Miss Universe Thailand has resigned less than a month into her reign after being harshly criticized on social media for political comments she made and her looks.
Weluree Ditsayabut, 22, on Monday tearfully announced that she was giving up the title that qualified her for the international Miss Universe pageant.
The actress and former talk show host said she was initially pleased to have won the title, but that the hail of brutal comments on social media deriding her outspoken political views and calling her fat had hurt her family.
Photo: AFP
Weluree was criticized for comments she posted on Facebook attacking the Red Shirt supporters of the ousted Thai government for what she said was their opposition to the monarchy and calling for the execution of their leaders.
“You Red Shirts, you get out of here,” she wrote in mid-November last year before winning the title. “Thailand’s soil is dirty because of anti-monarchy people like you.”
She said that because of the criticism, “the happiness we used to have disappeared totally. When I saw my mom not being able to sleep at night, I couldn’t either.”
Weluree’s post struck at the heart of Thailand’s long-running political crisis, expressing the attitude of the elite and royalists toward the government of ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was also ousted as prime minister in a coup.
The months of unrest saw at least 28 people killed and more than 700 injured, culminating in Yingluck being ousted on May 22 by Royal Thai Army Commander-in-Chief Prayuth Chan-ocha.
In another defense of Thailand’s revered royal family, serial hunger striker Chalad Vorachat yesterday filed charges against Prayuth and his ruling military council for defaming the monarchy and committing treason.
Vorachat, a retired navy lieutenant, argues in a complaint filed with a Bangkok criminal court that the army’s intervention based on the country’s Martial Law Act had a shaky legal basis.
“In order to announce martial law, the country must be at war or there must be a violent conflict. Permission must also be granted by the prime minister and the monarch,” Chalad told reporters.
Chalad, 71, first went on hunger strike in 1992 against unelected former Thai prime minister General Suchinda Kraprayoon.
His action gave momentum to protests that the army then put down. Public outage over the violence forced former army commander Suchinda, who seized power in a 1991 coup, to resign.
This time, Chalad has been on hunger strike for 19 days seeking a constitution that will make Thailand a “true democracy.”
“If there is no prime minister from an election then let me starve until my life is over,” he said.
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