PM upset with note-takers at meeting on plan
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PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday that he would take to task the officials who took down notes during the Cabinet meeting over the single Internet gateway plan.
He also insisted that he had not considered or issued any orders over the plan when confronted by reporters who said the Cabinet meeting’s minutes indicated that orders related to the plan had been issued four times.
Prayut defended himself by saying that those who recorded notes of the meeting may not have jotted down every detail. “I am going to get those officials who took down notes at the meeting. I had asked the ministers and [was told] that the issue discussed at the meeting was that the single gateway plan must comply with the law and not violate human rights. If there is no law supporting this plan, and if it violates people’s rights, it will not be carried out,” he said.
A memo from the Office of Cabinet Secretary, signed by the Cabinet’s Secretary-General Ampon Kittiampon, said that all instructions from the PM would proceed in accordance with laws and regulations.
Prayut had said earlier that if the single-gateway plan were found to be against the law, it would not be implemented.
He also told reporters yesterday that the single-gateway plan had yet to be implemented and they should stop asking him about it.
Opponents said the government has already put in place a “great firewall” to keep tabs on all communication, even though the authorities insist the plan is still being studied.
When asked if he had any back-up plans, Prayut said that he was getting officials to find out how other countries were handling such problems, and would drop the single-gateway plan if it continued to face opposition.
“The problem is we always compare other countries with our country. Other countries are far more developed, while we are still stuck in the same old way of thinking. We aren’t moving forward, but instead going backwards,” he said.
He also asked people if they were affected by the fact that youngsters have free access to pornographic |content via the Internet, adding that this problem would not be completely solved even if there was a single |gateway.
“One group of people says they have a problem with that, but another group stands against the single-gateway plan. So, where should the government stand?” he asked.
Meanwhile, Ampon refused to take responsibility on Wednesday despite signing on four documents on the PM’s orders to implement the single gateway policy.
Ampon’s office, the Cabinet Secretariat, is in charge of managing documents of the premier’s orders during Cabinet’s meetings. The four documents, released on June 30, July 7, August 4 and August 25, were the prime minister’s orders to operate |and accelerate implementation of |the single-gateway policy. The orders were addressed to several government offices, including the Information and Communications Technology Ministry.
However, when asked who should take responsibility for the documents, he replied: “Do we have to find the responsible ones? Please read the last part of the documents again,” he said, referring to the premier’s claim that all his orders state that the order “should not infringe on human rights and the law” in their last paragraphs.
