Chiang Mai is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in Thailand. It is 700 km (435 mi) north of Bangkok in a mountainous region called the Thai highlands and has a population of 1.2 million people as of 2022, which is more than 66 percent of the total population of Chiang Mai province.
Chiang Mai University is a national public research university in northern Thailand founded in 1964. It has a strong emphasis on engineering, science, agriculture, and medicine. Its instructional mission includes undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education offered through resident instruction. Its main campus lies between central Chiang Mai and Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai province.
Thailand has a well-developed mass media sector, especially by Southeast Asian standards. The Thai government and the military have long exercised considerable control, especially over radio and TV stations. During the governments of Thaksin Shinawatra and the subsequent military-run administration after the 2006 coup and military coup of 2014, the media in Thailand—both domestic and foreign—have suffered from increasing restrictions and censorship, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt.
The Irrawaddy is a news website by the Irrawaddy Publishing Group (IPG), founded in 1990 by Burmese exiles living in Thailand. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has taken an independent stance on Burmese politics. As a publication produced by former Burmese activists who fled violent crackdowns on anti-military protests in 1988, it has always been closely associated with the pro-democracy movement, although it remains unaffiliated with any of the political groups that have emerged since the 8888 Uprising.
In Iran, censorship was ranked among the world's most extreme in 2023. Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran 177 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks countries from 1 to 180 based on the level of freedom of the press. Reporters Without Borders described Iran as “one of the world’s five biggest prisons for media personnel" in the 40 years since the revolution. In the Freedom House Index, Iran scored low on political rights and civil liberties and has been classified as 'not free.'
Censorship in Thailand involves the strict control of political news under successive governments, including by harassment and manipulation.
Internet censorship in India is done by both central and state governments. DNS filtering and educating service users in suggested usages is an active strategy and government policy to regulate and block access to Internet content on a large scale. Measures for removing content at the request of content creators through court orders have also become more common in recent years. Initiating a mass surveillance government project like Golden Shield Project is an alternative that has been discussed over the years by government bodies.
The 2006 Thai coup d'état took place on 19 September 2006, when the Royal Thai Army staged a coup d'état against the elected caretaker government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The coup d'état, which was Thailand's first non-constitutional change of government in fifteen years since the 1991 Thai coup d'état, followed a year-long political crisis involving Thaksin, his allies, and political opponents and occurred less than a month before nationwide House elections were scheduled to be held. It has been widely reported in Thailand and elsewhere that General Prem Tinsulanonda, a key person in the military-monarchy nexus, Chairman of the Privy Council, was the mastermind of the coup. The military cancelled the scheduled 15 October elections, abrogated the 1997 constitution, dissolved parliament and the constitutional court, banned protests and all political activities, suppressed and censored the media, declared martial law nationwide, and arrested cabinet members.
Surayud Chulanont is a Thai politician. He was the Prime Minister of Thailand and head of Thailand's interim government between 2006 and 2008. He is a former supreme commander of the Royal Thai Army and is currently Privy Councilor to King Vajiralongkorn.
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand (Interim), Buddhist Era 2549 (2006) was an interim constitution of Thailand enacted to replace the 1997 Constitution which was repealed by the Council for Democratic Reform (CDR) after it seized power from the government of Thaksin Shinawatra in the 2006 Thailand coup. Released on 27 September 2006 and promulgated on 1 October 2006, the Constitution allowed the junta to retain significant control over the appointed civilian government and the drafting of a permanent constitution. The CDR would be transformed into a permanent Council for National Security (CNS) and would appoint the head of the executive branch, the entire legislature, and the drafters of a permanent constitution. The Constitution made no mention of succession, instead leaving it to "constitutional practice." The draft came under strong public criticism as being a step backwards from the 1997 "People's Constitution". The constitution did not repeal junta bans restricting freedom of speech, assembly, and political activity; these bans were subsequently revoked by an act on 27 December 2006.
Dusit Zoo or popularly known as Khao Din Wana (เขาดินวนา) and Khao Din (เขาดิน) was a zoo in Bangkok, Thailand. Located at Khao Din Park in Bangkok's Dusit District next to the Parliament House and Dusit Palace, it was the oldest zoo in Thailand, built by King Chulalongkorn as his private garden adjacent to the royal palace. After the king's death, the garden was left unattended for years.
Most Internet censorship in Thailand prior to the September 2006 military coup d'état was focused on blocking pornographic websites. The following years have seen a constant stream of sometimes violent protests, regional unrest, emergency decrees, a new cybercrimes law, and an updated Internal Security Act. Year by year Internet censorship has grown, with its focus shifting to lèse majesté, national security, and political issues. By 2010, estimates put the number of websites blocked at over 110,000. In December 2011, a dedicated government operation, the Cyber Security Operation Center, was opened. Between its opening and March 2014, the Center told ISPs to block 22,599 URLs.
The Thai Public Broadcasting Service, or TPBS, is a public broadcasting service in Thailand. It was established by the Thai Public Broadcasting Service Act, BE 2551 (2008), which came into force on 15 January 2008. Under this act, TPBS holds the status of state agency with legal personality, but is not a government agency or state enterprise.
The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), whose supporters are commonly called Red Shirts, is a political pressure group opposed to the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the 2006 Thai coup d'état, and supporters of the coup. Notable UDD leaders include Jatuporn Prompan, Nattawut Saikua, Veera Musikapong, Jaran Ditapichai, and Weng Tojirakarn. The UDD allies itself with the Pheu Thai Party, which was deposed by the 2014 military coup. Before the July 2011 national elections, the UDD claimed that Abhisit Vejjajiva's government took power illegitimately, backed by the Thai Army and the judiciary. The UDD called for the Thai Parliament to be dissolved so that a general election could be held. UDD accused the country's extra-democratic elite—the military, judiciary, certain members of the privy council, and other unelected officials—of undermining democracy by interfering in politics. The UDD is composed of mostly rural citizens from northeast (Isan) and north Thailand, of urban lower classes from Bangkok, and of intellectuals. Although the movement seems to receive support from former prime minister-in-exile Thaksin Shinawatra, not all UDD members support the deposed prime minister.
The 2013–2014 Thai political crisis was a period of political instability in Thailand. Anti-government protests took place between November 2013 and May 2014, organised by the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), a political pressure group led by former Democrat Party parliamentary representative (MP) Suthep Thaugsuban. The crisis eventually resulted in the removal of incumbent Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a coup d'état, and the establishment of a military junta.
On 22 May 2014, the Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Commander of the Royal Thai Army (RTA), launched a coup d'état, the 12th since the country's first coup in 1932, against the caretaker government of Thailand, following six months of political crisis. The military established a junta called the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to govern the nation. The coup ended the political conflict between the military-led regime and democratic power, which had been present since the 2006 Thai coup d'état known as the 'unfinished coup'. 7 years later, it had developed into the 2020 Thai protests to reform the monarchy of Thailand.
Library Genesis (LibGen) is a file-sharing based shadow library website for scholarly journal articles, academic and general-interest books, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. The site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere. LibGen describes itself as a "links aggregator", providing a searchable database of items "collected from publicly available public Internet resources" as well as files uploaded "from users".
Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, also known by its former name Bang Sue Grand Station, is the central passenger terminal in Bangkok and the current railway hub of Thailand. It replaced the existing Hua Lamphong railway station as the city's central railway station, with long-distance rail services operating from here from 19 January 2023. The station was opened on 2 August 2021 as part of the operation of the SRT Red Lines, and from May 2021 to September 2022 served as a COVID-19 vaccination center. It is linked to the Bang Sue MRT station via an underground walkway.
Khanakorn Pianchana was a Thai judge who made a suicide attempt in October 2019 in order to protest against interference in the justice system, and died in a second, fatal suicide attempt in March 2020, after being subject to investigations following his actions. At the time of his first suicide attempt, he was a senior judge in the Yala Provincial Court in south Thailand.
