Thailand’s Red Shirts, the supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have declared war on Apple’s iPhone. The group, who are strongly opposed to Thailand’s current government, have said they will hold an iPhone ‘Thrashing Event’ in protest of the Thai CP Group.

Thai CP, whose telecoms units are the exclusive sellers of  Apple’s iPhone in Thailand, also owns True, which offers broadband services in Thailand but has blocked  all websites that support Thaksin, leading for calls from Red Shirts for the service, and iPhones, to be boycotted.

In addition, the Thai election commission reported that in the last election True donated about US$1m to the Democrat Party of current Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, which has further angered the Red Shirts. The donation was the largest the party received and it was the only political donation CP made.

 

Meanwhile, CP’s CEO came out to criticize the Thai telecom commission on its plan for the 3G mobile phone system, saying it was hurting Thai telecoms interests. CP was competing head-on with AIS, owned by the Singapore government’s investment arm Temasak. The Thai Prime Minister later said Thai telecoms interests must be protected and the Thai telecom commission changed its bidding structure.

 

Also, the Voice of America (VOA) and Thailand’s True Cable TV have joined in a cooperation agreement. The agreement is similar to previous cooperation between True and the BBC which was terminated under pressure from the Thai Red Shirt movement.

 

“We are working with Voice of America to train our journalist how to be better reporters,” said True Cable TV.


Last year the BBC terminated its long relationship with True as several heads of the Red Shirt movement, particularly Jai Ungpakorn, who is a Thai/British mixed race in exile from Thai prosecution in the UK, raised the issue to British politicians in the UK.