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