<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8815/16871264997_0cf4b59000.jpg" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color:#daa520;"><em>Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2014.</em></span></p>

<div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <p id="E17" is="qowt-para" qowt-eid="E17" style="list-style-type:none;"><span id="E18" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E18">The Bangkok Pundit</span><span id="E19" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E19">, in partnership with </span><a href="http://www.thaidatapoints.com/" id="E20" qowt-divtype="qowt-field-hyperlink" qowt-eid="E20" target="_blank"><span id="E21" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E21">thaidatapoints.com</span></a><span id="E22" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E22">, has just published a </span><a href="http://asiancorrespondent.com/131763/the-curious-case-of-thailands-malapportioned-party-lis</p> </a></p></div>

<p id="E15" is="qowt-para" qowt-eid="E15" style="list-style-type:none;"><span id="E16" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E16">The adulation of Lee Kwan Yew</span><span id="E17" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E17"> on his demise is expected. Throughout his rule he had</span><span id="E18" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E18"> the support of a completely inhibited</span><span id="E19" is="qowt-run" qowt-eid="E19"> press.</span></p>

<p>Working on the well-known principle that it is far more important to conceal a scandal than deal with it, Gen Prayut last week threatened to summon a Channel 3 reporter.&nbsp; This brave young woman had travelled to Indonesia to report on the plight of Thais who had escaped slavery on fishing boats.&nbsp; Some were languishing in prison on a remote island (that the Thai media call ‘Benjina’ although that is the name of a town on Kobroor Island). &nbsp;Others sadly had died and been buried there.</p>

<div>Something rather complex just happened in Thailand. </div>

<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-48521428-4f05-d321-f161-f90c228d8fcf">Pol Sr Sgt Maj Suphan Chamnit may soon be on his way out of the police force and into a jail cell, but his recent exploits have provided some insight into the way Thai society has benefitted from the 12 core values that Prime Minister Gen Prayut has bestowed on the nation.</span></p>

<p>Thai cultural officials are becoming concerned at the proliferation on the internet of ‘underblurb selfies’ posted by politicians in an attempt to make themselves attractive to voters.&nbsp;</p>

<p style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8651/16654520560_b5c027cc34_z.jpg" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="color:#ff8c00;">The concept of “national security” is manipulated at the hands of the military</span></em></p>

<p>How refreshing to see a high-ranking Thai military officer expressing support for human rights.&nbsp; In his statement at the 28^th session of the Human Rights Council on March 2 in Geneva, former Chief of Defence Forces and current Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn had this to say:</p>

<p>The many and various oversight mechanisms of the new constitution became ever more tangled over the last week with the revelation that the National Anti-Corruption Commission has initiated an investigation into alleged irregularities at the National Ethics Assembly after a petition by members of the Senate. &nbsp;In turn, the Senate announced it would pursue impeachment proceedings against the National Ethics Assembly in response to a report from the National Anti-Corruption Commission looking into unethical behaviour by the ethics watchdog.</p>

<div><em>Without an official language policy, Thailand’s many ethnolinguistic minorities cannot experience equality.</em></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>This past Saturday marked International Mother Language Day, and while it is not particularly celebrated in Thailand, there were a couple of academic seminars in Chiang Mai and at Mahidol University in Bangkok. </div>

<p>If you haven’t already caught it, I do recommend the clip of an incident on the Paris Metro just before last week’s PSG vs Chelsea game. &nbsp;For his dignified confrontation against wilfully ignorant loutishness, the actions of M. Suleymane would be hard to best.</p> <p>After a 10-hour day, he just wanted to get home, but was pushed out of a train, twice, by Chelsea supporters chanting ‘We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it.’&nbsp; He lost his phone in the incident.</p>