PEJOURNAL – On June 3, a group of Muslims in Thailand show solidarity with Palestine and support the campaign against Israeli occupation by putting up the Palestinian flag with the message #FreePALESTINE” on a large billboard in the center of Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
After that, it had been reported that a high-rank Thai police officer from the special branch had pressured the advertising agency and the billboard owner to remove the billboard because they were afraid it would affect the relationship between Thailand and Israel. However, they had been rejected.
Later there was an attempt to create more pressure by threatening that they would ask the Public Works Department of the District Office to put down the billboard, otherwise they would take legal action, and also threatened that if the flag was not put down within June 5, they would investigate all other company’s relevant billboards whether it goes against the law or not.
Actually, Thai Police have pressured the advertising agency and the billboard owner in the Sathupradit district to remove the “Free Palestine” billboard over fears it would affect the relationship with Israel, and also threaten to ask the Bangkok authorities for punishment. Finally, it was found that the billboard had been removed.
The latest report indicated that the owner of the billboard and the advertising agency had decided to give up and removed the #FreePalestine billboard because they fear they would be affected by various threats from Thai authorities.