A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat

Elizabeth Fitzgerald

New Mandala: January 24, 2012

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2012/01/24/a-catalogue-of-threats-against-the-khana-nitirat/

Suphanburi fireworks disaster: It’s a miracle, Manager-style…

Yesterday, the Khana Nitirat, the group of seven lecturers at Thammasat University who work to put law in the service of the people, held a public seminar on the nullifcation of the 2007 Constitution. The Sriburapha Auditorium at Thammasat University was overflowing with people listening inside, and exchanging ideas, browsing books and doing political performance art outside. Read reports summarizing the seminar here, here, and here, and view video of the seminar here, here, and here.

Yet rather than write about the important proposal of the Khana Nitirat here, what I want to do instead is to flag the threatening response that their work has generated. In particular, I turn to the comments section of an article about yesterday’s seminar posted on the online version of ผู้จัดการ/Manager newspaper. The article was the ผู้จัดการ/Manager take on the seminar and the Khana Nitirat proposal. The comments are full of unconstructive misreadings of the Khana Nitirat proposal, but more than that, a virulent thread of hatred.These comments do not seem to be in the interest of furthering debate about democracy, rule of law, and monarchy, but rather shutting it down, by making the possible risks for entering it grave and unpredictable.

Perhaps if I read the comments on ผู้จัดการ/Manager articles more frequently, I would be inured to comments which suggest that people be murdered or burned alive. But I do not, and I am not, so I offer a catalogue of the comments posted, circa 12 noon Thailand time on 23 January 2012.

At that time, there were a total of 227 comments. While several comments took the proposal of the Khana Nitirat seriously, many comments chose to forgo engagement and instead engage in harassment and threats against the members of the Khana Nitirat. Of primary concern here, commentators cast the members of the Khana Nitirat as less then human, called for the involvement of the military, called for surveillance, called for their deaths in a vague sense, and called for murderous vigilante violence against them. Many other comments suggested that the members of the Khana Nitirat were not-Thai and should leave the country. In what follows, the number in [ ] refers to the number of the comment which corresponds to the content noted.

Less than human

• Comparison of the members of the Khana Nitirat with dogs [50]

• Members of the Khana Nitirat are aliens [23]

• Members of the Khana Nitirat are not human [186]

Call for involvement of the military:

• What are soldiers doing about this [31, 110]

• Call for a coup [148]

• Where is the Army’s pride [150]

Call for surveillance:

• For the names, addresses, phone numbers, and maps of the house location of the members of the Khana Nitirat to be published [41, 86,117]

• Listing of the names of the members of the Khana Nitirat with the admonition to remember it well [159]

• Request for other commentators to be the eyes and ears, i.e., to be an informal surveillance network [78]

Call for vigilante and/or state violence, including murder:

• Soldiers should disappear the members of the Khana Nitirat by throwing them from helicopters [45]

• Along with their families, the members of the Khana Nitirat should be necklaced and burned alive in front of their houses [44]

• Members of the Khana Nitirat should die a violent death (ตายโหง) [4,10]

• Members of the Khana Nitirat should be beheaded [29]

• Members of the Khana Nitirat should be beheaded and their heads put on stakes outside the front of the entrance to Thammasat University [85]

• Ajarn Worachet should be executed [111]

• Take care of the members of the Khana Nitirat with an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth [105]

• General death threats [24, 37, 79, 102, 153]

• Thammasat University should be burned down [111]

• Trash should be thrown at the members of the Khana Nitirat [179]

To be clear: my point is not to suggest that the proposal of the Khana Nitirat should not be engaged critically. But the comments posted on ผู้จัดการ/Manager are neither critical nor about engagement. They are about calling for violence. In what universe is it appropriate to call for someone whose ideas one disagrees with to be beheaded and their head put on a stake outside a university? This is an attempt to intimidate and threaten the members of the Khana Nitirat, as well as shut down, not open, criticism and conversation. I would further ask, what does this mean – for the present and future of politics, about the possibility of the rule of law, about the protection of human rights, and about the status of the freedom of expression in Thailand? Does dissent – no matter the form – remove one’s claim to be human? In the present political moment, perhaps.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald is the pen name of an observer of Thai politics and history. She can be reached at lizziefitzy@gmail.com.

Speech before Parliament by Christopher Lauer, German Pirate Party MP, January 12, 2012

Video with subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U82ig37TaE [Click CC at bottom of screen.]

PRESIDENT: Please, Mr. Lauer

1. LAUER: Dear Mrs President, ladies and gentlemen, dear Mr Wowereit (he is the mayor of Berlin), In Andreas’ last speech he shed light on the programmatic aspect of the government policy address and I would like to rise to speak in order to explain some things that are of a more general nature. The Pirate parliamentary group has been part of this house since September of last year, and after the euphoria and avowals at the beginning on behalf of the parties that have already been part of the house to change their style of politics, the daily grind seems to have crept back in.
3. I can understand your hope that we will adapt to you rather than have you adapt to us, but such black and white logic falls short. The entrance of the Pirate Party into the Berlin state parliament marks a break. With us, a political party has entered, whose members are socialized by new media and the internet.
5. That’s a matter of fact you have to accept, if you want to understand our surprise and displeasure regarding the events of this parliament. We grew up in a world that offered everyone, who wanted to enter it, a neutral platform for free development of the individual. Of course, this world – the internet – involves dangers, but name me just one place where that isn’t applicable.
7. We perceived the chances of the internet to be greater. And the equality of opportunity in the physical world, which is addressed in many election programs and this government statement, is realized in the internet. Because there, indeed, no one cares where you come from, what gender you have or what religion you belong to. You just have to convince by what you do.
9. Such a parallel society – and I’m using this term intentionally at this point – is becoming even more important in this moment, in which more and more citizens of our society are ignored by the social system or don’t want to be pressed in existing social conventions.
11. The pirates don’t represent the schools’ darlings, but instead the Nerds, the outsiders; those that weren’t invited to the parties during their time in school; those that did not stand in the middle of the community <heckling sarcastically, pretending compassion>
13. Yes, and a short while ago you talked about solidarity, and now you say ‘Aww’ at something like this; you should be ashamed of yourselves! We had to find (….) – Unfortunartely, I’ve forgotten my cross. If I had packed it, you could have collected it here and then “hold the cross.” (A term that could be loosely translated as “shut up”.)
15. Because of the internet we are at the eye of the storm of a process involving all of society, the end of which we can not see yet. The social change, caused by the Internet as a technology (…)
17. PRESIDENT: Mr Lauer, a second, excuse me. Ladies and Gentlemen, interjections are one thing but a constant level of noise another. Please let the speaker be.
19. LAUER: I’m coming to the point. Because of the Internet we are at the eye of the storm of a process involving all of society, the end of which we can not see yet. The social change caused by the internet as a technology is noticeable, and we shouldn’t let the chance go by to shape that change.
21. The internet ruthlessly changes the paradigms of the 19th and the 20th century.
23. What is knowledge, what is work, what are qualifications in a world that offers me all information by the push of a button? At best we are engaging with the symptoms of a changing world. But we have to start to engage with the causes. At the same time we can’t react with solutions from the 20th century to the problems of the 21st century.
25. In the meantime the Internet can do more. It is not just Google and eBay, but also the democratic participation of many. As a parliament we can not ignore the technological leaps of the last years. The problem is that this house does not reward innovation.
27. But why should it, since it itself is about continuity, and in the moment when 149 persons as elected representatives substitute 3.5 million citizens of Berlin, it is about a reduction of complexity. Yes, and it is about power. In the moment in which this house decides the citizens’ involvement in the political process, it is about the fear to abolish itself.
29. But fear not: We abolished ourselves quite some time ago already.
31. Because what does your government policy address really mean, Mr Wowereit? It was you who declared today what is supposed to happen during the next 5 years. How is it going to come about? Through laws. Who decides on those laws? This house. But: Where are these laws written? Who of the present representatives is Mr or Mrs “drafted-by-consultant”? Whereis this consultant sitting? He sits in the administration.
33. It is a sad reality that this house is not fullfilling its constitutional task to generate laws out of its midst. It will be sad reality that over the next five years every change will come out of the Senate, and every change will be nodded through by the (ruling) coalition, with them grinding their teeth or not.
35. And the opposition will cry. And the opposition will make suggestions, and the coalition will cry. At this point I explicitly speak to the backbenchers in the parliamentary groups: Did you imagine it this way, is this worth for you? To nod through what Mr or Mrs drafted-by-consultant wrote in some senate administration for five years?
37. The free mandate, anchored in the constitution, is becoming emasculated in the state parliament week in week out. And who in here has the backbone left to disagree with his or her parliamentary group in public.
39. This toeing of the parliamentary party line, which again toes the Senate line is a danger for democracy. When we are talking here about the dangers of lobbyism and more transparency in this house, we misjudge that the lobbyist comes to those writing the law, not to those nodding the law through.
41. There are not debates taking place in this house anymore, but a Punch and Judy show, the roles divided by coalition and opposition. There is a concentration of power at the Senate taking place that is not healthy. In the light of the challenges facing the City of Berlin it is noteworthy that we, as representatives, only obliged to our conscience, put up with this.
43. The solution is just as simple as radical: The state constitution says in § 59 section 2: “bills can be contributed by the members of the parliament, by the senate or by public initiative”. Let’s remove “by the senate”. Let’s provide the members of this parliament with the authority to write laws, so that real debates are taking place in this house – relevant and cross-party.
45. Try to imagine how motivating it can be, if you put a bill through after a hard debate, on which you worked on with much blood, sweat and tears.
47. But of course I know: this is just wishful thinking. After my speech you will argue with enough reasons to explain why the system that we have for over 50 years now is good and must be continued. You will in particular explain to yourselves that you play an important role in what is taking place in this house. And even if what I just said should have reached you, you will not be bold enough to discuss it within your parliamentary group, within your party.
49. During our election campaign we had a billboard with the slogan “Why am I hanging here, you’re not going to vote anyway?”. Similarly you could put up one over this console with the headline: “Why am I talking here, I know how you are going to vote anyway?”.
51. The Pirate Party’s success is also the result of a crisis of trust in our representative parliamentary system. The Citizens of Berlin wouldn’t be demanding more participation if they felt they were being represented adequately in here.
53. Has nobody here ever asked himself the question, why people, to whom electricity comes out of walls and money out of ATMs, suddenly are interested in political participation?
55. If we want to convince the people of Berlin that the democratic representational system is necessary, then we should all start very quickly to provide reasons for it. With a business as usual intention it will not work at all.
57. Thank you very much.
59. PRESIDENT: Thank you.

Rick Falkvinge

Falkvinge on Infopolicy: January 16, 2012

http://falkvinge.net/2012/01/15/i-have-absolutely-brilliant-colleagues/

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U82ig37TaE

Stop whatever you’re doing right now and watch this eight-minute speech from Christopher Lauer, a Member of State Parliament in Berlin who was elected last fall.

After you’ve seen the speech (after clicking Play, press the uparrow and then CC to turn on subtitles in English, as I did), try to tell me with a straight face that Pirate Parties worldwide isn’t exactly what is needed to reconquer democracy and make a government for the people, by the people. Now, you need to remember as you watch this, that this man is actually an elected representative. He is a Member of Parliament in Berlin, elected for the Piratenpartei, the German Pirate Party.

Every day, I am amazed at the sheer brilliance, clearsight, and almost brutal candor of my colleagues. Christopher, I would be honored to buy you the first beer next time we meet.

At the same time, I can’t help noticing the von oben attitude of the old-guard politicians filmed in the video, just thinking that the pirates are a nuisance that will eventually go away, so that power can get back to caring for power.

With professional conduct in Parliament like this available for everybody to see, well, we’ll see about that.

(Hat tip to @opassande for the heads-up.)

Ministry to oversee young netizens

Bangkok Post: January 17, 2012

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/275545/ministry-to-oversee-young-netizens

The Education Ministry plans to set up a committee to oversee the online activities of young people, Basic Education Commission secretary-general Chinnapat Bhumirat said Tuesday.

The plan came after a sexually suggestive photograph of group of seven girls, one of them wearing a student uniform, was posted on Facebook website yesterday. The picture drew over 50,000 comments after it was posted for just five hours and more than 30,000 users clicked ‘Like’ button.

Mr Chinnapat said authorities will first check whether the girls in the photo are from a school under the Basic Education Commission.

A committee will be set up to handle this type of problem in particular, he said.

“There have been many similar incidents involving our youth and seminars might be held for teachers, students and their parents to share their ideas for preventing and solving the problem,” he said.

The Basic Education Commission is ready to cooperate with the Information and Communication Ministry in educating students on using the internet appropriately, Mr Chinnapat said

Request to have hearing of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk held in Bangkok rejected by the court

Frontline Defenders: January 27, 2012

http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/17177

On 26 January 2012, Front Line Defenders was informed that the request of human rights defender Mr Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, to have the next session of the court hearing against him heard in Bangkok was rejected by the court.

Somyot Prueksaksemsuk is a prominent labour activist and a magazine editor who is facing a maximum jail term of 30 years on lèse majesté charges. He was the subject of a joint appeal issued by Front Line Defenders and seven other international human rights NGOs on 15 November 2011. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk has been in detention since 30 April 2011. Requests made by his lawyer for his release on bail have been rejected by the court on six occasions.

Following the court’s rejection of his recent request, Somyot Prueksakasemsuk will have to travel to Songkla Province, located 950 kilometres from Bangkok (13 hours by bus), for the fourth and last session of the hearing involving Prosecution witnesses which is due to take place on 13 February 2012.

Front Line Defenders is disturbed that Somyot Prueksaksemsuk has had to travel to the provinces of Sa Kaeo, Petchabun, and Nakorn Sawan in a crowded truck to attend previous hearings which were held on 21 November 2011, 19 December 2011, and 16 January 2012 respectively. During these journeys, Somyot Prueksakasemsuk’s ankles were chained and he did not have access to rest room facilities. Furthermore, it is reported that he was ill when he was transferred from Petchabun province to Nakorn Sawan Province.

Front Line Defenders calls on the Thai authorities to reverse its decision and to allow the hearing to be held in Bangkok, as well as to take measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk. Front Line Defenders also reiterates its previous calls to the Thai authorities to immediately drop all charges against him or grant him the right to bail in accordance with fair trial standards under domestic and international law.

–

Front Line Defenders – The International Foundation for the  Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Email: info@frontlinedefenders.org

Website: www.frontlinedefenders.org

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation: January 26, 2012

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Surachai-defers-his-hunger-strike-plan-30174532.html

Pranee Danwattananusorn, wife of Red Siam group leader Surachai Danwattananusorn, who is in jail on lese majeste charges, said yesterday her husband had decided to postpone his hunger strike.

The strike was subject to a response from the Corrections Department chief, whom Surachai had sent a letter asking he be transferred to the newly opened detention centre for political prisoners in Bangkok’s Lak Si district. Pranee also named fellow red-shirt detainee Somyos Prueksakasemsuk in the request.

Surachai, 69, was initially planning to go on hunger strike yesterday.

“I personally don’t want him to go without food,” Pranee said. “But the situation is forcing him. His supporters don’t have time, and he has to help himself. You are exposed to all kinds of diseases being locked up with other inmates. Yet, if you go on hunger strike and fall sick, you do get taken to hospital, so at least that will be on the news.”

A verdict on Surachai’s charges is expected on February 28.

Meanwhile, Somyos’ son, Panithan, has announced he will go on hunger strike mid next month on behalf of his father, who was editor of the Red Power and Voice of Taksin magazines, to demand Somyos be transferred to the new detention centre. Panithan will also use his protest to push for an amendment to the lese majeste law.

Though Panithan could not be reached as of press time, key red-shirt member Jitra Kodchadej said he was planning to carry out his hunger strike at Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

Lese majeste victim Ampol to appeal

Political Prisoners in Thailand: January 22, 2012

https://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/lese-majeste-victim-ampol-to-appeal/

Ampol and grandchildren

The Bangkok Post reports that Ampol Tangnopakul is to appeal his lese majeste conviction for sending messages supposedly denigrating the queen to then prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s secretary Somkiat Krongwattanasuk.

Lawyer Arnon Nampa said he would also apply for bail for Ampol. He is serving a ridiculous 20 years in jail.

Arnon said Ampol’s appeal would focus on the possibility of IMEI identification number forgery, missing files and documents and discrepancies in the testimonies of prosecution witnesses, and discrepancies in evidence on the location of servers and phone. Again, “Arnon insisted Ampon does not know how to use SMS texting,” insisting that receiving text messages is quite different from sending them.

These issues are not new, but were earlier dismissed by the trial judge. That judge’s performace was disgraceful.

Ampol continues to maintain his innocence.

As an appeal can take 2-3 years, Arnon wants bail for his client.

Lese-majeste law leading to censorship

Pravit Rojanaphruk @PravitR

The Nation: January 25, 2012

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Lese-majeste-law-leading-to-censorship-30174448.html

One of the least explored aspects of the lese-majeste law is censorship and self-censorship of anything that can be considered even mildly critical of the monarchy.

There is no doubt that debate on this controversial law will strengthen the campaign for amendments like the one led by the Nitirat group of law lecturers, as well as encourage an equally determined group of royalist lecturers under the banner of Siam Prachapiwat to oppose it.

Too little has been said so far about the impact of the blurred line between what constitutes honest criticism and scrutiny of the monarchy for the benefit of the public and what can be seen as pure slander.

For one thing, Thais are not able to tell what is true criticism, because they cannot publicly write or express anything about the monarchy, even though the country’s current educational system continues spouting on the benefits of critical thinking.

The lese-majeste law has left people afraid of speaking honestly and allows for the circulation of rumours, especially as only positive information about the institution can get published or broadcast. Not all rumours that this writer has heard so far are even plausible, and at times I have to remind the conveyor of these fanciful but negative stories to be more careful and not believe in them too hastily. But then again, these negative tales are a direct product of censorship in Thai society.

Last, but not least, the mass media is getting used to censoring itself about anything that can be considered even mildly critical of the monarchy.

While it’s difficult to quantify the actual cost on society, there is a growing resentment against the highest institution in some sectors of society.

In fact, decades of self-censorship have left many royalists increasingly intolerant of people who criticise the law. Those calling for the amendment or abolition of the law are being regarded as outright anti-royalists.

Decades of censorship also makes it very difficult to reason with ultra-royalists.

To them, the monarchy must remain above any criticism and scrutiny, no matter what price society has to pay as a result.

The level of tolerance is dropping as royal celebrations become larger and grander every year.

Those who think that the Thai mainstream mass media has always been this tame should read newspapers published during the 1950s to realise that this was not always the case and what we see today as the natural order is wrong.

Nowadays, a public campaign to amend the lese-majeste law is enough of a reason to call for a military coup.

Last week, the yellow-shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy broke their silence to say that another military coup was justifiable and should even be encouraged now that the draconian lese-majeste law and the monarchy are being threatened.

The law, alas, has been elevated to a status not unlike that of the monarchy institution itself, making it inviolable for the ultra-royalists.

There are a few synonyms on the Internet but none of them really fit. ‘Ostriches', perhaps, with their heads in the sand? ‘Intransigents'? 'Hard-heads'? 'Old-liners'? FACT readers, help me out here!]

Some lese majeste cases to be dropped by DSI?

Political Prisoners in Thailand: January 8, 2012

http://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/some-lese-majeste-cases-to-be-dropped-by-dsi/

In the Bangkok Post there is an interesting interview with Police Colonel Prawet Mukpramol, deputy chief of the Department of Special Investigation. The whole interview deserves consideration. We found this particularly of interest:

[Q:] It sounds as though we won’t be able to hold anyone and that the suspects will be let off the hook. Is that right?

[A:] Yes, we can say the cases pertaining to the attempted overthrow of monarchy are empty. The charges are rather unsubstantiated because there is no charge against offenders operating as a group.

For the most part, the accusers in these cases claimed to have read [about the wrongdoing] in newspapers and from the internet.

errinpurpose

Prachatai: January 13, 2012

http://www.prachatai3.info/english/node/2989

These days any online search in Thai or English for Article 112 usually leads to updated news from one day to the next. We just learned, for example, from The Nation that Thailand’s lackluster human rights commission will need all this year to define its position on an issue worthy of such attention several decades ago. Academics have stepped in on both sides of the pendulum – for and against – with the Nitirat Group meeting this coming Sunday to gather signatures from Thai nationals to amend Article 112. Displeased with this effort, a counter academic group, led by NIDA offers to protect the monarchy from apparently Western values! Manager Online report on this development can be seen here. See other Thai language report here.  .Adding fuel to the fire, the UN’s special Rapporteur Frank Larue stopped by Thailand on another unofficial mission, this time dropping into the Prachatai office to lend support to democracy in Thailand.

To top that off, last night this writer was asked by a local Thai community member whether she should think of storing supplies because she heard that there is going to be huge strife in Thailand in the near future.

Setting the entire Thai nation against so-called western values, many of which are not western so much as they are human and universal, is not the way to seek enlightenment. If the Lord Buddha (a foreigner) had acted the same way with his resources then he would have built a great wall and let humanity fall apart – which it seems still intent on doing. It seems that no matter how much education we accumulate, no matter how much we travel, no matter what kind of information we gain access to or watch others access, we still can’t get off the pedestal of determining what is best for our fellow man on the one hand, and assuming that we know best on the other. If the people disagree with us, they become subject to different forms of punishment ranging from censure to warning to accusation to prosecution to prison, and sometimes to the gallows. We dress this great power in the guise of protecting national security and ignore the intense and unjust, yet inculcated, hatred that created these horrible acts. It is encouraged mob violence.

Probably the greatest institution in Thailand under real threat is the institution of ignorance. Yet despite being assailed within and without by politicians, academics, private persons, activists, diplomats, business quarters and industry, cultural groups and world-renown authors, ignorance not only thrives…it is applauded as uniquely Thai. The less you know the better. The more you believe the better. The fewer of you who actually delve into fact and fiction and really sort both out, the better. The more of you who follow directions, who show loyalty the way it is spelled out for you – and not the way that reformists like engaged Buddhist Sulak demonstrate – the better. The more powerful and unaccountable state machinery becomes in regimenting you the better.

A great human tragedy has taken place in Thailand. Archaic social values have been legislatively mandated and as a result become matters of politics and not society. Thus what were before important but legal social shifts have been transformed into illegal political threats to national security. This phenomenon is perhaps the only thing about Thailand that is unique; nowhere else in the world that I am aware of has the creed of replication been so convincingly sewn into what has in error been cited as a democratic social fabric as to inculcate rejection of anything other than the mantra. The actual processes that produced this convoluted moral conundrum are not themselves unique or surprising. World history is replete with one regime after another being able to control and steer entire populations toward a particular form of worship or creed.

As to what happens when such divergent interests – those harboring fear of self-determination versus those harboring aspirations for self-determination – come together and are led by extremists created as a result of ignorance and self-illusion…again history is replete with examples showing the tremendous damage, ruin and loss of character, of hope, of honor, of thousands of lives, that each society going through these dark cycles experiences. Thus the answer to the neighbor’s question about whether disturbances will soon ignite fires is still open but uneasily felt to be in the affirmative.

What brought forth threats to national security, then, is not the presence of such threats but their creation through Orwellian-type governance that promotes ignorance, hatred, compliance, false Thainess and perpetual Witch Hunts that silence not just dissent but legitimate inquiry.

This writer believes in benevolent censorship (This is a form of wise, non-prejudicial, kind and gentle, fair, perfect and magical kind of censorship – which, of course, can never exist). Not everything should be posted in a manner freely available to anyone who wants it. A clear example is instructions on how to beat someone so bruises do not show, how to make dirty bombs, etc.  Taste and restraint are needed, but where public information is not inhumane or immoral or unethical, it should be made available and others allowed to make it available. State agencies that outlaw this have to be held accountable and be subject to alteration.

It is recognized that standards are subjective in many cases, but as the UN, RSF and others have demonstrated, in Thailand inhumanity, growing lack of morality and ethics are given scant attention in the face of professed need to protect national security. In general the Thai population more or less supports this mantra because Thais have been Pavlov-conditioned to “recognize,” these days even to falsely anticipate something called “the threat” and slam home is one lese majesté, one criminal defamation accusation after another.

Because concerted campaigns in the name of a need to protect national security have taken on a very real “Atlas Shrugged” character of gross incompetence at the expense of rational honor, Thailand and its institutions have become subject to criticism, poor images, false impressions and even mass rejection.

Outside Thailand where people can actually speak with one another (unless they want to come to Thailand and are aware that if they do they could go to prison) they listen and are told many truths that people in Thailand will die before their ancestors will ever hear. Insistence that this is all to protect national security is unwise, unjust and unneeded. It is a terrible shame that common sense, legitimate freedoms and factual information not controlled by the State have become untenable in Thailand. Stop denouncing the West, or foreigners. Look inward. Those voices in your heart are not to be shouted down by those around you.