re: "Envoy queries Korea award for Jatupat" (2017, May 10)
Post Bag, The Bangkok Post.
Dear editor,
His recent letter to the human rights award committee suggests that Thailand's ambassador to South Korea fails to understand that the patriotic Jatupat Boonpattararaksa deserves the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights 2017 precisely because of the suffering inflicted on him by Thai law.
Like the long tradition of civil rights activists before him, from Socrates, through Rosa Parks and to Arab bloggers being flogged for blasphemy, every one of Jatupat's (Pai Dao Din's) alleged crimes were the morally right thing to do but are deemed crimes by unjust law. Pai Dao Din selflessly accepts the consequences of having courageously done the right thing to highlight injustices in Thai rule of law, which rule of law, contrary to the ambassador's claim, neither values nor supports the basic democratic principles of freedom of expression, association and assembly. Societies that value and support those basic democratic values do not do what is being done to Jatupat strictly according to the rule of law.
Felix Qui
_______________________________
The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on May 14, 2017, under the title "Jatupat deserves rights prize" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1249254/jatupat-deserves-rights-prize
No comments:
Post a Comment
However strongly dissenting or concurring, politely worded comments are welcome.
Please note, however, that, due to Felix Qui's liability for them, comments must comply with Thai law, and are moderated accordingly.