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Reporters Without Borders calls for the withdrawal of all charges against journalist Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the editor of Prachatai.com website, who is facing up to 50 years in prison under the computer crimes for failing to remove comments from her site with sufficient speed. Posted by visitors, the comments are deemed to have insulted the monarchy.

Arrested and charged on 31 March, Chiranuch was released after three hours when her sister stood guarantee for the 300,000 bahts (6,000 euros) in bail demanded by the judicial authorities.

“Once again, the lèse majesté and computer crimes laws are being used politically to control and intimidate people with dissenting views,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Amid the current political tension, the Thai public has greater need than ever to receive the kind of objective and quality news that Prachatai.com provides.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The charges brought against Chiranuch constitute a serious violation of free expression. They are not in accordance with the promises the authorities gave last January to combat abuses of the lèse majesté law.”

Chiranuch’s trial is due to start on 31 May. She has been charged before a criminal court under articles 14 and 15 of the computer crimes act. The charges concern comments posted on the website in 2008, which Chiranuch removed quickly as soon as they were brought to her attention.

Reporters Without Borders also calls on the government to explain yesterday’s arrest of Tantawut Taweewarodomkul, the webmaster of two websites (www.norporchorusa.com and http://www.norporchorusa2.com/) that support the “Red Shirts” opposition movement. He is also accused of violating the lèse majesté and computer crimes laws.

Around 10 bloggers have been prosecuted or charged under the lèse majesté law. One of them, Suvicha Thakor, is serving a 10-year jail sentence for allegedly posting content considered offensive to the king.

Thailand is on the list of “Countries under surveillance” in the report on “Enemies of the Internet” which Reporters Without Borders issued on 11 March. The report noted that in the absence of improvements in the near future, Thailand risked being moved from the “Countries under surveillance” to the “Enemies of the Internet” list.

Source: Reporter Without Borders

More informations about the case of Khun Chiranuch Premchaiporn here

Hm, I am not quite sure, if I get your point.
Thailand as a destination for sex tourism is booming, because of an attractive cost situation for westerners. Furthermore the country is relatively safe, hostile and has a good infrastructure for spending holidays.
It is a billions of Baht business, not necessarily for the ladies. There is much more money made than in drug business.
On the one hand there are the ladies from the North and North East less or more trafficked to work in establishments for local Thai men on the one side or for visitors on the other side. This industry is a good chance for them to make enough money to run or support their families in remote areas. As they send money home, nobody wants to know where the money comes from.
The fact that they support, as good daughters, the family ("breast milk money") makes them feeling better, although they would never choose this business, if they had an alternative.
It is not a free decision for them getting nailed about 15 times per day by different persons in a brothel.

On the other hand is it so much different with regards to the so called independent escorts? The motivation generally is equal, - making money. The breast milk money idea also exists.
There are ladies having quite a good education, but no chance making a reasonable salary with this education. Especially for women salaries are too low in amazing Thailand, what makes escort business attractive for them. Escorting gives them a certain economic, social and emotional freedom (not a phrase, only). It is bad gossip among idiots that Thai ladies are made or born for being prostitutes!

Mafia in Thailand...
Let us better say "organized criminality". It is very heterogeneous.
There are the Thai groups, including parts of police itself and parts of the army. Then there are the Japanese, Chinese and the Russians. More and more there are groups from western European countries. Furthermore there are "small business pimps", more and more farangs who want to have an easy life in Thailand by sending their Thai girl friend(s) working as an escort are by managing an escort agency. Have a careful look on escort ads and advertising, then you will easily find out behind which escort a Farang hedonist "supports".
The fields on which the criminal groups are active are local prostitution, human trafficking, drugs, weapons and some other fields. Human trafficking is a profitable business, importing fresh flesh to Thailand or exporting Thai flesh to Japan, Singapore, Europe or North America. The women trafficked to Japan are meanwhile extremely young.

I disagree, that this is only for taking advantage of men with less money. There are extreme expensive establishments and branches which are in the hand of "organized criminality".

All this is possible, because of the weakness of Thai society!
There are 100,000 male and 700,000 female prostitutes while there are 300,000 Buddhist monks. The figure shows 40-80% of the prostitutes end up with AIDS. Crime, drugs and alcohol abuse are widespread. Corruptions in government, military and police massive networks have protected the sex trade, drug network, crime syndicates and ecological degradation of the country. The middle and upper classes in Bangkok are educated, wealthy and very materialistic. Children are in crisis of being severely abused. Children can be terribly abused and sold into prostitution at very young age, about 35,000 are homeless and 5 million are being tortured in child labour.

......Country.......................Gold......Silver.......Bronze.........Total
1....United States..............9...........15...........13.................37
2....Germany.....................10..........13...........7...................30
3....Canada.......................14..........7.............5...................26
more

Most European women in prostitution in Thailand are from Russia, the Czech Republic and Romania. The women enter via procurers in Thailand and their native nations.

It is said, brothel owners in Thailand prefer foreign women because they are easier to control and more ''loyal". ''They will not cheat us like Thai women do, or escape from us. They are also abundant in number. Certainly, the clients prefer them to Thai women, they say the foreign women are less likely to be infected with HIV." (Kritaya Archavanitkul, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, The Passage of Women in Neighbouring Countries Into the Sex Trade in Thailand)

The AIDS pandemic is how the sex industry is excusing recruiting more young girls from remote areas in Thailand, Shan State in Burma, Southern China, Kampuchea and Laos, under the false pretense that younger girls will not be infected with the disease. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific).

Hm, are the above mentioned statements justified or only output of a special logic? In Bangkok hospitals the market for HIV and STD tests has decreased during the last six months, but the number of positive tests has relatively increased.

Father Joseph!

Sorry for the bad quality, but file size is limited.

Passengers of Thai Airways International (THAI) can expect to be served by younger female flight attendants as senior staff take up an unprecedented voluntary resignation package.

The scheme is the first so-called "mutual separation plan" - or MSP - to be launched by THAI in its 50-year history and exclusively targets female flight attendants aged 45 and over.The initiative, which has been backed by the airline's union, is part of the management's bid to rejuvenate THAI's brand image and save costs, while giving senior crew the chance to stay on or leave the firm, said THAI executives.To avoid allegations of sex and age discrimination, THAI plans to make voluntary retirement highly appealing, with flight attendants who have served for 15 years being offered a lump-sum of up to 30 times their monthly salary.THAI president Piyasvasti Amranand said the MSP would help the airline trim operating costs. Older THAI cabin attendants earn about 100,000 Baht a month, while younger colleagues get about 30,000 Baht.

THAI's liberal terms and relatively generous employment benefits have resulted in the airline having a growing number of older female attendants, with about 800 currently aged 45 or above.About 400 of THAI's male stewards are at least 45, but they are excluded from THAI's MSP.

Source: Bangkok Post 01-05-2010
More details here

Hm, male stewards are not concerned, - nothing to say about discrimination? It obviously is not a problem with regards to males, when their salaries are high?

HornyHacker,
Thank you for your input and proposals!

Please be aware, that this site and its members are international, but your scale for education level is related to the USA. Furthermore such a graduation is a hint, but not a reliable and satisfying indicator.
It would go to far to refer to the related analysis of OECD comparing the quality of educational systems of its member countries.

With regards to objectivity there is already a big lack related to reviews. Certainly it would not become worse and less objective than it is already, if there are some more questions.
At the moment the criteria are not sufficient to describe the quality of escort services. The focus is less or more on sex, only.

Thanks

Nearly all fix evaluation criteria of reviews here are one sided having their focus on sexual services and physical appearance.
Especially with regards to escort services I miss an evaluation criterion informing about the educational level of an escort.

The related options could be as follows:
- Prefer not to comment, no personal point of interest
- Poor ('just good for a fuck')
- Generally interested/educated (good manners, conversation skills)
- Well informed (for ex. news, politics, culture, etc.)
- Complete education (covers all related points)

Furthermore it would be informative to know more about the reviewer's motivation to book the escort about whom he has written a review.
Was the focus mainly on sex or also on companionship? Normally this point strongly depends on the duration of an encounter.
But especially more and more businessmen on business tours book escorts, take them on their trips and park them on standby for 'intimate fun'.

These two new criteria would make it easier to read, understand and evaluate a review and would be really helpful for a selection.

Thank you!

Well, I see it as follows:
At the moment the possibilities to vote are sufficient. Voting on comment activities is a problem already.
I have an escort in mind, who has at the moment about 70 reputation points. She might be a nice lady, offering a good service, but her posts have no content, means are full of empty phrases (for ex: welcomes to the forum, agrees to other persons opinions ...). Her fan club and friends seem to be very active and vote plus for such a "bla bla bla".

Voting for interviews, ads and reviews is a problem, because there is no zero level standard defined, compared to which positive or negative votes can be made.
There is absolutely no objectivity ensured. Voting and reviewing persons are heterogenous. Persons of different backgrounds, priorities and motiviations.

Reviews have become my favourite field. There are mostly "reviews de courtesy" to please an escort and relatively seldom reviews to support hobbyists. There are reviewers who are greenhorns easily to be impressed on the one side and experienced and critical persons on the other side. One person writes a glorifying review being super happy with a protected BJ and no CIM on the field of sexual services and for an other person such a service is wasting time and money and is simply poor. The second person normally does not write a review. ;-)

Finally it is very interesting to see, how much the specials of each section reflect the specials of the related country. :-)
A country where manipulation and ignoring rules is daily life has an equal quality for its section here.