Sarinee Achavanuntakul
August 30, 2018Ms. Achavanuntakul is the Managing Director of the Knowledge Development at the Sal Forest Co. Ltd., a board member of the Faculty of Economics at Thammasat University, and adjunct professor in their Integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree Program in Business and Accounting. She received her M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University in the United States. For the past 20 years she has been involved directly with three national policy initiatives, especially in raising public awareness of and opposition to the junta government’s draft “digital economy laws” which she sees as “surveillance/national security laws” in disguise. With others, she staged a public campaign to raise the awareness of fellow Internet users of these concerns, and formed a civil society organization called “Thai Netizen Network,” the only civil society group in Thailand dedicated to protecting digital rights. Although Section 14(1) of the Computer Crimes Act was slightly amended to specify that the clause not be used for defamation, in reality Internet users, members of the press, and activists continue to be prosecuted. Ms. Achavanuntakul is a widely respected author and translator on topics of justice, fairness, and inequality.