All they have to do is make it look enough like ‘reform’ for the Western MSM to ‘cautiously’ bill it as such… then the desperate, greedy Western corporations will give themselves dispensation… rather order their client ‘democratic’ Western governments to give them dispensation to deal with the ‘new! now with democracy added!’ reform government… and the gold rush will be on.
The generals woke up one day and realized they were at the mercy of the Chinese plutocrats and this is the result.
Ricky… I can’t access the link you post from here but it would be interesting to know just how much of the smoke pollution and fires you see around this time of year in Thailand are from swidden farmers in upland areas.
2 years ago in Nan many lowland rice farmers used to burn their fields about now. People also used to set the grass by the roadside of the main roads (including the Phrae-Nan highway) on fire.
Sure, there were some forest fires, but no where near as much slashing and burning of upland areas as typical environmental narratives would have us believe.
[…] de Sticky Asia : La campagne pour la réforme de l’article 112 a pris une dimension internationale avec la signature d’une lettre ouverte, datée du 1er février 2012, ├а Yingluck Shinawatra […]
Prachai had posted an interview with Somkid Lertpaitoon, Rector of Thammasat University, in which he discussed his support for Kantoop’s admission to the university.
Appears that since Thammasat has stopped dicussion on LM (pro or con) on campus, Prachai has removed the aritcle.
The “real-politik” does indeed suggest that inter-faith dialogues and by extension inter-faith relations are extremely difficult.
But do minorities have any other choice?
Dialogue appears to be the “only peaceful way” to engage with the majority community to find an “acceptable settlement”.
In an earlier analysis on inter-faith dialogue with Muslims, Dr. Ng Kam Weng, the research director at Kairos noted that:
“…Christians [in Malaysia] should enter the fray of national debates regarding civil society and nation-building. Failure to do so results in a de facto surrendering of the public sphere to the dominant majority…”
Here is an addition to the theme of “education system.” In today’s BP, senior journalist Veera states,
“Mr Worajate’s suggestion about the King taking an oath before the parliament seems to have offended not just Nitirat’s opponents but ordinary people who strongly feel the group has crossed the line. Personally, I feel that the suggestion is insulting for our King to take an oath before MPs, many of whom have tainted backgrounds and questionable credibility.
How about Mr Worajate and his supporting scholars take an oath before the same group of MPs that they will perform their duties honestly? Would they feel insulted to do the same?”
Since when, one might one ask, are university lecturers constitutional organs?
Moreover,
“As for the suggestion that the King not be allowed to give public addresses, I wonder where is the principle of free expression that the Niritrat group and its supporters cherish and vow to protect.”
In a democrracy, the king is a constitutional organ of a specific kind. If he feels the need to fully engage in public life and politics, he can abdicate and become an ordinary citizen of the same status as all citizens. He will then enjoy the liberties of any other of his fellow citizens.
There is one thing missing in the statistics and summary; the fact that last year, even with the floods, farmers were on their third, and in some cases fourth crop of rice for the year and the storage silos were stretched to the limit with rice left over from previous years.
Thanks R.N. Apologies about the performance of this link. OurChiangMai.com webmaster has checked the site for malware and assures me it is safe but the alarming messages continue.
Most embassies would not issue a visa if the applicant has been charged. They will know that the reason these people will travel overseas is to seek asylum. Joss Stick has been charged with lese majeste. She also has been harassed. Her story is made public. This fact alone will alert the embassy that the reason she will travel to their country is she needs to escape from Thailand.
In my opinion, whether Joss Stick would travel to Cambodia or not would not make much difference. She can try applying for visas at any embassy in Thailand to see which country would allow her to travel there. But it is up to her whether she wants to leave Thailand or not. I think with Joss Stick, obtaining a visa would be the most difficult part. Getting asylum would be an easy part as there are ample evidences that she has been persecuted due to the reason of political opinion.
What if she just applied for a tourist/student visa in the embassy’s of the final destination in Cambodia? Thais don’t need visas to visit Cambodia, no? Some rights organization could sponsor her. Once she gets in the final destination country, she can then apply for Asylum.
RE asylum: I think this would be a good thing to happen. In the international press, it would give a lot bad press for Thailand, and the fact that she is a teenager will even make Thailand look worse.
What is Murdoch’s relationship to the Thai elite? If it is frosty, then there you go, you could actually put his evil empire to good use.
Twitter’s offer to the various interested governments is actually a “faux” offer. Any person resident in a country which is censoring Twitter need only go to his/her Profile Settings and substitute “worldwide” or some other country other than his own country and the censorship targeted for his own country will no longer apply…….
It gets Twitter off the hook of operating “illegally” in various countries without seriously inconveniencing the core reason many people use and value Twitter.
QUOTE(from article):(Wattana Janthasilp):“The nature of the evidence against the defendants was not beyond doubt. The evidence found in the investigation does not show who exactly burnt down the building but prosecutors argued that the defendants exhibited ‘behavior of involvement.’ The defendants were part of the ‘final action’ of the event because they were in proximity closest to the situation.”
Exactly.
This equates to thirty-three or thirty-four years of imprisonment. Rough justice in the extreme as far as I can see. Wishy-washy circumstantial evidence like this would be thrown out of any other proper court of law in the west.
BUT don’t worry because the rumour on the ground is that there is going be a very public groundswell of popular support for the Red-Shirt movement – a massive resurgence in their fortunes – in the near future that will in the main be independent of the Pheu Thai party.
Yep Prachatai seem to confirm it – Kantoop’s original comments were made in 2010 not 2009.
“The 19-year-old first year Thammasat student was accused of lèse majesté for comments she posted on Facebook in March and April 2010, when she was a minor.”
I remember tweeting about her case back at that time in 2010 but nobody seemed that interested then and many on twitter actually thought she deserved it (oh, what happened to the net utopian’s twitter-inspired democracy movements, huh?).
It’s a terrible story that is very emblematic of how low Thai society has fallen.
The work around it to go into settings menu on Twitter and change your country. Twitter identifies the IP you use as in Thailand and would use the Thai filter. Overriding that is simply select on the dropdown menu that you are in Burkina Faso or where ever. Problem solved.
All quasi fascist states love censorship, close scrutiny of their ineptitude, nepotism, favoritism, pandering and corruption is far from welcome, don’t forget US, China and Australia as part of the club. Only intelligent and honest government invites free speech, hence the complete lack of its appeal.
In the UK they were saying they wanted to switch off some service – not Twitter, it was Blackberry or Facebook, I think – in a certain area while there was civil unrest going on. This discussion is about Twitter providing the ability to not have a certain tweet visible in a certain country (but re-tweets are fine) .
Recently we had a discussion on the issue of swidden farming as a means of entrenching poverty as well as land and public health degradation and asked why hasn’t it been done away with? :
While smoke is in the air what has happened to the Cross Border Haze Agreement between the ASEAN states? Seems it has made as much progress as the UN Climate Convention.
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Burma’s incentive for reform?
All they have to do is make it look enough like ‘reform’ for the Western MSM to ‘cautiously’ bill it as such… then the desperate, greedy Western corporations will give themselves dispensation… rather order their client ‘democratic’ Western governments to give them dispensation to deal with the ‘new! now with democracy added!’ reform government… and the gold rush will be on.
The generals woke up one day and realized they were at the mercy of the Chinese plutocrats and this is the result.
Pheua Thai but for lese majeste
#41
Didn’t you find it somewhat hard to watch Yingluck’s statement, I wonder?
Kantoop and lèse-majesté
where will the red shirts stand in this matter?
Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
Ricky… I can’t access the link you post from here but it would be interesting to know just how much of the smoke pollution and fires you see around this time of year in Thailand are from swidden farmers in upland areas.
2 years ago in Nan many lowland rice farmers used to burn their fields about now. People also used to set the grass by the roadside of the main roads (including the Phrae-Nan highway) on fire.
Sure, there were some forest fires, but no where near as much slashing and burning of upland areas as typical environmental narratives would have us believe.
International solidarity for the Amendment of Article 112
[…] de Sticky Asia : La campagne pour la réforme de l’article 112 a pris une dimension internationale avec la signature d’une lettre ouverte, datée du 1er février 2012, ├а Yingluck Shinawatra […]
Kantoop and lèse-majesté
Prachai had posted an interview with Somkid Lertpaitoon, Rector of Thammasat University, in which he discussed his support for Kantoop’s admission to the university.
Appears that since Thammasat has stopped dicussion on LM (pro or con) on campus, Prachai has removed the aritcle.
Religious dialogue: whose responsibility? – Part 2
The “real-politik” does indeed suggest that inter-faith dialogues and by extension inter-faith relations are extremely difficult.
But do minorities have any other choice?
Dialogue appears to be the “only peaceful way” to engage with the majority community to find an “acceptable settlement”.
In an earlier analysis on inter-faith dialogue with Muslims, Dr. Ng Kam Weng, the research director at Kairos noted that:
A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat
Pete S #54
Here is an addition to the theme of “education system.” In today’s BP, senior journalist Veera states,
“Mr Worajate’s suggestion about the King taking an oath before the parliament seems to have offended not just Nitirat’s opponents but ordinary people who strongly feel the group has crossed the line. Personally, I feel that the suggestion is insulting for our King to take an oath before MPs, many of whom have tainted backgrounds and questionable credibility.
How about Mr Worajate and his supporting scholars take an oath before the same group of MPs that they will perform their duties honestly? Would they feel insulted to do the same?”
Since when, one might one ask, are university lecturers constitutional organs?
Moreover,
“As for the suggestion that the King not be allowed to give public addresses, I wonder where is the principle of free expression that the Niritrat group and its supporters cherish and vow to protect.”
In a democrracy, the king is a constitutional organ of a specific kind. If he feels the need to fully engage in public life and politics, he can abdicate and become an ordinary citizen of the same status as all citizens. He will then enjoy the liberties of any other of his fellow citizens.
Rice production after the flood
There is one thing missing in the statistics and summary; the fact that last year, even with the floods, farmers were on their third, and in some cases fourth crop of rice for the year and the storage silos were stretched to the limit with rice left over from previous years.
Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
Thanks R.N. Apologies about the performance of this link. OurChiangMai.com webmaster has checked the site for malware and assures me it is safe but the alarming messages continue.
http://ourchiangmai.com/2011/10/09/up-in-smoke-a-challenge-to-save-the-world/
Kantoop and lèse-majesté
@Richard #15
Most embassies would not issue a visa if the applicant has been charged. They will know that the reason these people will travel overseas is to seek asylum. Joss Stick has been charged with lese majeste. She also has been harassed. Her story is made public. This fact alone will alert the embassy that the reason she will travel to their country is she needs to escape from Thailand.
In my opinion, whether Joss Stick would travel to Cambodia or not would not make much difference. She can try applying for visas at any embassy in Thailand to see which country would allow her to travel there. But it is up to her whether she wants to leave Thailand or not. I think with Joss Stick, obtaining a visa would be the most difficult part. Getting asylum would be an easy part as there are ample evidences that she has been persecuted due to the reason of political opinion.
Kantoop and lèse-majesté
What if she just applied for a tourist/student visa in the embassy’s of the final destination in Cambodia? Thais don’t need visas to visit Cambodia, no? Some rights organization could sponsor her. Once she gets in the final destination country, she can then apply for Asylum.
RE asylum: I think this would be a good thing to happen. In the international press, it would give a lot bad press for Thailand, and the fact that she is a teenager will even make Thailand look worse.
What is Murdoch’s relationship to the Thai elite? If it is frosty, then there you go, you could actually put his evil empire to good use.
Internet access denied, controlled and now contested
Twitter’s offer to the various interested governments is actually a “faux” offer. Any person resident in a country which is censoring Twitter need only go to his/her Profile Settings and substitute “worldwide” or some other country other than his own country and the censorship targeted for his own country will no longer apply…….
It gets Twitter off the hook of operating “illegally” in various countries without seriously inconveniencing the core reason many people use and value Twitter.
Left out of reconciliation?
QUOTE(from article):(Wattana Janthasilp):“The nature of the evidence against the defendants was not beyond doubt. The evidence found in the investigation does not show who exactly burnt down the building but prosecutors argued that the defendants exhibited ‘behavior of involvement.’ The defendants were part of the ‘final action’ of the event because they were in proximity closest to the situation.”
Exactly.
This equates to thirty-three or thirty-four years of imprisonment. Rough justice in the extreme as far as I can see. Wishy-washy circumstantial evidence like this would be thrown out of any other proper court of law in the west.
BUT don’t worry because the rumour on the ground is that there is going be a very public groundswell of popular support for the Red-Shirt movement – a massive resurgence in their fortunes – in the near future that will in the main be independent of the Pheu Thai party.
Kantoop and lèse-majesté
Yep Prachatai seem to confirm it – Kantoop’s original comments were made in 2010 not 2009.
“The 19-year-old first year Thammasat student was accused of lèse majesté for comments she posted on Facebook in March and April 2010, when she was a minor.”
http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/3034
I remember tweeting about her case back at that time in 2010 but nobody seemed that interested then and many on twitter actually thought she deserved it (oh, what happened to the net utopian’s twitter-inspired democracy movements, huh?).
It’s a terrible story that is very emblematic of how low Thai society has fallen.
Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
Ricky (8) and others. There may be a Trojan virus in the link you quoted.
Internet access denied, controlled and now contested
The work around it to go into settings menu on Twitter and change your country. Twitter identifies the IP you use as in Thailand and would use the Thai filter. Overriding that is simply select on the dropdown menu that you are in Burkina Faso or where ever. Problem solved.
Internet access denied, controlled and now contested
All quasi fascist states love censorship, close scrutiny of their ineptitude, nepotism, favoritism, pandering and corruption is far from welcome, don’t forget US, China and Australia as part of the club. Only intelligent and honest government invites free speech, hence the complete lack of its appeal.
Internet access denied, controlled and now contested
In the UK they were saying they wanted to switch off some service – not Twitter, it was Blackberry or Facebook, I think – in a certain area while there was civil unrest going on. This discussion is about Twitter providing the ability to not have a certain tweet visible in a certain country (but re-tweets are fine) .
Completely unrelated.
Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
Recently we had a discussion on the issue of swidden farming as a means of entrenching poverty as well as land and public health degradation and asked why hasn’t it been done away with? :
http://ourchiangmai.com/2011/10/09/up-in-smoke-a-challenge-to-save-the-world/
please contribute.
While smoke is in the air what has happened to the Cross Border Haze Agreement between the ASEAN states? Seems it has made as much progress as the UN Climate Convention.