the(new)mediaslut

The head of the BBC news bureau in Bangkok, Jonathan Head, has been accused of lese majeste by Thai authorities for an unspecified comment he made at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

The alleged comment, details of which were not given, was made when Head was moderating a panel at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand entitled, “Coup, Capital and Crown”, on 13 December 2007.

Police Major General Wattanasuk Mungkitchakarndee from the Bangkae police station lodged the formal complaint after he reviewed videos and transcript from the panel, though said that Head’s comments were not fit to be repeated in the public domain.

Wattanasuk has previously lodge a similar complaint against Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office Jakrapob Penkair for a comment he also made at the FCCT.

Thailand has some of the strictest laws in the world regarding lese majeste.

TheMediaSlut has gone partying. So Smartbrain has to take pictures, caption *and* upload… (sigh). TheMediaSlut does not pay Smartbrain enough.

Talk in the auditorium has shifted to the proposed changes to the constitution so that parties guilty of electoral fraud are not disbanded (only the persons involved are banned) and general grumbling (for lack of a better word) on the government being Thaksin nominees and the way it has micromanaged and shifted so many civil servants.

DTAC’s EDGE network is surprisingly fast. Guess not that many people are photoblogging from the event.

Smartbrain is in a concert campaigning for democracy in Burma. Sondhi Limthongkul was just on stage and said that next time, it’s Sanam Luang.

Well, to be precise, Sondhi was referring to a conversation with social critic Sor Siwalak who was also in the VIP row with Sondhi.

“Just before he left, Sor Siwalak said that next time, we should meet at Sanam Luang,” he said on stage, on mic.

Sanam Luang, in front of Thammasat University, is where most of the anti-Thaksin and later anti-military protests took place.

Photos later tonight.

The evil empire (The Samak government, not Microsoft) continued to chip away at media freedom in Thailand yesterday by transferring Pramote Rathavinit from his post as Director-General of the Public Relations Department to an inactive post at the Prime Minister’s Office.

This comes in the wake of the transfer of Department of Special Investigation Director-General Sunai Manomai-udom, Food and Drug Administration Secretary-General Dr Siriwat Thiptharadol and today’s removal of Police Chief Seripisut Temiyavej all to inactive posts.

The PRD controls a television station channel 11, numerous radio stations and, more importantly, in the absence of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, is the regulator for all broadcast media in the country, thus paving the way for more restrictive conditions to be put in place.

Upon taking office as Prime Minister’s Office Minister (which is responsible for the PRD), former TRT spokesperson Jakrapob Penkair said he would have to “sort out” the local media.

A leading figure in the opposition democrat party said that it was probably Thaksin’s “highly paid media advisers” who told him to say that he will stay out of politics while explaining the background that finally led to the arrest of the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinatwatra (a.k.a. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine) on his return to Thailand yesterday.

Speaking in an interview on ASTV on 28 February, Shadow Finance Minister Korn Chartikavanij slowly explained the chain of events that led to Thaksin’s being formally arrested and released on bail yesterday for concealment of assets for his SC Asset, the family real estate company.

Korn began with some current affairs and pointed out that while it is true that the SC Asset case is now with the Prosecutor’s office and not the Department of Special Investigations, the case has not reached the courts yet. The prosecutor may at any time ask for clarification and send the case file back to the DSI which, now that that it is under new management, could easily dismiss or intentionally weaken the case.

(The transfer of Sunai Manomai-udom, director-general of the DSI to a new department without an office or any staff by the Minister of Justice was the last straw that led to the latest round of political turmoil with many hitherto dormant anti-Thaksin activists returning to protest what they feel is this perversion of justice.)

Korn explained that there are two companies registered with the same address, the same P.O. Box, on the British Virgin Islands, Ample Rich and Winmark.

Thaksin has always admitted that Ample Rich is his company, but in 2000 he said that Winmark was a foreign investor who wanted to buy the shares for long-term investment. This was just before the Thaksin 1 government in 2001, Korn stressed.

“The strange thing is that Winmark bought shares in five companies from Thaksin, but failed to register their shareholding with the stock exchange,” he said.

In 2003, shares in SC Asset were transferred back to Thaksin’s family (his daughter) from Winmark, just one week before SC Asset was to issue its initial public offering.

“If Winmark was a bona fide foreign investor, why did they invest money for three years only give up these shares at cost one week before the IPO? The IPO price was 15 Baht while the par value was 10 Baht. This means they threw away at least 117 million. Soon after the IPO the price went up to around 30 Baht, which meant that they lost out on almost 500 million Baht,” he said.

Korn said that his party has long maintained that Winmark is in fact Thaksin and its existence was just to conceal assets and to hide his shareholding from authorities.

In the SC Asset IPO prospectus, they said that the Shinawatra family held 60 percent and two other funds held 10 percent each, though in reality, the Shinawatras probably held 80 percent.

This is significant as Thai law says that a company has absolute control of a company if one entity holds at least 75 percent of the shares.

Korn said that lying to the stock market carries both a prison sentence and a monetary fine.

The other theory is the opposition is working on that The “sale” was made so that Thaksin could launder money into the country for use just before the election.

The sale was made in 2000, just before the election that saw the TRT come to power.

“If we can prove that Winmark is Thaksin as the DSI have alleged, that means that he was able to transfer 1.5 billion Baht into the money through that sale for use in the election,” he said.

The question is then, where did that 1.5 billion come from. All ministers have to declare their assets and this 1.5 billion overseas money was never declared.

“I think we can all guess how the money was used,” Korn said.

Asked if he believed that Thaksin would not return to politics, the shadow Finance Minister agreed. “How can Thaksin return to politics as he never left politics in the first place?” he asked, rhetorically.

“Before the establishment of the cabinet, all the politicians had to fly to Hong Kong for meetings. It is clear that he has been involved all along. Some people may believe what he has said. I think it’s a sentence his highly paid media advisers told him to say, he said.

Korn said that the chain of events started when a filing with the stock exchange by UBS delared tht they had more than a five percent shareholding in SC Asset. 10 percent was from Ample Rich and 5 percent was from another account, which was later shown to be Winmark.

The shadow finance minister added that if this asset concealment case can be proven, the next step would be a case against Thaksin with the counter corruption commission as then it would mean that Thaksin (via Winmark) did indeed benefit from the policy changes that his government passed, most notably the change in telecom tax regime.