Thai royalists ask that Amnesty International office be shut

By CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL
Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — Royalist activists in Thailand say they will present a petition with 1.2 million signatures to the government calling for it to shut down the country’s branch of the human rights organization Amnesty International. The activists, members of various small nationalist groups, say Amnesty International is a threat to the country’s peace and security because it criticized a court ruling that said calls for reform of the country’s constitutional monarchy are illegal. The monarchy is revered by many Thais and until recently was almost universally treated as an untouchable institution. The petition has been organized alongside a longer-term effort to enact a law to increase regulation of non-governmental organizations, an action critics have described as a threat to free expression.