Sanitsuda Ekachai
Former editorial pages editor
Sanitsuda Ekachai is a former editorial pages editor. She writes on human rights, gender, and Thai Buddhism.
Forest dictatorship at Kaeng Krachan
Enough is enough. When the meek indigenous forest dwellers fearlessly walked out of the meeting with the forest authorities in Kaeng Krachan National Park last week, their message was clear: Enough of your lies, cheating and violence. Enough of our hunger and loss of dignity from forced resettlement. Enough of threats and intimidation. We are going home for good.
Last-ditch fight against forest tyranny
After two decades of hunger and hardship -- and a life without dignity in a prison-like resettlement village -- a group of indigenous forest dwellers decided to return to their ancestral home deep in the Kaeng Krachan jungle in Phetchaburi province.
Fanaticism, hate speech and Buddhism
If your ultra-royalist friends say we need to uphold the Nation-Religion-Monarchy state ideology to protect the country's peace, order and national identity, ask them whose nation and what religion they are talking about.
Locals resist environmental dictatorship
Drenched with a heavy downpour on Tuesday night while picketing in front of Government House, Anong Kuson looked up at the ferocious sky, her face wet with tears mixed with merciless rain.
Hair saga reflects authoritarian culture
If you want to understand why dictatorship persists in Thailand, or the reason why the culture of bullying and impunity is so deep-rooted here, what happened at a public school in Si Sa Ket earlier this month offers an answer.
Demolition, lies, nepotism and impunity
Seriously? The national park authorities in Phrae province outraged the whole nation by razing a historical heritage house to the ground, and are we still going to let them get away scot-free?
Govt continues to exploit pandemic
While we dread the novel coronavirus and wish it would go away, the government is prolonging the Covid-19 pandemic scare to strengthen its iron grip on the country.
'Bleach mum' exposes welfare failure
Had not the doctors intervened, a two-year-old toddler may have been poisoned to death by his mother. They could not save the boy's four-year-old sister, however. She was already dead from the same malady.
When education supports rape culture
School rapes in Thailand happen so frequently they no longer shock. But not this one. Not when underage schoolgirls were repeatedly gang-raped by their teachers. Not when other teachers callously defended the rapists and paedophiles as "good teachers and family men", dismissing the heinous crime as consensual sex and blaming the victims as "bad girls".
Racism is fuelling more than wildfires
With the May rains coming to our rescue, we can now put the forest fires and toxic haze nightmares behind us -- until they return to haunt us again next year.
