Prime Minister or general or....?

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha stated today that martial law which has been eased for the past several months will now be strictly enforced in view of the overall political climate in the country.

In addition, he stated that individuals who have made public dissenting comments will be asked to report themselves.

Gen Prayut stated the reasons for calling in Surapong Tovichak-chaikun, the former Foreign Minister along with other leading figures from the Phue Thai Party for attitude adjustment during an interview held today.

The prime minister said he was forced to do so because of recent public dissenting comments which are inappropriate in light of the volatile political climate.

At the same time, he said the former minister for the Ministry of Energy, Pichai Niropthaphan, will also be asked to report himself for similar reasons.

Gen Prayut was furious, however, when asked to comment on report of an attempt to hold campaign to encourage the public to wear red shirts every Sunday.

He rebuked the question by angrily asking if such a proposal was considered appropriate.

Meanwhile Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan who is also the minister for the Ministry of Defense, also clarified the reason for calling in the aforementioned individuals for attitude adjustment.

He explained that they will be talked to and made to understand the government’s stand.

He asked that the people allow the government and the National Council for Peace and Order time to do its job in accordance with the roadmap that has been laid out.

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'Democracy has died in Thailand today': Thai ex-PM Yingluck Bangkok, Thailand | AFP |

BANGKOK: -- Embattled former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra Friday condemned a decision by the junta-stacked parliament to impeach her over her administration's controversial rice subsidy scheme as the end of democracy in the kingdom.

"Democracy has died in Thailand today, along with the rule of law. That move to destroy me is still ongoing and I face it now," she said in a statement posted on her official Facebook page following her impeachment.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/794241-democracy-has-died-in-thailand-today-thai-ex-pm-yingluck/?utm_source=newsletter-20150124-0739&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news



Full English Text of Yingluck's Post-Impeachment Statement

By Khaosod Eng.

A Khaosod English translation of the statement posted by former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on her official Facebook account this afternoon.

Statement from Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra
The 28th Prime Minister of Thailand
23 January 2015

To all the dear people,

As expected, the National Legislative Assembly has reached its decision to impeach me as a Prime Minister and ban me from politics for five years, while the Attorney-General has taken up a case against me in the Supreme Court's Division for Holders of Political Office. I have these statements to make:

I insist on and express confidence in my innocence, and I would like to thank the principled minority votes that upheld fairness. The procedures have violated and abridged my basic rights that I, as a Thai citizen, deserve to have.

Let me insist that the rice-mortage program is a good program. It did not cause damages. As for the number of damages that they have tried to press on me, it is prejudice against me, and an attempt to use farmers as instruments of political destruction.

As I said about Thailand's democracy on 29 April 2013 at Ulan Bator, Mongolia, "I would like to see reconciliation and democracy gain strength. This can only be achieved through strengthening of the rule of law and due process. Only then will every person from all walks of life feel confident that they will be treated fairly."

I still insist on those words I said, even though today Thai democracy is dead, along with the rule of law. There is still a movement constantly bent on destruction, as I am suffering right now.

It is saddening and unbelievable that there are so many coincidences, as I said in my final hearing yesterday, and they are coincidences that are not coincidences. Just only one hour before the National Legislative Assembly began its impeachment vote, the Attorney-General announced that it would prosecute me on charges of dereliction of duty leading to corruption in the rice-mortage program, even though the head of the Office of Attorney-General stressed that there is still need to consider incomplete points in the case.

The attorney institution, which has long been a credible institution in the justice system, is now questioned because of this incident.

Read More: http://www.khaosoden...wsid=1422007143


-- Khaosod English 2015-01-23

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