OPINION

NFL games snubbed

Without even notifying me, True Visions discontinued its broadcasts of American football (NFL). That's the last straw.

I understand NFL can be viewed on AIS Play. Also, an NFL "Game Pass" can be purchased through the online platform DAZN. I need to do some more research, but the season starts on Sept 4, so there's not much time.

Principles in name

Re: "Art freedom under fire", (Editorial, Aug 13).

The BP editorial justly condemns China's intrusion. It is not for such repressive powers to censor what may be viewed at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, which callowly caved to its insistence on forced ignorance.

It was, however, stunning to read the sentence: "If Thailand presents itself as an open society, it must remain committed to freedom of expression as a principle." Did the editors write that with faces straight, or with bodies rolling guffawing on the floor?

It must be wondered what human rights advocate Arnon Nampa and other patriotic Thais unjustly imprisoned for peaceful expression would say about the mouthing of so wholesome an ideal in the brute face of a Thai law that can only be, as Hamlet so neatly puts it, "More honoured in the breach than the observance," even for those "native here And to the manner born" (Act I, scene 4).

Is it not, after all, as the current and too many previous Thai constitutions nobly insist, that "sovereign power belongs to the Thai people"?

Standards for all

Re: "Tip of the iceberg?", (About Politics, Aug 9).

Exactly the same legal standards which led to the disqualification of PT MP Pichet Chuamuangphan for violating the constitution's S114 must be applied to all other MPs and senators charged with the same crime, for all are equal before the law.

S144 prohibits MPs from altering/adding an item/amount to a budget bill in a way that constitutes a direct/indirect misuse of state budget.

Last year, under then-PM Srettha Thavisin, 309 MPs, 175 senators, and 72 committee members voted to move 35 billion baht from a budget reserved for debt payment to state-run banks to finance the 10,000 baht cash handout scheme, even though our constitution prohibits such reallocations.

If the Constitutional Court applies the same standards across the board as with Pichet, the mass purge would render the legislative branch unable to function.

Permanent secretaries, who are not elected, would govern as caretaker ministers, pending an election in the near future.

No court can afford to relax standards merely because there are a large number of defendants, for that would encourage, rather than deter, crime.

The budget reallocation is a clear and explicit violation of the constitution.

This is an excellent opportunity to show that we have a single standard for all, applied without political bias.

It also gives the electorate the opportunity to select new faces who will put national interests before their vested ones.