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Thailand’s Oppressive Media Law

It was the summer of 2008 and I was in Bangkok, Thailand, on a then work related trip that left me enough spare time to look around and do some reporting. My focus included alternative media, and lucky for me, a good friend introduced me to Jiew, editor of the alternative magazine Prachatai.com. We did a very interesting and informative podcast about the situation in Thailand, which included a discussion of the limitations on press freedom in that country.

During the interview we touched upon the “Lèse Magesté”: extremely oppressive laws that govern how you can or cannot talk about the royal family. As a journalist, you are not allowed to criticize the royal family in publications. Doing so would constitute a serious offense and while I can’t remember what the average sentence could be, I remember it was bad. Jiew was extremely well versed in what a reporter or media channel could and couldn’t do in their work, even an alternative source. To my surprise she even asked me to turn off my recorder when we got to the part about the laws regarding media and the royal family. She explained off the record how it works and the risk that one ran by publishing anything considered critical the exalted king. It marked, still to this day, one of the few times in the 7 year history of my program, that I’ve had to turn off a recorder for legal reasons- even just to hear a seemingly harmless explanation of the rules.

Over the years Jiew and I have of course remained in contact, whenever there’s something (and there always is) going on in Thailand or SouthEast Asia, I know I can ask her for help with information or perhaps a good source to better understand what is happening.

Unfortunately, and to my great shock and disappointment, the Thai government is now pursuing a case against her. Claiming, I believe, a violation of the Royal Family criticism laws at her publication; they are seeking a jail sentence. As many watchdog groups have reported, the government is clearly afraid of someone so committed to reporting what is really going on behind the dog-n-pony show Thailand puts on for the tourist masses.

And so an excellent journalist, a friend of this citizenreporter.org, and someone who has dedicated her life to making the world around us a better place faces the looming threat of being convicted of a crime that should have long been stricken from the legal books in favor of real universal human rights. All the more reason for us to help Jiew beat this bogus charge in any way we can, so she can fight twice as hard next time to keep this from happening ever again.

(To be continued, trail posponed to February)

Don’t Just Take a Picture

Occupy Amsterdam is officially one week old. Occupy Wall Street is now over a month old. Around the world masses of people occupy their public spaces to discuss and demand big changes in how governments and business have been conducting themselves for the last few decades. Many do what they have always done: watch it on TV, read about it in the press, discredit the idea of taking action on such a broad scale. Still the whole world is watching, the authorities are scared, they seek to find ways to diffuse the energy and passion that has been unleashed and seems to keep growing. They’re counting on the weather, the entertainment industry, costs of living, and sometimes elements of public safety to shut down this dangerous movement. After all, those in charge have built their careers on this system. They’re power and lifestyle depends on it.

Today at #OccupyAmsterdam, as I’ve been doing each day this week, I was speaking with people, interviewing, collecting information and testimony to report to you the audience. Being the activist- journalist that I am, I climbed up on stage to say something.

My Buddy Marc took video that includes crowd shots. If you’re interested in seeing more of the atmosphere today.

Your OccupyAmsterdam Moment of Zen

Two minutes captured during a General Assembly meeting on Monday the 17th of October.

Not Yet A Report from OccupyAmsterdam

I’m reluctant to write anything yet about the #occupy movement, specifically my local occupy Amsterdam. On the one hand it seems like everyone has already heard about the actions nearest to where they live, in the US, Europe, Asia, South America…. all over the world. Which makes me think perhaps all the minds have already been made up. One role I don’t want to have when it comes to “occupy” is the one where I try to convince people of something and they try to argue counterpoints against me. I don’t want to convince anyone to follow along, come on down, or anything like that. Yet each day I still run into friends and strangers who have no idea what occupy wall street is, or here in our own city, what occupy Amsterdam is. So I write, or at least, start to write, even if I’m not actually ready to write about everything I’ve seen and think from daily visits to this burgeoning community nestled on the former financial center of this city so famous for international trade.

We live in a world of categories. On websites. On forms. In our minds. You fit here, you fit there. Don’t fit, we’ll make you a new box if you’re lucky. Even with alot of disorganization among us, we try to organize. You’re either this kind of person or that kind of person. Your action is either good or bad, in between is confusing and hard to process. And when it comes to our protest activities, when it is about using or not using time, energy and resources towards a certain goal… the public tends to evaluate as quickly as possible and render their verdict if the cause is worth it.

Enter the occupy wall street actions- which are taking place all over the world. The average person looks, reads/watches briefly, and makes their decision. Few visit, but many write or talk about it. Based on images, sounds, text and other material coming from these epicenters, people make their judgement. They condemn, they approve, they ignore or something in between all these. We still live in a world where you can ignore a lot and keep going about your life; war, corruption, injustice, the environment… few of these topics have stopped the general public, so it should come as no surprise that sustained demonstrations against the status quo would be any different.

And still they are out there, building something together. People ask “Are there still people down there?” They’d probably not believe me if I told them the truth – there are more everyday.

“But what do they want!?” – I knew you’d ask that.

Workers in Indonesia Rise Up Against Freeport

Here’s what we know:

Freeport MacMoRan is the world’s lowest-cost copper producer and the largest gold producer in the world. Producer is a funny term, they pull it from the earth. I suppose the production label comes from everything they do to the stuff they take from the earth.. the processing.

The company is almost 100 years old with its headquarters in Arizona, but of course its operations are located all over the world. Freeport operates the largest copper mine in the world, the Grasberg Mining Complex in West Papua, a province of Indonesia.

West Papua has long been the stage for conflict, where the Indonesian government uses whatever means at its disposal to keep the independence movement down. For many Papuan people the mine is a major part of that conflict, due to the massive environmental damage it causes on their territory, the lack of financial benefit or return to the region, and the use of notorious elements of the Indonesian Military to handle security. Since 2002 there have been several incidents involving the shooting deaths of workers at the plant.

For the past two months workers at the mine have been on strike, demanding better wages. According to Reuters, their current payrate is $1.5 to $3 an hour. They are now demanding that it be raised to $12.50 to $37 an hour. Recent demonstrations by the workers have attracted crowds numbering around 8,000. According to the Jakarta Post, during one of those demonstrations police fired into the crowd and killed 2 workers. The paper also reports that Freeport had been trying to fire all the workers and have them replaced, a tactic an Indonesian Minister said would be a violation of their labor laws.

Freeport is number 136 on the Forbes Fortune 500 list, with over $4 billion in profit for 2010. They have been heavily criticized by human rights organizations and corruption watchdogs for their payments to the Indonesian Government and the Military in an effort to maintain the status quo and quell labor disputes at their mine. The millions of dollars in lost revenue are often mentioned in the media for every day their mine is shut. What does their copper go into? The list is massive and touches on many aspects of our everyday lives in the western world.

First Ever User Survey

In an effort to keep up with what you the site visitors, readers, listeners, and viewers are thinking and feeling, I present to you the citizenreporter.org user survey. 12 questions. 5 minutes. The info you provide will be taken very seriously, read carefully, and helps me in all my future work on this site. Won’t you please fill it out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGl6YXVSSG9OUEtXYkhHYXJMdWpqaXc6MQ