Pravit Rojanaphruk, The Nation senior reporter and fierce critic of the junta, on Wednesday said on Wednesday he was forced to quit his job at The Nation Newspaper after he was detained incommunicado by the military.
According to Pravit, The Nation Group pressured him to resign due to pressure from the audience.
“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 lawsuit and be a burden for the company, which is now facing pressure from many sides.
Pravit, 48, said he did not know about the compensation package yet. The resignation will take effect end of September.
The fierce critic of the lese majeste on Sunday evening reported himself 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 the detention, The Nation Group issued a statement calling for Pravit to be released. The group, most of whose audience are right-wing, pro-coup royalists, however, condemned such move.
Finishing his master's degree in social anthropology from Oxford, Pravit has been considered a blacksheep of the pro-establishment The Nation Newspaper, one of the two national English-language newspaper in Thailand, due to his liberal, anti-coup, anti-lese majeste law staces. Pravit became well-known to the Thai audience when he started tweeting his opinion on @PravitR account in 2012.
On Wednesday 6pm, Pravit posted on his personal Facebook account that "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."