Pick to Post

25 Apr 2010
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. "I am a like matrix removed [in the Hollywood movie 'The Matrix'] and no longer exists [in cycber space] ," he said yesterday (Thursday).
21 Apr 2010
On Monday evening, this writer ran into a fellow journalist from a major newspaper at the red-shirt rally site and we shared our views about the protest. Here are some excerpts of the conversation: She: Most protesters are from the provinces and likely paid if not "organised" into coming to Bangkok. Me: Yes, there are many rural poor people, but there is no proof as to whether they've been paid. They mostly forged an alliance by relying on politicians to advance their political cause. It's not that different from the yellow-shirt middle class, who depended on the discourses of the old elite, the army and royalist ideology to advance their political agenda. Both groups forged alliances, period.
20 Apr 2010
All sides in Thailand’s widening political conflict should immediately commit to ending human rights abuses, Amnesty International said today.   Amnesty International welcomes the Thai government's pledge to investigate promptly, effectively, and impartially the recent violence, and urges it to provide accountability for any violations by security forces as well as abuses by violent protesters.
18 Apr 2010
Leader warns any lethal crackdown on protesters will lead to full-scale civil war. Army tanks would roll down the streets of Bangkok to defend the protesters rallying at Rajprasong intersection if the government decided to use lethal means to dislodge them, a red-shirt leader warned on Friday evening. "Soldiers would deal with one another. Tanks would fire at one another. And even if [the government] won, it would be on the rubble of ruins for everyone, " Jaran Dittha-apichai told The Nation in an exclusive interview.
18 Apr 2010
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. "They should allow us to criticise [the government], but instead they shut our ears and eyes," Chinawat Haboonpak, a red-shirt leader told the crowd at the intersection yesterday morning. "We ask for just one television channel, but they have taken it away from us and shut our ears and eyes again."
18 Apr 2010
According to all the suggestions proposed for a peaceful negotiations for the 3rd round of meeting between Government and the Red Shirt to end the political deadlock at this moment, ANFREL would like to propose a Road Map for Free and Fair Election in order to create a free and fair democratic atmosphere for the up-coming Parliamentary Election. The Road map for Free and Fair Election could provide room for all parties and supporters fairly and build up the necessary political confidence and trust for Thai peoples in general and ending the deadlock by non-violence means.
15 Apr 2010
Thailand is now in such a precarious situation that people must try to handle the crisis in a mature manner in order not to lose what little democracy and liberty we have gained over the decades.
14 Apr 2010
Some red-shirt radio stations have continued broadcasting despite orders nearly a week ago to censor and shut them down, thanks to loyal listeners, sympathisers and supportive communities coming to their defence.
11 Apr 2010
Anger, anxiety and fearless defiance filled the air as tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters at the Rajprasong intersection geared up for an all-out battle with the government's security forces. They learned in the early afternoon that their fellow protesters had clashed with soldiers at the other main protest site along Rajdamnoen Avenue and Phan Fa Bridge. By early evening, at least 83 had been injured.
11 Apr 2010
A Japanese journalist working for Reuters was killed while a freelance photographer was injured when Red Shirt protesters and police-military units battled in Bangkok on 10 April 2010, media reports said. Reuters said its TV cameraman, Hiro Muramoto, 43 years old, died from a bullet wound in the chest. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Klang Hospital in Bangkok.
9 Apr 2010
BANGKOK, Apr 9 (Asia Media Forum) — For press freedom advocates, it was bad enough, though not totally surprising, to hear that the government had shut down the opposition media amid the state of emergency in the Thai capital. But alarming to them is the gagging even of independent news sites.
9 Apr 2010
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. It was a bid to reduce the crowd - but it invited more red shirts to the main protest venue at Rajprasong intersection and elsewhere.

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