Follow the law, Prawit tells yellow shirts

[webfact]

Follow the law, Prawit tells yellow shirts

By The Nation

 

 

BANGKOK: -- Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan on Thursday said the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) must follow the law if it wants to gather in public in reaction to the latest court ruling on the police crackdown on yellow-shirt protesters in October 2008.

 

Prawit said there is a public gathering act in place and any public gatherings must follow this law. He said he did not believe they would create disorder like in the past, and that security officers would be deployed to ensure peaceful gatherings.

 

The PAD said on Thursday that it would meet on Friday to address the issue and chalk out its future moves.

 

The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Officer Holders on Wednesday acquitted four defendants accused of dereliction of duty and malfeasance by the NACC in 2015 over the police suppression of the PAD-led protest in front of Parliament on October 7. 

 

Former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, his then-deputy Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then-police chief Pol General Patcharawat Wongsuwan, and then-Metropolitan Police chief Pol Lt-General Suchart Muenkaew were found not guilty.

 

The court ruled that the defendants did not intend to inflict casualties in a legitimate operation that aimed to ensure that the Cabinet could fulfil its constitutional duty as well as protect individuals and state property. 

 

Somchai is the brother-in-law of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, while Patcharawat is the younger brother of Deputy PM Prawit.

 

Prawit said he had not yet talked to his brother. He also rejected the notion that Pathcharawat’s acquittal was linked to their blood ties. 

 

In this case, he said, Patcharawat was merely the police chief, whereas there was a prime minister and a deputy prime minister above him.

 

“I did nothing for him. I only take care of his personal matters. I have not done anything yet, not even talked to him,” said Prawit, rejecting the notion that he had something to do with this case.

 

Former PAD coordinator Suriyasai Katasila said that Wednesday’s ruling had hurt the feelings of yellow shirts as a many of their loved ones had faced various degrees of losses. Some had become handicapped while others had lost their lives hence someone must be held responsible, he added. The PAD would meet to address the issue and determine future moves before petitioning the NACC to appeal the verdict.

 

Initially, Suriyasai outlined three points of contention that he said had raised doubts in the members of the public. 

 

He disputed arguments that the dispersal of the protesters had been conducted in line with international practices, that the demonstration was not peaceful or unarmed, and that the defendants had no intention of causing casualties.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/politics/30322685

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-08-04

 

[colinneil]

Prawit tells the yellow shirts to follow the law.

Well wouldnt it be great if he and his pals did the same, instead of just making up new ones to suit their own needs.

[gk10002000]

What law?  The rules dictated without public sanction, voting or concurrence?

[Lupatria]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Follow the law, Prawit tells yellow shirts

...like the way I do?

[klauskunkel]

Follow the my law, Prawit tells yellow shirts

[smutcakes]

If the PAD are going to kick up a stink, it might be necessary to delay the elections....

[ben2talk]

2 hours ago, colinneil said:

Prawit tells the yellow shirts to follow the law.

 

Well wouldnt it be great if he and his pals did the same.

No, it wouldn't work if it applied to all shirt colours - only yellow shirts following the law today is fine by me... I only have one yellow shirt. I'm wearing the green one today so I can do what the f=@k I want.

 

Thanks Prayut.

[Denim]

10 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

If the PAD are going to kick up a stink, it might be necessary to delay the elections....

 

Yes......poor old Prayuth and cronies. Tried so hard to get reconciliation but the yellows are not interested. Dare not have elections otherwise the PAD will take to the streets again.

 

He will just have to retain power, something he is loath to do.

[Dogmatix]

The deputy PM is hardly a disinterested party in this case. His younger brother, the Thaksin installed police chief at the time, was one of defendants acquitted. His buddy was installed as chairman of the NAAC last year and immediately tried to drop this case completely. The NAAC was prosecuting the case by itself because the attorney-general has refused to do the job. So a fully motivated NAAC team prosecuting the case would have been essential to success which was may not have been the case after the change at the top.

 

I am sure the judges did a good job based on the evidence presented but what about the prosecution? The police fired Chinese made tear gas canisters with some kind of military grade explosive in them directly at protesters for hours, knowing full well the death and devastation they were causing. Yet this was held to be an "international standard" with no effort by the prosecution to held the two police defendants accountable for this disgraceful behaviour which is only in line with international standards in China and North Korea.

 

No doubting that Somchai was within his rights to order the dispersal of protesters and that some were armed. Also no doubting that Chavalit should not have been prosecuted at all because he had resigned that morning. Neither of them could have known that the police would use explosive shells and aim them directly at human beings instead of using tear gas canisters without explosives in the heads and lobbing  them into the crowd to burst on the ground which is the norm in civilised countries. It seems that a solid case of dereliction if duty could have been made against one or other or both of the two police defendants without bothering with the political show trial against Somchai and Chavalit. I am sure the NAAC is not going to appeal this one.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Dogmatix

[seajae]

the simple answer is to make both the yellows and the reds disband, they are the ones that cause most of the crap in Thailand and should be declared illegal.

[BasalBanality]

Do what I say, not do what I do? 

[Eric Loh]

59 minutes ago, seajae said:

the simple answer is to make both the yellows and the reds disband, they are the ones that cause most of the crap in Thailand and should be declared illegal.

Pressure groups on government wrongdoings and perceived corruptions are an important aspect of democracy. The constitution guarantee their participation but must be within the laws and the laws must be meted fairly. The fault lies with the poor handling of the enforcement agencies and the courts. 

[Cadbury]

5 hours ago, colinneil said:

Prawit tells the yellow shirts to follow the law.

Well wouldnt it be great if he and his pals did the same, instead of just making up new ones to suit their own needs.

While giving themselves immunity from these same new laws they create to keep everyone else in line.

[smutcakes]

2 hours ago, seajae said:

the simple answer is to make both the yellows and the reds disband, they are the ones that cause most of the crap in Thailand and should be declared illegal.

You must have failed you Thai history classes. The one omni present group in Thailand's checkered and sometimes violent political history, with perhaps 15 coups prior to the yellows and reds are the party in power now.

[stephen tracy]

Perhaps the Yellows could turn out to be the military's Frankenstein's Monster if they're not careful.

[YetAnother]

1 hour ago, Cadbury said:

While giving themselves immunity from these same new laws they create to keep everyone else in line.

Yeah that's a pretty neat trick

[YetAnother]

That law is currently quite convenient ,you can hide behind it, you can ignore it or you can pretend that you are championing it

[Dogmatix]

10 hours ago, stephen tracy said:

Perhaps the Yellows could turn out to be the military's Frankenstein's Monster if they're not careful.

I think that is always a concern. It is the yellows in their various manifestations that created made the junta's rise to power possible in the 2014, as in the 2006 coup. Yet both times they have got little benefit from the coups while the greens got fat and happy from their efforts and sacrifices. The yellows regards the event this court case was about as one of their supreme sacrifices, even though the slaughter of red shirts by the military two years later, also upheld by the courts as justifiable force, makes it pale in significance.

 

The problem is that this case will anger a lot of the yellows support base particularly in Bkk and, to a lesser extent in the South and these are also the military's sympathisers. They have no support base in the Northeast, the North and Centre (outside Bkk), so alienating their only friends (in Bkk and the South) is not a clever thing to do, since they will need friends if there is a Red shirt backlash in the offing.   Becoming isolated and detached from reality is a slippery slope for autocratic  regimes.

[baboon]

49 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

I think that is always a concern. It is the yellows in their various manifestations that created made the junta's rise to power possible in the 2014, as in the 2006 coup. Yet both times they have got little benefit from the coups while the greens got fat and happy from their efforts and sacrifices. The yellows regards the event this court case was about as one of their supreme sacrifices, even though the slaughter of red shirts by the military two years later, also upheld by the courts as justifiable force, makes it pale in significance.

 

The problem is that this case will anger a lot of the yellows support base particularly in Bkk and, to a lesser extent in the South and these are also the military's sympathisers. They have no support base in the Northeast, the North and Centre (outside Bkk), so alienating their only friends (in Bkk and the South) is not a clever thing to do, since they will need friends if there is a Red shirt backlash in the offing.   Becoming isolated and detached from reality is a slippery slope for autocratic  regimes.

I really don't know about that... Could it not just be that some / many of the yellows now have outlived their usefulness so it is fine now to throw them under the bus if need be?

[jerojero]

Follow the law commands coup leader who illegally overthrew elected government. Ya Right!

[Dogmatix]

7 hours ago, baboon said:

I really don't know about that... Could it not just be that some / many of the yellows now have outlived their usefulness so it is fine now to throw them under the bus if need be?

 

Their leader, Sondhi, is in jail, having earlier narrowly missed being assassinated, a crime that was coincidentally never investigated to conclusion by the  two police defendants in this case.  Although Sondhi richly deserved his jail sentence for fraud, other criminals are protected by the government.  

 

Although this case was brought by former board of the NAAC. the current board going hammer and tongs after Yingluck, of whom I am not a fan, in some somewhat dubious cases, would suggest a convict of Somchai would have been welcomed, regardless of the old yellow leaders.  However, Somchai was not a sole defendant and there were other priorities in this case.