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By Victoria Ho
Mashable.com
Thailand's ruling military dictatorship is in the spotlight after an opposition party member's Facebook posts detailing his detention by the army this week went viral.
Watana Muangsook, former commerce minister and a senior member of ousted Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai political party, was taken from his home Wednesday by army officials, and detained at an army base for an "attitude adjustment" session before going through police interrogation.
This was because he made a post on Facebook the day before, calling deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan "sexist." After his detention, he appeared in court on Thursday on charges of committing computer crimes, which carries a punishment of five years in prison. The politician is out on bail now, and plans to fight the charges.
(SEE ALSO: Thai politician hauled up for Facebook post calling general 'sexist')
The junta wrested power from the Pheu Thai in a 2014 coup. Under its head, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the military government has exercised tough control on over its detractors, and threatened "attitude adjustment" detention from time to time.
This isn't the first time the junta has forcibly detained a dissenter, but the Pheu Thai is taking its outrage as far to the top as it can. It said it wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday, complaining that Watana's detention and charges against him were "disastrously in violation of human rights and the rule of law."
But the military rulers appear to be sticking to their guns on their methods.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit told local reporters after Watana's release: "If they speak so 100 times, they will be summoned 100 times." He added that "attitude adjustment talks" can last between three and seven days, and that Watana was called up for "expressing false information," not for insulting him.
"He expressed an opinion that misled society, so we invited him for talks," the Bangkok Post quoted him as saying.
Detention conditions for 'attitude adjustment'
Watana has been fairly outspoken on Facebook, but the politician didn't get into details of what happened during the "attitude adjustment" session he went through on Wednesday. He did say in an update posted hours after his release that he was held in a 5x8 metre cell at the 11th Army Circle base all day, where two sets of army personnel came to "talk" between 11:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. before he was released.
Previous detainees have been held for longer, seemingly harsher sessions. Former reporter with Thailand's The Nation newspaper Pravit Rojanaphruk has said that his three-day detention in September 2015 involved jail-like conditions.
This isn't the first time the junta has forcibly detained a dissenter, but the Pheu Thai is taking its outrage as far to the top as it can. It said it wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday, complaining that Watana's detention and charges against him were "disastrously in violation of human rights and the rule of law."
But the military rulers appear to be sticking to their guns on their methods.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit told local reporters after Watana's release: "If they speak so 100 times, they will be summoned 100 times." He added that "attitude adjustment talks" can last between three and seven days, and that Watana was called up for "expressing false information," not for insulting him.
"He expressed an opinion that misled society, so we invited him for talks," the Bangkok Post quoted him as saying.
Watana has been fairly outspoken on Facebook, but the politician didn't get into details of what happened during the "attitude adjustment" session he went through on Wednesday. He did say in an update posted hours after his release that he was held in a 5x8 metre cell at the 11th Army Circle base all day, where two sets of army personnel came to "talk" between 11:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. before he was released.
Previous detainees have been held for longer, seemingly harsher sessions. Former reporter with Thailand's The Nation newspaper Pravit Rojanaphruk has said that his three-day detention in September 2015 involved jail-like conditions.
Another critic of the military government, Thai academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun, claimed last week (prior to Watana's detention) that the military was harrassing his family in Bangkok by showing up to their home twice in a week and threatening to cart them off to army camps for "attitude adjustments." The junta told AFP it was not aware of the allegations.
Commenting on their detention, the general told reporters that he won't shy away from calling up dissenters for the treatment. "Everyone whose comments cause division, bad intent to the government, criticizing the things the government didn't do, causes trouble and blames a government that's trying to improve the country, I will consider," Prayuth said.
IMAGE: SAKCHAI LALIT/AP
