Thai Catholic schools agree to edit protests from textbooks

Apr 9, 2011, 4:40 GMT

Bangkok - Catholic schools in Thailand have agreed to remove content from history textbooks after complaints by an anti-government protest group, a news report said Saturday.

Prasert Viseskit of the Bangkok Archdiocese education department said it agreed to cut two chapters from a high school textbook after complaints from members of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, The Nation newspaper reported.

The offending sections covered violent anti-government protests in 2009 and 2010 that culminated in a military crackdown. More than 90 people died and about 1,000 were injured.

'The books are actually supplementary materials,' Prasert said. 'They are produced and revised annually. We have also decided to cut controversial content from the materials for the upcoming semesters.'

There are 37 Catholic schools under the Bangkok Archdiocese with about 2,000 students using the book.

'We did not mean to have any political implications,' he said.

Protest leader Weng Tojirakarn criticized the government for allowing textbooks to contain content alleging that the demonstrators burned several buildings in Bangkok during the unrest last year.

He claimed the textbooks were biased against the protest movement.

Thai government schools have been criticized for omitting controversial historical events to avoid political confrontations.

Read more about Politics

Read more about Thailand Education