In the seven years since Prayut Chan-o-cha seized power, he has spent a considerable period of time as premier securitizing disinformation. The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), already fully in control of the public through strict bans on public gathering and attitude adjustments, moved quickly into the practice of digital repression, including the manipulation of online information.
Every four and a half years, all 193 United Nations member states have their human rights records examined in a peer-reviewed process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). In November, this will mark Thailand’s third time through the UPR, with the 2016 review occurring around the less than auspicious second anniversary of the May 2014 coup d’état.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha ordered state agencies and departments to “take action against individuals spreading fake news about COVID-19, which might cause public confusion during the pandemic.” The government claims that the harsh edict came in response to social media rumors that the Bang Sue vaccination center in Bangkok would be shut down due to overcrowding.
Foodpanda, a major food delivery service in Thailand recently faced a backlash and a spontaneous boycott from pro-democracy protesters after it tweeted from its official account that an anti-government demonstrator was committing an act of “terrorism”, after a man dressed as a food delivery man was filmed trying to set fire to an image of King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Informality in Thailand runs deep. One might expect it to be confined to specific sectors of the economy like agriculture and fishing, which account for more than 50% of Thailand’s employment, but it stretches into the service sector, from wholesale and retail trade to hotel and restaurant workers. Informal workers, roughly 25 million people, comprise as much as 62% of all workers in the kingdom.
During a recent interview with Axios, an American news organisation, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan deflected questions and refused to acknowledge widespread repression and human rights abuses of the minority Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of Western China. Human rights groups have long accused Chinese authorities of detaining, torturing, and forcibly sterilising more than a million Uighurs being held in camps across the region.
Alarming orders from Myanmar’s Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD) back in June warned that senior executives of major telecommunications firms in the country would not be allowed to leave the country without the permission of the military junta. In pursuit of the junta’s goals of creating a digital surveillance state, telecom companies were told that they had until July 5 to implement technology on their systems that would allow government authorities to spy on calls, messages, and web traffic, as well as to track the whereabouts of users.
The Thai government had to have seen the data. The United Nations put together a socio-economic impact assessment of Covid-19 in Thailand back in October of last year. It warned of glaring threats to the most at-risk populations – migrant workers, the elderly, the urban poor, informal workers and more. Just one of many vulnerability assessments, it was prepared in partnership with the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC). Officials should have been prepared for the worst and responded early, but sadly they didn’t.
June 19 marked the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of Thanong Po-Arn, a prominent critic of the 1991 military coup that was led by General Suchinda Kraprayoon. Thanong was head of the Labour Congress of Thailand, the largest labour organisation in the country, as well as deputy chairman of the International Council of Free Trade Unions. Prior to his disappearance, he received anonymous death threats, telling his family: “If for three days I don’t contact you, that means I have been arrested; if it’s more than seven days, that means I have already died.
As Thailand fights the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it is also fighting on a related front: what it terms a proliferation of fake news that is causing confusion among the public. The latter is seen as another covert attempt to limit the freedom of expression and media freedom in the kingdom. Recently, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan ordered the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society and related agencies, including the Anti-Fake News Centre, the Ministry of Justice, and the Royal Thai police to take legal action.