Main post-coup agencies to attend urgent meeting amid calls for lifting of martial law
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An urgent meeting will take place today for the leaders of the five main post-coup agencies in response to mounting calls to lift martial law - among other burning issues confronting the country's rulers.
Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, as chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, will chair the meeting.
It will be the first meeting of the NCPO, the Cabinet, the National Legislative Assembly, the National Reform Council and the Constitution Drafting Committee and is scheduled to start in the afternoon at Army headquarters.
Prayut yesterday took a tough stance ahead of the meeting, hinting that the junta’s orders would not be lifted anytime soon.
“Do not tell me to relax the different orders that were issued,” he said.
“Orders and orders and laws are laws. To ease the orders is like relaxing the law. It’s because the orders are laws.”
The prime minister denied playing a role in the changes within Thai PBS.
He said that he did not order one of the station’s hosts, Nayyana Wawweerakup, replaced after she was accused of upsetting certain junta figures with her interview questions.
However, he added that it was unacceptable for the media to criticise the government and the NCPO while they were facilitating national reform.
“Personally, I can’t accept that. Please sympathise with us,” he said, adding that media freedom would not be affected.
Media chiefs to be invited
He also said that the authorities would summon media executives soon to discuss cases involving breached agreements between the two sides.
At today’s meeting the problems facing the five agencies would be discussed, an NCPO source said.
The meeting was called at a time when the government and the NCPO are facing the fallout from the controversy involving public broadcaster Thai PBS.
Along with the abandonment of martial law, which has been in effect nationwide since the coup on May 22, there have been calls for the lifting of NCPO orders restricting media freedom.
“The NCPO chief is worried that those issues will become obstacles to the work of the government and the NCPO,” the source said.
“This may affect the NCPO’s [reform] roadmap. He [Prayut] wants all the people involved to attend this meeting.”
