re: "Prayut: Amnesty International to be investigated" (BP, November 26, 2021)
Dear editor,
Prime Minister Chan-o-cha's appeasement of some unknown percentage of the Thai people (a majority? a minority? a super minority? Who could know or say?) is perhaps more telling than the PM and his fans would like it to be. The given reason for the official investigation of Amnesty International is that its acts are alleged to have "undermined [Thai] national security." But this must raise profound, and profoundly worrying, questions about the Thai nation as it exists.
What kind of nation is it that can perdure only on the suppression of human rights? What kind of nation is it whose national security depends on violating basic democratic principle? If those calling on the prime minister to oust Amnesty International are correct in their allegation that free speech and respect for the human rights of Thais must be suppressed as matters of national security, what does that say about the Thailand that Prayut and his like have wrought over past decades? Is that really the sort of nation of which any substantial number of Thais can be proud?
And then there is the damage such a course of action must inflict on the international reputation of Thailand and its institutions.
Felix Qui
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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 November 30, 2021, under the title "Amnesty damage" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2223899/thai-pass-worries
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