<p>The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation has ordered the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology to close 612 &lsquo;subversive&rsquo; websites, most of which broadcast the red shirts&rsquo; rally.</p>

<p>According to Pol Col Suchart Wong-ananchai, Inspector of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, the Ministry has shut down and blocked over 50,000 websites which violated the 2007 Computer Crimes Act. Websites concerning national security were the most numerous.</p>

<p>Despite the bid for reconciliation by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the continued censorship and harassment of red-shirt media is a key factor why the protesters and their leaders have not left the Rajprasong area yet.</p>

<p>On the morning of 5 May, www.prachatai.net was blocked by the CRES. &nbsp;The page was redirected to http://58.97.5.29/www.capothai.org, with the message: Access is temporarily suspended, as ordered by the CRES under the 2005 Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations.</p>

<p>The Facebook fan page of independent Thai online news site Prachatai.com was blocked today [28 April] by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT), along with two other websites in the aftermath of the clash between security forces and Red Shirt protesters on 27 April, according to Chiranuch Premchaiporn, Prachatai's executive director. The fan page has 5,798 fans.</p>

<p>On-line political writer Wattana Sukwat, one of the many writers having their content blocked or deleted by the ICT Ministry under emegency rule said the removal of his 200 or so articles is not just undemocratic but akin to deleting his on-line identity.</p> <p>&quot;I am a like matrix removed [in the Hollywood movie 'The Matrix'] and no longer exists [in cycber space] ,&quot; he said yesterday (Thursday).</p>

<p>The Civil Court dismissed a case brought by Prachatai against the government within 5 hours of the complaint being filed, without examination of witnesses.</p>

<p>Statement from Former Thai Senators (2000-2006)*,&nbsp;&ldquo;Demanding the government to stop blocking media channels and using the state-run media to present one-sided information on the crackdown of the demonstration on April 10, 2010&rdquo;</p>

<p>A new red-shirt radio station went on air yesterday in the Rajprasong intersection protest-site area, in a move to counter the continued shutting down of red-shirt media by the government under emergency rule.</p> <p>&quot;They should allow us to criticise [the government], but instead they shut our ears and eyes,&quot; Chinawat Haboonpak, a red-shirt leader told the crowd at the intersection yesterday morning. &quot;We ask for just one television channel, but they have taken it away from us and shut our ears and eyes again.&quot;</p>

<p>The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation has ordered the MICT to close 190 websites, of which over 60% are claimed to be politically seditious.&nbsp; Since the red shirt protests started, the MICT has ordered the blocking of about 500 URLs per day on average.</p>

<p>Red-shirt media and those identified as sympathetic to red-shirt protesters suffered heavy censorship yesterday as the government exercised its power under the emergency decree to cut communication lines among the red shirts, leaving society with only what the state views as correct and appropriate.</p> <p>It was a bid to reduce the crowd - but it invited more red shirts to the main protest venue at Rajprasong intersection and elsewhere.</p>

<p>Google&rsquo;s recent opposition to Internet censorship in China went wildly underreported in Thailand. Yet this move to seize the moral high ground has vast implications to Thailand and every other censorship nation. The world&rsquo;s censors have been put on notice by a company worth five billion dollars, more than many governments.</p>