Magazine ban sparks Thai censorship fears

The Thai PM is threatening legal action

By the BBC's Simon Ingram in Bangkok

Senior police officers in Thailand have paid a second visit to the offices of the weekly Far Eastern Economic Review, whose most recent edition was banned from sale in the country because of an article mentioning the royal family.

Any disrespect shown to King Bhumibol is strictly forbidden

The Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, said on Sunday that the government might sue the magazine for defamation.

The ban of the Review is only the latest instance of friction between the foreign media and the government, and the affair has raised fresh concern over media freedoms in Thailand.

A single paragraph story under the heading A Right Royal Headache was all it took to earn the respected weekly magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the wrath of Thailand's political establishment.

Treading dangerously

The article, which speculated on the existence of tensions between Prime Minister Thaksin and the country's revered monarch, King Bhumipol, strayed into the most sensitive area of Thai political life.

The law forbids any comment disrespectful of the royal family, on pain of heavy punishment.

The police order banning the offending issue of the magazine from news stands cited the 1941 Publishing Act, which allows the censure of articles that are deemed conducive to "social and national disorder."

Despite an earlier suggestion of legal action against the magazine, that possibility now seems to be receding.

Thaksin's sensitivity

Sources say Wednesday's visit by a senior Special Branch officer to the Review's Bangkok office - the second in two days - took place in an amicable spirit.

The magazine is understood to be submitting a letter to the authorities which, while falling short of an apology, will emphasise that the article in question was not intended to cause offence.

The action against the Review has drawn some trenchant criticism.

Commentators here are arguing that the article showed no disrespect to the king, and that the affair has demonstrated the known sensitivity of Mr Thaksin to media criticism of his populist policies.