Silencing Jatuporn
Our headline is the same as that at the Bangkok Post's website. When PPT posted on the attempt by the Abhisit Vejjajiva government and its political police to silence red shirt critic Jatuporn Promphan we concluded: "In other words, Jatuporn must be silenced, and the way to do this is to have him jailed. Tharit [Pengdit of DSI] tried to have bail revoked earlier in the month but this move failed. So he is trying again."
We noted that the court hearing refused to hear Jatuporn's witnesses and Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban statement that he considered Jatuporn had "acted inappropriately with the on intention of creating unrest in the country while on bail." Touchy Thai courts have claimed such comments contempt when made by red shirts.
When we updated that post we added this: DSI and the government can claim a partial success in getting the courts to shut up Jatuporn. The Bangkok Post reports that the "Criminal Court on Tuesday dismissed the Department of Special Investigation's(DSI) request to withdraw bail for United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship core member Jatuporn Prompan." That's the reason for "partial" as they didn't get him locked up. However, the court has "prohibited Mr Jatuporn from any involvement in a political gathering of five and more people and from disseminating political information which may cause damage to legal cases involving UDD protests." This means that Jatuporn can only speak of matters political in parliament. Another red shirt leader is effectively silenced by a repressive regime.
At the time we relied on a "Breaking News" link that has now been elaborated at the Post. That link has more details. noting that the "request for the court to withdraw bail for Mr Jatuporn was filed by DSI director-general Tharit Pengdit, who said Mr Jatuporn had meddled with witnesses and evidence, committed additional offences and revealed what he claimed were DSI reports concluding that the military was responsible for the deaths of some UDD supporters. The DSI has denied the reports are genuine."
PPT may have missed something, but we think this is a claim that has gone through a process of change over a couple of weeks, from admission, to partial denial to now complete denial (PPT includes the first two pages of one of the leaked reports in this post; the whole report is availablehere).
In this updated report, DSI chief Tharit states that:
he was satisfied with the Criminal Court's order prohibiting Mr Jatuporn from any involvement in political gatherings of five or more people and effectively gagging him. Mr Tharit said the court's order means that from now Mr Jatuporn cannot give press interviews on these legal cases, take part in a political rally of five people or more, appear on stage to speak, or distribute a document intended to disseminate distorted information.
In other words, he is satisfied that Jatuporn's political rights have been officially removed.
Chief political policeman Tharit also asserted that "DSI would take legal action against anyone who distributes any comments or documents containing false information on behalf of Mr Jatuporn." That is yet another attempt at censorship of criticism and political debate. Nothing can be permitted to sully the "official narrative."
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