Thailand Blocks The Economist Magazine Again

By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – The latest issue of The Economist magazine, a British owned current-affairs magazine, will not be circulating in Thailand due to its coverage on the Thai navy’s treatment of illegal migrants from Myanmar. This is the second time that The Economist was blocked in Thailand in the month of January alone.

The article, titled “A Sad Slide Backwards” criticized the Thai Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva and the Thai navy for the treatment of thousands of Muslim Rohingya migrants from Myanmar. The report claimed that 500 of these migrants were cast out to sea in boats without engines and with little or no food.

“Our distributor in Thailand has decided not to distribute The Economist this week due to our coverage being sensitive,” Ian Fok a Hong Kong spokesman said.

Just a week earlier, in The Economist’s January 24 issue, an article titled “The Trouble with Harry” reported on an Australian writer that was sentenced to three years in jail for defaming the Thai monarchy was not allowed to be distributed. A staff member of Asia Books confirmed that the issue would not be put onto newsstands and claimed she did know the reason. The staff member also declined to give her name because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

Thailand has one of the most stringent lese majeste laws in the world where a person can be jailed up to 15 years for insults or threats to “the king, the queen, and their heir to the throne or the Regent.”

With the rise of internet users in Thailand, many bloggers would write about the Thai monarchy.  The Thai authorities have censored more than 2,000 websites due to the growing internet coverage of the royal family.

Persecutions under the lese majeste laws have been increasingly more common. Many of the charges are used for partisan political purposes.

The Economist itself has also fell victim to lese-majeste laws in the past.  In December, an article questioning the Thai king’s role in public life was banned. In 2002, a survey about Thailand was also banned.

For more information, please see:

APF – Economist magazine curbs distribution in Thailand– 26 January 2009

BBC – Thailand Bans Economist Magazine– 26 January 2009

Reuters – Economist Magazine Blocked in Thailand Again– 30 January 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive