Bangkok - Thailand's Information and Communications
Technology Ministry plans to sue YouTube.com for running a video clip
deemed offensive to the monarchy, media report said Friday.
ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookyaudom said he will proceed with the
court case against the Google-owned website on the grounds that it
had lied about not being able to stop a video clip that ran on
YouTube last month that ridiculed Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who
will celebrate his 80th birthday this year.
Thailand has strict lese majeste laws that make it a criminal
offence to mock the royal family.
Sitthichai argued that Google had bowed to China's requests to
block certain topics deemed politically sensitive, such as all
references to democracy, so he saw no reason why it could not act
similarly over Thailand's sensitivities over its revered monarch.
'This YouTube issue is about a private firm in the US trying to
bully a small country like Thailand,' Sittichai told the Bangkok Post
newspaper.
In response to the offending clip, which was eventually
voluntarily removed by the individual who had put it on the YouTube
site, the ICT blocked local access to the popular website.
Increasing government censorship of websites was cited as one of
the reasons Thailand was downgraded earlier this week to 127th place
out of 195 countries on the Freedom House ranking of press freedom.
Last year Thailand ranked 107th in the same listing.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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