OPINION

The right to question

Re: "Researcher defends govt's vaccine deal" and "Vaccine buy bears up to scrutiny", (BP, Jan 25).

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha shouldn't be surprised that taxpayers scrutinise his usage of their money closely, including him buying Covid-19 vaccines. After all, he staunchly defends a minister convicted of smuggling 3.2kg of heroin into Australia and our Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ranking has worsened under his watch (2014: 85th most corrupt country in the world; 2019: 101st).

Thus, it's excellent that neutral third parties, such as the Thailand Development Research Institute and Veera Prateepchaikul (former editor of the Bangkok Post) have probed and given their opinion on the government's procurement process for this vaccine. Other parties -- especially the Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand and Oxford A-Z, should also weigh in.

Given the taxpayer funds involved, all related contracts need to be made public immediately.

Such a lame attack

Re: "Vaccine buy bears up to scrutiny" (Opinion, Jan 25).

In his latest attack on Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, Veera Prateepchaikul tries to put the blame on the former. But the lame effort to shift blame won't work. If Thai law were not morally corrupt, it could not be used as intended to silence healthy discussion. That someone expresses an opinion that upsets someone else, that causes offence to another, cannot be a just reason to imprison that person. As usual, Veera totally misses where the true moral wrong lies here. There is no morally sound defence of Thailand's lese majeste laws, which bestow only harm on Thai politics and society.

Veera also makes some dubious assumptions about the motives of different businesses and their owners. Although he is probably right that Thanathorn is a capitalist, if wealth is to be an indicator of motive as Veera implies, then he should also have named the far wealthier party. Although we expect complex humans to be capable of having multiple motivating factors, surely actual amassed wealth is one of the reliable indicators of motive, is it not? Thanathorn does not pretend that he does not seek to be a successful business owner amassing wealth, nor should he.

It must also be wondered whether Veera thinks that lifestyle might provide clues to motive. So far as I know, and I might be wrong, Thanathorn's lifestyle seems pretty simple and not notably extravagant. He seems content with a modest sufficiency of material comforts as he devotes himself to family and work, including his selfless political work for the betterment of the Thai nation.

Barbaric lockdowns

Closing down schools is a crime against humanity. Although it is extremely rare for a child to die from the coronavirus, 18 children in the American state of Nevada have committed suicide since the school lockdown. My guess is that most people who support closing down the schools either don't have children or they're rich snobs who send their children to private schools where there are no lockdowns.

I don't think we should do nothing about Covid-19. In fact, I generally support the policies of Sweden and South Korea, which have been aggressively fighting the virus without resorting to barbaric lockdowns that are destroying the lives of millions of people and are nothing short of an atrocity against children.