Special Branch bans Sulakbook
a PravitRojanaphruk The Nation

WELL-KNOWN social critic Sulak Sivaraksa says he will petition both the United Nations and the National Human Rights Commission and file a case in the Administrative Court to challenge the police's decision to '. ban and confiscate one of his recent books, which touched. on politics and the monarchy.

"I can assure you that all that I wrote was'true," Sulak told The Nation.

"For three decades now, the authorities have not stopped harassing citizens and even [Prime Minister] Surayud [Chulanont] once remarked that police are like the mafia."

Sulak said he received a Special Branch police notice on Tuesday ordering him to stop printing, selling and disseminating the book "A Quarter of a Century of Thai Politics: AThorn-filled Path", published by Song Siam publishing house.He said the order claimed the book "may cause unrest and degrade good morals" in Thai society, a charge Sulak rejected. 

"I don't know where and how many copies they have confiscated already."

He said the printing law cited in the police order dated from, the dictatorial era of 1941.

"I also heard arumourthat they may come and arrest me," said Sulak, who has twice been tried and acquitted on lese majeste charges.

A source who asked not to be named said the whole affair was putting the Surayud administration in a negative light and may be part of a plan by some influential group seeking to undermine the interim government.

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published in The Nation, October 4, 2007