A furious Thai senator has punched his colleague in the face in the midst of a sitting session as tensions flared over who was to blame for the deaths in custody of 78 Muslims in the kingdom's south last week.
In the unprecedented scuffle, Bangkok senator General Pratin Santiprapob, a former national police chief, took a swing at his counterpart from Mae Hong Son province, Adul Wanchaithanawong, who had stormed from his seat towards him.
The brawl occurred as another senator from the capital, Chermsak Pinthong, a prominent critic of the government, released a booklet criticizing the military's handling of a protest last week that led to the 78 deaths.
Officials said the Muslims died after they were piled into military trucks for transport into custody on Oct. 25 following a demonstration at Tak Bai in Narathiwat. Chermsak claimed that he had traveled to the region to interview doctors over the deaths.
"This incident has hurt the reputation of the Senate," said Upper House Speaker Suchon Charlieklue. "I hope we're not going to turn into a Taiwanese parliament."
In the normally sedate senate, Adul interrupted Chermsak as he spoke on the podium to tell him he had spoken for long enough, prompting Pratin to leap to his defense and allude to "somebody" being a major drug trader.
Adul demanded that Pratin name who he was referring too, but Pratin sat silently. Then Adul leapt to his feet and walked towards Pratin, who stood up and made a double jab at Adul's face as stunned senators looked on.
"It was my instinct to defend myself because Adul looked threatening," the former police boss told reporters afterwards.
The meeting continued after Pratin was escorted from the chamber by security.
To lose one's temper in public in Thailand is seen as a serious loss of face, particularly for people in positions of respect.
Meanwhile, warnings that Muslim insurgents may try to abduct Buddhist teachers and students prompted most schools in the violence-wracked southern provinces to close yesterday, education officials said.
Education Minister Adisai Bodharamik said he had warned Buddhist teachers in the three Muslim-majority provinces they might be targets of attacks and hostage-taking by the militants.
An official in Narathiwat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only 41 of the province's 351 schools remained open yesterday, a day after a Buddhist leader in the province was beheaded by suspected rebels.
Most schools in Yala province and some in Pattani were also shut, the official said.
Elsewhere in the south, a Buddhist rubber tapper was slashed to death and two other people were wounded by gunfire, with the incidents seen by officials as revenge for the deaths of 85 Muslim demonstrators last week.
The body of Nguan Neiwton, a Buddhist rubber tapper, was found late on Tuesday in a rubber plantation in Yala province, police Lieutenant Colonel Narin Boosaphan said. His head was brutally slashed by a machete, the officer said.
In the third province, Pattani, a gunman on the back seat of a motorcycle opened fire on Wichien Wonchan, a road construction worker, seriously wounding him in the back, police Lieutenant Suvit Phoosathit said. A road sweeper was also wounded by gunfire in a separate incident, Suvit said.
"The troubles in the south have come with the global realities of a more radical brand of Islam in some areas," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told an economics conference in Singapore via videolink from Bangkok.
Thaksin said that last week's deaths "should never have happened," adding that it "was not the government's intention to shoot its own foot by creating an incident that would cause such great trouble for itself."
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS