The Monarchy of Thailand is fed up over years of Thailand’s citizens criticizing the government and Thailand traditions. And, as more people are resorting to the Internet to speak out about their beliefs that collide with ancient Thailand traditions, the government has decided to finally take action.

According to Mobiledia, the government is “realizing the serious threats the technology, especially its social and mobile elements, can bring to governance and traditional beliefs. Countries around the globe are struggling to balance their population’s embrace of mobile communications with order, public safety and streamlining government affairs, and the challenges are beginning to show.”

Because governments in Kuwait, Turkey and Thailand revolve around what they believe, as each other’s survival, they believe that the citizens of these countries are damaging to each countries beliefs and values, while also damaging foreign relations with other countries. (Who is “they,” the government or the citizens?  What do you mean by “each other’s survival?” Can you rephrase this so it is more clear?)

The legal case that has grabbed international media attention revolves around Thailand resident Chiranuch Premchaiporn, a webmaster who manages a local news site, after she insulted Thailand’s king, 84-year-old Bhumibol Adulyadej. According to the ITTO (Who is the ITTO?), “Premchaiporn did not post the material, she is responsible for its message under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, a law which criminalizes hosting anti-monarchical content and puts content providers like Premchaiporn at risk for prison time if they fail to censor such comments quickly.” She had 11 days to remove the comments from her site but considering she failed to do so, Premchaiporn was sentenced to spend eight months in prison. Her sentencing was based on each comment that was derogatory toward the government, king, queen, or an heir.

Thailand has extremely strict consequences for those who go up against their government, with the standard penalty being a one year prison sentence for each insulting comment that is posted. However, Premachaiporn’s sentence was reduced based on her cooperation.

Thailand has extremely strict, what they call, “lese-majeste” laws which prohibits the public expression of criticism against the monarchy in any media form whether it be television, print, radio or the Internet.

According to Reporter Kendra Srivastava, “the sentence reflects Thailand’s long history of censorship, which is gaining attention and sparking controversy as technology advances in the digital age. Lese-majeste laws are also coming under fire with demands for reform due to the recent death of a 62-year-old man who was serving a 20-year jail sentence for insulting the king. A petition of almost 27,000 signatures calling for reform of the laws was delivered to the Thai parliament yesterday in response to the man’s death.”

Fortunately for other countries in Asia and the Middle East, governments are looking at ways to go about the penalties of violating censorship laws among its citizens. Rather than punishment, countries like Iran and Syria are exploring ways to limit the Internet’s reach to citizens by not allowing access to sites that can give them information to retaliate and denounce their governments as well as forbidding them to insult the religions and politics of their countries.

While Thailand is censoring the media to prevent the denouncement of their ancient beliefs that go centuries back, it might actually end up hurting the country’s future.

According to Srivastava, “Google called Premchaiporn’s sentence a threat to the potential of Thailand’s Internet economy.”

However, the real questions still remain. How far is censorship going to go? And, how far are these countries willing to risk the free speech of their citizens in order to save face for their governments? Is all this censorship worth the protests, deaths and detriment to these countries economies?

Image Courtesy of  AJP / Shutterstock.com

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been ranked as hosting the cleanest environment among the Gulf cooperative council countries (GCC) and the second best in the Middle East region according to World Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in a recent press release.

The surprise of this ranking is that the UAE has jumped from a 152^nd place in 2008, which was considered among the poorest scoring eco-friendly country in the world, to number 77 in 2012.

The other GCC rankings include Saudi Arabia (82^nd), Qatar (100^th), Oman (110^th) and Kuwait (126^th), while Bahrain is not including in the ranking. The EPI’s indicators and policies are evaluated in many categories such as Environmental Diseases, Water, Air Pollution, Biodiversity and Habitat, Forestry, Fisheries, Agriculture, Climate Changes.

Meanwhile, the UAE is ranked 27^th in The Pilot Trend Environmental Performance Index, a new tool launched this year to measure the eco-friendly inclinations in different countries.

The world’s top ranker in the index is Switzerland, while Iraq has the lowest ranking among the 132 included countries this year. The UAE is ranked one step after Egypt, which is the highest ranked among the Middle Eastern and Arab countries. This index is issued every year by Yale and Colombia University based on 22 environmental indicators and policies.

The local governments of each Emirate have started green polices in their governmental sectors and urge the private sector to take steps into eco-friendly policies as well to protect and develop the limited natural resource of the warm and humid weathered countries. These efforts focus mainly on reducing the energy and water consumption, as well as initiating sustainable waste management.

At the end of 2011, Abu Dhabi’s municipality introduced fines against spitting, disposing gums and throwing cigarettes in the streets as in an effort to save the clean environment in the city. These fines would also reduce the unaccepted behavior of certain communities in the city. These fines vary from 100 dirhams to 500 dirhams (27.22 to 136 USD).

In addition, the Urban Planning Council of Abu Dhabi urges all future villa owners to use an online tool to ensure that they plan their villas according to the green building code. This code aims to reduce the energy and water bills by 40% by urging villa owners to use alternative energy types and to increase green landscaping around their villas.

According to officials in The UAE’s Ministry of Environment and Water, the UAE plans to be a plastic bag free country by the end of 2013, to help reduce plastic consumption in the country. In collaboration with the ministry of Economy, both ministries urge all supermarkets and shops to give their customers biodegradable bags rather than plastic bags in order to reach this goal on the specified deadline.

The alternatives to plastic bags are made from recycled paper, jute or polycaprolactone which is easily biodegradable. Plastic bags on the other hand are known to be highly non-easily biodegradable, and can last for more than 100 years.

Image Courtesy of  slava296 / Shutterstock.com

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