Order to suspend Peace TV not related to previous case: NBTC
BROADCAST regulators insisted yesterday that Monday’s decision to suspend the licence of the red-shirt Peace TV station for a month from July 10 was not related to a previous case for which the Administrative Court issued an injunction again on Wednesday.
Peerapong Manakit, chairman of the subcommittee on TV content and programming at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said the commission’s broadcasting panel had decided to suspend Peace TV’s licence, but the order had not been implemented yet.
“The order should arrive at Peace TV and go into effect next week. The verdict by the Supreme Administrative Court on Wednesday was based on a previous case dating back to April 2015 and its ruling on the same case in May this year,” Peerapong stressed.
After the NBTC on Monday decided to suspend the channel, alleging that three of Peace TV’s programmes aired in March violated the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)’s announcements No 97 and 103, red-shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn filed a complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court. The complaint was filed in Weng’s capacity as a host at the TV station.
The Supreme Administrative Court on Wednesday ruled that the Peace TV station could continue broadcasting under an injunction of the lower administrative court’s order and that the NBTC’s latest order could not overrule the court ruling.
Weng alleged that the NBTC’s order violated the May 26 injunction order from the Central Administrative Court, which allows the station to stay on air until the court rules on the case filed against NBTC’s earlier order to revoke its licence.
He said the Supreme Administrative Court had decided that if the NBTC thought the TV station violated any condition of the injunction, it should ask the Central Administrative Court to revoke the injunction instead of issuing its own order to overrule the court ruling.
Peerapong said the NBTC always respected court decisions, though both cases were lodged at different times and the new ruling from the Administrative Court did not overrule its order.
The commissioner explained that his panel had been considering the three Peace TV shows that violated the NCPO’s orders for several months.
“Therefore, the latest decision to suspend Peace TV’s licence was not influenced by political motivation or the government,” he insisted.
