Thai diplomats usually speak for their country and almost always put the best spin they can on that representation. Nothing remarkable in that. It gets more interesting when diplomats have to lie for their government.
At the China Post there’s a perfect example of this. Kriangsak Kittichaisaree is an executive director of Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei, which means he’s a diplomat. A few days ago he did lie duty for king and country. He wrote to the Editor-In-Chief of the China Post to complain and lie.
Kriangsak wrote to complain about an AFP article “Royal slur cases skyrocket post Thai Coup: Amnesty” which quoted Amnesty International that “14 Thais indicted under the controversial lese majeste law in less than four months.” This is a verifiable fact, but Kriangsak was presumably told to dispute it.
He stated that the report “provided inaccurate information on the current political situation in Thailand.” His lies then became layered: first he claimed that “Thailand supports and highly values the freedom of expression…”. This is a bogus claim. The lie is made in order to make the ridiculous assertion that lese majeste is just like other laws; of course, it isn’t.
Kriangsak has this spin: “there is a certain degree of restriction in order to protect the rights or repotations [sic. reputations] of others as well as upholding national security and order.” The “national security” bit is the giveaway for there are no “others” considered essential for “national security.”
He then adds another lie: “The lese-majeste law … gives protection to the rights or reputations of the King, the Queen, the Heir-Apparent, or a Regent in a similar way libel law does for commoners.” This lie has been exposed many times. The simple response to this blatant lie is to ask how many commoners go to jail for several years for libeling other commoners? Ask how many commoners are denied their constitutional rights (when there any) and the right to bail for libeling other commoners? Ask how many millions of people must self-censor in order to avoid jail for libeling commoners? The answers are all close to zero.
Kriangsak adds another layer of lies when he says the lese majeste law “is not aimed at curbing people’s right to the freedom of expression or the legitimate exercise of academic freedom including debates about the monarchy as an institution.” Of course, it is meant to do all these things.
Unlike libel, lese majeste is made a political crime that has a chilling impact on the whole population.
Kriangsak’s final fibs are that “Amnesty International failed to acknowledge that the higher number of lese-majeste arrests since 22 May 2014 merely represented old cases…”, and that all cases result in “a fair trial.”
The claim that all are old cases is false – as just one example, see Apiwan Wiriyachai’s case. The idea that any lese majeste victim gets a fair trial would be laughable if it wasn’t such a tragic event for those accused, charged and imprisoned.
Update: The Nation reports on another Thai diplomat who can make a crooked line straight with a lie here and a fib there. The pliable Sihasak Phuangketkeow has told pliant Thai reporters that while he got criticism from a relatively lowly State Department official, reckons he told President Obama that “Thailand … had reaffirmed its faith in democratic values…”. That must explain all the repression, censorship, harassment of academics, lese majeste cases, the military dictatorship and the military’s complete domination of the cabinet and assembly. It is all about “democratic values”!
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