Leader of the Progressive Movement, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, issued a statement on Thursday explaining his action on Monday, which resulted in him facing several charges.
On Monday, Thanathorn went on Facebook Live to slam the government for its tardiness in providing Covid-19 vaccines. He also pointed to royal links with Siam Bioscience, which is tasked with manufacturing the vaccine locally.
His announcement prompted the Digital Economy and Society Ministry to immediately file lese majeste charges against him, as well as the charges of violating the Computer Crime Act.
Undeterred, Thanathorn insisted on Thursday morning that making vaccines available in February was too late, especially since other countries like Israel, UAE, the UK and the US, have started inoculating their people.
He also said that inoculating people as soon as possible will help stabilise the country’s economy, adding that the only thing the government has successfully done, so far, is purchasing 26 million doses from AstraZeneca. Thanathorn said the 26 million doses plus the 2 million doses from China’s Sinovac is not enough to inoculate the entire population.
He said many countries have made deals with different producers so they can procure enough vaccines for their populations. In fact, he said, some have even purchased more than is required.
Thanathorn also said he believes the Siam Bioscience/AstraZeneca deal is a private one that the government has signed, which explains why the number of vaccines to be procured is not enough to cover the entire population.
He also questioned why Siam Bioscience was the only corporation that has been given the right to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine in Thailand. Besides, he pointed out, this company also gets funding from the government.
Thanathorn also slammed the government for slapping him with charges, saying he was within his rights as a citizen to speak up.
The pro-democracy Ratsadon group announced on Facebook that it is looking into police investigators’ claim that one of the group’s guards had faked his abduction on Saturday night.
Ratsadon guard Mongkol Santimetakul was charged on Wednesday for providing false testimony, as police claim they have evidence showing he had not been abducted.
Mongkol said he had been pulled into a van by a mysterious man as he was making his way to his dormitory in Muang Samut Prakan’s Soi Judsun Sanoh.
Samut Prakan police said they checked CCTV footage in the area, and showed that after Mongkol finished shopping at a convenience store in Samut Prakan’s Soi Bang Pu Municipality 30 on Saturday night, he went to Ingthan Place building in Soi Bang Pu Municipality 47. He was then apparently caught on CCTV leaving the building at 11.57am on Sunday.
Police also claimed that Mongkol had spent the night alone in a room on the eighth floor, and had used an ATM during the time he said he was abducted.
In a statement delivered by Ratsadon’s key member Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul, the group said it was closely monitoring the investigation. It also said it believes in humanitarian principles and if persons are abducted or attacked, the group will protect them and unveil those behind it.
“As Panusaya has said, no human can be neglected. Though there is no evidence at this time to prove he was abducted, as the government and police continue intimidating people in the country,” the statement said.
The group added that it will continue communicating via social media since Covid-19 is still spreading in Thailand.
Progressive Movement leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday that the government’s reaction to his statement on Monday on Covid-19 vaccine transparency only increased his doubt that a royally owned pharmaceutical company had received special treatment in the country’s vaccination plans.
On Monday, Thanathorn went on Facebook Live to slam the government for its tardiness in providing Covid-19 vaccines and also claimed the company – Siam Bioscience – tasked with manufacturing the vaccine locally, is owned by the Monarch, leading to the Digital Economy and Society Ministry filing lese-majeste charges on Wednesday afternoon.
He wrote: “I demand that the government unveil vaccine manufacturing and related contracts to prove there is transparency in the selection process, as follows:
“1. The manufacturing contract between AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscince, that states the number of doses, manufacturing cost, selling price and other related details.
“2. The budget contract between the National Vaccine Institute and Siam Bioscince, that states the total budget for vaccine manufacturing, detailed usage and other conditions.
“3. Minutes of the National Vaccine Institute’s meetings that are related to the setting of conditions, qualifications and details of companies to be funded by the government to manufacture the vaccine.
“I totally agree with the government or private sector receiving technology to manufacture the vaccine,” Thanathorn said. “However, I only doubt the transparency in the selection process of the manufacturer, as well as the government’s administration of the vaccine plan that seems to lack risk diversification, which will only result in Thai people receiving the vaccine late and with smaller coverage than other countries,” he added.
Democrats take control of 50-50 Senate, with Harris presiding for first time
PoliticsJan 21. 2021Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff after the inauguration on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
By The Washington Post · Mike DeBonis · NATIONAL, POLITICS, CONGRESS ·
WASHINGTON – Democrats claimed control of the Senate by the thinnest possible margin Wednesday as Vice President Kamala Harris swore in three new Democratic senators, bringing Republicans and Democrats to an even 50-50 split in the upper chamber.
Harris, appearing in her role as Senate president hours after her inauguration as vice president, will serve as the tiebreaker, giving her party a one-vote majority – and thus the power to set the agenda in Senate committees and on the Senate floor.
The changing of the guard took second billing Wednesday to Joe Biden’s ascension to the White House. But with Democrats already in control of the House, the transition in the Senate holds enormous implications for Biden’s ability to staff executive agencies and pass legislation at the dawn of his presidency.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the incoming majority leader, has laid out goals for the opening weeks of the new Democratic Senate, balancing the need to confirm Biden’s most important nominees with the new president’s desire to pass another pandemic relief bill, at a cost of nearly $2 trillion. Meanwhile, Schumer expects to conduct an impeachment trial for former president Donald Trump, who stands accused of fomenting a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol two weeks ago.
On Wednesday, Schumer declined to provide further details on the path ahead. “Today’s Joe Biden’s day,” he told reporters. But even as the inauguration festivities wrapped up early Wednesday afternoon, it remained unclear whether the Senate would be able to confirm any of Biden’s nominees by the end of his first day in office.
If none are confirmed, it would be a break with recent practice: Trump had two nominees confirmed on his first day in office, while Barack Obama had six and George W. Bush had seven. As the Senate convened, aides said they were still working to clear one Republican senator’s concern and arrange a confirmation vote for Avril Haines as director of national intelligence.
Nominees for the Departments of State, Defense, the Treasury and Homeland Security probably will wait until later this week, or perhaps next week, because of a combination of procedural hurdles and GOP objections.
The three senators who began work Wednesday include Harris’s replacement, Alex Padilla, the 47-year-old former California secretary of state and son of Mexican immigrants who was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Harris’s term.
Also sworn in were the two Georgia Democrats whose victories in a pair of Jan. 5 runoff elections sealed the transition of power in the Senate: Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old media executive, and Raphael Warnock, a 51-year-old Baptist minister who became the first African American senator to represent Georgia.
“Today, America is turning over a new leaf,” Ossoff told reporters. “Georgia has sent a young Jewish man and a Black pastor to represent our state in the U.S. Senate. It’s a sign of generational and epochal change for our state.”
It is also a reflection of the contemporary Democratic coalition, which over the past decade has been increasingly built on a rising number of affluent White voters along with large majorities of the nation’s Black and Latino voters.
They join a Democratic caucus intent upon delivering early, tangible results for the new president, starting with an improved response to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed about 400,000 Americans and wreaked economic devastation. Ossoff and Warnock pledged during their campaigns to deliver $2,000 stimulus checks to their voters – $1,400 more than what was provided in a relief bill that Trump signed last month.
In his inaugural address Wednesday, delivered from a rostrum overrun by violent pro-Trump rioters just two weeks ago, Biden called on Americans – and his former Senate colleagues – to “step up” and confront a “time of testing.”
“We face an attack on our democracy and on truth, a raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis,” he said, adding: “It’s time for boldness, for there’s so much to do. And this is certain – I promise you we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.”
Democratic senators leaving the speech said they would meet Biden’s challenge, sidestepping the obstacles presented not only by their Republican counterparts but the Senate’s circuitous procedures meant to empower the minority party.
“I’m excited about a chance to show America what we can do when we’re in the majority,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. “There’s a lot of promise in these coming days. We will get it done.”
There are also considerable warning signs: For one, Schumer and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the top Republican leader, have yet to consummate a power-sharing agreement enshrining how the Senate will operate under a 50-50 split. Such an agreement is essential to constitute committees, set staff budgets and reach a mutual understanding for how the chamber – which handles a vast amount of business by unanimous consent – can operate smoothly.
McConnell signaled this week that he is looking for assurances from Democrats that they will not abandon the legislative filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 senators to agree to end debate and proceed to a final vote.
Democrats are under pressure from liberal activists to ditch the filibuster to pass major planks of the Biden agenda, including legislation addressing voting rights, the climate and police oversight, not to mention government spending and tax bills that historically have been the focus of pitched battles between the two parties.
The last time the Senate was evenly divided, in 2001, the two parties agreed to a far-reaching power-sharing arrangement that kept committees evenly split but otherwise gave the party with the vice presidency – in that case, the GOP – the crucial power to set the agenda. But that was a less partisan era on Capitol Hill, and the filibuster was not under threat as it is now.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the No. 3 GOP leader, said it was prudent for McConnell to insist on assurances given the partisan environment. He noted that Republicans insisted on maintaining the filibuster in the first two years of Trump’s presidency, when the GOP controlled both the House and the Senate.
If Democrats seek to eliminate the filibuster, he said, “I think it would be very destructive.”
Other Republicans adopted a more conciliatory tone, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, one of a clutch of centrist senators who helped negotiate last month’s pandemic relief bill.
“We’re going to have some issues that we just fundamentally disagree with,” Murkowski said. “But, I think, to the president’s words, you can still disagree from a policy perspective and you can do so in ways that are still respectful and allow you to continue to work toward other goals.”
However, the difficulty in securing quick nominations threw a pall over the happy talk on Wednesday. Aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said the most likely Biden nominees to be quickly confirmed were Haines and treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen. But securing an immediate vote requires all 100 senators, Republican and Democrat, to agree to expedited procedures.
Haines’s nomination was being held up by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who was seeking clarification of a comment she made in a Tuesday hearing about whether she would seek to take action against CIA officers involved in post-9/11 detainee abuses, according to aides familiar with the matter.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a tweet that he skipped the inauguration ceremony “because I am working on addressing the remaining objections to an expedited Senate confirmation of President-Elect Biden’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence.”
“It’s important we do this as soon as possible,” he said.
Three other nominees – Gen. Lloyd Austin for defense secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas for homeland security secretary and Antony Blinken for secretary of state – had hearings Tuesday but must clear various hurdles before receiving final votes.
The delays vexed Democrats, who acknowledged that the late date of the Georgia runoffs had delayed Senate proceedings. But they laid greater blame on the unusually bitter transition period since the Nov. 3 election.
“Look, the transition was delayed far too long by President Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about how he won the election,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden confidant. “There were confirmation hearings for a whole series of [Biden’s] seasoned and capable Cabinet nominees . . . really capable folks. We should be confirming them today.”
The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry has filed lese majeste charges against Progressive Movement leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit for his statement on Thailand’s Covid-19 vaccination plans and linking it to a royally owned pharmaceutical company.
Thanathorn also faces charges of violating the Computer Crime Act.
On Wednesday afternoon, DES Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta tasked vice minister Newin Chochaiyathip to ensure Thanathorn reported to the Technology Crime Suppression Division.
On Monday, Thanathorn went on Facebook Live to slam the government for its tardiness in providing Covid-19 vaccines and pointed out that the company – Siam Bioscience – tasked with manufacturing the vaccine locally is owned by the King.
Thanathorn said the government claims to have approved a vaccine plan from the first quarter of last year, but Siam Bioscience was only added to the plan in the second quarter of 2020 – when anti-establishment protesters began holding their rallies. Hence, he asked whether the AstraZeneca-Siam Bioscience deal was politically motivated.
The operators of Iconsiam apologised on Tuesday after one of its guards was videoed assaulting a student protester who was expressing political opinions in the complex.
The Iconsiam Facebook page promised an investigation and punishment for the guard if he was found guilty of slapping the student.
The pro-democracy Ratsadon protest group named the victim as Benja Apan, a 21-year-old student from Thammasat University.
Benja is among protesters charged with lese majeste over a demonstration at the German Embassy on October 26.
Ratsadon added that she was restrained by the guard as she tried to leave the complex. Her friend attempted to livestream the fracas via social media, but another guard tried to snatch the smartphone from her hand. Benja was then slapped by the guard and the livestream ended, said the group.
Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the record prison sentence handed to Anchan Preelert for lèse majesté and computer crimes as “yet another serious assault on Thailand’s vanishing space for freedom of expression”. Meanwhile Human Rights Watch called the verdict “shocking” and “a spine-chilling signal that not only criticisms of the monarchy won’t be tolerated but that they will also be severely punished”.
Anchan was sentenced to 87 years in prison by the Bangkok criminal court on Tuesday, though her prison term was halved because she agreed to plead guilty. The former civil servant’s crime was to share audio clips deemed insulting to the monarchy.
“The fast-rising number of individuals facing charges and being detained under the lèse majesté law demonstrates the Thai authorities’ relentless drive to silence dissent,” said Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific regional director, Yamini Mishra.
“Today’s extreme sentence is a case in point, and shows why this law is inconsistent with international human rights law.
“Defamation should never incur a criminal conviction in the first place, let alone an extremely long jail sentence like today’s,” Yamini added.
Amnesty also decried the “appalling treatment” of Anchan since her arrest in 2015, including pre-trial detention for years.
“The Thai authorities must halt their crackdown on peaceful dissent. The government must repeal or significantly revise legislation which gags freedom of expression both on- and offline, such as the lèse majesté offence and the Computer Crime Act used in today’s verdict,” said Yamini.
Anchan faced 29 counts of lèse majesté under Article 112 of the Criminal Code and provisions of the Computer Crime Act. She was arrested in January 2015 and detained for nearly four years until November 2018, then released on bail.
Anchan was initially detained incommunicado in a military camp for five days before her transfer to a detention facility and repeatedly denied bail.
The court convicted her for allegedly sharing and uploading clips on social media of an online talk show alleged to have made defamatory comments about the monarchy.
Anchan pleaded guilty to the charges and received a consecutive three-year sentence for each of the 29 lèse majesté offences, or 87 years – the harshest conviction under Article 112 to date.
More than 220 people, including children, have faced criminal charges for their alleged involvement in peaceful protests throughout 2020. Of those, dozens have been charged with sedition and lèse majesté.
Amnesty noted that Thailand is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to freedom of expression. The UN Human Rights Committee, the treaty body responsible for interpreting the ICCPR, has stated that “imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty” for defamation-related offences such as lèse majesté.
The Progressive Movement leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit slammed the government for its tardiness in providing Covid-19 vaccines and pointed out that the company tasked with manufacturing the vaccine locally is owned by the King.
In a Facebook Live session on Monday, Thanathorn said the government has been careless in negotiations for the vaccine, adding that Thailand only completed discussions with AstraZeneca in October last year. In comparison, he said, several countries had started discussing purchase options with vaccine producers in the first quarter of 2020.
Moreover, he said, the 26 million doses purchased from AstraZeneca is not enough, and even with the 2 million doses the government is buying from China’s Sinovac, only 21.5 per cent of the population will be covered.
He added that the Cabinet had on January 5 okayed the purchase of another 35 million doses from AstraZeneca, but the contract for this plan has not been signed yet. So, the leader of the now-defunct Future Forward Party asked if these 35 million doses were part of the earlier deals with AstraZeneca and Sinovac.
As for the vaccine manufacturing deal with royally owned Siam Bioscience, Thanathorn said the company is tasked with producing 200 million doses per year. Of this, 176 million will be sold to other countries in the region, while the remainder will be sold locally.
Siam Bioscience was established in 2009 with an authorised capital of Bt48 billion, but over the past 11 years, the corporation has made losses worth Bt581 billion, Thanathorn said.
The government, meanwhile, has announced it will give Siam Bioscience Bt1.44 billion for the project.
The Progressive Movement’s leader also said the government claims to have approved a vaccine plan from the first quarter of last year, but pointed out that Siam Bioscience was only added to the plan in the second quarter of 2020 – when anti-establishment protesters began holding their rallies.
Hence, he asked whether the AstraZeneca-Siam Bioscience deal is politically motivated.
He also suggested that the government should consider other choices, adding that it is imperative for the authorities to start providing vaccines as soon as possible.
He also said he was curious to find out if the prime minister will compensate people in case the procurement of vaccines – considering the government has chosen very few options – encounters problems.
In response to Thanathorn’s statement, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the Covid-19 vaccine is an important matter and should not be linked to politics.
A Pheu Thai Party member of Parliament, Yutthapong Jarassathian, told a press conference on Tuesday that a “luxury watch” he was accused of failing to report to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) was not expensive enough to warrant disclosure.
According to NACC regulations, any asset worth more than Bt200,000 owned by political officials and their spouses must be reported in the list of assets they submit.
Reungkrai Leekitwattana, a lawyer, former senator and former party-list MP of Pheu Thai, had earlier sent a letter to the NCAA to investigate Yutthapong’s watch.
Reungkrai said that the asset list Yutthapong had submitted to the NCAA on May 25, 2019 did not mention the watch that he was wearing. However, the asset list of Yutthapong’s wife, valued at Bt9.55 million, included a luxury watch worth Bt1.5 million.
“My watch costs only about Bt10,000 and therefore is not needed to be reported to the NCAA,” said Yutthapong, the MP from Maha Sarakham province.
After the conference concluded, Reungkrai walked up to Yutthapong and offered to buy the watch for cash, but Yutthapong did not respond and walked out of the room.
Attackers who threw a bomb at a Sam Yan intersection protest on Saturday have fled to Bangkok’s Thonburi district, the Metropolitan Police Bureau said on Monday.
The attack occurred as pro-democracy protesters gathered at the intersection in front of Samyan Mitrtown, to demand the release of protesters arrested at Victory Monument earlier in the day.
The improvised bomb exploded at around 6pm, injuring four people – a passer-by, a reporter and two policemen.
Metropolitan Police chief Pakapong Pongpetra said evidence indicates the bombers have escaped to Thonburi district.
He added that the blast was caused by a so-called ping-pong bomb, similar to the one used in a recent brawls between vocational students in Samut Prakan province.
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit
(File Photo)
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff after the inauguration on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit
Metropolitan Police chief Pakapong Pongpetra
SootinClaimon.Com 