Evidence Emerges of Thai Fascists, the PDRC, Threatening Thai Universities

A letter supposedly sent by Thai fascist organisation, the "Democrat" Party-linked PDRC, has emerged that demands Thai university management only display pro-PDRC banners and engage in pro-PDRC activity.

The copy of the letter I have received is addressed to the Deputy Dean of the Engineering Faculty at Bangkok's prestigious Chulalongkorn University.

Thai fascist leader Abhisit Vejjajiva rating at a Bangkok rally

Whilst there is no explicit threat in the letter there is certainly an implied one as the PDRC exhorts the university to act in defence of "King, nation and religion" in order to support the unseating of Thailand's democratically-mandated, legally-constituted and popular Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

It is also clear that the PDRC are now intent on smearing the pro-democracy movement via false claims that the UDD leadership is "anti-monarchy" - similar claims have been used previously by Thai fascist movements to rationalise bloody massacres of pro-democracy activists.

The PDRC now seem determined to pressure - with implied threats if necessary - even Thai universities to follow their aggressive anti-democracy platform. 

A rough translation of the letter follows whilst a pdf copy of the original letter is at the bottom on this post.

To Deputy Dean of Engineering Faculty 

PDRC will hold rally on the day that the CC will hand down the verdict to remove YL in order to express our will that we want the neutral govt to resolve the conflicts in Thailand, topple taksin regime and reform the country before election.

It is necessary for PDRC to ask for cooperation from your university to get the students to join our rally in order to show pure power without backing of any political side. We ask you to follow these requests:

1. Use all kind of university’s media to make people love and uphold the nation, religion and the King as well as advertise the PDRC movement that we fight for these three pillars of the country - and we are especially opposed to the anti-monarchy movement.

2. Set up the unit to distribute UDD leadership’s anti-monarchy speech in order to destroy legitimacy of UDD and supporters of caretaker govt.

3. Invite students, lecturers and workers who are under your command to join PDRC movement by telling them that this is being done to protect the nation, religion and the King as well as opposing  corruption in the caretaker govt.

4. Put up the banners supporting PDRC inside your university and only advertise PDRC’s news.

BBC News Apologise For Jonathan Head's Abusive Email

As many of my readers know I have been deeply critical of the conduct of the BBC's Bangkok correspondent, Jonathan Head.

I believe, with good grounds, he has acted in an unprofessional fashion, has deliberately misled the British public about what is going on in Thailand and has then hidden this deceit behind highly dubious and dangerous claims of "neutrality". Incredibly he has portrayed the violent fascist protests in Thailand as "friendly", lied about the deaths of children in Bangkok and then blamed the pro-democracy Red Shirts for those deaths without one scintilla of evidence - something which marks Mr Head down as a disgrace to his profession.

To that end he is absolutely perfect as the new President of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand.

Back in January I inadvertently sent Mr Head an email when I forgot to remove his name from a very lengthy email list.

I immediately apologised to Mr Head for sending him the email yet was astonished when he responded with what can only be termed an abusive retort (see the screengrab below).

Today I received an apology from the BBC's Deputy Head of Newsgathering, Sara Beck, regarding Mr Head's conduct.

The BBC - whilst seeking £billions from UK taxpayers - have no real process of accountability even if they do send out the occasional apology when their correspondents act unprofessionally.

Why did Human Rights Watch in Thailand pass my details to the US authorities?

Back in 2011 I had preview access to an as yet unreleased Wikileaks cable that included reference to a Human Rights Watch staff member making possible lese majeste comments.

At that time I had been critical of a number of things HRW had done, including Brad Adams' appalling claims at a meeting at the UK Parliament, but felt I was still sympathetic to their work in Thailand. I therefore privately warned Human Rights Watch about this matter as I felt it may leave their staff member open to possible legal threat.

What I also discovered in that cable was that Human Rights Watch made a statement that indicated they had refused to defend Thai trade unionist, Jittra Kotchadet, against lese majeste charges.

Screen grab of email from HRW admitting they passed my details to US Embassy

Whilst making it very clear that I would not be making any of the contents of the cable public - something that I never did with Wikileaks themselves putting all the cables in the public domain later in 2011 - I asked HRW to explain why they were adopting a public stance of condemning lese majeste but then taking another position in secret.

Despite several emails and phone calls to HRW staff members they never responded and never clarified the discrepancy between their public and private positions.

I was then astonished to find, several months later, that my questions to HRW regarding lese majeste were being circulated by a Bangkok Post journalist after they had received information from a US Embassy staffer that basically amounted to a smear campaign against me.

I contacted HRW's head office in the USA and asked them to explain. In response I received an accusatory, aggressive and threatening phone call from HRW's rather unpleasant legal advisor, Dinah Pokempnor.

Yet even Ms Pokempnor knew I had caught HRW and she sent me a mealy-mouthed and quite pathetic excuse as to why HRW breached all the rules of confidentiality and passed my details to the US Embassy.

Upon being notified by you that unredacted US Embassy cables leaked to Wikileaks mentioned one of our researchers, we contacted the  embassy to ask if we could ascertain the contents of these cables. The embassy asked us how we knew that there were such cables, and we told them you had alerted us.  

 Anyone coming into contact with HRW people in Bangkok, staff members such as Sunai Phasuk, Brad Adams or Phil Robertson,  should be warned - they cannot be trusted and may pass on your details to state agencies and other authorities with links to the Thai military without your knowledge or your permission.