(SEAPA/IFEX) – On 7 February 2006, the Ang Thong provincial court convicted a community radio operator of breaching the Radio Telecommunications Act and sentenced him to a suspended sentence of four months in prison and a fine of Bht 40,000 (approx. US$1,000). In a ruling that dealt a major blow to the country’s 3,000-plus community […]
(SEAPA/IFEX) – On 7 February 2006, the Ang Thong provincial court convicted a community radio operator of breaching the Radio Telecommunications Act and sentenced him to a suspended sentence of four months in prison and a fine of Bht 40,000 (approx. US$1,000).
In a ruling that dealt a major blow to the country’s 3,000-plus community radio stations, the court found Sathien Chanthon, operator of 92.25MHz radio station in the Chaiyo district, guilty of illegally operating the station and possessing a transmitter. The provincial court initially sentenced him to six months in jail and fined him Bht 60,000 (US$1,500), but reduced the penalties by two months and Bht 20,000 (approx. US$500), respectively, because he cooperated during the trial.
Media reform advocates fretted that the court verdict would have far reaching repercussions on the community’s fights for the right to use air waves, which are currently under state control.
In his defence, Sathien argued that his station operated in line with Article 40 of the Constitution and cabinet resolutions issued on 16 July 2002 and 24 June 2003, which set out interim rules to govern community radio broadcasting.
Article 40 says radio and television transmission frequencies are national resources for use in the public interest and the resolutions empower the Public Relations Department (PRD) to regulate all radio stations and promote them as community learning centres.
However, the court argued that his station should still come under the existing Radio Telecommunications Act in the absence of a broadcast regulatory body, which should have been set up under Article 40. It further said that the government’s interim rules for community radio broadcasting were not law and therefore the existing telecommunications law would take precedence over them.
The farmer-turned broadcaster launched his 92.25 MHz radio station in July 2002, in line with government experiments to promote community broadcasting in Thailand. However, in October 2002, the PRD and the Post and the Telegraph Department ordered his station closed. The authorities charged him with illegally possessing a radio transmitter, and violating the Radio Telecommunications Act B.E. 2498(1955).
Sathien said he would appeal the provincial court’s verdict. The 55-year-old radio operator felt the authorities simply wanted to muzzle him, and were using a legal pretext to do so. In 2005, authorities shut down a number of community radio stations critical of the government, by using those radio operators’ failure to comply with technical regulations as an excuse.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said Sathien should in principle be able to appeal on the grounds that the fault for not being registered as a community radio station lies not with him but with the government.
In its 7 February statement, AHRC suggested that the government should be held accountable for its failure to enact and enforce constitutional provisions within a reasonable period of time. Five years have lapsed since the Wavelength Regulator Act, introduced in 2000 to enforce Article 40 of the Constitution, made provisions for the formation of the country’s first independent broadcasting regulator to replace the state control of the allocation of airwaves to the public.
“Instead, the government has played various games to deny change and prevent completion of this process,” AHRC noted.
The local media reform movement and media and legal advocacy groups are planning a public campaign to lend moral support to Sathien and to raise litigation funds to help him fight his court battle.
Supinya Klangnarong, secretary general of Campaign for Popular Media Reform, which spearheaded the media reform campaign, said discussions were under way to find strategies to prevent the government from using the vacuum in broadcast regulations as an excuse to deny the public its right to broadcast over the airwaves.
