Thailand's Vice Minister for Culture Veerasak Khowsurat yesterday vowed to go ahead with a crackdown on low-budget films with obscene content and X-rated movies.

He was responding to a complaint from producers of low-budget films, which are made for distribution on video CDs and DVDS only, that the police crackdown ordered by the Culture Ministry of Thailand had severely affected their business.

"The government of Thailand will take action against producers of X-rated and porn movies. Those who do not produce such movies will not be affected," Veerasak said.

Low-budget pornographic movies and X-rated films published on VCD discs have become popular in the Thai provinces because of their low prices. Parents have complained that many of these movies have explicit love scenes.

Veerasak asked police to check on such movies after a series of gang rapes by Thai teenagers. He blamed X-rated movies and low-budget porno films on VCDs and DVDs for motivating them to commit the rapes in Thailand.

Producers of movies for home viewing have called on the government to issue clear-cut guidelines on the scope of permitted sex scenes. Veerasak said last week that actors and actresses appearing in porno films would also be targeted.

Meanwhile, Ladda Tangsuphachai, a chief culture monitoring officer of the ministry, said the ministry could do nothing about a song on the new album by pop singer Amita Tata, better known as Tata Young.

The song, titled "Sexy Naughty Bitchy", has been criticized by conservatives in Thailand as going against Thai culture because they felt it encourages a woman to have many lovers.

Ladda said the album was produced overseas so the Thai ministry could do nothing. She said she sympathized with Amita, who had to comply with the orders of the music label she had signed a contract with.