In an earlier post PPT had the story of Thitinant Kaewchantanont. She is accused of a lese majeste infraction that has caused police to investigate, Thitinant to be thrown into a hospital for a mental illness assessment and ultra-royalists to spill bucket loads of bile.
The Phuket News has provided some more details of the ultra-royalist reaction to the case.
The notorious yellow-shirted Rak Phuket Club rallied “against improper gestures made by a Thai expat in Bangkok last week by filing a letter of complaint to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung…”. The reason for this is that the neo-fascist group wants to ensure that Thitinant is locked up, so its “president” Boonsupa Tantai, “along with several other club members, presented the protest letter to Phuket MP Raywat Areerob.”
Not surprisingly, the MP represents the Democrat Party. The Club asked their ally to convey its demands to the government.
The report then adds the detail of Thitinant (63) and the “case.” She:
resides in New Zealand. However, she was in Bangkok last Friday, at which time she allegedly made improper gestures towards an image of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The image was displayed during a “multi-color” shirt rally the day the Constitution Court gave its verdict on the legalities of making changes to the charter.
While it has been widely reported that Thitinant was “mentally unstable,” the rabid ultra-royalists have been chanting that “her ability to post pictures and other personal information on Facebook” denies this.
Not wishing to be too crude, dismissive or accepting of any claim about Thitinant, PPT would point out that any survey of yellow shirt/ultra-royalist Facebook pages and web sites suggests that the mentally deranged is no impediment to posting.
Phuket News states that:
In their letter, the Rak Phuket Club claimed that Mrs Thitinant violated Article 112 of the Constitution, which embodies the lese majeste law that makes intentional insult to the monarchy a punishable criminal offense.
That the event took place in Bangkok, thousands of kilometers from Phuket, seems not to bother the neo-fascists. They demand that the issue is “addressed immediately in order to uphold the dignity of Thailand as a constitutional monarchy with HM The King as head of state.”
In other words, this is the usual ideological stuff of the dangerous and divisive ultra-royalists. PPT will soon add Thitinant’s case to our list of pending cases.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 