Book Censorship in Thailand

Chinese officials are taking steps to censor parts of China's first Gay Pride, the BBC reported.

Shanghai Pride is mainland China's first large-scale Gay Pride celebration but it does not include a march or parade. Instead organizers are holding a series of cultural events to take place at privately-owned venues.

But that's not stopping the Chinese government from banning certain events. Officials have ordered certain owners to cancel events or face severe consequences.

At ShanghaiPride.com, the event's official website, a blog post simply titled Sorry alerts readers that the film screening of the lesbian-themed Lost in You has been canceled.

The BBC reports that a second event appears to be in trouble. Officials have targeted the staging of T he Laramie Project for closure. The play reconstructs the gruesome 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student beaten, shackled to a post and left to die in a field by two men he had met in a gay bar.

Other events to be held throughout the week, art exhibits, food events and panel discussions, appear to remain on track. The official Gay Pride party takes place Saturday, June 13.

Thailand's banning of a rare "warts and all" biography of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej only stokes interest in the book and risks an eventual explosion of pent-up political tension, an academic said.

Banning books is usually something we associate with fascist and repressive regimes, Australian anthropologist Annette Hamilton told a seminar on The King Never Smiles at an international Thai studies conference in Bangkok.

The book, by U.S. journalist Paul Handley, portrays King Bhumibol as an austere and deeply political monarch whose overarching desire for stability and unity during 61 years on the throne has stifled Thailand's democratic development.

Many of the southeast Asian nation's 63 million people regard the king as semi-divine and credit him with steering Thailand through huge political and social turbulence, including more than a dozen military coups.

However, critics say this perception is propped up by draconian lese majeste laws, which make any insult or threat to the monarchy punishable by up to 15 years in jail.

Even though the King himself made it clear in 2005 that he should not be above criticism, the government banned the book in January 2006 under its 1941 Printing Act, arguing it could disrupt public order and the good morals of society.

This was clearly not the real reason, Hamilton said: The main issue is that it challenges the agreement to silence, or the agreement not to disagree, which is a main strategy in Thailand for maintaining harmony.

The book also contains lots of rumor and gossip about the royal family, in particular heir apparent Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, who does not enjoy the almost unquestioning respect accorded to his 80-year-old father.

Australian scholar Craig Reynolds said much of the underground hype about the book might be overblown as studies in Thai have already pointed to Bhumibol's overtly political reign, backing various democratic and military regimes.

Instead, he said, much of the offence seemed to stem from outrage at an outsider, in particular a journalist, trying to lift the lid on the central pillar of Thai society: Who is he to comment on the sacred institution which has held the country together during crisis after crisis?

Culture Minister Khaisri Sri-aroon

Webboards at the Culture Ministry's website have been bombarded with hundreds of supposedly lewd web links, the Culture Watch Centre has found.

The centre found more than 500 sexually-explicit web links put up on webboards run by the ministry, which has been campaigning against obscene websites. The website, www.m-culture.go.th, could not be accessed last night.

The attack on the website comes a few days after the ministry said it was contemplating censoring novels.

Culture Minister Khunying Khaisri Sri-aroon yesterday admitted that inappropriate web links had been posted on the website. She had ordered Thongchai Masattana, director of the IT centre, to explain why webmasters had failed to detect and screen out the saucy content.

Khunying Khaisri said the ministry is mulling rating various novels, particularly adult romances and translated novels.

Many complaints had come in about the ministry's bid to censor sex and erotic scenes. Romance readers argued the erotic scenes were written in beautiful language and are not morally incorrect.

Khunying Khaisri said she personally agreed that censorship would spoil the novels.

In deciding on a rating system for romance novels, the ministry would invite artists, academics, writers, publishers and distributors to give their views. The attempt to impose a ratings system is prompted in part by the arrest of two traders selling romance novels with erotic content at a book fair in October.

Prague City Hall has unveiled new plans to banish prostitution from the capital's streets.

As of January 2008, prostitutes caught offering their services in Prague's public spaces could face weighty fines, and will be banned from the area. But women's groups have asked whether the City Hall's new decree goes far enough.

Wenceslas Square at night has a seedy feel to it. Prostitutes and pimps are clearly visible at the corner of every street, particularly near the top of the square.

This is what Prague City Hall would like to put a stop to with its new decree. Under the new regulations, prostitutes offering their services in public places could face a fine of up to 30,000 CZK (1,500 USD). Police will also have the right to ban sex workers from the area, on the grounds that prostitution is a disturbance of the peace.

Petra Burcikova is the head of La Strada, an organization which fights against people trafficking said she can see the initiative as having two possible outcomes: Either [the prostitution] stays where it is, and the sex workers will try to find ways to avoid sanctions, or it will really be moved to some of the areas that are remote and inaccessible. It is important to keep in mind that this increases the danger and threat to the sex workers themselves. This is something that most people, and most councilors, don't take into account. This increases sex workers' health risks and even risk of death tremendously.

Prostitution is illegal in the Czech Republic. But Prague has still come to be known abroad as a destination for sex tourism. This new decree doesn't affect the city's 58 brothels, which the deputy mayor Rudolf Blazek has said are beyond the council's legislation.

Culture Minister Khaisri Sri-aroon

Culture Minister Khaisri Sri-aroon yesterday said she disagreed with a proposal to cut "romantic" scenes from translated novels.

She said it would ruin the taste for readers and affirmed that she would invite national artists, academics and publishers to formulate a rating criteria.

Following the ministry's plan for book ratings - especially for romantic and translated novels - as proposed by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand (PUBAT), many public members posted their concerns that love scenes in books might be cut.

They argued that romantic scenes were not obscene as the translators and publishers used "sensitive descriptions" and urged the ministry to hear the opinions of the public and related parties before making a decision.

Khaisri said most of those who expressed opinions on the ministry's website agreed to the book rating according to readers' age but disagreed with the content cutting.