BANGKOK, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Concerns about press freedom are growing in Thailand after police said they had put four foreign journalists on a special ``watch list'' of people seen as a threat to national security and who could be banned from the kingdom.
Special Branch police officers said the four worked for U.S. publishing group Dow Jones's Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine, and included Bangkok bureau chief Shawn Crispin, a U.S. citizen, and his British colleague Rodney Tasker.
The police sources, who declined to be identified, and two press freedom groups said the Review's Hong Kong-based editor Michael Vatikiotis and publisher Philip Revzin were also on the watch list.
The announcement of the list on Friday has sparked a storm of protest over freedom of speech in one of Southeast Asia's oldest democracies.
``We condemn this measure, which is prejudicial to press freedom and unworthy of a democracy,'' said Robert Menard, secretary general of the lobby group Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), in a statement received on Saturday.
He said the group had written to Thai Interior Minister Purachai Piumsombun, who is reviewing the list, asking him to remove the journalists' names.
PROPOSED BLACKLIST
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also issued an open letter to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, urging him to scrap the proposed ``blacklist''.
``CPJ believes the deportation of these reporters would constitute a gross violation of press freedom,'' said executive director Ann Cooper in the letter also sent to Reuters.
``This proposed blacklist seriously harms Thailand's reputation for openness and tolerance.''
Police officers said the move followed the publication of articles on the Thai royal family, as well as about businesses run by the family of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The officers declined to say exactly what the Special Branch had objected to in the stories by the Review.
But the action stems from the January 10 issue, which was banned by Thai authorities and pulled from shelves and all flights by the national carrier Thai Airways .
The Hong Kong office of the Review could not be reached for immediate comment on the ``blacklist''.
ROYAL FAMILY
Thailand has strict laws which restrict what can be written or said about the royal family. The country also has little-used laws allowing restrictions on the publication of material seen as threatening Thai morals or national security.
The Special Branch has also drawn up lists of 42 other foreigners, some of whom had also been put on the watch list and others declared persona non-grata.
The officers said around 10 people in total had been placed on the watch list. They can still work in Thailand, but their status was being reviewed. Those on the persona non-grata list were ``not welcome'' in Thailand.
The lists include followers of China's Falun Gong sect, as well as members of rebel groups opposed to the communist governments of neighbouring Laos and Vietnam, the press freedom groups and local media said.
All 46 names were being forwarded to the interior minister for his approval.
Since taking office in January last year, the Thai government has embarked on a controversial ``public order campaign'' which has seen it revive a series of antiquated laws adopted during periods of previous military rule.
The campaign aims at cracking down on vice and sprucing up the country's image amid efforts to lure foreign investors and businesses to set up regional headquarters here.