IB English A2 HL/SL2 Topic Option: Media and Culture
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Published on TaipeiTimes http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/02/26/2003100187
Thailand magazine editor resigns over alleged censorship
DPA , BANGKOK Thursday, Feb 26, 2004,Page 5
Hot on the heels of the removal of the editor of the Bangkok Post, the editor of a popular Thai- language weekly has gone public with a claim that he was forced to resign for trying to publish a story critical of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a press report said yesterday.
Rungruang Preechakul, 48, former editor of the long-established Siamrath Weekly News magazine, told The Nation newspaper his publication had been subjected to censorship on "every page" since the beginning of this month.
Bangkok Post editor Veera Prateepchaikul was removed last Friday in a move denounced by several local and international media watchdogs as a troubling sign that Thailand's free press was at risk.
Rungruang, who had been editor of Siamrath Weekly News for seven years, said his magazine's troubles began last October after it published reports critical of Thaksin's preparations for the APEC summit meeting.
"We tried to inform the public that the government's measures, be it rounding up the poor [homeless] people or dogs, were facile," he said.
"I don't know when it happened exactly, but the government eventually brought pressure to bear on Siamrath's owner. From then on any reports had to be carefully written and, if deemed negative toward the government, censored by the owner."
The last straw came when the owner recalled 30,000 copies of a 90-page issue covering Feb. 6-12 containing a cover story critical of the Thaksin administration's handling of the bird flu outbreak.
In the revised version distributed later, Rungruang said, "all the existing reports had been removed and the lead story of that edition was rewritten ... My only choice was to resign."
Twenty columnists and other well-known journalists also resigned or stopped writing for the magazine in protest.
Rungruang said recent events indicated a retreat from the country's previously free press and movement toward autocratic rule. Copyright © 1999-2005 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
IB English A2 HL/SL2 Topic Option: Media and Culture