(TJA/IFEX) – In a letter to Army Commander General Surayud Chulanont, the TJA and ten other associations representing professional media workers strongly protested against Thai Army interference in the process to elect media representatives to a committee to select members of the National Broadcasting Commission. The commission is an independent body being established under a […]
(TJA/IFEX) – In a letter to Army Commander General Surayud Chulanont, the TJA and ten other associations representing professional media workers strongly protested against Thai Army interference in the process to elect media representatives to a committee to select members of the National Broadcasting Commission. The commission is an independent body being established under a new broadcasting law as a regulatory body to reallocate Thailand’s airwaves to the public.
The Organization of Frequency Wave Allocation and Supervision of Radio Broadcasting, Television and Telecommunication Enterprises Act, which passed parliament in January 2000, mandates the establishment of two independent bodies, the National Broadcasting Commission and the National Telecommunications Commission, to allocate frequencies, which have previously been under state and military control, to the public.
As part of the process of naming members to the two commissions, a seventeen-member selection committee will be picked from four categories of representatives. Government agencies are entitled to five representatives; media experts, media professionals and media-related non-governmental organisations have four each. However, in a government-sponsored meeting on 10 August to elect delegates from among media professionals to the selection committee, the TJA joined ten other media associations in pointing out that the four elected members belonged to associations set up by media operators and concessionaires, not journalists or media workers.
The TJA contends that these associations, which were set up shortly before the meeting was organised, are being used as a vehicle by owners and operators, including the army, to exercise undue influence over the selection process for the commission. One of the four people elected, an
army general, is the director of television channel 5, an army-owned television channel, while the other three are from media concessionaires and operators.
The TJA and its colleagues strongly urge the army commander to order the withdrawal of the director of television channel 5 from the selection committee because the army already has sufficient representation in the process through government representatives. The group also calls for an end to interference from the army in the selection process in any form. As such, the group says, this would ensure compliance with the spirit of the 1997 constitution on public participation in the broadcast industry.
