• OPINION

  The big issue: Sparing country [redacted]

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 14/12/2014

  » In 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorism and US military pushback, the CIA opened a secret facility in central Thailand. The agency brought two high-level al-Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, to the site and launched a new programme of "enhanced interrogation" techniques on them including physical assault and waterboarding, distressing many US officials.

• OPINION

  No, really, Big Brother is watching

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 25/06/2017

  » The Big Three of International Computing have convinced tens of millions of customers to spy on themselves. Considering this, what's the big deal when the government listens in too -- well, apart from the going-to-jail part -- at least?

• THAILAND

  You've been gouged

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 05/02/2017

  » How can we fleece you? Let me count the ways. That probably wasn't an unusual week, just a more transparent one.

• OPINION

  Rule by law

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 18/11/2018

  » As RoboCop said to arch villain Clarence Boddicker in the climactic scene of the original movie: "I'm not arresting you any more." Rather than bringing them to justice, the green shirts now hope to be able merely to bring the world's only brother-sister fugitive ex-prime minister duo to heel.

• OPINION

  Tortured verdict

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 27/08/2017

  » A truly pathetic moment in morality and warfare and diplomatic relations has ended without a whimper, let alone the attention it deserved.

• THAILAND

  112 turns 100

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 07/05/2017

  » Lese majeste enforcement turned a robust, aggressive 100 last week, shackling and "interrogating" a lawyer who fittingly enough was best known for fighting lese majeste lawsuits.

• THAILAND

  Mr X's gang unravels

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 12/02/2017

  » Sayobphairee Operation 60/1, the biggest trafficking takedown since the army chased Khun Sa back to Myanmar, began with the largest drug bust outside a nightclub urine test-centre.

• THAILAND

  The Big Issue: A torture culture

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 05/03/2017

  » Ravina Shamdasani, a human rights officer for the United Nations Human Rights Council, says Thailand has a torture culture.

• OPINION

  The big issue: Toy story

  Alan Dawson, Published on 26/06/2016

  » It was nearly eight years ago that two clever green shirts masterminded the “hidden coup” that persuaded important members of the inner circle of Lord Voldemort na Dubai to defect to Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrats and make Mr Abhisit prime minister.

• OPINION

  The big issue: The long and tortuous road

  Alan Dawson, Published on 19/06/2016

  » Torture is probably more like the weather than anything else around. It is, as US editorialist Charles Dudley Warner wrote (Mark Twain repeated it), "a matter about which a great deal is said and very little done".

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