overease

It seems I've been a bit too sanguine about the Thai coup. I learn via nettime that they've shut down the website of the Midnight University, a clearinghouse for scholarly translations, educational materials, free and vigorous intellectual discussion, and democracy activism in Northern Thailand. I know the people who run it and have the greatest respect for them. This is unacceptable repression on the part of the coup leaders.

Below is a letter from my friend Ajarn [=Professor] Somkiat Tangnamo. Please write to him at midnightuniv@gmail.com to add your name to the petition to be given to the government to reopen the site.


The Midnight University Website, the foremost free and critical
educational and public intellectual website in Thailand with over
freely accessible 1,500 scholarly articles, a lively webboard with
ongoing thought-provoking debates, which receives well over 2.5 visits
per month from viewers around the world, has already been shut down
by the Thai Information & Communications Ministry last night, acting
under the order of the self-styled military Council of Democratic
Reform. This is not only a hugh loss to academic and intellectual
freedom in Thai society, but also a closure of a free forum for the
contention of ideas to find a peaceful alternative to violent conflict
in Thailand.

We are gathering signatures for a campaign to pressure for the
reversion of this unjustifiable violation of the Thai people's right
to information and free expression by the Thai authorities. So, please
consider adding your and your firiends' names to the end of this
message and e-mail it back to me so that we could save what little is
left of precious freedom and wisdom in Thai society in these dark and
difficult times.

Sincerely,

Somkiat Tangnamo