Concerns over Thai emergency law

Concerns over Thai emergency law

In answer to coordinated, deadly attacks by insurgents in the Yala Province capital last week, the government has given itself emergency powers never seen previously in Thai law. The executive decree has supplanted the dangerous, murderous assault on Yala as the center of attention. These new emergency powers appear to be he wrong response, at the wrong time. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has defended the decree by saying critics are ill- informed. That response only raises the question of why the government has failed to fully explain the situation, and thus its justification for suspending civil rights. The new law even takes precedence over martial law declared in the three provinces of the far South last year. Passage of an emergency decree more draconian than those of military dictatorships raises questions, like what does the government aim to achieve in the south? Martial law had already set aside many common civil rights. -- Bangkok Post