Muslims brace for subdued Ramadan as radios taken off air

BANGKOK: Radio fans in southern Thailand, particularly Muslims, are bracing for a subdued Ramadan starting at the end of the month as community radios have been taken off the air by the junta as it clamped down on street protests.

Muslims could no longer listen to religious programmes, including recitation of the Quran, call to prayers and talks on community radios which were ordered close when the junta seized power on May 22.

Fourteen television stations and 8,000 community radio stations, 2,000 of them unregistered, were ordered close by the National Council for Peace and Order and the ban could only be lifted by the National Telecommunication and Broadcasting Commission, said southern region junta spokesman Pattamaphorn Rattanadilok Na Phuket.

“Despite calls for the ban to be lifted before Ramadan, the southern region junta couldn’t do anything as it doesn’t call the shot,” Southern Region Media director Wan Ahmad Wan Kacik told Bernama. In Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, over 50 community radio stations, including the Malay radio and television stations run by the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre ceased operations.

Wan Ahmad said the ‘ World Today’ programme aired over the Malay radio since the peace dialogue between Thailand and the Patani Liberation Movement-National Revolution Front ( BRN) in Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia as facilitator on 28 Feb 2012 had the highest rating due to its credibility over Thai-language government radio stations.

He said it delved into the peace process and had interviewed BRN representative Hasan Taib, National Security Council secretary Gen Paradorn Srichapan and Malaysian facilitator Datuk Seri Ahmad Zamzamin Hashim. — Bernama