Preparing the anti-democrats

Thailand’s Constitutional Court is a political instrument of a royalist elite that rejects notions like electoral democracy.

Not for the first time, it is demonstrating a detachment from justice and democracy in a report of one of its activities that can only be described as bizarre. Khaosod begins its report by stating:

The Thai court known for ousting a string of democratically elected political parties is now offering a course titled “Good Governance For Democracy.”

PPT won’t go through all of the anti-democratic actions of the Constitutional Court over recent years. Rather we just point to a few earlier accounts of these actions: here, here, here, here and here.

The bastion of anti-democracy trumpets that its “democracy” program is “open to members of the state and private sector who want to improve their ‘conscience and behaviour’…”. Apparently some of the corrupt and politicized judges, who have repeatedly demonstrated not only a disdain for democracy but even for constitutions, are “teaching” the course.

During the opening class it was revealed that the class included 52 “students,” many of them with unblemished track records of opposing democracy, elections and elected politicians.

Some of those named in the report are: disgraced and disgraceful boss of Thailand’s failed National Human Rights Commission Amara Pongsapich, Pornchai Rujiprapa, the Minister of Information, Communication, and Technology who is one of the most vigorous users of the lese majeste law and a proponent of illegal internet surveillance, Vicha Mahakhun, former constitution drafter for the military junta in 2007 and a member of the National Anti-Corruption Commission who not that long ago stated, “We all know elections are evil…”, adding that “[p]eople, especially academics who want to see the Constitution lead to genuine democracy, are naïve…”, and Surachai Liangboonlertchai, a dedicated anti-democrat who The Dictator made deputy chairman of the puppet National Legislative Assembly.

PPT an only imagine that this is an opportunity for these anti-democrats to slap each other on the back, work out future strategies for limiting democracy and ensure ideological oneness.

The most significant “crime” II

The military dictatorship continues to threaten and repress through the use of lese majeste.

Khaosod reports that the military regime has made the unsubstantiated claim “that it has the ability to search for anti-monarchy remarks on private chat messages” such as LINE.

We say this is unsubstantiated because the claim has been “refuted by South Korea-based parent company Naver.” LINE is operated by a subsidiary based in Japan.

The junta’s Minister of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT), Pornchai Rujiprapa said that his Ministry is “currently monitoring more than 40 million messages sent via the popular chat application LINE each day.” He added: “We can see what type of messages are being forwarded…. We focus especially on those that are libelous, anti-monarchy, or threatening national security.”

In making this claim, the military dictatorship threatens more than 24 million users.

The threat is a particular specialization of this royalist military dictatorship. The aim is to repress and frighten.

Pornchai stated the obvious when he stated that MICT and the “police have the authority to identify, locate, and prosecute senders of anti-monarchy on lese majeste charge[s]…”.

Pornchai, like the other members of the military dictatorship are desperate to shut down the widespread discussion of the monarchy as the king nears his end and succession is taking place.

The Minister also “vowed to seek IP addresses and other information about anti-monarchy websites from foreign companies that host their servers, though he admitted that the process could take a long time.”

What will the military dictatorship do when it gets an overseas IP address? Threaten? Hunt down with assassination squads? Seek out proxy servers and destroy them?

Pornchai repeatedly demonstrates that he is a dolt. The lack of some basic commonsense and normal intelligence in the military dictatorship is stunning.

Pornchai demonstrates that he is a simpleton when he states: “It could take a long while because there needs to be a negotiation. Some countries have cultures that are different to Thai…”. Only some!

There are many synonyms for dolt, all of which seemingly apply to Pornchai and his ilk.

By threatening LINE users, Pornchai is likely to reduce LINE use. One wonders if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing in the junta when Pornchai’s own military government has released a set of dorkish “stickers” that “depict the moral teaching of junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha for the chat application LINE.”

While no one could ever consider that a murderous military dictator could have anything “moral” to say, the great fear that there is a threat to the existing social order. If this lot weren’t such a bunch of dunces, they’d realise that the existential threat is inside the regime itself.