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Thai Government To Close 400 Anti-government Sites

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wonder-how-long-before-it's-our-turn dept.

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?"

2 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Roots of the Issue by TorKlingberg · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Some Background by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.