OPINION

Messenger blamed

Re: "Don't post crime pics, warns govt", (BP, June 11).

Not for the first time do we see the hastily made, careless, partisan and vested-interest-driven Thai lawmaking process at work.

With the new Personal Data Protection Act, would-be Joe Ferraris can suffocate and murder prisoners safe in the knowledge that any social media whistleblower who dares to post a video of the crime will himself be guilty of a criminal act.

The abuses of personal freedom which will inevitably follow from this legislation are as predictable as the tsunami of abusive cases which followed that earlier lamentable act of political repression, the Computer Crimes Act.

The Thai lawmaking process -- with its lack of transparency, virtual absence of any public consultation or participation, partisan committee structures and total absence of any effective checks and balances as we know it -- is barely fit for purpose.

Re: "Ministry set to ask for end to mask rule", (BP, June 10).

Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, a former businessman, is keen to downgrade Covid-19 from its emergency status as a dangerous communicable disease to reduce the economic burden on the government in caring for the people of Thailand.

Unfortunately, no mention of the dangerous adverse effects of the vaccines is made. According to recent studies of data collected on vaccinated populations of Western nations, at least 2-3% of those vaccinated will have severe adverse events in their lifetimes which bear a causal relationship to being vaccinated.

Furthermore, data also reveals that in the UK (which maintains a relatively reliable database) nine out of 10 people who die of Covid have been vaccinated.

The Public Health Ministry told everyone to get vaccinated and a compliant Thai citizenry did exactly that.

Of the approximately 70 million Thais, at least 1.4 to 2.1 million will suffer serious consequences. These include myocarditis, pericarditis, (heart inflammation which can have lifelong and severe health implications), neurological disorders including Guillain-Barre Syndrome (which causes paralysis and can be life threatening), blindness, Bell's palsy, shingles, thrombocytopenia, brain disorders, a wide variety of unusual cancers, reproductive disorders, and a further list of acknowledged problems too long for this forum.

One must ask the Health Ministry an important question: Who will pay?

Mr Anutin is already tip-toeing around this issue. We can presume he will continue to do so until his two lips form the word tulips so many times that people will imagine everything is just flowers and fairy tales. Of course, the primary qualification for Thai (and all) politicians is the skill of avoiding being held accountable for one's actions; nevertheless, the Bangkok landslide election gives us hope that voters will remove their failed national government soon.

Re: "Washington backs Manila in fishing ban" (BP, June 4, 2022).

It's the height of irony and hypocrisy that China issues unilateral bans on fishing in the South China Sea, purportedly to give marine resources an opportunity to recover from overfishing.

Considering that China has one of the world's most aggressive fishing fleets, regularly encroaches on the exclusive economic zones of other sovereign nations, and is widely recognised for overfishing in its own waters and around the world, it is rather disingenuous for China to bully small-scale Filipino fishers in their own waters under the guise of "sustainable fishing" regulations.