 |
| Andrew Drummond - convicted criminal and wanted fugitive |
Attempts to enter the site via the front page, or from search engines result in a re-direct to a page hosted by MICT.
The blog is hosted on Google's 'Blogger' site, and following this move by the Thai government Google are now expected to be pressurised to remove the site.
The MICT block means that the site will not be able to be viewed by internet users with IP addresses in Thailand, but the block is effective only in Thailand, and will still be accessible from other countries. The block will effectively cut the traffic to Drummond's site by up to 90%.
Drummond, a former News of the World reporter, and most recently the Bangkok correspondent for the London Evening Standard, fled justice by leaving Thailand and fleeing to the UK late last year just days before the Supreme Court of Thailand issued an arrest warrant for him.
Drummond has continued to operate his Google blog website from overseas.
Drummonds Google blog has been criticising the Thai government heavily - particularly the Army and the Royal Thai Police, alleging these institutions directly and indirectly support corruption and criminal activity.
As noted above, attempts to access Drummond's Google blog from Thailand now results in a redirect to a screen hosted by MICT reporting they have blocked access to the site.
Translation : This website contains information and computer data that is not reasonable and has been blocked by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology'.
The blocking of the Google hosted blog comes just days after a Court case in Thailand in which Drummond had taken criminal action against Drew Noyes and the Pattaya Times newspaper - Drummond's lawyers had called a senior government official from the Public Relations Department (PRD) as a prosecution witness. It is suspected that this move backfired as it brought the attention of the government to some of the anti-government material on the site, and may have indirectly led to the block.
Drummond left Thailand in December 2014 claiming threats to his life and his family, however has presented no evidence to substantiate his claims, and many say the real reason for his flight was to evade justice as Drummond faces dozens of criminal charges brought by parties Drummond wrote about on his site.
The report of Drummond's flight is reported here.
Drummond has fled to the UK leaving evading at least ten criminal cases, in at least two of which arrest warrants have already been issued.
#andrewdrummond #allycooper
0 comments:
Post a Comment