CNS CENSORSHIP : Strong media protest over Thaksin, TRT ban

CNS CENSORSHIP : Strong media protest over Thaksin, TRT ban.

Broadcast media told to stop airing views of former PM 'to cut confusion', but controversial order spurs wave of criticism

Media professionals and free speech advocates slammed the Council for National Security (CNS) yesterday for ordering the broadcast media to cease airing views defending former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the Thai Rak Thai Party.

CNS secretary-general General Winai Phattiyakul said the directive was needed to help restore national reconciliation.

But critics said such constraints showed a disregard for free speech little different from the regime it replaced.

Winai summoned about 50 editors and media executives to the Army's headquarters yesterday and declared that its tolerance of letting the media exercise its own judgement had reached a limit. If the media continued to ignore the CNS request to present only "constructive" news, the CNS would have to resort to stricter measures to make them conform.

"I would like to urge all the TV and radio stations to stop airing statements of the former prime minister and executives of the former ruling party," Winai said.

"You guys should know that if we allow representatives of the former premier to make statements every day, the public will be confused. Executives of state-owned media should withdraw the programmes [that violate the order]. Why continue to defend people who caused damage to the country?"

Supinya Klangnarong, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, said media censorship by the CNS only further emphasised that democracy would not come under military rule.

"It's all about stifling any opposition," Supinya said. "The CNS is no different from Thaksin in this regard. Today, it is only messing with broadcast media; there is no guarantee it will not try to control the press tomorrow. It only reinforces that autocratic control, not democracy, is its highest priority."

The Nation's editor, Tulsathit Taptim, who chairs the Thai Journalist Assocaition's subcommittee on press freedom, said: "We Thai journalists all agree with the need for national reconciliation and harmony, but the apparent attempts by the CNS to control the broadcast media, and tendency to resort to tough measures, run counter to the basic principles of democracy.

"The CNS must not violate its own proclaimed intention - to restore real democracy in Thailand. We, in the media, half-heartedly condoned the September 19 coup because we believed in that proclaimed intention. We believed that the CNS had a sincere and noble agenda of building true democracy in Thailand.

"Attempts to censor the broadcast media will only confuse the public. Not least because it was something that took place on a large scale under the Thaksin regime and it was one of the reasons why the Thaksin government was accused - by the public and the CNS itself - of being undemocratic," he said.

The Anti-19 September Coup Network of students and activists issued a statement calling on the CNS to withdraw from politics if it was not ready to be challenged by the media.

"The CNS should know that the media is not a stage for people in power only, it is a space for everybody in society. Controlling media freedom is like suppressing freedom of speech and the public's right to know."

Acting Thai Rak Thai Party spokesman Ekkaporn Rakkwamsuk said the CNS request was an abuse of power and that one-sided reports covering only the CNS were undemocratic and unfair self-praise.

He said the CNS criticism, that government officials were working passively, was meant to cover its own failure and incompetence in running the country after seizing power from the Thaksin government through the September 19 coup.

Uajit Virojtrairatt, director of the Media Monitor Project and a former lecturer in mass media, disagreed with the move.

"They should leave the mass media to use their judgement, otherwise how can it be called freedom of the press?" she asked.

She said she believed the press had enough social responsibility.

Democrat Party spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon also disagreed. He said the media used their judgement to report news and the CNS should not ban their reporting.

The Nation
Thu, January 11, 2007