OPINION

Justice undermined

Issue should be taken with Khun Dusit Thammaraks' ill-informed assertion in his Oct 8 letter, "Just doing his job", that the 12 panelists charged for their participation in the forum in Pattani province on Sept 28 would have to "prove without doubt that they had no intention to break the law".

The preceding statement that, "[t]he 12 people who were charged could not automatically be considered guilty", is effectively nullified.

According to the law the burden of proving guilt lies squarely with the prosecution.

Ignorance of the universal right to innocence until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt is regrettably widespread throughout law enforcement, the legal profession and the judiciary in Thailand.

An accused does not have any legal obligation to prove their innocence. At least that is the theory, but unfortunately not the practice in Thailand.

For that reason Khun Dusit's remark, intended as it is to imply that the legal process the accused will be subjected to will be fair to them, must be rejected outright. The prevalence of Khun Dusit's view seriously undermines justice in Thailand and goes a long way to explain why Thailand jails more people than most other countries.

Sedition? Prove it

Of course Felix Qui (PostBag, Oct 9) is correct that it's outrageous to expect political protesters to prove they had no intention of breaking the law. You can't prove a negative.

Every dictatorship in history has referred to all political protest as "sedition". But it's up to them to prove it.

Pushing too far?

The digital minister wants all coffee shops, computer access places, etc. to turn over a list of users every 90 days. My, my, my.

Let's everyone give the digital minister a digit, left or right hand, makes no difference.

Remember Hong Kong, digital minister. People will allow themselves to pushed only so far, and no more, even docile Thais.

Military impasse

It seems pretty clear to me that the reason there has been no solution to the southern situation in the last 15 years is that the military refuses to compromise in any meaningful way and will accept no input from anyone else, in fact, even going so far as to charge well-meaning people with sedition for even suggesting the slightest compromise.

It seems to me that as long as the military continues to be one of the negotiating partners, things will never be resolved there and the people there will continue to live in fear.

Jumbo grief

Six elephants have died after trying to instinctively save one another from falling into a waterfall at Haew Narok waterfall (Hell's Fall). These are not the first deaths of innocent wildlife at this spot. The number of deaths sounds small but the national grief is great.

The accounting for the fiscal year has been done. Wildlife has never been considered in the budget. It is not too complicated to mitigate this hazard and the future risk in Khao Yai. The officials should have done something to serve and protect this national resource rather than waiting for their retirement with a pension.