Pravit Rojanaphruk, The Nation senior reporter and fierce critic of the junta, said on Wednesday he quited his job at The Nation newspaper due to pressure upon the paper after he was detained incommunicado by the military.
According to Pravit, The Nation Group forced him to resign due to pressure from its readers.
“I love The Nation. I don’t want to see it jeopardized. I do what I can,” Pravit told Prachatai.
He added that he did not want to engage in lawsuits and be a burden to the company, which is now facing pressure from many sides.
Pravit, 47, said the compensation package has not been settled yet. The resignation will take effect end of September.
The fierce critic of the lèse majesté law on Sunday evening reported to the army, was detained incommunicado for two days and released on Tuesday afternoon. The junta spokesman said Pravit was detained because he spread false information about the junta on social media.
During his detention, The Nation Group issued a statement calling for Pravit to be released. The group, most of whose readership are right-wing, pro-coup royalists, however, condemned this move.
With his master's degree in social anthropology from Oxford, Pravit has been considered the black sheep of the pro-establishment The Nation newspaper, one of the two national English-language newspapers in Thailand, due to his liberal, anti-coup, anti-lèse majesté law stances. Pravit became well-known to Thai audiences when he started tweeting his opinions on the @
PravitR account in 2012.
On Wednesday 6 pm, Pravit
posted on his personal Facebook account [sic] "I have decided to resign from The Nation newspaper after a meeting with the management and being requested to resign in order to save the paper from enormous pressure from all sides in the aftermath of being detained by the military junta. I care and love the paper I have been working for 23 years and if by this act I could help alleviate some pressure then I would gladly do so. There's only the issue of just compensation to be discussed and I thank The Nation for all the good and difficult times we shared and endured."
