Former Thai PM to be indicted for insulting royal family

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is set to be indicted under the country's strict laws on insulting the royal family, which carry a maximum jail term of 15 years.

Transcript

00:00Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned from self-imposed exile last year and was

00:06immediately handed an eight-year sentence on charges of abuse of power and conflict

00:11of interest.

00:12But he only ended up serving about six months of those, entirely from hospital, before he

00:16was released on parole this February.

00:19Now, that led a lot of people to speculate that he and his political party, Perthai,

00:24which is the ruling party here in Thailand, had done a deal, had done this grand bargain

00:29with their sworn enemies, their bitter rivals, the conservative parties and the military

00:34that had ousted him in a coup in the first place.

00:37So these charges, this indictment, did come somewhat as a surprise, and I think it really

00:42shows that Thaksin Shinawatra still has some very powerful enemies within the royalist

00:47establishment.

00:48Now, his is the most high profile of these less majestic or royal defamation cases that

00:55Thailand's ever seen, but he's just one of hundreds of people who've been prosecuted

00:59under these laws, which are some of the strictest of their kind in the world.

01:05Just this week, a politician from the opposition Move Forward party was given a two-year sentence

01:11under the less majestic laws.

01:13And about a fortnight ago, a young activist who was being held in pretrial detention was

01:19hunger striking, and she died.

01:22And that really reignited this debate and this anger over these laws, and what many

01:28say is a need for justice reform.

01:30Now, all of this comes while the Prime Minister, Setar Tavison, faces his own legal dramas.

01:36Basically, there was a cabinet reshuffle here back in April.

01:40Setar Tavison appointed to the ministry a man called Pichit Chernban.

01:44The problem was that Pichit had served time in jail.

01:48He'd served about six months in jail back in 2008 for allegedly attempting to bribe

01:53a judge in yet another of Thaksin Shinawat's legal cases.

01:57Now, the Thai constitution says that anyone in the ministry has to be of evident integrity.

02:03So he immediately announced his resignation last week in an attempt to try to protect

02:08Setar Tavison from the legal fallout of this, but it's unclear if that will work.

02:13The Prime Minister, Setar Tavison, now has about two weeks to put forward his case of

02:19why he made that appointment in the first place, or he risks being ousted as Prime Minister.

02:24So this is by far the biggest threat that he and his government have faced since they

02:30came to power last August.

02:32So plenty more turbulent, tumultuous times ahead in Thai politics, but obviously this

02:38is a place that is no stranger to political turmoil.

02:43For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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