ICT Ministry may further control the Net

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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

ICT Ministry may further control the Net
By Pravit Rojanaphruk
The Nation

Freedom of expression on the Internet will likely be curbed further as the Information and Communications Technology Ministry (ICT) blocks more websites for allegedly defaming the monarchy and being a threat to national security, said Surutchada Chullapram, a researcher on comparative aspects of freedom of expression.

"We're actually going down a very slippery slope and it's not just censorship but self-censorship as well. I think the government can track you down if they want to, which is worrying," Surutchada said. She is currently a PhD candidate at University College, London.

Surutchada, who spoke at the first international conference on human rights in Southeast Asia in Bangkok yesterday, said the ICT Ministry was "very competent" at blocking sites deemed a threat to national security and the monarchy institution, adding that it was operating a round-the-clock scanning programme.

"I imagine that most people will not be able to circumvent it and that they can hunt us down if they want to," she said, adding that it was a shame because freedom of expression is the building block of democracy.

This, combined with online witch-hunts by some royalists, is leading to a new level of censorship and self-censorship. "The line between what people can say and what they cannot say is blurred. People might start to censor themselves because of fear," she said, adding that Thailand could become a country where "no one wants to say anything".

Although the institution is regularly criticised online, it is being done under the guise of nicknames and analogies, because expression, be it implicit or explicit, is being monitored and even persecuted.

The threat to use criminal liability on intermediaries, not just posters themselves such as in the case of prachatai.com director Chiranuch Premchaiporn, is a chilling tactic and different from any controls being used in the US and UK.

"They will be quite reluctant to circulate content that the government is not happy about. In the West, they know that Internet Service Providers do not have the resources to monitor the content and that it is not fair. In Thailand, the ISP is held criminally liable."