Actress Presses Charges Over 'Anti-Royal' Photo Distortion

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29 May 2014, 18:50

Photo of Intira Charoenpura with Her Majesty the Queen and other actors.

BANGKOK — A prominent actress has sought help from police after a pro-monarchy Facebook page falsely accused her of insulting Her Majesty the Queen.

Intira Charoenpura, 33, says that the caption of a photo in which she posed with Her Majesty the Queen on a movie set was altered and circulated among pro-monarchy Facebook pages.

The altered version of the caption — which cannot be republished here for legal reasons — implies that Ms. Intira was pleased to have fooled Her Majesty the Queen into taking a photo with her even though she is an anti-monarchy activist.

The photo's original caption read: "Now that the film is almost in the cinema, it reminds me of the time when I had the opportunity to be granted such as close audience with Her Majesty. It was a great blessing to the humble life of this actress."

Ms. Intira has frequently spoken out in support of freedom of speech and criticised Thailand's lese majeste (insult of monarchy) laws. The famous actress is widely seen by royalists as a sympathiser of the previous government, which was also accused of harbouring an anti-monarchy agenda by many of its opponents.

Ms. Intira told police today that the caption's distortion has put her at grave risk amid the ongoing political crisis, especially after the army seized power from the government in a coup d’état on 22 May and announced a zero tolerance policy for those accused of lese majeste.

Under Thai laws, lese majeste is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

"In the past I have been subject to photo-shopping and accusations many times on social media, but I tried not to think too much about it," Ms. Intira told reporters." This time, I feel that it has stepped over the line, and I am afraid other actors [in the photo] will be affected as well."

Police say they have accepted Ms. Intira's complaint under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act, which criminalizes dissemination of false information on the internet.

In March, the ultra-royalist newspaper Manager ASTV printed a satire piece featuring a mock interview with Ms. Intira in which she changed her surname to "Shinawatra" in support of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The piece also had her urging the Mr. Thaksin to form a new country by leading a secession in the North.

The piece later became popular among pro-monarchy Thais, many of whom failed to realise that it was a satire.

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Coupmakers Repackage Former Govt's Economic Policies

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29 May 2014, 18:25

Former Transport Minister Chatchart Sitthipan presents 2.2 trillion baht mega-project at a government-sponsored exhibition, 30 July 2013.

BANGKOK — The military junta is now touting three new economic measures, all of which were lifted clean from the playbook of the government it overthrew one week ago.

In its bid to shore up support from the public, the National Council of Peace and Order (NCPO) announced that its central priority is to ensure the "well-being of citizens.”

After seizing control of the country, the NCPO quickly began distributing billions of baht to the more than 800,000 farmers that are still owed money for participating in the former government’s rice-pledging scheme.

The NCPO ordered banks to provide the funding for the rice payments, which military-controlled media is portraying as the NCPO’s ability to solve a problem that the former government spent months trying to tackle without success.

In reality, Ms. Yingluck's government tried laboriously to convince banks to lend the money needed to pay farmers, but such efforts were blocked by the anti-government protesters that threatened to withdraw their money from any bank that provided a loan. Anti-government protesters, who argued that the money had to come from selling rice on the market, also staged rallies and blockades at the banks' headquarters.

In addition to the rice payments, the NCPO has promised to conduct a massive flood prevention project along the Chao Praya River, which spans many provinces, including Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Ang Thong, and Chainat.

The project is a part of the water management project drafted under the Yingluck administration in a response to the disastrous flood that submerged parts of central Thailand and Bangkok in October 2011.

According to a report by Manager ASTV, the flood defense project now being pursued by the military has already been "40-50%" completed by the former government.

The army's latest effort to repackage economic policies from the Yingluck administration concerns the 2.2 trillion baht infrastructure mega-project that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in March.

The project calls for the construction of a high-speed rail link and new roads, harbours, and flood-defence projects in important industrial areas.

"I insist that we will go ahead with investment in all aspects of basic infrastructure, in the land, water, and air," Air Chief Marshal Prachin Chanthong, deputy director of the NCPO, told the press yesterday. "It will increase safety and convenience in travel for the citizens."

The Constitutional Court prevented the Yingluck administration from going forward with the infrastructure project by striking down the bill that would approve the necessary loans, citing irregularities and possible corruption in the bill.

A prominent judge of the Constitutional Court also expressed his skepticism toward the project during a court hearing, claiming that Thailand should focus on upgrading dirt-roads in the country before engaging in the construction of high-speed railway.

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Military Tries to Control Coup Narrative

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29 May 2014, 16:46

Pro-coup rally in Buriram, 27 May 2014. Sign thanks military for rice payments.

BANGKOK — The Thai military is stepping up efforts to control the narrative behind the coup it staged last week with propagandist videos and stern censorship of alternative accounts.

In a press conference this morning, deputy chief of staff Lt. Gen. Chatchalerm Chalermsukh told reporters that the coup was an effort to prevent Thailand from becoming “a failed state like Syria or Libya.”

He stressed that the military takeover was not driven by self-interest.

"We have nothing to gain from this coup," Lt. Gen. Chatchalerm said. "We are sacrificing ourselves for the nation. If we don't succeed, we will go to jail. Treason is punishable by death."

The military also interrupted all state-owned television broadcasts this morning to air a self-promoting video about how the military has already begun solving Thailand’s “deep-rooted problems.”

The video opened with a female narrator explaining that while Thais are free to choose their own political views, deepening ideological differences in recent years have polarized Thai society and led to violence.

“Democracy has failed to solve this problem” and it is clear that “elections will lead to losses,” the narrator said over footage of the rival protest groups that were camping out in Bangkok prior to the coup.

The military tried to step in to resolve the dispute, but the two sides "failed to reach any agreement, forcing the military take control of power," the narrator explained, followed by a clip of army chief and coup-leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha declaring the military takeover on national television.

Gen. Prayuth announced the coup d’état after talks with rival political factions failed to solve the country’s decade-long political crisis in two days.

The twenty minute video went on to praise Gen. Prayuth for his efforts to "swiftly solve" the country’s problems while refraining from invoking martial law’s harshest powers. Under martial law, the military is authorized to censor the media, search and detain people at will, and violate a number of other internationally-recognized human rights.

“We try our best to avoid violating human rights,” the video showed Gen. Prayuth saying in a press conference with foreign media.

Since seizing power last Thursday, the military junta has drawn widespread criticism from Human Rights groups for cracking down on media freedom, banning public demonstrations, raiding homes without search warrants, and detaining hundreds of politicians and activists.

“Military rule has thrown Thailand’s rights situation into a free fall,” said Human Right's Watch's Asia director Brad Adams. “The army is using draconian martial law powers to detain politicians, activists, and journalists, to censor media, and to ban all public gatherings. This rolling crackdown needs to come to an end immediately.”

The military's short film ended with shots of rice farmers receiving overdue payments for the paddies they sold to the government last year under its controversial rice-subsidy program.

The military announced earlier this week that it would distribute billions of baht to the more than 800,000 rice farmers that are still owed money from the rice scheme. The former government failed to pay farmers on time because of internal mismanagement and crippling anti-government protests that led to the dissolution of Parliament in December.

The payments to rice farmers, who are among the former government’s strongest supporters, has been highly-publicized on military-controlled media all week.

The military is actively broadcasting its version of the 2014 coup while it simultaneously clamps down on media outlets and individuals that offer different narratives. Over 200 websites have been banned since the military seized power last week, and plans for a national internet gateway, which would augment the army's ability to censor online material, are currently underway.

Yesterday, Facebook was made inaccessible for millions of Thais for about an hour; the army initially took responsibility for the shutdown, but later insisted it was an innocent “technical glitch.”

(Reporting by Sally Mairs)

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Army: Coup Was To Avoid Failed State Scenario (DPA)

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29 May 2014, 14:38

BANGKOK — Thailand's military staged last week's coup to prevent the nation becoming a failed state, the army said Thursday.

The army was forced to step in because of the worsening political situation, deputy chief of staff, Lieutenant General Chatchalerm Chalermsukh, told reporters.

"No side could see eye to eye. We found weapons caches belonging to political groups. The army is not willing to let this nation become a failed state like Syria or Libya," Chatchalerm said.

The general said Thailand was not in a state to survive more political turmoil.

Thailand's economy contracted in the first quarter of 2014, something that had not happened in years.

Exports had fallen to a two-year low and industrial output had slowed, according to reports in the Bangkok Post.

Chatchalerm said the army was only willing to return to civilian rule when the political climate allowed such a transition.

"We have nothing to gain from this coup. We are sacrificing ourselves for the nation. If we don't succeed, we will go to jail. Treason is punishable by death," he said.

The army seized power last week after seven months of anti-government protests that led to violence and a political stalemate.

Rights groups have been quick to protest the junta's detention of key dissidents and its censorship of the media, something the army says is needed to calm political tensions.

Coup Soldiers Evacuate Post Because of 'Ghost'

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29 May 2014, 13:55

Soldiers guarding Chang Wattana Road in Bangkok, 22 May 2014.

NAKHON PHANOM — A squad of soldiers has decided to leave the telecommunication hub they were ordered to occupy after allegedly encountering a female ghost.

More than 20 soldiers were sent to patrol the local headquarters of the state-owned telecommunications organisation, TOT Public Company, shortly after the military seized power in a coup d'etat on 22 May.

One of those soldiers, who declined to give his name, told our correspondent that he encountered a ghost at 2:00 a.m. on his first night stationed in the four-story building. He and his fellow soldiers had just finished their shift on the first floor when he spotted a "beautiful woman" step over six other sleeping soldiers and walk to the stairs.

The soldier said he followed the woman to the 4th floor, after which she disappeared.

The next morning, a TOT staff who worked at the building reportedly told the soldiers that the ghost was frequently seen by TOT employees as well.

According to the staff, a female construction worker died when the building was being constructed, which may have caused her spirit to wander the building.

After the news about the ghost spread through the ranks of soldiers stationed at the TOT hub, the squad decided to evacuate the building and camp outside the headquarters instead. Soldiers have continued to patrol around the building's perimeter.

It is not clear whether the soldiers' evacuation from the building has been approved by any commander.

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Aussie Tourist 'Drugged & Robbed' By Pattaya Ladyboys

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29 May 2014, 13:31

CHONBURI — An Australian tourist says he was drugged and robbed by a group of ladyboys in Pattaya yesterday.

The 46-year-old tourist told police that he was walking on Pattaya's beachside road at around 6:30 a.m. when a group of ladyboys approached and befriended him near Soi Pattaya 4.

The tourist said a ladyboy offered him a drink, which he accepted. He then lost consciousness and later woke up at Pattaya Memorial Hospital, he said.

According to the tourist, the ladyboys took his MacBook, hard drive, headphone set, and the5 500 Australian dollars he was carrying at the time of the robbery. He estimated the total loss to be over 100,000 baht.

Police in Pattaya say they are investigating the incident to locate and arrest the ladyboys.

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Cambodian Anti-Trafficking Activist Resigns Over Biography Lies Row

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29 May 2014, 13:17

<br />
Cambodian human rights activist Somaly Mam participates in the event "Women who transform the world" in Spain in March 2013 (DPA). — Cambodian human rights activist Somaly Mam participates in the event "Women who transform the world" in Spain in March 2013 (DPA).

PHNOM PENH (DPA) — Sex trafficking activist Somaly Mam resigned from her foundation amid allegations that she fabricated significant parts of her personal history of abuse, news reports said Thursday.

In an autobiography, numerous TV appearances and articles, Mam claimed a background of abandonment and abuse before being sold into sexual slavery as a teenager.

But a recent Newsweek report cited several people in her home village who remembered her attending school there until she was 17.

Her resignation was accepted following an investigation by the law firm Goodwin Procter LLP after the report, Somaly Mam Foundation executive director Gina Reiss-Wilchins said Wednesday.

The Newsweek report ran on the cover of the May 21 edition, under the tagline "Somaly Mam saved countless girls in Cambodia. Does it matter that key parts of her story aren't true?"

It also reported inconsistencies in the story of Long Pros, a member of Somaly Mam's organization who appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talkshow on US television and was profiled in the New York Times in 2009.

Long Pros had never been sex trafficked as she claimed, it said, and she did not lose her eye to an angry pimp but to surgery for a tumour when she was 13, the report cited family members as saying.

The foundation said it would remove Long Pros "from any affiliation with the organization or our grant partner, but will help her to transition into the next phase of her life."

Mam's foundation and its partner organization AFESIP have "touched the lives of over 100,000 women and girls" through clinics, safehouses, and education programs, Wednesday's statement said.

But it has also come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, starting with a series of articles in the Cambodia Daily in 2012.

Phuket Community Radio Stations Remain Closed

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29 May 2014, 13:17

(The Phuket News)

PHUKET — Community radio stations on the island have been told by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) that they should not be on the air.

The NBTC explained that although private TV stations are allowed to broadcast, only government or government-affiliated radio stations may do so.

UN Calls For End of Open Defecation Practiced By 1 Billion People

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29 May 2014, 12:43

Visitors attend the World Toilet Summit in New Delhi, India on 31 October 2007. The United Nations this week said that a staggering 1 billion people worldwide still practice open defecation, calling for an end to the practice, which spreads diseases like diarrhoea, dystentery and typhoid through entire communities. EPA/MONEY SHARMA

NEW YORK (DPA) — The United Nations said Wednesday that a staggering 1 billion people worldwide still practice open defecation, calling for an end to the practice, which has an estimated annual cost of 260 billion dollars due to illness, death and loss of productivity.

The practice spreads diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid through entire communities, the UN officials said. It has kept women under the threat of harassment, violence and rape, and has forced young girls to abandon education at puberty.

"It is high time to talk openly about open defecation, and it is high time to bring it to an end," UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson said during the launch of the world body's sanitation campaign in New York. "Let us remember that the first step to solve any problem is talking about it."

The practice is most widespread in poor and developing countries. Some countries, including Vietnam and Bangladesh, where more than 30 per cent of their populations relieved themselves in open areas in the early 1990s, ended the practice entirely in 2012.

However, open defecation lingers in dozens of other countries.

In India an estimated 600 million people – more than half the population – defecate without using a toilet or latrine. The nationwide problem has prompted new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare his support for "toilets before temples" during his campaign.

"If we could end open defecation in just 10 countries, we would see the numbers of people affected drop by 80 per cent," Eliasson said, noting that the end of the practice could mean a direct reduction of 36 per cent in deaths due to diarrhoea for children under 5.

Editorial: Fight the Coup, Not the Soldiers

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29 May 2014, 11:54

Anti-coup protesters vandalise an army Humvee during a protest at Victory Monument, Bangkok, 28 May 2014

Non-violence should be the watchword of anti-coup protesters.

On 25 May, a Khaosod English correspondent witnessed an anti-coup protester approach a soldier who was watching the demonstration silently and say to his face: "I want to take photo of you so that I can show my grandchildren what animals looked like in my time."

Although the anti-coup rallies cropping up around Thailand have been largely peaceful, almost all of them have involved at least small-scale confrontations between soldiers and protesters.

Often, these confrontations are initiated by demonstrators seeking the symbolic victory of forcing soldiers to retreat, even if it’s only a step or two. In the past week, we have seen anti-coup protesters — though by no means a majority — yell hateful things, shove themselves up against riot shields, and lob various objects at soldiers in this pursuit.

They shouldn't.

Thais have every right to be furious about the most recent coup d’état, and Khaosod English applauds the bravery of those who have defied the military’s ban on public gatherings to come out and advocate for all that is now at stake: basic human rights, rule of law, and Thailand’s electoral democracy, to name a few.

But to direct this fury at soldiers, many of whom are drafted by law, is misplaced. It should be clear that none of the soldiers deployed to contain protests had anything to do with last week’s military coup d’état. They are simply following orders that it’s possible many of them fundamentally disagree with. It is irrational and disrespectful to their basic human dignity to treat these soldiers with such scorn.

Furthermore, provoking soldiers and inciting confrontations will only weaken, not strengthen Thailand’s budding anti-coup movement. To protest the military coup — an act of aggression — in a purely peaceful manner is both more ideologically coherent than behaving viciously, and more likely to win sympathy and support from the international community.

The foreign countries and international organizations that have come out against the coup are critical allies that Thailand’s pro-democracy movement cannot afford to alienate.

Lastly, taunting security forces is just playing with fire. At some point, relentless provocation may lead to a crackdown. This would be tragic for any victims that get caught in the flames, but also for the movement as a whole. Any violence will surely deter people from participating in the protests and drain the movement’s still small numbers.

It is essential for those advocating for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law to pursue these causes with civility and non-violence.

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