2 replies to this topic

[B.I.G.]

"Pro-Thaksin Hi-Thaksin.net website has announced that it will shut itself down early Wednesday to avoid causing more trouble to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Its columnist, Pradab, said the site would shut down in 48 hours after his latest article was published. At 2:50 pm, a countdown bar in Pradab's article said the site would shut down in one day, 15 hours and 7 minutes.

Pradab said in the article that the site decided to pull its own plug because there were attempts to frame the site by saying that it was part of an alleged movement to insult the highest institution, "which is highly revered by all Thais". There were also attempts to link [former] prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to the allegations, by saying he provided financial support and was behind the operation of this website, but it is not true," the article writes.

"We have no political goal at all when we launched our website because we are ordinary people, not politicians. We opened this website only as a communication channel to inform the people, who love and have faith in Thaksin, of his latest movements. We also function as a centre to gather moral support for Thaksin during his exile.

"But we faced various allegations, like allegations that we have stirred up undercurrents, we have tried todestabilise the military and we are a national treat. We were also accused of insulting and violating the Privy Council president. In the latest move, the Hi-Thaksin.net was accused of being a websie with political goal and being a political tool of Thaksin and the People Power party although we have never received any financial support from Thaksin and People Power.

Pradab said his group initially planned to wait until after charter amendments are complete before it would cease its operations."But we have to change our mind and cease our operations before the initial schedule because of the plea of the one we love," Pradab said in the article.

He said Thaksin did not make the plea by himself but the website team could sense that Thaksin was in trouble when he was liked to the Hi-Thaksin.net by the opponents."For the sake of his peace of mind and his safety, we are ready to do this for him," Pradab said. He said the site would shut down after 1 year and 1 month of its operations."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/04/28...cs_30071788.php

[Gene]

"The shutting down of the pro-Thaksin Shinawatra website hi-thaksin.net as a result of its webmaster's decision has made the Information Communications and Technology Ministry looks like a paper tiger, deputy secretary-general of Democrat party Thepthai Sae-napong said Tuesday.

The site's webmaster, identified himself as Pradab, said Mr Thaksin's personal spokesman Pongthep Thepkanchana has asked that Mr Thaksin's name not be used in any political context, because Mr Thaksin had already side he intended to stay right out of politics.

Mr Thepthai said that none of the governmental organisations had tried to take action against the website, even though it is accused of insulting a highly-respected institution."

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=127377

[Hedda]

Mr Thepthai said that none of the governmental organisations had tried to take action against the website, even though it is accused of insulting a highly-respected institution."

This whole thing is very confusing. As I indicated in a post here on April 22:

I just tried to look at that website and got this message:
"Sorry, the web site you are accessing has been closed by Royal Thai Police due to inappropriateness such as pornography, gambling or contain any information which is deemed to violate national security." http://www.hi-thaksin.net/

Obviously, somebody at the Royal Thai Police has been blocking that website, I suspect for a very long time. My guess is that there are so many government agenices at this point with their hands on the censorship buttons that one doesn't know what the other is up to. My guess is that Gaybutton's old website got caught in this Thai internet version of the keystone cops.

What's equally depressing is that it's the Democrats who are now calling for the ICT Ministry "to take a proactive role in supervising websites with contents deemed politically harmful and divisive." Funny, but I thought that's what they've been condemning Thaksin for trying to do when he was in power. Now, they want more censorship, not less. These Thai politicians obviously could use a few lessons in just what freedom of speech is all about.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingne...newsid=30071881