Accused went on own volition: boss
PUBLISHED : 15 Feb 2024 at 04:35
The employer of a photographer, arrested and charged for allegedly supporting a political activist responsible for spraying a protest message on the wall of Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram on March 28 last year, emphasised on Wednesday that it had not asked him to cover the incident.
The company was investigating the employee’s involvement in the incident. In the meantime, he was suspended from work from on Wednesday until Sunday, said The Spacebar Co, the company behind Spacebar, an online news and lifestyle content provider.
The company was responding to the arrest on Monday of Nattaphon Phanphongsanon, the photographer at the centre of the row who later on Tuesday was released on bail. He earlier told the media that he was not part of the protest and knew he was there just to take photos. He also claimed he was merely “following his news schedule” when he covered the event.
The company said a preliminary probe conducted by the media organisation itself into Mr Nattaphon’s alleged involvement in the March 28, 2023 incident found he wasn’t assigned to cover what happened at the temple that day and that the photographer himself, despite the comments above, admitted to going there of his own free will.
The company had warned Mr Nattaphon about the incident because the temple is a sacred place to many Thais and exploiting the protest with the intent to draw public attention to a political movement was unacceptable. Such a protest stunt should never be supported or given publicity, said the company.
As a media company, Spacebar maintains political neutrality by offering equal spaces and publicity to all political groups and it supports constitutional democracy with the King as head of state, it said. The company does not support any political doctrines that cause social divisions, it added.
In another development, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday called for better protection for Mr Nattaphon for the sake of media freedom in the country. Media freedom is recognised under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in which Thailand is a member state. Accordingly it has a responsibility to follow its provisions, said the NHRC.
The NHRC encouraged the government, the Royal Thai Police and other agencies to bear in mind the importance of media freedom as they perform their duties, said the NHRC.