When Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha returns to work after the long holiday, he should put the question of censorship at the top of his "to-do" list. One of his last orders before the long weekend was to appoint the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission as national censor for everything that is broadcast. He used his wide powers under Section 44 to make the appointment, and he should now consider taking it back. Even if one accepts that media censorship is necessary, the broadcasting regulators are the wrong choice.
The NBTC has been angling for powers of censorship from the start. The commission was first mandated under the 1997 "people's constitution". Charter author Anand Panyarachun and his team of legal experts rightly considered that between them, the state and the military had commandeered all broadcasting outlets, both popular and tactical. That constitution, still the best ever promulgated, aimed to put broadcasting back into the hands of its real owners, the collective citizens of the country.
After the next military coup and its 2007 constitution, the NBTC took shape. Since then, it has presided over numerous disasters, many the result of incompetence. It spent years organising one of the world's last 3G licence auctions, and the results were widely, and correctly, criticised. Lately, it followed that up with a risible auction for 4G licences, in which it failed to check the bona fides of a bidder, requiring a highly embarrassing redo.
Four years ago, the NBTC needlessly tried to inject itself into a stunt involving a topless body painter shown on the Channel 3 show Thailand's Got Talent. It fined the station 500,000 baht, as if that somehow would prevent future pranks to gain ratings. A member of the commission, since replaced, spoke in favour of self-censorship by broadcasters.
Arguably the greatest incidence of incompetence was the attempt by the NBTC to get involved with putting wi-fi on aircraft. Three years ago, Thai Airways International was struggling to add the cutting-edge service to its flights. Once the NBTC claimed the right to interfere, the project bogged down in regulatory red tape that delayed action for more than two years.
That is almost as bad as delaying the 3G service -- and now the 4G service -- for three to five years, putting us behind the rest of the world, including our neighbours.
The military regime, for reasons it never has explained, picked the NBTC to perform some of its post-coup censorship tasks. The ruling National Council for Peace and Order under coup leader and Prime Minister Prayut has full powers of censorship that were declared and officially printed less than a week after the military takeover.
In what seemed like a test, the NBTC in May, 2015, ordered satellite operators to shut down Peace TV, the propaganda arm of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, or red shirts.
The UDD took the issue to court on several grounds, and the Supreme Administrative Court was considering the case up until last week. That is when Gen Prayut took the decision to close off the legal choices and hand full power to the NBTC.
In truth, there is no reason for censorship of the media. Even Gen Prayut, in his Friday evening talk two weeks ago, praised the freedom his regime has granted the press.
Putting the NBTC in charge of censorship is a true case of placing the fox at the entrance to the hen house, and then unlocking the door.
If censorship is to be done, the ruling military authorities should handle it. The premier should reconsider his decision to outsource such a controversial subject to such an inept group as the NBTC.