Tag Archives: WorldNews

COVID-19: Spain arrests pandemic-denier who wrote ‘covidiots’ deserved ‘to die’

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Spain arrests pandemic-denier who wrote ‘covidiots’ deserved ‘to die’

Thailand’s straight-talking youth protesters gather momentum

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BANGKOK – Activist lawyer Arnon Nampa sang a medley of folk songs at a Bangkok police station on Friday (Aug 28).

Holding a cordless microphone connected to a loudspeaker, he serenaded a row of mask-wearing policemen who were keeping protesters away from 15 activists who were inside the station hearing charges for their anti-government protests.

The crowd outside kept vigil until those charged were released.

A week before, Bangkok’s skytrain stations went mysteriously silent at 6pm, when all commuters usually stand at attention for the national anthem. That was the day a tweet surfaced asking commuters to flash a three-finger salute during the anthem – a trademark of the nationwide youth-driven protests.

Alarmed at the wave of students doing this salute during morning assemblies, the director of a private school in Bangkok banned political expression on campus. The girls turned up anyway with schoolbags knotted with white ribbons – another symbol of the movement.

The defiance has been contagious. One year after an election re-installed leaders of the 2014 military coup, Thailand is seeing a swell of protests from people demanding the democracy they felt robbed of.

At least 60 protests have sprung up since May after restrictions to curb the pandemic were eased, according to the monitoring website Mob Data Thailand. They were held mostly in Bangkok but also as far as Chiang Mai, Pattani, Khon Kaen and Kanchanaburi provinces.

Loosely structured, mobilised swiftly with trending hashtags and often livestreamed, the protests have latched onto public disillusion about an economy projected to shrink by 8.1 per cent this year.

Protesters have mustered both flash mobs and hours-long extravaganzas, but stayed away from the protracted sit-ins that paralysed Bangkok in Thailand’s turbulent past. Along the way, groups allied with the movement have injected their causes in its slipstream: Labour and gay rights, school reform and – more contentiously – monarchy reform.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha warned on Wednesday that the nation would be “engulfed in flames” if the students go too far.

But government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri says it is not dismissing their demands. “We are thinking of doing something but we want to do it the proper way,” he told The Straits Times. “Because there are so many groups, we have to identify what each is asking for.”

Ask Mr Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, the 23-year-old secretary-general of the main protest organising group Free People, and he would say it’s all quite simple.

Free People demands the government stop harassing its critics, amend the military-backed Constitution and dissolve the House of Representatives for fresh elections. It also has what it calls a “dream” of a democracy with the monarch under the Constitution.

The carefully worded statement has put the spotlight on King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who since ascending the throne in 2016 has taken personal control of the multi-billion-dollar assets of the Crown Property Bureau and two army units.

Groups allied with Free People support its three basic demands, said the baby-faced Mr Tattep. “You can demand many things, but whatever problems you have – be they related to the environment, the military or the monarchy – they can only be solved by first unlocking the Constitution.”

Mr Tattep’s father, widowed six years ago, works as a Grab delivery rider. Mr Tattep supported himself while reading politics at Chulalongkorn University by giving tuition.

“I initially wanted to live the midde-class dream, find a good job and have a good life,” he told ST in between sips of chocolate frappe at a Bangkok cafe.

“But my partner said we can hardly achieve this dream under the current power structure,” he said, shifting closer to his partner and fellow protest organiser Panumas Singprom in the next chair.

Generation Z, having come of age under a royalist military government that leaned on the country’s oligopolistic conglomerates, blame their bleak future on the state of Thai politics.

They are frustrated about the longstanding political and economic suppression, said Mr Tattep. “They cannot see what their future will be like. That’s why they have come out.”

Amid the pandemic-induced austerity, which forced the government to cut each agency’s budget by 10 per cent, even once taboo subjects have gained traction.

On Aug 10, before a crowd of thousands at Thammasat University in Pathum Thani province, 22-year-old sociology and anthropology student Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul read out a list of 10 demands for monarchy reform. It included reducing the budget allocated to the palace according to economic conditions and ceasing publicity that praised the monarchy excessively.

The uproar it caused among royalists forced the deputy rector of Thammasat University to apologise. But it proved impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

A week or so later, 21-year-old Jutatip Sirikhan, president of the Student Union of Thailand, went on stage at a labour rights event in Pathum Thani to try to suggest that the budget for the palace should be redirected to social security. Guards hired by the protest organisers themselves tried to bundle her off stage.

Ms Jutatip is unapologetic. “I spoke about the reality, using public information,” said the Thammasat University student. “Social sentiments have changed. People can now speak the truth.”

Not everybody agrees: Outgoing army chief Apirat Kongsompong has alluded to the protesters as “nation haters”.

Mr Anucha says legislators are drafting amendments to the Constitution which will be forwarded to the Speaker this coming week. But he declined to comment when asked about monarchy reform: “We have to be very careful about how to proceed.”

Thailand has a lese majeste law which punishes those who insult or defame the monarchy with up to 15 years in jail. While this has not been used against the protesters yet, several activists, including Mr Arnon, Mr Tattep and popular underground rapper Dechathorn Bamrungmuang, have been charged with sedition and other offences.

Anti-monarchy activists in recent years have met grimmer fates. Last year, the bodies of two such exiles washed up on the banks of the Mekong River. They had been disembowelled and stuffed with concrete.

Asked about the possible dangers ahead, Ms Panusaya, the leader of a group called United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, told the ST: “I’m prepared. I’ve told my colleagues what to do if I die, and how they can contact my family.”

Critics allege the protests are backed by a third party. Students say they are funded by huge sales of T-shirts and public donations.

Free People will disband when Thailand achieves true democracy, says Mr Tattep. But the journey will likely be long.

In the meantime, activists have been briefing foreign diplomats.

A viral anti-dictatorship rap released in 2018 called Prathet Ku Mee, roughly translated to “My country’s got”, has become an anthem of sorts for the disaffected. According to Mr Dechathorn, a new rap will soon be introduced.

Ms Panusaya says she will not leave politics: “I have been talking to my friends, and we may start a political party. Regardless of whether we are inside the political system or outside it, we will fight.”

Her group will hold another rally at the Bangkok campus of Thammasat University on Sept 19 while a high school group called Bad Student, which shared the stage at a recent Free People protest, will hold a demonstration at the Ministry of Education in Bangkok on Sept 5.

Its hashtag: #IKnowIAmBad

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Judge orders Texas to allow online voter registration with driver’s license renewal

A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the state was violating federal law by not allowing Texans to register to vote when renewing their driver’s license online.

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A federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the state was violating federal law by not allowing Texans to register to vote when renewing their driver’s license online.In a lengthy …

Trump unleashes diatribe of falsehoods and baseless attacks in RNC finale

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Trump portrayed Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp, beat the drum of law and order and said little about racial injustice

You write him off at your peril. Donald Trump stood at one of America’s most hallowed spaces on Thursday – the White House – and bent it to his will, just as he has bent the Republican party and swaths of America.

Related: RNC: Trump paints Biden as a ‘radical’ candidate and a danger to America

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Families of Black Americans Killed by Police Had Too Many Names to Say at the March on Washington

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Black Americans who have lost loved ones to police brutality banded together Friday to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington — and they had a lot of names to say. 

“I wish George was here to see this right now,” Floyd’s brother Philonise said. “That’s who we’re marching for. For George. For Breonna. For Ahmaud. For Jacob. For Pamela Turner and Michael Brown. For Trayvon. And anyone else who lost their lives to evil.”

The families of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, and others closed out three hours of speeches from politicians, union workers, entertainers and activists on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 50,000 attendees packed onto the National Mall to listen before beginning the march to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. 

This year’s theme, “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” is a direct attack on police brutality and the killing of Black Americans. The relatives of those slain, many through tears, took to the podium to thank protestors for their support and share their condolences with others who share the same experience. 

The sister of Jacob Blake, the unarmed black man who was shot and paralyzed by Milwaukee Police Sunday, spoke directly to Americans who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I’m here to tell you in front of the world, that you’ve got the right one,” Blake’s sister Letetra Widman said. “We will not be your docile slave. We will not be your footstool to oppression. Most of all, we will not dress up this genocide and call it police brutality.”

Others, including Jacob Blake Sr., expressed mental exhaustion over the repeated slayings of black Americans by police.

“There are two systems of justice in the U.S., there’s a white system, and there’s a black system,” Jacob Blake Sr. said, calling out the killers of George Floyd, Amadou Diallo, and others. “The Black system ain’t doing so well. I’m tired of looking at camera [footage] and seeing these young black and brown people suffer.”

“I am tired of learning new names and adding new hashtags to an already long list of victims of police terror,” Botham Jean’s sister Alissa Finley echoed, invoking the names of Sandra Bland, Antwon Rose, Terence Crutcher and others.

Voting rights were also a big topic at the march this year, as USPS continues to make drastic changes that have slowed the mail, just months before a historic election where more people are voting absentee than ever before because of the threat of coronavirus. The son of Eric Garner challenged people to take to the polls this November.

“It’s been six years since my father’s words became our words,” Garner Jr. said, referring to his dad’s dying words, ‘I Can’t Breathe,’ which has since become a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. “We have to make a change. I am challenging the young people to go out and vote. Change is possible, we just have to put in the work.”

Political action was another common theme for speakers Friday. Democratic Vice President nominee Kamala Harris, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Martin Luther King Jr. III all implored people to not only vote, but to support legislation like the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

The night before Friday’s March on Washington, President Trump accepted his nomination at the RNC with a rambling, hour-and-ten-minute speech that blamed Democrats and the Black Lives Matter movement for violent protests and riots across the country in the wake of Black Americans who have died at the hands of police.