queen, or their children.)
That said, the current king is not just some lay about playboy who lives a good life; the man does care about his country and has worked hard on improving Thailand. After the tsunami hit and wiped out entire villages, he intervened and had people with safe housing -and- work within a very short period of time. I visited these places and was amazed at how much was done in a short time, to alleviate displace people. (FEMA could learn a lot from that effort.) The Queen has done a lot to promote the thai culture and arts; I visited an art center where local thai people are given jobs creating thai art: both to preserve the culture of the art but also to give rural, poor people decently paid jobs. The princess is also very involved and is very well respected for her work.
The thai royal family is not just tabloid fodder like some -other- royal families.
The current crisis has nothing to do with the royal family, but everything to do with the government and politics, and corruption. Spend any time in Thailand, and the corruption is very apparent. Everything from the tuk-tuk drivers charging tourists 3-4 times the normal fair to some of the police pulling you over for a slight violation and expecting you to pay the "fine" right then and there. This bubbles up into the government, especially the one of PM Thaksin where there are/were some very serious accusations of corruption at the highest levels. The current PM is pretty much nothing but Thaksin's puppet. Thaksin had GREAT rural support int the north/north-east, but overall, he was not well liked because he was very rich and did the unthinkable: he sold a thai-controlled television station to the Singapore Government; that incited nationalist tempers.
Anyways! Great place to visit, but I would not want to live there. :)