FCCT - The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand

Press Freedom

For more than 50 years, the FCCT has played a vanguard role as the ASEAN region's most active press club. The Club advocates press freedom as a cornerstone of civil society in emerging democracies and is a vital venue for an open exchange of information.

Since September's coup, there have been concerns over press freedom in Thailand, in spite of a strong commitment given by the Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont at the FCCT dinner last November, CNN and BBC stories about Thailand, and the deposed Prime Minister Thaksin in particular, have been routinely blocked from broadcast here.

In January, we wrote a letter of concern to General Surayud pointing out that this ran counter to his assurances and was, anyway, counterproductive, painting his government in a bad light. The Prime Minister's spokesman has since replied, saying the government remains committed to press freedom and claiming the blocking of CNN and BBC was entirely a decision of cable operator UBC. We intend to follow up by writing a letter to UBC expressing our concern.

Censorship of the Internet has also been stepped up dramatically since the coup.

Press freedom is a key concern of the club, and we are disappointed by these developments. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Click here to view our letter to the Prime Minister as a pdf, and here for the Prime Minister's Response.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand
Penthouse, Maneeya Center
518/5 Ploenchit Road
(connected to the BTS Skytrain Chitlom station)
Patumwan, Bangkok 10330

E-mail: info@fccthai.com
Phone: 02-652-0580-1

For Correspondents Only?

The FCCT is not just for correspondents - in fact, most of our members are not news people.

A past FCCT president even came up with the slogan, "You don't have to be foreign and you don't have to be a correspondent". Very true! We are a very diverse club and welcome all.

For more information, call 02-652-0580-1 or click here to e-mail info@fccthai.com