Thailand plans to sue YouTube for insulting monarchy

May 4, 2007, 2:27 GMT

Bangkok - Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry plans to sue YouTube.com for running a video clip deemed offensive to the monarchy, media report said Friday.

ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookyaudom said he will proceed with the court case against the Google-owned website on the grounds that it had lied about not being able to stop a video clip that ran on YouTube last month that ridiculed Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who will celebrate his 80th birthday this year.

Thailand has strict lese majeste laws that make it a criminal offence to mock the royal family.

Sitthichai argued that Google had bowed to China's requests to block certain topics deemed politically sensitive, such as all references to democracy, so he saw no reason why it could not act similarly over Thailand's sensitivities over its revered monarch.

'This YouTube issue is about a private firm in the US trying to bully a small country like Thailand,' Sittichai told the Bangkok Post newspaper.

In response to the offending clip, which was eventually voluntarily removed by the individual who had put it on the YouTube site, the ICT blocked local access to the popular website.

Increasing government censorship of websites was cited as one of the reasons Thailand was downgraded earlier this week to 127th place out of 195 countries on the Freedom House ranking of press freedom.

Last year Thailand ranked 107th in the same listing.