Making (up) history and creating “violence”

PPT hasn’t had any direct reports from Chiang Mai, so we are relying on the media to try to understand the events of the weekend, which the pro-yellow media has described in ways that claim that red shirts have violently attacked a small group of so-called white masks in the city.

The Bangkok Post, Post Today and The Nation, amongst others, carried stories like this, with the implication that a volatile group of red shirts had gone on a bit of a rampage. And that police did nothing. Yet, when Khaosod reports it, a somewhat different picture emerges. In addition, the same newspaper reports violent white masks-yellow shirts chasing down red shirts, aimed with metal bars.

We begin to think that the process that the royalist groups are engaged in is exactly the same as seen in previous years, where violence and rumors of violence are used to provoke, curry support and destabilize.

The Bangkok Post reports small and coordinated white mask rallies in several places, in Bangkok but most notably in red shirt strongholds in the Northeast and North, where the Democrat Party has also sought to hold rallies in recent months, although with little support. These rallies mirror provocative actions in earlier years when the People’s Alliance for Democracy took supporters to rallies in places like Udorn, and managed to provoke violence from pro-Thaksin Shinawatra groups and gained much from the resulting publicity.

It is in this context that yellow shirt stalwart and “Green Politics coordinator” Suriyasai Katasila shouts his demand that “the Yingluck government rein in the red shirts…”. Readers may recall that earlier Puea Thai Party statements deriding the white shirts as provocateurs were greeted with howls of derision from the white-mask supporting and backing Democrat Party.

But Suriyasai goes a step further. Whereas most of the yellow shirt media and spokespersons think their groups are engaged in a destabilizing, coup-promoting exercise, Suriyasai has a different vision. He believes that the Yingluck Shinawatra government is seeking violence, indeed, “anarchy so that it can stage a coup against its own government.”

Yes, really, that is his reported claim.

In addition, he claims that violence and clashes is a government strategy “to divert public attention or overshadow reports of rice pledging losses. The government’s failure in its major policies and its failed administration could trigger a repeat of ‘dark power’ taking control of the country as happened in 2006…”.

Yes, really, that is his reported claim. In this, Suriyasai is rewriting history, changing his own character from a coup-supporting ideologue for “dark powers.”

He concludes this rant with this: “The government is creating the conditions for a coup because not only should it have prevented the clashes, it has actually been pulling the strings behind them.”

Yes, really, that is his reported claim.

The idea that the government is seeking a coup is bizarre, but diverts attention from the real coup lovers. Meanwhile, the destabilization by the coalition of PAD, Democrat Party, white masks, no colors, multi colors and aged royalists will continue.

A coup in the making?

The yellow-tinged 2Bangkok.com doesn’t make long editorial comments all that often. However, its 14 June outline of the path to a military coup is interesting for the way it constructs the narrative for another anti-Thaksin Shinawatra coup. Its frustration with the elected government and its sigh of relief that the opposition to Thaksin is finally getting the anti-democratic troops marshaled are palpable.

Its all-inclusive account begins with the murder of Akeyuth Anchanbutr, a former ponzi scheme operator, self-promoting and personally arrogant crook  and self-styled Thaksin critic, who was fond of creating political scandals, both real and fabricated. The yellow lot are all convinced that a man with hundreds of enemies must have been killed by the Thaksin side, who hated him. It is possible that this was a political murder, but there’s simply no evidence for this yet and no one amongst the yellow shirts is prepared to let the investigation get too far, but that seems to matter little as the yellow shirts try to create a political crisis.

2Bangkok.com then goes on to explain the movement towards a military or judicial coup (that would require the backing of the military’s guns).

It begins with “academics and the heightened rhetoric of the ‘white mask’ anti-government demonstrations…”.  In fact, the “academics” are seldom deserving of this title for they are self-styled “public intellectuals,” attached to the royalist elite, who never do any research but pass judgements and peddle opinion, often for a fee or position. The editorial observes:

In Thai culture in general, it is expected that the elite and educated pass judgment on others [PPT: this is wrong. It is the elite that decide they have this position; the cultural bit is that years of military terror means that it is grudgingly accepted by the populace]. The city dweller (assumed to be the elite and educated) passes judgment on the hoards of country people who bring regional tycoons to power. In politics these elite are one of the unelected and informal checks that are expected to temper the activities of the elected [PPT: again, this is a result of the great wealth and power of the elite who abhor electoral politics and self-allocate this position. In any case, the era of the regional political and economic tycoons ended in 2000, only to be brought back to political life by the 2007 military-tutored constitution]. The elected are held with some suspicion, as it assumed that they will inevitably seek to benefit themselves and their status by harnessing the supposedly uneducated voter [as Thongchai Winichakul has shown, this is a royalist construction. For the royalist genesis of this line of argument, His useful academic piece can be located with bit of searching that will link a reader to the original article at several sites].

But here’s the point for 2Bangkok.com:

When seminars begin again that include academics passing judgment on a sitting government, it means the classic Thai cycle in the lead up to a coup is starting. It will later include the “Chula doctor’s letter” where, again, elite physicians from Thailand’s most prestigious university present a letter to the government saying it has engaged in overreach. This trend includes expressions of disapproval and concern from military figures, those in the state bureaucracy, and elder statesmen (like Anand Panyarachun who this week spoke out against the government).

This is combined with a “a ramping up of media scrutiny (this time being conducted on the internet as the mainstream Thai papers are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be already co-opted by the Pheu Thai) and regular ongoing protests.”

Of course, the “ramping up” is of  a more politicized reporting and editorializing that is often little more than the repeating of concoctions found on social media. In fact, the media is divided, and there has never been a “ramping down” of anti-Thaksin, anti-red shirt, anti-Puea Thai editorializing.

But the social media stuff is said to have “significance” in the “sudden regular white mask protests” – a handful of yellow activists and Democrat Party supporters trying to “create either a genuine groundswell of public opinion or at least the appearance of it.” Not sure how the word “genuine” got into this sentence, but the idea of creating an appearance of public protest is certainly important for the coup makers.

It is noteworthy that 2Bangkok.com specifically mentions that the “English-language press has joined in as the government is referred to as a ‘regime’ and even the Nation has decided to begin referring to Thaksin as the ‘defacto leader’ of the government.” Of course, neither the Bangkok Post nor The Nation have ever hidden their yellow, royalist, Democrat Party credentials, so the change is simply these media “ramping up” their anti-government activism to give the appearance of an anti-government groundswell.

The significance of this is explained:

It is important to note that the military cannot take open action without feeling confident that there will not be widespread protest or dissent. They must be able to claim that they have support for any action. The pro-Thaksin camp can rest assured that they can make things sufficiently painful for the military. The military has always been inept at governing and their humiliating outing after the coup in 2006 means there is little real stomach to act against Thaksin amnesty [sic.] with tanks on the street–even if it were assured a Red Shirt siege threatening Bangkok would not happen again.

If the military needs convincing, there is an alternative:

The courts are a much better weapon to use against the government. Warnings about a “judicial coup” have not aroused the same alarm as when there are actual tanks on the streets. Government and Red Shirt calls for the court to be abolished or judges resign to make way for those friendly to Thaksin simply do not play the same way to the public as when the military is abrogating a constitution.

The editorial reckons that the trouble now is all to do with “amnesty bills,” the desire by some to “bring Thaksin home” and “constitutional reform.” PPT thinks this is all a beat-up and that if one looks at the period since the 2011 election, that the yellow shirts have been seeking and testing openings from day 1, and this is simply a more coordinated effort by them, probably because the funders of yellow shirt action, with their coffers recharged by a strong economy under the Yingluck Shinawatra government, are feeling that they are able to maintain an anti-government activism for a longer period.
As the editorial has it:

Now Thaksin foes think they have the government significantly weakened. PM Yingluck was drawn into the fray in April with her speech praising the Red Shirts and Thaksin and the courts successfully weathered attempts at intimidation while wracking up an impressive list of cases that can be used to shake up the government if necessary.

It adds, perhaps hopefully, that the red shirt movement is seen as weakened. Yet the editorial says that more time is needed as the red shirts and government need to be further weakened and the elite more convinced that the military or judiciary needs to act.

The rejection of an elected government – seen as no democracy at all by the yellow lot, who anyway prefer elite rule by hierarchical institutions – is part and parcel of the anti-Thaksin agenda, but it is a stance that requires considerable undermining of the government before the stamp of the military boot can be accepted. After all, the undermining of electoral politics has been tried and it was rejected, repeatedly, so the digging out of the foundations of “electoralism” will take considerable time and money before the tanks can roll:

The opposition, having experienced the Thai Rak Thai years when the media and business became political pawns of one-man and one-family rule [sic.], fears this future. It works against it by again starting the cycle of academic disapproval, weekly protests, and the threat of judicial sanctions to bring the elected government to its knees.

That’s how the military coup can be put back on the agenda.

Constitutional Court, again

A brief report at The Nation says that the politicized Constitutional Court has decided, on a 5-4 vote, “to proceed with judicial review of two more petitions against the controversial amendment to Article 68 of the charter.”

No prizes for guessing that the petitions are dripping yellow: “the petitions filed by Chamlong Srimuang and five other members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy and by Democrat Party MP Wirat Kalayasiri.”

But the court didn’t issue an injunction to prevent further consideration of amendments to Article 68, it ordered the petitioners to “make 312 copies of their petitions to send to 312 MPs and senators, whom were complained against in the petitions.”

Meanwhile, it is reported that the same court “delayed its deliberation on Pheu Thai MP’s petition for the court to consider the MP status of Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva.” The petition relates to “the defence minister issued an order to fire him retroactively as a lecturer of a military cadet school.” The judges wanted more time to consider Abhisit’s submission on the petition.

The court of double standards continues its “work” as the chief defender of the military junta’s rules for the royalist state.

Coup chatter

With rather too much hype about political opposition movements such as the handful of white-masked yellow shirts, the real concerns gripping the Puea Thai Party government have revolved around fears that the yellow opposition is somehow closing in on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and/or that the military is again coup restless.

Dealing with the military is always a challenge for any civilian government due to the military’s disciplined hierarchical authority, its control of the state’s weaponry and its long history of political interference and penchant for coups.

So it is that coup rumors make politicians very jittery. The military brass usually deny any ill intention and swear off coup making. Wary politicians have sought several ways to placate the military leadership if not control them.

At the  Bangkok Post it is reported that recent coup chatter has seen Prime Minister Yingluck wining and dining Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha with the defense minister and other brass.

The report goes on to explain that the government’s recent increase in defense spending of about 4.2 billion baht has been seen as acceptable by the brass.

Historically, buying off the military has not always seen off a coup. Nor has being conciliatory to loud-mouthed and arrogant army bosses.

Even so, Puea Thai and Yingluck have been trying all of this. For the moment, these moves have “quietened rumours of conflict between the government and military.” And, “rumours that the government will remove Gen Prayuth from the top job” have been squashed for the moment.

But Prayuth’s reassurance “that the military would not stage a coup, nor would it interfere in politics”requires a truckload of salt.

The yellow shirts may be upset that Prayuth seems a Yingluck puppy, but they know that they will eventually call on the Army for support “to protect the monarchy” and ditch another pro-Thaksin government if they can manage to destabilize the government.

Abhisit and failed credibility

Abhisit Vejjajiva is a tainted political leader. Yet, as a scion of the elite, he maintains a remarkably high opinion of himself, having few qualms about offering uninvited advice.

At The Nation, the Democrat Party leader and former premier has “urged the government … to consider why people had to wear masks to protest against it.” Abhisit reckons “the government should not have dismissed the protesters as the same old group of opponents.”

PPT has already pointed out that the these protesters are old wine in a small, new bottle. Abhisit seems miffed that the Puea Thai government has correctly identified yet another royalist political gimmick.

Yet when Abhisit blathers that the “government should have considered what caused them to come out to protest,” PPT can only wonder if Abhisit ever considered why tens of thousands of red shirts demanded an election in 2009 and 2010?

Abhisit’s response to huge demonstrations was not consideration and reform, but violent crackdown through murderous military action.

Is this a man who should offer advice to an elected government? Obviously not, but Abhisit maintains the disdain arrogance of the royalist elite.

PAD and the Constitutional Court

Previously PPT noted the continuing reliance of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) on the courts in their battle to unseat the elected Yingluck Shinawatra government.This reliance is a result of learned behavior and an indication of the relative political weakness of PAD in the sense of its limited capacity to mobilize supporters.

In the most recent instance, the Bangkok Post reports that the PAD has again petitioned the Constitutional Court, pleading for  “an injunction halting parliament’s deliberation of a bill to amend Section 68 of the constitution.” PAD spokesman Panthep Puapongpan demands that the court should issue the injunction because the government continues to move ahead on constitutional amendment even though the court is considering the “legality of the move to amend the section…”.

The initial move on having the court consider the legality of amendment came from unelected senator and PAD and Siam Samakkhi ally Somchai Sawaengkarn.

As Panthep acknowledges through PAD’s opposition, royalists assert that “the amendment would curtail people’s right to file a petition directly with the Constitution Court against actions suspected of undermining the constitutional monarchy or grabbing power through unconstitutional means.”

This is because a petition would need to be reviewed by the Attorney-General’s office. PAD sees this as an attempt to curtail the capacity it has to stymie elected governments through the activation of the politicized court.

Panthep also asserts that the “amendment to Section 68 could lead to the deliberation of another bill to amend Section 291,” which is currently on hold in parliament due to the Constitutional Court having earlier ruled, quite absurdly, that “the charter could not be rewritten in its entirety without a referendum.” This is absurd as the provision dealing with constitutional amendment says nothing about a referendum. The only constitutional referendum ever held in Thailand was a military junta propaganda exercise.

And just for good measure, PAD requested that their allies at “the charter court … order the 311 MPs and senators who supported the Section 68 amendment bill to withdraw it from parliament.” PAD “is also asking the court to dissolve the Pheu Thai, Chartthaipattana, Chart Pattana, Palang Chon, Mahachon and New Democracy parties for supporting the bill and issuing statements rejecting the court’s authority…”.

Challenging the judges at the Constitutional Court is important because their political bias, corruption and their seeming inability to comprehend the wording of the constitution they are meant to rule on is stifling democratic development. Repeatedly, this set of judges have delivered rulings based on their interpretation of what they believe the royalist-military junta and government would have preferred but didn’t actually write into their constitution.

Thaksin, law and sincerity

It is sometimes difficult for PPT to take the Abhisit Vejjajiva-dominated Democrat Party seriously. Sincerity is in short supply amongst many political leaders in Thailand, but seems in especially short supply when Abhisit is involved in justifying its use of the military to suppress political opposition in 2009 and 2010.

Abhisit’s political elasticity

On 2010,  The Nation reports that:

The ruling Pheu Thai Party yesterday demanded that opposition and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva and Democrat MP Suthep Thaugsuban apologise to the families of those killed and injured in the 2010 red-shirt riots….

Pheu Thai Party deputy leader Anusorn Iamsa-ard said Abhisit and Suthep owed the red shirts a long-overdue apology because they had ordered security officials to use real bullets to shoot at the protesters during the crowd-control operation.

We think hell will freeze over before either man would admit any responsibility.

Indeed,  also at The Nation, it is reported that far from apologizing or admitting any missteps, Abhisit’s party blames Thaksin Shinawatra for everything! Their call is for:

… former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra … to admit to his alleged wrongdoings and respect the courts – to uphold the rule of law in Thailand.

They said Thaksin had been a major source of political conflict in recent years.

Not the Army, not the Democrat Party, not the palace’s old men scheming, not the royalist courts, not the military junta, not the dirty backroom deals, but Thaksin.

Their comments were prompted by Thaksin’s remarks on the “post-coup Assets Examination Committee (AEC)’s investigation against him were unfair.” There is nodoubt that they were contrived and unfair. This isn’t to say that Thaksin is squeaky clean; he isn’t. But the assets case was a fix and the cases where Thaksin should have been pursued were dropped or ignored for reasons that implicate those on the royalist side.

Abhisit is reported as stating that “he was saddened by the fact Thaksin could not admit his wrongdoings.”

Abhisit also claimed that Thaksin “should declare that he does not support a draft amnesty law proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung.”

On this latter point, Abhisit must have prepared his statement in advance for the the Bangkok Post reports that:

Deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra appeared to beat a tactical retreat on Sunday night when he told his red-shirt followers he favours an amnesty bill that excludes not only protest leaders and those responsible for the crackdowns, but also himself.

The report adds:

Thaksin’s announcement ran counter to a proposal by Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung in a bill he plans to file with the House of Representatives tomorrow.

The amnesty issue is certainly not finished, but Thaksin seems to have again demonstrated Abhisit’s failures.

All Abhisit can do is accuse Thaksin and the red-shirt leaders of telling lies.

Adding to the remarkable ingenuousness  demonstrated by the Democrat Party when they demand Thaksin accept laws, another report at The Nation has this eye-opener:

Democrat heavyweights have threatened to sue Department of Special Investigation director-general Tarit Pengdith if he refuses to review his agency’s decision to press charges against Democrats over donations to the party.

Laws for Thaksin seem acceptable for the Democrat Party but not for them.

Challenging Yingluck

In our last post, PPT commented that the royalist reactionaries were again agitating for anti-Thaksin Shinawatra activists to come together to oppose the elected government. In that post we mentioned the rather dull attempt to equate neo-fascist royalism with a democracy movement.

For a reason that still eludes PPT, the yellow lot think the motivation for a mass uprising is premier Yingluck Shinawatra speaking out on democracy and opposing the 2006 military coup.

Along with the limp web-based attack, as reported at The Nation, the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s proxy, the Thai Patriotic Front, called for 50,000 people toshow up at their rather bedraggled “rally at Sanam Luang … to demand the Pheu Thai-led government resign.”

Led by PAD stalwart Chaiwat Sinsuwong, the rally was said to be set to “continue until the government agreed to step down.” Chaiwat seeks to support the Constitutional Court, a major element of the royalist attacks on the elected government.

Already the subject of  “an order by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to move to another rally site,” Chaiwat knows that staying at Sanam Luang is important for political impact.

As the royalist reactionaries come together one more time, Chaiwat and his group provide one possible focus if the movement draws more support than Pitak Siam a few months ago.

Panic, coups and courts

It is difficult to miss the increase in political panic attacks on the two main sides of the political contest in Thailand.

As PPT has already posted, the yellow-hued opponents of the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra have had multiple panic attacks that have caused them to shout their real political views out very loud. When Yingluck speaks to a meeting on democracy, the royalists and anti-Thaksin Shinawatra coalition has its leading figures shout about treason, selling out the country and greater “crimes.” The main “crime” seems to be Yingluck’s failure to again kowtow to the old men who think they run Thailand and continue to concoct a royalist version of the country’s recent political history. A few statements by a younger woman about political reality suggest to the geriatric royalists that their presumed control of her has weakened and that she does not “know her place.”

The tried and royalist trusted method for attacking elected governments, apart from the military coup, is judicial harassment and intervention. And so it is that as the political temperature rises ever more panicked and preposterous royalists charge off to their buddies at the Constitutional Court seeking judicial interference.

At the Bangkok Post it is reported that the latest move is appointed senator  – that is, unelected senator – Paiboon Nititawan who “represents” something called “other sectors,” which really just means he’s an unelected spawn of the military junta, has begged the kangaroo court to consider Thaksin Shinawatra’s alleged “order for Pheu Thai to amend the constitution,” which the senator claims “violates Section 68 of the charter, pertaining to acts that could undermine the constitutional monarchy or grab power through unconstitutional means.”

The Post states that some yellow-shirted intellectuals think the “Constitution Court is likely to take up a complaint…”. At the same time, “Somchai Srisuthiyakorn, a political science lecturer at Sripatum University, said the allegation that Thaksin’s Skype call breached Section 68 is far-fetched.” That won’t bother the court or the royalists.

Somchai reckons that a more likely constitutional court intervention is over the “MPs and senators [who] have declared they will not accept the authority of the charter court…”. He says: “Such an announcement is bound to be a violation of the law…. Many MPs and senators may realise their action carries a risk.”

Panic has also set in on the government and red shirt side. PPT has already posted on the political foot-in-mouth calisthenics by Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap. Equally panicky seems to be red shirt supporters claiming that a coup is in the offing. The clearest English-language statement of this was at New Mandala where Jim Taylor makes this claim:

The army, if a little confused about royal futures, are talking about a coup (yes, yet again) among themselves and many senior army officers (including Prayuth Chan-ocha) dropping strong hints in the media…

Several readers have emailed PPT with similar claims. We don’t doubt that the military brass around boss Prayuth Chan-ocha were shocked by Yingluck’s Mongolia speech, but we have yet to see any strong evidence of the tanks warming up. We would expect to see and hear a lot more from the top brass if they were at any serious level of plotting. That said, Yingluck’s speech and the failure of the king and queen to appear as scheduled probably mean that the military men have the coup jitters.

Meanwhile, while red shirt anger over the Constitutional Court shenanigans saw a mobile protest. Reports from the protest site are mixed, with some saying the protesters preparing to leave and others reporting an expansion of the protest (both in the same newspaper on the same day….). The very same newspaper is back to its old tricks of producing material filched from yellow-shirt sites and dressing it up as an op-ed rather than concocted propaganda.

The latter report also refers to:

hundreds of yellow-shirt Thai Compatriots and Territory Protection Front members, gathering since Tuesday at Sanam Luang, are refusing to clear the site.

They say they will stay until Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is ousted and that their presence won’t interfere with Royal Ploughing Ceremony on the grounds next Monday…. They are also demonstrating to offer moral support to the Constitutional Court judges and oppose the Preah Vihear court case.

The Bangkok Post, which says the rally is called off, has a spurious headline at its website, seems to say that the red shirt protest at the Constitutional Court was all Thaksin’s doing, when the story itself implies something else again, even suggesting that the Puea Thai bosses and Thaksin were out of sync with the protesters. Apparently the protest was called off:

after losing the backing of Pheu Thai, other red-shirt groups and, more importantly, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, sources say.

Some ruling party MPs initially sponsored the protest by the Radio Broadcasters for Democracy movement formed by some red shirts, the Pheu Thai sources said.

Apparently, the MPs got cold feet when the rallies turned to those close to the palace:

The MPs had also joined the protest in front of the Constitution Court on Chaeng Watthana Road in Bangkok.

But they later withdrew their support after demonstration leaders ignored their warnings and attacked Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda, threatened Constitution Court judges and used obscene words.

The MPS and Thaksin apparently worried that the rally could destabilize the government. If Thaksin is the ring master in all of this, he seems to have been unable to control the situation or to fathom the impacts of his sister’s speech or the red shirt rally against the hopeless bunch at the Court. Always murky, the arm wrestle continues.

Further updated: Sexism as politics

Several readers emailed us about our comment in a previous post regarding the very nasty and deeply sexist remarks that attacked Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra as a whore for her speech in Mongolia airing several truths about the anti-democrats who oppose her. Khao sod has now commented on this.

That report notes that red shirts have rallied in protest against Thai Rath newspaper cartoonist and political commentator Chai Ratchawatra (Somchai Katanyutanon) who went to Facebook to write: “Please understand. Prostitutes are not evil. They just sell their bodies. But an evil woman sells her country”, saying that Yingluck had betrayed Thailand.

Chai is well-known as an illustrator of stories attributed to the king that have been published as cartoon books, mostly for children. He is a deeply yellow royalist well known for his anti-red shirt stand.

As we noted in our earlier post, royalists are anti-democrats and, it seems, so deeply challenged by elected governments that they resort to exceptionally crude politics.

Update 1: 2Bangkok.com has posted more material on this story. One item it posts is a list of Chai’s rabidly yellow-shirt cartoons from Thai Rath. Another is a link to a further Khao sod piece that reports the Puea Thai Party response. That response is worth repeating here in full:

Vice spokesman of Pheua Thai Party criticized Thai Rath newspaper′s cartoonist who caused a furor among the Redshirts by implying PM Yingluck Shinawatra is worse than a prostitute.

In a statement released on Pheua Thai website, Mr. Anusorn Iamsa-ard said that the cartoonist “Chai Ratchawatra” has long held anti-democratic attitudes, and has “lost his mind” by using abusive language against the female Prime Minister.

“Chai Ratchawatra has not just insulted the nation′s leader, but also insulted the gender of his own mother,” the statement said

Mr. Anusorn stressed that his criticism did not extend to Thai Rath newspaper, saying that the paper houses many respectable journalists.

“We believe Thai Rath will solve the matter on its own with professionalism,” Mr. Anusorn said, “We only wish to single out Chai Ratchawatra for condemnation.”

Update 2: The Nation reports that Yingluck’s “lawyers on Friday seek legal action against Thai Rath cartoonist Chai Rachawat for comparing the premier to a prostitute.  The lawyers filed the complaint against the cartoonist at Dusit police station…”.