Palace PR at full throttle I

The palace public relations machinery has long had to “manage” Vajiralongkorn’s “problems.” His explosive “divorces,” his erratic behavior and , and the rumors of violence, illnesses, philandering and associations with crime. Generally, the PR exercises revolved around strategies that had “worked” for his father.

The explosion of dissatisfaction with Vajiralongkorn that has been seen recently, reflecting tension over his neo-feudal absolutism, his bahavior and his preference for living in Germany, has seen a new twist on palace propaganda. This involves a rebranding of Vajiralongkorn and the younger royal family members as celebrities. This might be called the Hello! strategy. Obviously, this follows the model of royals in some other countries.

As PPT has said previously, we think this new PR strategy reflects the influence of the royal family’s younger women, including Queen Suthida, Princesses Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari, and some of the harem.

After rousing the raucous royalists in Bangkok, and getting good PR in Thailand (always expected and demanded) but also internationally, with that CNN interview contributing to an image of “compromise” and “popularity,” ignoring the king’s unsteadiness and giving him an instant free pass on all his previous black marks, the palace “influencers” have decided to have the king do “populist tours.”

Reuters reports that “Vajiralongkorn wrote messages of national unity and love on Tuesday during a visit to the northeast of the country two days after protesters sent him a letter demanding royal reforms that would curb his powers.”

In a PR stunt, the king wrote a message to the governor of Udon Thani province: “We all love and care for each other. Take care of the country, help each other protect our country with goodness for prosperity and protect Thainess…”. Going full-on celebrity on a “picture of himself and the queen … the king wrote”: “Love the nation, love the people, cherish Thainess, real happiness.” Another message stated: ““Thank you for all the love and support. We love and care for each other. We must take care of the country, and we must help each other protect it with virtue for it to prosper. Preserve the marvel of Thainess…”.

If the protests against the king have been unprecedented, so is the palace PR response, seeking to create a new image for the king. Previous efforts at this kind of image making have been undone by Vajiralongkorn’s inability to stick with the PR plan and messages.

As these reports of “good king” are being managed, there’s also been “bad king” reports. Hype (Malaysia) had this”

King Maha Vajiralongkorn was married to his third wife, Srirasmi Suwadee, in 2001, before divorcing her in 2014.

Since then, the ex-princess is currently under house-arrest and has decided to take on life as a nun.

Back in 2014, Srirasmi’s uncle, parents, sister and three brothers were convicted with several offences, including “lèse-majesté”, which is defamation to the monarchy. They were all sentenced to prison with different offences and Srirasmi got her royal title stripped of the same year.

As aforementioned, Srirasmi is under house arrest as she hasn’t been seen in public ever since she was forced to leave the royal house. As per China Press, Thai royal experts have exposed photos of the King’s third wife in white robes with her head shaved, as a sign of her nunhood, at her house in Ratchaburi province in central Thailand.

In the photos, she can be seen living a simple life of planting seeds and sweeping leaves in her backyard, despite previously living as a monarch. However, it might not be so simple for her as her eyes tell a different story.

According to SCMP, she was forced to leave her son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, who is the next in line for the throne after the king. There are photos on the internet of Srirasmi’s last meeting with her son before she was forced to leave the palace.

We’re unsure of the exact reason behind her sadness but being under house-arrest while separated from your child can definitely drain one’s mental health.

But the PR/propaganda rattled on. In a Bangkok Post report it is stated that the king “has been told that many red-shirt villages that used to support former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra are now sworn to uphold the monarchy.” Apparently, the person doing the telling was the queen: “They are from the red-shirt villages to protect the monarchy…” she said as she and the king were “mingling with supporters at Wing 23 of the air force in Udon Thani on Tuesday night.”

Of course, many millions of red shirts never considered Thaksin an enemy of the monarchy, but the queen seems to have taken this position. How does she know? For one thing, the yellow shirts constructed this narrative and clearly Suthida has imbibed the yellow shirt kool-aid. She’s had this view reinforced by the fawning betrayers of the red shirts, Anon Saennan and Suporn Atthawong, both of whom sold out to the rightists long ago.

The king appreciates the turncoats. The regime has rewarded Suporn with legal cases dropped and lucrative positions.

As the report states:

Mr Suporn was prosecuted for disrupting the Asean summit in Pattaya in April 2009, but the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship member evaded the charges because police could not find him before the case expired in April last year.

An earlier Post report adds further detail, stating that Suporn:

a vice minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office. His appointment to this political post is said to be a reward for his defection from Pheu Thai to the pro-military Palang Pracharath Party prior to the March 24 election.

We assume the regime and the military are pouring funds into the Suporn-Anon anti-red shirt campaign.

Bolstering monarchy

The royal family’s younger women, including Queen Suthida, Princesses Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari, and some of the harem, appear to be pushing for a new PR strategy and rebranding of Vajiralongkorn and themselves as celebrities – what might be considered the Hello! strategy. Obviously, this follows the model of royals in some other countries.

Sirivannavari’s photo clipped from Hello!

At the same time, the royalist dinosaurs occupying government seats continue to follow ninth reign strategy. For example, Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan and Interior Minister Gen Anupong Paojinda have “urged provincial governors across the country to help protect the monarchy and prevent fake news.”

During a video conference, Gen Prawit ordered governors “to promote the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy.”

This approach seems unlikely to mesh with the notion of royals-as-celebrities, pioneered by Sirivannavari and (more bizarrely) by big sister Ubolratana.

If we are to believe that Vajiralongkorn – who has recently appeared ill and unsteady – is to go down the Hello! celebrity path, then he’d need to also acknowledge that such a rebranding usually goes along with subjection to the constitution, the acceptance of criticism, and the ditching of ninth reign repression and “demi-god” status. So far, the evidence is of some leniency on criticism while also mobilizing fascist yellow shirts, which would seem to mitigate against a celebrity status.

Further updated: “The Threat” II

Like some mid-20th Century Hollywood B-grade movie, The Threat emerges from the (authoritarian) political sludge to try to undermine and crush Thailand’s monarch and the monarchy. Yes, even when almost all the supporting actors are military and the regime is military-dominated and military-backed, The Threat is always there, eating away at authoritarian monarchism.

The Threat is most usually from those who oppose the military and its never-ending efforts to control politics. Under the current regime, where the military is in the hands of ultra-royalists and, in fact, where the king has a firmer hand on the military than at any time since 1932, “threats” are most often associated with Thaksin Shinawatra because of his electoral popularity in the first two decades of this century.

Royalist rightist Rientong

Anyone who attended the recent rally for the regime at Lumpini Park would have noticed the placards linking the Future Forward Party and its leaders to Thaksin. Also noticeable was the claim that FFP represented a threat to the monarchy and, ipso facto, the nation. These demonstrators for the regime and those who organized them consider FFP’s popularity and the urge for democratization to be a threat to the monarchy. We have no doubt that, scared witless by the red shirt rising of a few years ago and associated anti-monarchism, the palace and the royalists in government worry endlessly about how to turn the tide, especially among the younger generation.

Opposing The Threat involves not just all kinds of electoral cheating, constitution rigging and shoveling increased power to the king, but bellicose ultra-rightist thugs and expensive, taxpayer-funded displays of military power and loyalty to the king and throne.

On the rightists, the Bangkok Post has an unusual electronic headline (right) that seems to indicate that the recently unleashed royalist attack dog Maj Gen Rientong Nan-nah was thinking he might be king. It turns out he was just thinking of following the regime and its opponents and organizing a run/walk not for the regime per se, but “a run to ‘save the king’…”. Yes, so great is The Threat from FFP, a party in opposition, that the barking Major General feels the need to “save the king.” He’s been told to reign that idea in for a while. But watch his space. Once unleashed rightist royalists become murderous thugs.

All of this agitation plays into the bizarrely concocted Illuminati “case” against FFP at the regime’s Constitutional Court. Somehow we don’t think that this “case” will be the end of FFP – even the hopelessly biased Constitutional Court and its mentors could not be this ridiculous, maybe, perhaps. Betting seems to be that the Court will dissolve FFP in another case, where the Court will miraculously define a loan as a donation to a political party. In the end, the plan is to do away with Thailand’s third most popular party.

For the displays, even in his so far short reign, King Vajiralongkorn has had plenty, and he’s not even in the country all that much. He’s also had the Army boss Gen Apirat Kongsompong doing his bidding and a bit of his own in also barking about The Threat. He’s sees FFP as a bunch of Commie rats.

Clipped from Khaosod

An AP report on the most recent (waste of taxpayer money) display of defending the king from The Threat came when the king, queen and the most senior of his children (from wife #1) Princess Bajrakitiyabha “presided over an oath-taking ceremony Saturday at an army base where almost 7,000 soldiers and police paraded to mark Armed Forces Day.”

The report notes that “Vajiralongkorn’s presence at the ceremony was unusual, as Thai monarchs have rarely, if ever, attended the occasion, even though the royal palace and the military are closely linked.” The regime – and presumably the palace – linked the parade to the king’s coronation last May.

As ever, the military brass groveled and frog-marched to show their willingness to face The Threat, declaring: “I pledge my life to honor and sustain the greatness of the king. I pledge my loyalty to Your Majesty and will serve and guard Your Majesty till the end of my life…”.

The monarchy, military and regime are making clear their intention to destroy upstarts who comprise the contemporary “threat.” The broader ruling class – which should be worried about this concentration of power – is probably willing to go along with it so long as the regime that maintains the ruling class’s wealth is maintained.

Update 1: Leaked documents appearing at Somsak Jeamteerasakul’s Facebook page suggest that the taxpayer has been hit with a bill of at least 340 million baht for the Army’s display for defending the king.

Update 2: For an example of how “The Threat” causes great fear among regime supporters, try former Bangkok Post Editor Veera Prateepchaikul’s most recent op-ed. Veera’s a hack, but writes op-ed’s essentially for the broad yellow group that supports the military-backed regime. He’s been running a campaign against FFP since they did so well in last year’s election, and he’s obviously very frightened that, should FFP do well and not be dissolved, electoral democracy might make a comeback. Veera and his ilk fear that.

Making the king’s image

The Bike for Mom and Bike for Dad events were junta-supported image-making efforts for King Vajiralongkorn. Both were associated with quite negative outcomes, including an alleged assassination plot and two deaths in custody. Yet the palace propagandists and the king seem to think that the image-making trumped those nasty outcomes.

So it is that Khaosod reports that the king is “set to lead thousands of cyclists in an epic bike ride across town again in December.” Apparently seeking to further obliterate the 85th anniversary of Thailand’s first “permanent” constitution, the king’s men have chosen the day before as a monarchical spectacular “River of Rattanakosin.”

Billed as “a sequel” to 2015’s Bike for Dad event, this bike ride is to begin at the much-expanded Royal Plaza “accompanied by his daughters, princesses Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari.” The junta has been tasked with ensuring that some 40,000 cyclists “join the convoy on the 21-kilometer route to Lat Pho Park…” and back.

The monarchy image-making is intense and bears many of the hallmarks of that conducted under the previous king that eventually aimed at portraying him as a “demi-god.”

Rule of law and the princess

It wasn’t that long ago that PPT posted on the “appointment” of Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol as something called a goodwill ambassador for the rule of law in Southeast Asia at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

As we noted then, it seemed very odd to appoint a Thai princess to deal with anything related to the rule of law. After all, Thai royals are protected by a feudal law and hold artificially elevated positions in a country ruled by a military dictatorship that illegally seized power and thumbs its nose at rule of law, in favor of rule by law.

Remarkably, it seems to us that the palace and UNODC have responded.

The Nation reports that the royal daughter’s “invaluable experience” and her “long-held interest in the judicial system” are cited as reasons for her appointment. UNODC “told the press yesterday that the [p]rincess had been chosen … due to her enduring passion for the judicial system and also because she has been a professional practitioner in the field for a long time.”

They didn’t say that her “long time” goes back to September 2006 when she was appointed Attorney in the Office of the Attorney General. Yes, “long time” is a mammoth 10 years during which time she’s also had a hectic social and palace life and went off to be Thailand’s ambassador in Vienna for a couple of years.

UNODC executive director Yury Fedotov reckoned this 7 or 8 years of experience “is invaluable” and “enables her to speak with authority on the need for effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.” He’s shoveling buffalo manure. Inclusive institutions? Like monarchy, puppet assemblies and military dictatorships? Other UNODC officials also shoveled the manure making ludicrous claims about the princess’s “experience” and “skills.”

The princess seems to have responded too. She has “pledged to move forward with the principle of rule of law in the region in line with the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda.” She declared “the appointment offered her the opportunity to champion the UN’s position on the rule of law and fairness in the criminal justice system.”

Great! Fairness and the rule of law are more of less absent in Thailand, so we expect she will try to do something positive about lese majeste and illegal military regimes in her country. Is she going to speak out against them? Is she going to support lese majeste prisoners and ensure they are entitled to bail and other constitutional and legal rights?

There’s the test. Our assumption is that she’ll fail it because the position of the monarchy and its associated hangers-on depends on this feudal law and its cruel political use and implementation.

Supporting feudal monarchism

We know that the military dictatorship has little sense of irony. It seems part of the UN has caught the lack of irony disease. That lack of perception means that, as it has done previously, UN offices manage to collude in creating and reinforcing feudal monarchism in Thailand.

We say this based on a report in the Bangkok Post that “… the King’s daughter … Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol is to become a goodwill ambassador for the rule of law in Southeast Asia, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime announced on Wednesday.”

The irony of appointing a royal, protected by a feudal law and from a country ruled by a military dictatorship that illegally seized power and now uses military courts and thumbs its nose at rule of law, in favor of rule by law, seems lost on this UN office.

In fact, UNODC regional representative Jeremy Douglas is quoted as stating: “She doesn’t see herself as above the law and is interested in helping out to advance justice reform…”.

In fact, she is above the law. While in its written form the lese majeste law does not apply to her, every Thai knows that, in practice, she is “protected,” just like dead kings and deceased king’s dogs.

How a feudal “princess would help to promote justice reform” in “Thailand as well as the rest of Southeast Asia” is not clear. After all, her experience is of Thailand’s compromised and politicized “justice” system.

Yes, we know she allegedly has “a special interest in prison issues, particularly women in prison,” but even the UNODC website has little about this since this “interest” was happened upon back in 2008-9.

In an earlier post, we speculated that palace’s need to reorient its propaganda to promote the new king and his (official) family. As in the past, UN offices are targeted in this effort to promote feudal institutions.

Updated: New king and palace propaganda

A new king means that the palace’s propaganda needs to be realigned. It has a network of tame authors and journalists who are prepared to continue their work of mythologizing the monarchy.

These lackeys are being mobilized to produce saccharin stories that seek to “correct” the negative stories that appeared around the time of accession. This palace propaganda goes hand-in-hand with the efforts of the military junta to suppress the negative accounts – and there are a lot of them – about the king and his foibles and faults. That includes the use of the draconian lese majeste law.

One of the trusted palace-connected journalists is Dominic Faulder, perhaps best known for his work as “senior editor” of the palace’s “semi-official” King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A Life’s Work. That was a lengthy, expensive and faulty response to Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles. In the palace handbook, Faulder is listed as having been a correspondent for the defunct Asiaweek magazine, a former president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and an editor of another piece of royalist puff, The King of Thailand in World Focus.

Now listed as an associate editor of the Nikkei Asian Review. where he has authored a series of monarchist articles that reproduce much of the palace propaganda about the deceased king.

The most recent contribution to appear at Nikkei Asian Review is a puff piece that is the first that begins the reorientation of international “journalism” to the new king. In a series called “Agents of Change 2017,” Faulder fawns over Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol.

Who? Yes, plucked from relative obscurity (except for the royal news broadcast each day in Thailand), she “qualifies” because she is the new king’s first daughter.

Faulder describes her as holding “a unique position in Thailand, both by birth and from her life experience,” and trawls for something to say, quoting an unnamed diplomat from 2009 as saying  she had “an increasingly high profile and a reputation for being perhaps the sharpest of the royal family members.” That diplomat, if he or she really existed, was disingenuous.

Part of the reason for highlighting “Patty” is to do a bit of royal laundry. She “is the daughter of Princess Soamsawali, the first of three wives [we count 4] of then Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Her mother, a niece of Queen Sirikit, remains one of the most active and visible members of the royal family, despite being divorced in 1991.”

That refers to the queen’s desire to promote her “line” by having her son marry a first cousin. The deal on the messy divorce was that, unlike more recent women booted out by the prince, with noble blood and the queen a relative, she kept royal position and profile.

At 38, her life is said to involve “a lively social life among high society friends with a more serious side that sees her mixing with soldiers, officials, academics and diplomats.” Her hi-so lifestyle is “normalized” by the claim that she “likes to drive herself around in a red Mini Cooper S or a vivid green Volkswagen Beetle.” For those not in the know, driving oneself is considered “radical” for royals.

While she’s still single, Faulder lets on that there’s the “possibility of royal weddings after her grandfather’s elaborate cremation…”. Why is this relevant? Faulder doesn’t make the point, but as she’s the only offspring of the current crop of royals issued from the late king’s children who has royal blood on both sides of the family, Patty “is expected to play a leading role in support of her father, and in buffing the image of the House of Chakri, the Siamese dynasty founded in 1782.”

Like her royal aunts, she’s claimed to be well educated, having a law doctorate from Cornell University. (Has anyone seen her thesis?) That led to some promotion by the palace propaganda machine, with Faulder pointing out that “briefly joined the Thai permanent mission to the United Nations in New York as a first secretary,” before returning to Thailand to “work” as “a prosecutor in the office of the attorney general.” That seemed brief as well:

After returning to the Thai foreign ministry, she chaired the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 2011. She remained for two more years in Vienna as ambassador to Austria, a post she took up at the unusually young age of 34. She was concurrently Thailand’s permanent representative to the U.N. at Vienna, one of the organization’s four global headquarters.

Of course it is “unusually young.” Such things only happen to Thailand’s royals, who are all polymaths and where positions are created for them. No one dares complain that they are dull or unqualified.

Faulder loyally repeats much of the fawning that has already gone on about this princess. She “founded the Princess Pa Foundation with her mother in 1995 to help victims of flooding and natural disasters.” That is, when she was 17. She then “founded and personally funded with 300,000 baht ($8,600) the Kamlangjai (Inspire) Project for women imprisoned with their children…”. Recall that she’s now an heir to a fortune of about $50 billion and she gave this paltry amount. But that investment allows lackey journalists to claim this “gift” is meaningful.

Nothing much has changed in Thailand for the “work” of the foundations and women prisoners are abused and prison conditions in Thailand remain horrendous.

Faulder explains that one of her roles “is putting an engaged and contemporary face on Thailand’s time-honored institution.” This seems to include sharing the media space with her father as she did in the Bike for Mom event earlier in 2015. True to palace propaganda, Faulder adds that the event “showed a resilient, more youthful side to the royal institution, and revealed the future king in evidently robust health…”.

Like her father, she’s portrayed as fit and well exercised. We are told that in “September, she led a mixed party up Fansipan, in northern Vietnam — the highest mountain in the Indochina region.” She took the cable car and then, quite oddly, planted a Thai flag at the concreted summit.

Now that the old king has gone, the queen is sick and senile and the new king is her dad, get used to the idea that she will be promoted and that the propaganda machine will whitewash the new king’s past.

Update: Readers may be interested in Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s take on this story about Patty.

Biking hierarchy

The claims made regarding the Bike for Mum palace-military propaganda event are as expected. A quarter of a million bike riders we are told in most reports, although only about 80,000 in Bangkok, with the pictures suggesting less than that showing up. Like most things royal, the claim will stand without scrutiny.

Far more interesting than concocted numbers and claims are the reports citing The Dictator and explaining how the event was organized.

The Dictator, General Prayuth Chan-ocha declared the event another test of loyalty. He said it would show “love and unity among the Thai people” and urged people to show up. He reckoned it was an opportunity for the “Thai people” to express ever more “devotion” for the royal family: “The event will also showcase to the world how devoted Thais are to their Queen.”

She hasn’t been seen since May.

This “devotion” was organized as a reflection of the royal-military view of Thai society’s correct arrangement.

After a ceremony at the King Chulalongkorn equestrian statue “the Crown Prince led cyclists in Group A as they took off from the starting point. Cyclists in this group included Gen Prayut, Deputy Defence Minister and army chief Udomdej Sitabutr, Supreme Court president  Direk Ingkaninant, Constitutional Court president Nurak Mapraneet, National Legislative Assembly chairman Pornpetch Wichitcholachai and Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda.”

His first daughter, Princess Bajrakitiyabha “led Group B, which included heads of government offices and representatives of the private sector and various organisations.”

Bringing up the rear was the “general public formed Group C.”

That seems to be the way the royalist elite views society and its hierarchy.

This contrived display of unity and hierarchy wasn’t cheap for the taxpayer.

A police boss “said more than 9,000 policemen had been deployed to provide security along the 43-kilometre cycling route” in Bangkok alone. In addition, the “Public Health Ministry, military, police, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, private hospitals and health associations were deployed to provide medical care in three zones.” There were “more than 200 mobile teams of doctors and nurses with first aid equipment and ambulances were deployed along the cycling route in Bangkok.”

That expense is justified for its support of royalist loyalty and hierarchy.

Lese what? Pandering to palace propaganda

For many years the Thai monarchy has done very nicely from a largely uncritical media that buys the treacle about great and grand royals inhabiting the expansive and expensive palaces of Bangkok. This lazy reporting has sometimes been buttressed by international institutions and universities that get pressured by Thai royal posterior polishers to make honors available to these royals. We’ve previously posted on some of this, here and here.

So it is disappointing to see the international media taking further palace propaganda as fact. We refer to the widely available “report” on 34 year-old Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol who already has a supposedly stellar career in the law, with a doctorate from Cornell, and diplomatic service, as Thai ambassador in Vienna, and as a “campaigner” for women’s rights.

The report doesn’t think to question how it might be that one so young can do so well. Or ask if it is even possible for someone who doesn’t carry the moniker of “Princess” and is eldest grandchild of the king. A little bit of common sense would suggest that this stellar performance should be considered in a context of the necessity of making every royal appear grander and/or smarter than they really are.

Perhaps the most bizarre element of this bit of nonsense masquerading as news is the claims made about her “campaigns”:

A Thai princess who became a criminal prosecutor and launched a campaign to help incarcerated women is now embarking on a global campaign to promote the rule of law and make “equal justice” a U.N. goal.

… she is also the driving force behind “The Bangkok Dialogue on the Rule of Law,” an international conference in the Thai capital on Nov. 15 [yes, a whole day!].

She is then quoted:

“Society cannot grow if there is instability and injustice,” Princess Bajrakitiyabha said in an interview on Monday.

“Without the rule of law, without a good justice system it’s always chaos,” she said. “I think the rule of law is a very important pillar to development, to economic growth, and of course to human rights.”…

… The princess said one goal of the conference is to broaden the next set of U.N. development goals to include the rule of law.

The report notes this statement:

Princess Bajrakitiyabha said if she could write a rule of law goal for the next U.N. goals, from 2016 to 2030, “I would say the equal justice — effective, efficient and transparent justice systems for all.”

We are not sure if this poor English is accurate, but we reproduce the report as written. The report then gushes about her “prison project”:

An advocate for women’s rights, she said she started a charity project called “Inspire” to help women “suffering hardship in prison, especially those pregnant and having babies … (who) touched me deep to my heart.”

The uninformed reader may be mightily impressed. Mercifully, though, the report does point out:

The princess, who is a staunch advocate of the rule of law, comes from a country whose lese majeste law protects the Thai monarchy from defamation. It is the world’s harshest and mandates a jail term of three to 15 years for violators.

Lese what?

Indeed she does. But the report just lets it drop. But what has she done about lese majeste?

As far as we are able to tell, precious little. Back in 2009, the Asian Human Rights Commission issued a very important open letter on the case of lese majeste convict Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul.  Addressed to this particular princess as the Director of the Kamlang jai Project at the Ministry of Justice, the AHRC reported key information about the mistreatment of Darunee.

We imagine that something might have been done behind the scenes, but it hardly matters as Darunee remains locked up with her human and constitutional rights having been trampled by the justice system and multiple royalists.

The question has to be asked: why isn’t equality and rule of law applied in Thailand? If the princess was serious, wouldn’t she be aware that her “human rights” and “rule of law” position is hopelessly undermined by the failings of her own country to meet international standards on both? We guess she isn’t as this “campaign” is little more than more taxpayer-funded palace propaganda.

Royal advantage

Europeonline reports that yet another royal has seen the advantage of birth lead to an appointment that normally requires years of service and work.

It states: “Thailand’s cabinet on Tuesday approved the appointment of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s eldest granddaughter, Princess Bajrakitiyabha, as ambassador to Austria.” That must be a highly desirable position in Thailand’s diplomatic corps.

The 33 year-old daughter of Prince Vajiralongkorn will reportedly “take up her post in January, after finishing her current job as chairperson of the 21st session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna…”. Obviously, she like Vienna, so this keeps her there.

That she is a princess obviously trumps age and experience in gaining a plum position.