Pravit Rojanaphruk
30 Jan 2015
Prachatai on Friday celebrated, under martial law, its 10th anniversary as a non-profit alternative online media in Thailand.
About 60 guests joined the event to celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday night.
The event was by invitation only and kept secret until Friday night for fear that the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) would force the cancellation of the event.
17 Nov 2014
Prachatai looked into record of those who just campagined for the media freedom -- six months after the coup.
4 Nov 2014
An inordinate amount of time was spent working out exactly how many anti-coup protesters had gathered in Milan to denounce Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha last week. He was in the Italian city to attend the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem).
Officials, including government spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd, initially denied the protesters' existence, though later - upon realising that there were indeed some - he denounced them for allegedly exploiting the Italians already protesting outside the Asem venue.
25 Sep 2014
The cancellation and breaking up of talks believed to be critical of coup-makers in recent days have sent shock waves beyond the academic community here in Thailand.
This was yet another signal from the ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) that it will not tolerate any form of dissent - not even inside university walls.
Perhaps this offers an insight into the junta's deep-rooted insecurity four months after the May 22 coup.
A few weeks after taking over, the junta began ce
22 Sep 2014
One of the biggest, but least talked about casualties of the May 22 coup is not human, but this abstract thing called logic.
Ever since the military coup, public space for logical and rational political debate has been diminishing.
Last week, a human rights groups wanted to hold a discussion on what has happened to people's access to justice under the junta, but it ended up being "requested" to cancel the event.
13 Aug 2014
Junta Cheif General Prayuth Chan-ocha mentioned at least twice during his hour-long speech to launch the national reform process on Saturday that what the country needs is "Thai-style democracy".
This leads to two questions: What is Thai-style democracy - and what is so Thai and democratic about it?
While Prayuth did not elaborate on the differences between Thai-style democracy and the so-called Western democracies, the fact that he used the words "Thai-style democracy", and even added at one point that Asean needed its own form of dem
31 Jul 2014
It's not just through guns and tanks that the military junta, known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), usurps and clings to power. Two months after the coup, the Kingdom saw the use of both soft and hard power, as well as support from a large enough sector of the population that helped shore up the NCPO.
16 Jul 2014
The recent rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl on a Bangkok-bound train has given rise to calls for a mandatory death penalty for rapists.
This matter may seem quite straightforward, especially where parents and women are concerned, as they understandably want to see this horrendous crime to end.
However, the passion that has ignited this call for capital punishment needs to be better understood, particularly in a country claiming to be the Land of Buddhism.
Regardless of the st
3 Jul 2014
One of the junta's main tools at present is not using guns and tanks, but relying on the power of language.
The power seizure on May 22 was not a coup, but a "military intervention", or so the junta's spokesman Colonel Werachon Sukhondapatipak reminded us last month in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT).
4 Jun 2014
Why did the Thai military junta keep us as their "guest detainees" for up to a week without charges?
Is it about intimidation, punishment, a show of power, a psychological ploy, a mere warning - or all of the above?
One Army colonel at the military camp in Ratchaburi province, where a dozen of us ended up under military detention, said it was like handing us a football yellow card but not yet a red card.
27 May 2014
The newspaper stands by Pravit's news reports and opinion pieces, saying they are in line with its editorial policies
In a letter addressed to General Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, The Nation called on the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to release its senior journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk from military custody as soon as possible.
In the letter, The Nation's managing editor Jintana Panyaarvudh said Pravit's detention was akin to curtailing press freedom.
25 May 2014
The professional membership of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand is deeply concerned by the detention of journalists by the new military authorities in Thailand, following the imposition of martial law on Tuesday and a full coup d’etat on Thursday.
Thanapol Eawsakul, the editor of Same Sky magazine, was arrested following an anti-coup protest on Friday.
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