Thai Police: Public gatherings legislation necessary to ensure peace and order

[webfact]

National Police: Public gatherings legislation necessary to ensure peace and order

BANGKOK, 16 July 2015 (NNT) - The Royal Thai Police has insisted that the Public Gatherings Act which will be effective soon, is a crucial tool for officers to ensure peace and order in the kingdom.

The Police echoed the Prime Minister’s sentiment that the new legislation will facilitate the work of security officers. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-Ocha earlier asserted that the Public Gatherings Act which has been published in the Royal Gazette will be applied to all groups of people, not only student activist groups.

He said that protesters could peacefully voice their views within the democratic framework and without firearms.

The National Legislative Assembly had passed the public gatherings bill earlier this year. Among the restrictions introduced by the new legislation are advance notice that organisers of public gatherings must submit to the chief of the police station in the locality where the protest will be staged, a ban on protests to be held within a 150-metre radius from certain places such as the Grand Palace and the parliament, and prohibition of blockade of the entrance and exit of government buildings, airports and offices of international organisations.


-- NNT 2015-07-16

[bangkokfrog]

How many blatantly illegal gatherings of various colors have we had over the last 10 years where the police have done nothing. It seems they only have the inclination / balls to enforce the law if small numbers of protesters are involved or the army is behind them.

[chainarong]

All this will do is drive dissent into the underground and encourage more adventurous measures to get the message across, what you can't handle is effective protest and you cannot certainly handle a large protest , that is about all you will encourage, whether the Thai people have the stomach for more protests is debatable, however Thai people have ben known to be resilient , you might have won the day but not the argument in some quarters and The Junta hasn't solved anything except to show they can arrest 14 students for freely voicing their opinions.

[oneday]

I see this law as a positive step forward, as long as it is enforced in the future and as long as political gatherings are not summarily denied. This may very well help keep future political gatherings under peaceful, non-disruptive control and subsequently help prevent deaths.

We will see how this works once the law is in effect. This will be interesting.

[Eric Loh]

Not often but this one law I fully support. Very much similar to laws in Malaysia and Singapore and contribute to the countries political stability. Still the law is render useless if the enforcement agencies and the courts act idiosyncratically and have their own agenda.

[Rykbanlor]

That's the thing, Thailand is capable of passing laws, just not enforcing them. Also, they should consider using etch-a-sketch to draft their constitutions, given the frequency with which they're torn up and re-written.

[jerojero]

Suppression of the masses only works for a while and leads to radicalism. Measured freedom of expression could be viable even under current political conditions. But too often iron fist is believed best by those in charge. A few simply blinded by power and arrogance. Father knows best and don't question just obey. Nazi mentality.

[djjamie]

"He said that protesters could peacefully voice their views within the democratic framework and without firearms"

​Sounds exactly like how protesting is done in Australia.

Suppression of the masses only works for a while and leads to radicalism so this is certainly a good initiative to alleviate this.