Nexus of foreigners and politicians trying to weaken country: poll

Asst Prof Noppadon Kannika, the director of Super Poll Research Centre, said the survey on public harassment was carried out from August 20-28 with 5,962 respondents via social media and 1,121 through direct contact.
When asked what actions should be considered public harassment, 97.3 per cent of respondents described extreme actions by rioters such as setting people on fire as seen from the Hong Kong riots; 95.6 per cent cited the mob’s obstruction of school activities and forcing students to join the protest; 92.3 per cent mentioned name calling of people having an opposing political viewpoint as “nation haters”; 91.7 per cent spoke of cyber-bullying via social media of people with different political views; 91.4 per cent cited protesters pressuring officials to release lawbreakers; 91.4 per cent cited students who broke school rules while schools were in session; 90.7 per cent mentioned protesters blocking public roads; 90.5 per cent spoke about the cancellation of advertisements to media outlets that have different political views; and 89.8 per cent cited the dismissal of TV hosts with different political views.
Noppadon added that the centre had been monitoring the movement of social media users in Thailand during the protest on August 16 and found that 178,034 users in Thailand had taken part in the protest, but when combined with users from overseas the number of participants jumped to 7,928,482 users.
“This reveals that the political situation in Thailand could have been more peaceful if there were no interference from overseas, which is planting an illusion of chaos and stirring the emotions of the young generation of Thais,” he said. “I, therefore, would like to urge Thai people to digest news carefully and not fall prey to these agitators who clearly do not want to see Thailand become any stronger.”