Thai Human Rights And Liverpool

[taxexile]

from todays uk daily telegraph.

Liverpool deal under fire

By Sam Wallace  (Filed: 11/05/2004)

Liverpool chairman David Moores came under pressure yesterday from human rights groups and supporters not to accept a £77 million investment from Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose government stand accused of summary killings and the execution of Muslim activists.

 

Rick Parry: involved in talks with Thaksin Shinawatra

The surprise move by Moores to reduce his 51 per cent shareholding has been organised by chief executive Rick Parry, but as details of Shinawatra's regime emerged yesterday the plan came under attack.

Under Liverpool's constitution, Moores has been permitted, as the club's major shareholder, to issue new shares to sell to Shinawatra. It means that although the Liverpool chairman's personal holding shrinks to between 35 and 40 percent his alliance with the Thailand Prime Minister, who now holds just less than 30 per cent, means Moores' grip on power is stronger than ever.

The deal is expected to give Shinawatra marketing rights for Liverpool in the Far East and he is also understood to be in talks to set up a Thai football academy that will have official links with Anfield and is aimed at boosting the Prime Minister's flagging popularity.

But Shinawatra, who is making the investment personally, has been accused by leading human rights groups Amnesty International of operating a government who have been responsible for 2,245 deaths in a drugs crackdown last year and the killing of 107 Muslims last month.

Neil Durkin, an Amnesty spokesman, said: "Thailand's human rights record has been a particular concern recently following a government-led 'drugs war' that has seen several thousand drugs suspects killed by law enforcement officers.

"In one three-month period alone last year, a staggering 2,245 people were killed according to official statistics. We have called on the Thai government to allow independent investigations into this worrying wave of killings."

In a recent editorial in the Liverpool fanzine Through the Wind and the Rain, editor Steven Kelly said: "We should have distanced ourselves from this guy from day one. If we had an ounce of humanity we should have said 'No' immediately."

Yesterday Kelly said: "He [shinawatra]doesn't look like the kind of character you should be doing business with. There is going to be controversy about it. It's dragging morality down when the majority of people say 'As long as the team is good, I don't care'."

Shinawatra, 54, a former policeman, is understood to be the richest man in Thailand after making a personal fortune from the telecoms business and, as a fan of Premiership football, has attempted to buy into Fulham and Manchester United in the past.

The Thai Prime Minister is understood to have met with Parry for an hour in Government House in Bangkok yesterday to finalise the deal which is expected to help Liverpool improve the team and finance their new £80 million stadium.

The issue of taking on debt to finance the new stadium proved divisive at the club's AGM in January when the club's third-biggest shareholder, Steve Morgan, clashed with Moores over the Liverpool chairman's refusal to sell any more of his shares.

Shinawatra's spokesman Chakrapot Penkai told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that although the Thailand Prime Minister would be using his own wealth to buy the stake in Liverpool, the association with such a prestigious football club would be of benefit to the whole nation.

"Thailand thinks that the Liverpool team can enhance the standard of the sport's development in Thailand a great deal," Penkai said. "Why does the Prime Minister want to invest in Liverpool? Because it is the era of the brand name, with a good quality brand name you can do many things. Liverpool's name is a world-class name - people attach their fantasies, their liking for sports, their enhancement in life, their self-development, along with this kind of team."

But Liverpool's support, drawn from a city that is traditionally left-wing and unionised, are unlikely to welcome a benefactor whose government has been responsible for a brutal "shoot-to-kill" policy in their drugs war.

The "extra-judicial" killings, carried out between February and April last year, were widely condemned by human rights groups, but Shinawatra has so far resisted calls for an investigation. He recently promoted his cousin General Chaiyasit Shinawatra from an obscure provincial post to be the army's commander-in-chief.

The Shinawatra regime came under further scrutiny last month when 107 young men belonging to Islamic groups were killed in the Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces in southern Thailand. Government security forces are also understood to have attacked worshippers in the Kruesie mosque.

Shinawatra has been compared to Italy's right-wing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the owner of AC Milan, for his dominance of the media and populist tendencies since he came to power in 2001. Before winning the election with his Thai Rak Thai party - 'Thais Love Thais' - he was acquitted of charges of concealing financial assets that would have seen him banned from political office.

this may nause his pitch. come on the reds !!!!!!

[kurgen]

Why not do unto him as does to others.

Take his money, then move the goalposts

[george]

We already have an open topic regading this issue:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...indpost&p=92554

Thread closed.

/Admin