ICT Minister

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An evening with the ICT Minister: The Unseen in Thailand

 Jun 27, '07 2:46 PM
for everyone

The Unseen in Thailand
Sitthichai should have been banned

It was a very unusual evening. But it all started with uplifting spirits upon hearing that the ban on YouTube.com will be lifted when ICT Minister Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom proposes the deal to the Cabinet meeting next Tuesday.

At the Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand, a number of staggering facts emerged from words that fell from the lips of Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom himself.
Besides the fact that he has banned YouTube in Thailand, from the press release of the event, it said that the ICT Minister never used the Internet and that he was an avid gun collector.

The evening started to get weird when he was rambling about himself, his education, where he lost his virginity, how he met his wife, how he hated to ban porn websites that actually might boost his sex life which he said didn’t exist. At times, he complimented on the white female, Amy and Thai female, Karuna Buakamsri. He even asked Karuna to fill up his glass of wine and mentioned that he’d go have some drinks with her later. By then, everyone in the room ( packed with foreign reporters) started to look at each other.

His deviant behavior didn’t stop at that. He started to make racy jokes insulting Chinese, Australian and Thais. Some laughed. But I found it not funny to have to listen to all those jokes.

Then he went on about how chlorine in the water destroyed his hair and made him bald.  He admitted he was an old fashioned and admitted that he hated to ban any website. That was why he intended to propose a lift on a ban on YouTube to the cabinet. He admitted his incompetence and a lack of sufficient knowledge of the Internet world.

One Thai woman who was brave enough to confront him and told him that we didn’t enjoy his racist and sexist joke saved the night. She saved us from great humiliation that this “Minister” has made. At least, one Thai reporter made it clear that we couldn’t stand it. I everyone applauded for her support. See another version of what happened at  http://gnarlykitty.blogspot.com

The sad part is he didn’t show any slightest eagerness to try to learn or understand what he’s doing or what he’s to supervise.
Here’re some excerpts from the interview:

Q: Since you admitted that you didn’t know much about the Internet, and it involves a lot of aspects of life not just engineering or pornography, have you sought opinions or advice  from people who are not engineers at the ICT Ministry to be on the board of censorship?

A: On the board of censorship, there’s none. It would be entirely on my judgement because I know. I interact with a great deal of people but the fact that my people are all engineers is because they’re from my University and they are the people that I trust most. And on the job, you need the people that you trust to do the work for you. But I welcome people to come and talk to me.

Q: How many people are on the board of censorship?
A: None. The ultimate decision is me alone.

Another interesting answer:
“But it’s really sad to have people who attacked me for the fact that I’ve done a very fair job. If I were not so broad minded, the situation of Internet censorship in Thailand would be so much worse.”

Q: How much money is spent on Internet censorship?
A: For Internet monitoring, it’s 1-2 per cent of the Ministry’s budget. Most people are volunteers. We have about 60 people help monitoring the internet and about 24 at night. But most of the offensive comments to other people happened after midnight.

Q: So what was that 15% of the budget you mentioned earlier?
A: The 15% of the money concerns all e-government activities that I have on banning websites.


It was a very interesting experience to witness such an evening. Personally, I think he was the most disturbing character that I have ever seen in my life. It is so embarrassing to see the “Minister” behaved in such a way in public, actually, in front of the foreign press members.

One reporter came up to me and asked if I was a Thai. She said she couldn’t stand this and it was the greatest humiliation for the country to have a Minister or a "teacher" (as Sitthicahi called himself) to act in such a way. And she was about to leave.

It’s sad. A true tragedy. I can’t wait for the general election!

 

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