The Thai junta is trying hard to press other countries to extradite political exiles allegedly defaming the revered Thai monarchy, saying that they should think twice about the long term relations with Thailand, after it said the exiles caused the biggest single day lost of the Thai stock market.
Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, the Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, told the press on Wednesday that the Thai authority is trying to cooperate with other countries to hunt down lese majeste suspects in exiles. One of which is Somsak Jeamteerasakul, a Thammasat University’s political historian, who has been in self-imposed exile shortly after the coup d’état in May.
“We must address to other countries how those people [lese majeste suspects] have committed the crimes according to the Thai law,” said Prawit.
On the same day, Sek Wannamethee, the spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, pointed out that although western countries respect democracy and human rights, these countries should think of the long term relations with Thailand.
“No country should allow political movement against the allied countries to taking place,” said Sek.
He added that the the Foreign Affairs Ministry is closely cooperating with the Thai embassies and the foreign embassies in the country when there are news about the lese majeste political exiles and that Cambodia and Laos have confirmed that they would not allow Thai political exiles to stage political movements.
The attempt to crack down on lese majeste political exiles came after Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd, the junta's spokesman, directly accused a Thai journalist living in self-imposed exile, Jom Petpradab, of spreading rumours about the Thai King’s health, which caused the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) to plunge dramatically on Monday.
The ambiguous reference of the king’s health was alleged to be in “The inside story of the divorce between the Crown Prince and Mom Srirasmi”. The story that was written by Jom and was published on Thai Voice Media website on 13 December.
However, according to ASTV-Manager Online, the troublesome rumour was from an interview with Jakrapob Penkair, a Thai political activist living in a self-imposed exile in a neighbouring country.
Although Jom and Jakrapob were accused of being the only two culprit at first, the junta later cited that other political exiles might also be responsible for the rumour to try to undermine the military government as well.
In response to the rumours, Pol Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri, the spokesperson of the Royal Thai Police, said vaguely that people who were spreading the rumours have connections with some other lese majeste suspects.
In addition, Prawut said that the police have regularly cooperated with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) to block the lese majeste websites, but some were difficult to block because they were hosted on oversea servers.
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