Comments

  1. Toecutter says:
  2. blinking in the light says:

    JohnW

    Didn’t this entire debate start off with an ad hominem attack?

  3. JohnW says:

    This is turning into a series of tedious ad hominem attacks – a sure sign that the intellectual debate has been lost.

    Is it possible to close these threads? If possible, please make it so.

  4. Christian Favre says:

    Moral relativism is acceptable to an extent, but honestly a case like this is so black and white, and Andrew Marshall so clearly in the right and Andrew Walker so clearly in the wrong… it’s a bit painful to have to spell out yet again the obvious, or what should be obvious – freedom of the press is important, this law is obscene etc.
    It’s because the corporate/mainstream press and its representatives have become so craven in their attempts to be all things to all people that people are increasingly turning to alternative sources such as Alternet, Nation of Change, Democracy Now, Andrew Marshall, Andrew Drummond or even the Jon Stewart show to get the real news…

  5. Sam Deedes says:

    The Rohingya are to Aung San Suu Kyi as LM is to Andrew Walker?

    As Dr Tul says “if you don’t want to be punished, don’t do it.” But what is it?

    Disparaging the person is pointless and counterproductive but discussing the institution is a sine qua non of a democratic society. Constant and growing resistance to prohibition of the latter is vital.

    At least Andrew McGregor Marshall in his role as Genghis Khan managed to stir the FCCT into putting a statement about Somyot on their website, even if they couldn’t spell his name correctly.

    http://fccthai.com/

  6. Observer says:

    Grisly Trend: Green Activists Are Facing Deadly Dangers

    Where is Sombath Somphone? With every day that passes, the fate of one of Southeast Asia’s most high-profile environmental activists, who was snatched from the streets of Laos in December, becomes more worrisome.

    by Fred Pearce

    http://e360.yale.edu/feature/grisly_trend_green_activists_are_facing_deadly_dangers/2620/

  7. blinking in the light says:

    AMM,

    It’s quite clear that you didn’t have the courage to report accurately on the Thai monarchy before 2011 even though you hadn’t lived in Thailand since 2002.

    Your journalism whilst living in Singapore and working for Reuters from 2008 to 2011 was no different to that produced by many other journalists who are actually living in Bangkok and whom you now attack.

    You are not an “exile” nor have any criminal charges been placed against you. Your work isn’t even blocked in Thailand and can easily be read online.

    I’m actually a supporter of your work and find it strange that you are so thin-skinned when your embellishments to your own backstory are pointed out. That doesn’t make me or anyone else doing that a troll, whether we are anonymous or not.

  8. CDF says:

    “One line of argument that has emerged in the flurry of debate in recent weeks is that non-Thai journalists and academics must lead the campaign…”

    Who is making this argument? This emphasis on Thai vs. non-Thai, local vs. foreign, is unfortunate as it undermines the universal nature of what the campaign against 112 is about: the *universal* right to freedom of expression.

  9. As you would know if you bothered to read my original article, “The foreign media are failing Thailand”, I have immense respect for Paul Handley’s journalism and bravery, and I specifically credited him at length.

    As for where I happened to be when I published articles that made it no longer safe for me to travel to Thailand, the reason I consider myself an exile from Thailand is that I love Thailand and have a Thai partner (now my wife) and, since January, a Thai son. To me, these issues of family, and love, are far more important than considerations of personal safety or job security. Indeed, having lived in Baghdad from 2003 to 2005, I have a very different assessment of what real danger means than feckless journalists in Thailand terrified of criticizing Somyot’s sentence.

    Earlier in this duscussion, I described in detail the events that led me to leave Reuters and publish #thaistory. I included several hyperlinks to original documents. If anyone knows of any inaccuracies or untruths in my account, please share with us.

    It seems clear that almost all of the people left in this discussion are trolls who want to make insinuations without even having the cojones to tell us their real name. So there is little point in me continuing to respond. But if anybody wants to raise substantive points using their own name, I would be happy to discuss.

    Namaste!

  10. blinking in the light says:

    AMM

    Actually you wrote those articles whilst you were in Singapore, not Bangkok, so you had none of the excuses that Bangkok’s foreign correspondents may or may not have.

    You could have taken a different line without any danger to yourself.

    Question to you should be “why did you fail to do your job as a journalist in 2008 to 2011, whilst living in Singapore?”

  11. Ohn says:

    “…all that has been done is that they’ve promulgates these laws. They themselves don’t respect the laws that they’ve promulgated ….. The people haven’t yet benefited from these laws.”

    Is this statement in alignment with or at variance with the tumultuous acclaim by the Burmese “media” people and the “western” governments and agencies? And who might be in the right? Surely not this uneducated rural woman.

    “Until there’s a government that protects rural people, farmers and workers, our country cannot be called a democracy.”

    Wrong again! Burma is in full blown DEMOCRACY paradise.

    There are literally thousands of extremely busy BULLDOZERS and cement factories running red-hot to prove that.

    “Democracy” is a code word for getting rid of majority population from their ancestral land and selling things out all buyers- not just Chinese now in New Burma- to build roads, electricity (building electricity is the best ever sales pitch, used ad nauseum all over the world, all along the history and that particular sales pitch always remains fresh and youthful and EFFECTIVE!), big, big buildings and night clubs full of girls some with and some without mini-skirts. Burma is well one the track. Ask ANY international agencies or any “western” leaders or even any side-liner ACADEMICS of any university who are aplenty.

    She just cannot understand. When there is even more democracy, as is the plan, she will not even need to bother about these poor sods who will be well ghetto-ized and out of sight and mind, oh, like today’s Kachins and Rohingya.

    Still, good of NLD to keep her in, unlike Naw Ohn Hla. Yet one can just hope she does not get disillusioned. Same goes for Latpadaung leaders who will soon be in shock.

    Salute, salute, salute Daw Su Su Nway.

  12. blinking in the light says:

    Igor

    Yes, of course.

    But AMM claimed there is no other work out there similar to his. That’s just not true. Handley preceded AMM by several years, clearly knew and accepted the risks of publishing such a work and didn’t make a song and dance about it afterwards. There was no claims of “exile”, no attacking other journalists and no background of disciplinary matters at Reuters.

    The UN and several Western govts condemned LM a couple of years ago. The UN’s comments were even published up by the Bangkok Post:
    “We are concerned about the ongoing trials and harsh sentencing of people convicted of lese majeste and the chilling effect this is having on freedom of expression.”

    http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/270159/un-criticises-lese-majeste-law

  13. blinking in the light says:

    AMM

    You wrote on this thread – “I’ve made it repeatedly clear that I understand the difficult position facing journalists in Thailand, and that not everybody can do what I did – resign and exile themselves.”

    But you were living in Singapore at the time of your resignation weren’t you? According to your wikipedia page you had lived in Singapore since 2008, three years prior to you leaving Reuters.

    Even by your own timeline above you hadn’t lived in Bangkok since 2002, which is nine years before you quit Reuters.

    This adds even more confusion to your “exile” claim.

    Like others here I remember you first stating you resigned because of your and your colleague’s treatment regarding jokes deemed sexist and offensive by Reuters.

    As for the Hiro Muromoto files – were they handed over to the Thai authorities after the Democrats lost the election? If that was the case don’t you think that was a prudent thing to do? If evidence had been handed over to parties implicated in Hiro’s death what do you think might have happened to that evidence?

  14. Bennett says:

    Jim Taylor had not explained a damn thing except to make labored excuses for Yingluck inept antics at constitutional reform; and LM reform or abolition.

  15. […] This article first appeared in New Mandala. […]

  16. Jim Taylor says:

    The opening sentence to the piece suggests that even academics can miss the point by miles. Perhaps best to understand this is to listen to say Worajet Pakeerat, Nitirat Group co-leader, who mentioned (article ” Quit thinking in regard to referendum: first solve the problem of the Constitutional Court”, in Lok Wanni-Wan Suk, Year 8 [14], vol.394, 12-18 Jan, 2556 [2013]) that the Govt is blocked by the mischievous military-amaat 2007 Constitution. They are deadlocked. There are two ways of decision making: Firstly, seek resolution by peoples vote (referendum) which means Govt must act according to vote, that is they must go ahead with a third reading. However, each MP independent rights in voting matters and need not follow party line. They do not have to go with people’s aspiration/electoral mandate as the constitution says MPs are not under influence of their party or its leaders– as we saw last time in Parliament when some PTP MPs did not support the third reading. Secondly, GOVT finds a means of consulting with people but written in the constitution the GOVT cabinet/ministers (Khana Rattamontri) cannot undertake this task. This takes power away from ministers. Changing the constitution is the decision within the Parliament which includes lower and upper houses/ elected and those non-elected Senators – many stacked earlier in 2007 by the amaat regime to control elected government. Hidden in the constitution are blocks either way one turns. Worajet says he did not want to talk about this because it is grist for the mill for the amaat/ right wing parliamentarians who of course have a free hand to control the elected GOVT. But according to law the GOVT must follow the system set out in the constitution, even they know they are like a crazy dog chasing its tail… Thailand is in a gridlock because if this current constitution which prevents PTP from making reforms and they have to go about this in ever widening circles…The amaat have manipulated the system so thoroughly to their advantage with complicit Constitutional court. if I were a betting man I would not place bets on PTP being able to do anything towards democratic reforms in Thailand in the short to medium term.

  17. tocharian says:

    You should start talking to people like Tay Za. He brokered the deal between Ivanhoe, a Canadian mining and Wan Bao the Chinese mining company that owns the “infamous” Letpadaung copper mines in a joint venture with UMEHL the “holding company” of the tatmadaw. I don’t know a lot about the jade mines in Phakant but the wife of Wen Jiabao (the outgoing Premier of China) wife is an expert about jade and other gems! Zaw Zaw, Steven Law and other “friends of Singapore” know more about these things, I guess, but if you want to really know the whole story you will have to interview the ex-generals Than Shwe, Maung Aye, Khin Nyunt, THTRTAMO “Shitlone” etc.
    But researcher beware: “Those who know won’t tell (or lie) and those who tell (or lie) don’t know” LOL

  18. Igor says:

    Blinking the Light: As you might be aware, the THE KING NEVER SMILES has not only been banned in Thailand, but people such as the U.S. citizen Joe Gordon have actually been thrown in a Thai prison for some years for the “crime” of sitting in his Colorado home and translating some of this excellent Yale University Press book and posting it to his blog. Needless to say the author of the book, a respected international journalist would be thrown in prison if he were to return to Thailand. In addition, it is well-documented that various Thai royalists tried their very best to pressure Yale University Press from publishing the book at all.

  19. bennett says:

    Google n you will find. Am not sure what farang correspondents criticisms Mcgreggor Marshall seeks but the Thai LM condemnstions by NYT WashingtonPost Economomists more recently or years ago are everywhere!

  20. Greg Lopez says:

    Two contrasting views on the Australian government handling of the Xenophon incident – Greg Sheridan and Peter Hartcher. Which one will do Australia good in the “Asian Century?”

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/bullyboy-malaysia-immature-and-australias-reaction-so-limp-20130218-2end9.html

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/nick-xenophons-grandstanding-does-us-no-good/story-e6frg76f-1226579807573