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Press Freedom Under Attack Journalists must remain vigilant in the face of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra efforts to control the media. March 19, 2002 Recent headlines out of Thailand have been all about press freedom but for all the wrong reasons. Since he came to power 13 months ago in one of Asia's freest, most open societies, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has worked overtime to cripple the hard-won media freedoms enshrined in the country’s 1997 reformist constitution. Using his executive powers, huge financial resources and news-spinning aides, he has co-opted journalists, manipulated the news and stifled the media's ability to provide accurate information and analysis. The recent controversy surrounding two Bangkok-based journalists from the respected Far Eastern Economic Review and the Economist is a cynical ploy to intimidate the foreign press, and move Mr. Thaksin's anti-media strategy to another level. In Thailand, where the local and foreign press have operated freely for years, an attack on the foreign press is obviously an attack on the media as a whole. What is the foreign media guilty of? They have covered Mr. Thaksin--whose family company controls the largest mobile phone network in the country, among other corporate gems--with critical eyes. For years, foreign correspondents have served as a mirror on political and economic conditions inside Thailand. Of course some of their reports were unpleasantly critical of the authorities but nearly all have been done professionally, often helping us to see ourselves more clearly. On the whole, the foreign press has given credibility to the Thai government and boosted its place in the world community. Until now, international media advocacy groups have always ranked Thailand as a country with a free media. Unfortunately, Thailand's formerly bright image has been greatly tarnished by Mr. Thaksin's muzzling tactics. Almost all media advocacy groups around the world have condemned the government and the next editions of their annual reports will doubtless now offer a negative assessment of the country's media atmosphere. The government's action serves as a fresh reminder that, with the authorities looking for ways to limit press freedom, the Thai media cannot afford to rest on its laurels. Previous governments respected and tolerated freedom of expression. After all, the country’s constitution has one of the world's most comprehensive provisions protecting and promoting freedom of expression and human rights. Realizing that this was a national asset, the previous government of former prime minister Chuan Leekpai promoted an atmosphere of free expression to lure foreign investors and turn Bangkok into an international news hub. Unfortunately, Mr. Thaksin thinks otherwise. His background as the country's telecommunications king and richest man has allowed him to use unconventional methods to control and manipulate news. Before he became prime minister, his company succeeded in buying into Thailand's only privately owned independent television station, iTV, leading to charges that he wanted to control the news for his own electoral purposes. Now he has extended this approach into government, including the state-owned media. In recent months, he has systematically monopolized the news flow in these media outlets to ensure that dissenting views are kept at bay. Ironically, Mr. Thaksin, who rode to power on a wave of democratization and openness, has chosen to proceed down a dangerous and dictatorial path. He would like to see the Thai press emulate those in Malaysia and Singapore, where the governments assert considerable control over the media and news content. Editors, who have links with the ruling parties, spend more time reporting for their leaders than for their readers. And an assortment of internal security and ownership laws can be invoked at anytime to stop media investigations and reporting. To add insult to injury, Mr. Thaksin's advisors, some of whom are former journalists and activists, know how to manage and disarm the Thai media. Last year, the government began to pool the existing public affairs and advertising budgets of all government bodies under one roof, making it easy to reward pro-government papers with advertising while punishing the critical ones. His government also continues to wield broad powers over the media, with the Thai Journalists Association recording 18 cases of abuse and interference in the print and broadcast media under Mr. Thaksin's premiership. These range from the police special branch sending warning letters to newspapers to the banning from state-owned broadcastling outlets of television and radio programs critical of Mr. Thaksin and the members of his cabinet. Hardly a day passes without some fresh and cynical ploy by the government to undermine the free media. The Anti-Money Laundering Office's recent digging into the financial situation of prominent journalists in the English and Thai language press is a case in point. Academics, journalists and opposition politicians cried foul and accused the government of abusing its power to cultivate fear. As usual, Mr. Thaksin insisted he was out of the loop—and that the had played no part in the decision to launch an investigation. Furthermore, Mr. Thaksin's premiership and mastery of big money politics have caught the Thai media off guard. Before the 1997 economic crisis hit the newsrooms, the Thai media was in top form, probing scandals and official malfeasance. Now as media proprietors struggle to recover from the ongoing economic turbulence, they are at the mercy of the flow of advertising and funding, which is often controlled by Mr. Thaksin's wide network of companies and affiliates. The economic crisis also brought in new media owners, including businessmen and politicians, who care more about profits than independent views. Some media outlets, despite being highly credible in the past, now openly prostitute themselves to service the powers that be. As a result, the Thai media has become highly partisan. This has produced a new phenomenon in the Thaksin era: If you are not with us, you are our enemy. Gone are many of the skeptical press voices that used to question the authorities’ every word. Before Mr. Thaksin's arrival, publishers and editors differed only in their degree of criticism, when it came to questioning government policies and intentions. Now quite a few of them are no longer watchdogs--instead they have become running dogs. Thai journalists have not yet completely come to grips with this new media environment and a failure to do so could cost the country its freedom of expression and blindfold the whole society. This is a trying time for the Thai media. With new, noncommittal proprietors meddling with the Thai media, independent views and outspoken journalists will be the first casualties. Journalists must remain vigilant and maintain their integrity and the highest level of professionalism in order to withstand Mr. Thaksin's grand strategy for controlling the media. (Mr. Chongkittavorn, is managing editor of The Nation, a Bangkok-based English-language daily, and currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.) ---------------------------------------
Fighting for Press Freedom Thailand's media in the frontline. March 19, 2002 As Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn, managing editor of The Nation, one of Thailand's leading English language papers, writes in an article on this page, hardly a day seems to go by without some fresh move by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government to undermine free and independent reporting. The past few weeks have seen his administration stop the Nation group, of which his newspaper is a part, from providing programs to a military-owned radio station after it aired an interview with a prominent Thaksin critic (Dow Jones has a small equity stake in the Nation group). And the publisher of Naew Na newspaper revealed that the prime minister had asked him to drop a popular column harshly critical of the government. The bank accounts of editors and executives in both groups were among those that then came under investigation by Thailand's Anti-Money Laundering Office, which was set up just over a year ago and is supposed to confine its remit to crimes such as drug dealing and extortion. Despite being chairman of AMLO, Mr. Thaksin insists he knew nothing of the probe--which critics believe was illegal. He even described it as "insane" and agreed to an inquiry into it. But the prime minister seemed just as annoyed that news of the investigation had leaked out, telling reporters on Sunday the agency needed restructuring so that it could keep secrets better. And when a Thai court last week ordered a temporary halt to the probe into three of Mr. Chongkittavorn's colleagues at The Nation, Mr. Thaksin's deputy, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, said there was no need to comply with the court order. At the Journal, we have had firsthand experience of the Thaksin administration's attitude towards press reports it dislikes. Last month, two Bangkok-based reporters for our sister publication, the Far Eastern Economic Review, were threatened with expulsion following a short report in the magazine detailing tensions between the prime minister and the revered Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej. What was heartening during this earlier affair was the willingness of Thai journalists to spring to the defense of our reporters. And that readiness to stand up in support of press freedom has again been evident during the more recent events. Nor is it confined to the media profession. On Friday, almost 400 Thai academics sent a protest letter to Mr. Thaksin's office, complaining about his government's violation of the constitutional right to freedom of expression. And last week's court ruling, although treated with such contempt by Mr. Chavalit, suggests some in the judiciary also see the value of press freedom. Whenever the media comes under threat, other countries can play a useful role in drawing international attention to this. And the scale of Mr. Thaksin's attack on the Thai media is such that this process has now begun, with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly telling the Asia Foundation in Washington D.C. last week that he is "concerned" at reports of harassment of journalists critical of the government. But ultimately the battle can only be won or lost on the ground in the country concerned, by journalists and others in society sympathetic to them. That is as true in Thailand as it is in Pakistan, where a former editor wrote on these pages yesterday of being forced to flee after reporting the truth about the murder of Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, or Hong Kong, where criticizing China has become more difficult in recent years. That is rarely an easy task and Thailand is no exception to this, especially since the Thaksin administration now has such a large pool of advertising revenue at its disposal that many media owners have become over-eager to please him. And 23 journalists who did stand up in defense of editorial independence at iTV, a television station owned by his family company, were last year sacked shortly afterwards. But that does not seem to have deterred others. A petition presented to the Thai parliament last week was signed by 1,195 journalists. And had it not been for the outrage that erupted following the revelation of the AMLO investigation, Mr. Thaksin would be unlikely to have ever agreed to set up an inquiry into it. Predictably enough, that panel's findings, released yesterday, sought to shift responsibility away from the prime minister. Instead it blamed two top AMLO officials, who are now likely to face disciplinary action. Yet the fact that Mr. Thaksin was forced to concede an inquiry at all, and spoke out so strongly against the original investigation, shows the effect concerted pressure can have. In the coming weeks and months, it is more than likely his administration will try to continue to erode press freedom in other ways. And, as Mr. Chongkittavorn points out, the task for Thai journalists and other concerned citizens must be to remain vigilant in fighting such efforts--a task may of them have performed with distinction so far. |
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