Beginning Thursday, anyone attempting to access the Thai portal of HRW online using a Thai service provider was redirected to the Thailand Ministry of Information and Technology webpage saying that access to the website was suspended due to inappropriate content.
"By acting to block our Thailand web page, the NCPO [the National Council for Peace and Order] is demonstrating again their contempt for the Thai people's right to freedom of information. But I have no doubt that the Thai people are ingenious enough to find their way around the Thai military's ham-fisted attempts to cut them off from factual information on the Internet," Adams told RIA Novosti.
Since the NCPO, a Thai military group, overthrew Yingluck Shinawatra's civil government on May 22, more than 200 websites have been labeled as threats to national security and access within Thailand has been barred, HRW estimates.
In October, the HRW, in a letter to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, condemned massive rights abuses by the Thai army chief who led the coup. HRW urged the government to end military rule and restore basic human rights.
Under martial law imposed by the army in the days before it seized power, all protests and political gatherings of more than five people were banned.
