Thai Prime Minister Seeks to Provoke Opposition over 2010 Massacre, Says Lawyer

By Amsterdam Peroff Llp, PRNE
Monday, June 20, 2011

LONDON, June 21, 2011 -


A lawyer representing Thailand’s Red Shirt pro-democracy
movement has criticized a move by Thai Prime Minister Abhisit
Vejjajiva to hold an election campaign rally at the Ratchaprasong
intersection in Bangkok, the site of mass killings of protesters by
the Army in May 2010.

“It’s not only a profound insult to the victims and survivors,
Prime Minister Abhisit is flaunting his denial of responsibility
for this atrocity in an attempt to provoke Red Shirts and shore up
support among his political base,” said Robert Amsterdam, lawyer
for the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), who
has filed an application before the International Criminal Court
requesting an independent investigation into the political violence
last year.  ”It is thoroughly indefensible that the current
Thai leadership have failed to investigate or hold anyone
responsible for these horrific human rights violations by the Army,
but it is altogether more grotesque that the Prime Minister is
incorporating these issues into his campaign with this event.
 He has now lost any remaining credibility to speak the
language of reconciliation.”

Today Amsterdam & Peroff LLP are announcing the release to
two new critical white papers detailing the false use of terrorism
charges against the opposition and the unlawful tactics used by the
Democrat Party to manipulate election results.  Numerous Red
Shirt leaders, such as Jatuporn Prompan and Nisit Sinthuprai,
continue to be imprisoned and denied bail on completely fabricated
terrorism charges, says Amsterdam, while there are also widespread
perceptions that opposition party Pheu Thai “won’t be allowed” to
form a government even if they triumph at the ballot box.

“In light of Prime Minister Abhisit’s affront to the hundreds of
Thai citizens who lost family members in last year’s Bangkok
massacres, these briefings seek to deconstruct the undemocratic
methods of the ruling party, and expose the unfair nature of the
Thai political system,” said Amsterdam.

The first report, entitled “Mark of the Beast: Branding
Opposition as ‘Terrorism’ in Thailand,” argues that the charges
laid against the Red Shirt leadership do not meet international
standards for the definition of terrorism, and that “it is much too
convenient for the government to continue to use these incidents as
an excuse to kill, imprison, and slander Red Shirts who have no
known links to the crimes in questions, while stonewalling attempts
to establish who really committed these acts and why.”

The second report, entitled “Loser Take All: The Democrat’s
Playbook to Steal the Election,” focuses on the anti-democratic
forces which have taken root in Thailand since the 2006 coup,
including unlawful party dissolutions and the new constitution
which allows the judiciary to intervene to change parliamentary
seats despite election outcomes.  ”The Democrat Party and its
associates are laying the groundwork for once again undoing the
election results in the event of an opposition victory,” the report
argues.  ”This entails framing opposition candidates that the
Election Commission might subsequently disqualify owing to presumed
irregularities, as well as fabricating cases against opposition
leaders and executives that might subsequently allow the
Constitutional Court to dissolve Pheu Thai.”

These two new white papers represent the final installments of
the five-part Thailand 2011 General Election Report Series
published by Amsterdam & Peroff LLP.  All reports and
other materials relating to Thailand’s human rights crimes against
the Red Shirt movement are available for download at href="www.robertamsterdam.com/thailand">www.robertamsterdam.com/thailand.

James Kimer, james.kimer at ksocialmedia.com, +1-917-355-0717

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