COURT VICTORIES FOR RABBLE-ROUSING JOURNALIST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGKOK 007317

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2015
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KPAO PINS PROP TH
SUBJECT: COURT VICTORIES FOR RABBLE-ROUSING JOURNALIST
SONDHI


Classified By: Political Counselor Susan M. Sutton for Reasons 1.4 (d)


1. (U) SUMMARY. One week after Sondhi Limthongkul attracted
nearly 40,000 people to Bangkok's Lumpini Park with his
"mobile talk show", the businessman-turned-media defender won
two significant legal victories, including a partial reprieve
from last week's gag order on him and his associates.
Meanwhile, the PM slapped Sondhi with a fifth lawsuit, this
time for criminal defamation. Popular monk Luangta Maha Bua
has offered to act as a mediator between Thaksin and Sondhi,
although Thaksin was reportedly too busy to show up at the
monk's suggested "peace meeting." After initially accusing
Sondhi of being in cahoots with the opposition to "topple the
government", spokesmen for TRT and the Armed Forces have
taken great care to deny the persistent coup rumors which
have been swirling about Bangkok, and which have cause the
stock market to take a noticeable dip. Tonight's rally,
Sondhi's tenth, is poised to be the biggest one yet. END
SUMMARY

TWO COURT VICTORIES


2. (U) Sondhi had asked for the support of the Thai public in
lifting the gag order which barred him and his colleagues
from directly criticizing the Prime Minister on five key
issues, On November 21, Sondhi filed an appeal against the
order. On November 24, the Thai Civil Court lifted many of
the most restrictive parts of the order, while others
remained in place. The court ruled that Sondhi and his
associates had the constitutional right to criticize and
report news about the Prime Minister, who is a public figure.
The court further stated that the defendants should be
allowed to criticize Thaksin over alleged acts of nepotism,
alleged conflicts of interest in business dealings and his
alleged misuse of state resources. The gag order would
continue to apply to events which occurred before Thaksin
became Prime Minister, including those which allegedly netted
him much of his satellite and mobile phone empire. The gag
order would also continue to bar distribution of video CDs of
three of Sondhi's nine mobile talk shows so far, since they
touched on issues which were still included in the gag order.
(NOTE: The original gag order had banned the distribution of
five shows. END NOTE)


3. (U) Sondhi also won a court victory in Yasothorn Province,
which is located in the so-called "Thai heartland" where
Thaksin draws much of his support. A provincial court refused
a request for an arrest warrant for Sondhi and his co-host
Sarocha Pornudomsak for the crime of lese majeste. The court
ruled that although Sondhi and Sarocha had referred to the
royal family and though this was "improper", there was no
evidence that they had committed the crime of lese majeste.
Lt. Colonel Thammarak Atthajak, who made the original
request, vowed that his office would continue the
investigation and would bring the case back to court with
unspecified new evidence. A second case, which had been filed
in Nakhon Ratchasima, is still under investigation by the
Central Investigation Bureau.


4. (U) On November 22, Sondhi participated in a panel
discussion on royal powers and peaceful political reform at
Thammasat University. Sondhi outlined his ideas about
reforming the constitution in order to safeguard freedom of
speech and of the press, and to protect the civil liberties
of the Thai people. Among Sondhi's suggestions were (a)-
transferring organizations like the Royal Thai Police and the
anti-money laundering office (AMLO) from executive to
legislative control, (b)- a constitutional right to
information from the Government and (c)- a constitutionally
mandated mechanism to effectively guard the public interest
against crooked politicians. Sondhi also defended his right
to speak about the powers of the monarchy, as long as it was
not in a disrespectful way, and condemned the current
government for its relentless attempts to silence his voice.


5. (U) On November 23, Thaksin filed a fifth lawsuit against
both Sondhi and Sarocha for criminal defamation. The latest
suit makes the same allegations as last week's civil lawsuit,
which resulted in the gag order. The suit alleges that Sondhi
and Sarocha made slanderous remarks about the PM by saying
that Thaksin had dishonestly secured state concessions for
his satellite and mobile-phone empire.


6. (U) Luangta Maha Bua, a controversial and popular monk,
has offered to act as a mediator between the two men in order
to prevent the conflict from destabilizing the country. It
was a sermon made by Luangta in September that sparked the
first lawsuit against Sondhi. "The Manager" newspaper, which
is owned by Sondhi, published a scathingly critical sermon
made by Luangta in which the monk compared Thaksin to an
ancient mythological monster. The PM elected to sue to
Sondhi, but purposefully left Luangta out of the lawsuit
saying the monk, a former supporter, had been kind to him in
the past. Luangta dispatched several hundred monks to offer
moral support to Sondhi on November 21. That same day he
invited both men to come to a "peace meeting" at his
monastery in Udon Thani in order to resolve their
differences. Sondhi showed up but the Prime Minister took a
rain check, saying he had matters of state to attend to, but
that he would be happy to meet with the monk, but not
necessarily Sondhi, "when time permits."

COUP RUMORS SWIRL AROUND BANGKOK


7. (SBU) In a throwback to an earlier age, coup rumors have
been swirling around the capital ever since Supreme Commander
General Ruengroj Mahasaranond warned that the army might lose
patience if Sondhi continued to refer to the monarchy in his
rallies. This was followed by statement by several members of
the ruling TRT party that Sondhi and the opposition were
working together to "topple the government". Sutin Klungsang,
a deputy spokesman for TRT went so far as to say that the
party had "a piece of in-depth intelligence that a group of
people was plotting to overthrow the government." Phumtham
Wechayachai, a Deputy Minister, claimed Sondhi's rallies were
a practice run for staging a coup. The persistent rumors have
become serious enough to have a negative effect on the Thai
stock market and have reportedly hurt short-term investor
confidence. Government spokesmen have now gone out of the way
to assure the public that there is no imminent coup with the
Defense Minister and the Prime Minister's Office Minister
assuring people that the democratic system was too firmly
embedded into Thai society for a coup d'etat to take place in

2005. Even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Sondhi
Bunyaratgalin, felt the need to step into the fray, saying
that "You can rest assured that there will be no coup as long
as I serve as the Army chief." It is possible that coup
rumors were an attempt by the TRT to taint the opposition
with a reputation for treasonous tendencies.

TONIGHT'S SHOW


8. (U) As Sondhi continues to reveal more and more of the
government's alleged indiscretions, Sondhi's rally has
morphed into a "one-part talk show, one-part national soap
opera" national media event. Organizers say they are bracing
for "at least 100,000" spectators for Sondhi's tenth show, to
be held November 25 in Lumpini Park, although this number is
surely wildly exaggerated. Bangkok police have announced they
will be employing over 1,000 officers to maintain security at
the rally, which has so far not been a problem. With much
better weather than last week's dreary drizzle, Sondhi
appears poised to top last week's show.


9. (C) Thaksin and the RTG appear to have realized that the
more they hit back publicly against Sondhi, the more popular
(and the more press coverage) Sondhi gets. The PM appears to
be experimenting with a quieter approach to his Sondhi
problem. Despite last Friday's extremely provocative show,
which accused the PM and his younger sister of corruption,
Thaksin has refrained from making any of the angry,
foot-in-mouth statements that have so often made the front
pages here. Sondhi has not been arrested, and no draconian
measures have been taken against him or his program this
week. Sondhi is now under pressure to make each show bigger
and better than the last. It may be that Thaksin is waiting
for the general public to lose interest, or for Sondhi to go
overboard by saying something that crosses the line, either
about the monarchy or about a scandal he cannot prove.
Considering Sondhi's growing number of listeners in the rest
of the country who tune in via radio, the Internet and
satellite TV, waiting for the public to get bored might be a
dangerous strategy.
BOYCE