(TJA/IFEX) – The following is an 11 March 2002 press release by the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), of which TJA is a member: Bangkok-The newly-elected President of the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) today urged the Senate and the House of Representative to set up a special committee to investigate the Thaksin government’s latest attacks […]
(TJA/IFEX) – The following is an 11 March 2002 press release by the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), of which TJA is a member:
Bangkok-The newly-elected President of the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) today urged the Senate and the House of Representative to set up a special committee to investigate the Thaksin government’s latest attacks on media freedom.
“We want the parliament to examine whether the government’s actions against the media were unconstitutional or not,” Veera Pratheepchaikul said after submitting an open letter signed by 1,195 media professionals to Senate Chairman Manoonkrit Roopkhachorn and House Speaker Uthai Pimchaichon, respectively, at the Parliament House.
“We agreed that the latest government crackdown on critical media not only infringed upon press freedom but also people’s basic rights as guaranteed under the Constitution,” Veera said. Those are the right to free expression, the right to access information, and individual rights.
The letter referred to last week’s suspension of the Nation Multimedia Group Co.’s political radio programs and the Anti-Money Laundering Office’s prior order to investigate the banking transactions and assets of prominent journalists who are critical of the government and their family members.
“We hope the parliament, as one of the three pillar democratic institutions, will rightly perform its check-and-balance role when the executive branch abuses its power,” he said.
“We fully understand the senate chairman and the house speaker must be impartial in politics but the government’s current abuse of its power to threaten media freedom represents a monumental problem of basic rights and the people’s freedom being violated,” he said.
“We still have high hope that these two institutions will kindly attend to our demands and will not let the people down,” he said.
Tomorrow, TJA will submit the same letter to the National Human Rights Commission.
Kulachada Chaipipat
Country Director, Thailand
SEAPA
