Thai dictatorship bans human rights presentation

This video says about itself:

31 May 2014

In junta-ruled Thailand, where the army recently took power in a coup, the simple act of reading in public has become an act of resistance. On Saturday evening in Bangkok, about a dozen people gathered in the middle of a busy, elevated walkway connecting several of the capital’s most luxurious shopping malls. With pedestrians trundling past, they all sat down. They then pulled out such titles as George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” — about life in a totalitarian surveillance state — and began to read.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Thai junta forces law group to cancel rights event

Wednesday 3rd September 2014

Thailand’s ruling military junta forced a human rights group to cancel a presentation on the situation in the country yesterday.

The military told Bangkok-based Thai Lawyers for Human Rights that if it had concerns about lack of freedom of expression or access to the justice system it should report them to the Interior Ministry.

The lawyers’ group had intended to host a discussion and release a report titled Access to Justice in Thailand: Currently Unavailable.

But Amnesty International Thailand campaign co-ordinator Sutharee Wannasiri said that soldiers had phoned more than 30 times on Monday calling for the event be cancelled.

The group condemned the pressure exterted by the army, saying that it had “created an atmosphere of fear in society” and deprived people of their rights.

Several participants showed up at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand anyway, “to say that there were threats and harassment from the military,” Mr Wannasiri said.