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Richard Lloyd Parry (born 1969) is a British foreign correspondent and writer. He is the Asia Editor of The Times of London, based in Tokyo, and is the author of the non-fiction books In the Time of Madness, People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman, and Ghosts of the Tsunami .
He was born in Southport, Lancashire, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby and Oxford University. His interest in the Far East was sparked by a trip to Japan in 1986 that was awarded to him as a prize when he appeared on the UK TV quiz show Blockbusters .
In 1995, he became Tokyo correspondent of the British newspaper The Independent and began reporting from other countries in Asia. In 1998 he covered the fall of President Suharto in Indonesia, and the violence which followed the independence referendum in East Timor. In 2002, he moved to The Times. Altogether he has worked in twenty-seven countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Kosovo and Macedonia. [1]
While covering the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, he recovered a pair of Osama bin-Laden's underpants from a residential compound near the city of Jalalabad. [2] The following month he was one of a small group of reporters to travel to the village of Kama Ado, south of Jalalabad, which had been destroyed, along with its inhabitants, by a US Air Force attack – despite claims by the Pentagon that "nothing happened". [3] His report was the inspiration for a song by the American singer-songwriter David Rovics. [4]
In April 2003, he was the first to report that the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, the US soldier reportedly rescued during the war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, was not the heroic story told by the US military, but a staged operation that alarmed patients and the doctors who had struggled to save her life. [5]
In November 2009, he was accused by a group of Thai politicians of the crime of lèse-majesté , or insulting the monarchy, over an interview which he conducted with the deposed Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra. [6]
In September 2010, he and David McNeill of The Independent were briefly arrested in North Korea, after discovering a secret street market in the capital Pyongyang. [7] The incident inspired a controversy on the website NK News. Lloyd Parry defended McNeill and himself from accusations that they misrepresented the situation in North Korea and put their local guides at risk of punishment. [8]
Parry has published three non-fiction books:
Lloyd Parry also contributes a weblog to The Times website, entitled Asia Exile.
Thaksin Shinawatra is a Thai businessman, politician and visiting professor. He served in the Thai Police from 1973 to 1987, and was the Prime Minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006.
Sulak Sivaraksa is a Thai social activist, professor, writer and the founder and director of the Thai NGO "Sathirakoses-Nagapradeepa Foundation", named after two authorities on Thai culture, Sathirakoses and Nagapradeepa. He initiated a number of social, humanitarian, ecological and spiritual movements and organizations in Thailand, such as the College SEM.
Sondhi Limthongkul is a Thai media mogul, conspiracy theorist, pro-Beijing anti-democracy reactionary activist, demagogue, and leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). He was elected leader of the New Politics Party (NPP).
In 2005 and 2006, a series of events occurred in Thailand as a result of public anger with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that was supported by Sondhi Limthongkul and his coalitions. It led a military coup that concluded in the overthrow of the Thai Rak Thai government in September 2006, the flight of Thaksin after the court verdict, and the establishment of the junta government led by Surayud Chulanont, a favourite of privy councillor and senior statesman Prem Tinsulanonda.
Censorship in Thailand involves the strict control of political news under successive governments, including by harassment and manipulation.
The Council for National Security or CNS, formerly known as the Council for Democratic Reform or CDR, was the military junta that governed Thailand after staging a coup d'état against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Borwornsak Uwanno is a Thai legal expert, government official and professor-emeritus of Law at Chulalongkorn University. He was a principal member of the 1997 constitution Drafting Committee and served as secretary-general of King Prajadhipok's Institute and later cabinet secretary-general under Thaksin Shinawatra's government. After the coups d'état of 2006 and 2014, he helped authoring interim constitutions and served in junta-appointed legislative bodies. In 2017 he has chaired the government's Legal Reform Committee.
Joji Obara, born Kim Sung-jong is a Korean-Japanese serial rapist who raped between 150 and 400 women. He was charged with drugging, raping and killing a British woman, Lucie Blackman in October 2000, the rape and manslaughter of an Australian woman, Carita Ridgway, and the rape of eight other women.
Police General Sereepisuth Temeeyaves is the leader of Thai Liberal Party, a Party List member of the 25th and 26th House of Representatives of Thailand, and the chairman the 25th National Assemby's Committee on Corruption Prevention and Suppression.
Evan Alan Wright is an American writer, known for his extensive reporting on subcultures for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He is best known for his book on the Iraq War, Generation Kill (2004). He also wrote an exposé about a top CIA officer who allegedly worked as a Mafia hitman, How to Get Away With Murder in America (2012).
Lèse-majesté in Thailand is a crime according to Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code. It is illegal to defame, insult, or threaten the monarch of Thailand. Modern Thai lèse-majesté law has been on the statute books since 1908. Thailand is the only constitutional monarchy to have strengthened its lèse-majesté law since World War II. With penalties ranging from three to fifteen years imprisonment for each count, it has been described as the "world's harshest lèse majesté law" and "possibly the strictest criminal-defamation law anywhere". Its enforcement has been described as being "in the interest of the palace".
Jakrapob Penkair is a Thai media personality, diplomat and politician who served as a Member of Parliament for Bangkok, the Government Spokesperson of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from 2003 to 2005, and later as a Cabinet Minister to the Office of the Prime Minister from 2007 to 2008 under the premiership of Samak Sundaravej.
Somyot Prueksakasemsuk is Thai activist and magazine editor who in 2013 was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for lese majeste against King Bhumibol Adulyadej. His sentence drew protest from the European Union and from numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which designated him a prisoner of conscience. He was an editor of the “Voice of Thaksin” magazine and a prominent labour rights activist affiliated with the Democratic Alliance of Trade Unions who protested for Thai labour law reform.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish poet and essayist who writes in both Irish and English.
The history of Thailand since 2001 has been dominated by the politics surrounding the rise and fall from power of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and subsequent conflicts, first between his supporters and opponents, then over the rising military influence in politics. Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai Party came to power in 2001 and became very popular among the electorate, especially rural voters. Opponents, however, criticized his authoritarian style and accused him of corruption. Thaksin was deposed in a coup d'état in 2006, and Thailand became embroiled in continuing rounds of political crisis involving elections won by Thaksin's supporters, massive anti-government protests by multiple factions, removals of prime ministers and disbanding of political parties by the judiciary, and two military coups.
Ghosts Of The Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone is a 2017 non-fiction book written by Richard Lloyd Parry, an English reporter who lived in Japan and reported about events there for years before the 2011 Japanese tsunami, in particular, the fatal decision-making leading to the drowning of the 74 students and 10 teachers of Okawa Elementary School (石巻市立大川小学校). In this book, Parry examines and recounts the devastating impact of the 2011 tsunami on Japanese survivors, communities and society at large, including years later. "It's a...chronicle of a disaster that, six years later, still seems incomprehensible."
General elections were held in Thailand on 14 May 2023 to elect 500 members of the House of Representatives. The Move Forward Party, led by Pita Limjaroenrat surprised analysts by winning the most seats, followed by fellow opposition party Pheu Thai who had won the most seats in the 2011 and 2019 elections. Turnout was a record 75.22%. Unofficial results were announced on 15 May and official results on 25 May. The Election Commission endorsed all 500 MPs-elect on 19 June, triggering a 15-day countdown to convene the new Parliament.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a Thai scholar, associate professor and political exile. He was born in Bangkok, Thailand. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and a doctorate in Political Studies from SOAS University of London. He worked as a diplomat in Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for thirteen years, then as a political science academic, and he is currently a professor at Kyoto University, where he is editor-in-chief of its Center for Southeast Asian Studies' Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia. He is the author of several books including A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations (2005), Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His Foreign Policy (2010), and Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum in Thailand (2020).
Lèse-majesté in Japan was a special crime of defamation concerning the imperial family that was in effect between 1877 and 1947, mostly in militarized Japan. It is an act of disrespect against the imperial family and affiliated sites like imperial shrines and mausoleums. It first appeared in 1877 in the draft of the Japanese Penal Code. Later, it was stipulated in Articles 74 and 76 as one of the elements of the current Penal Code, Part II, Chapter 1, "Crimes against the Imperial Family," which came into effect in 1908. Here, the scope of the crime was extremely wide and any actions considered the act to be disrespectful was enacted. Therefore, this law forced Japanese people to support the Emperor, Shinto, and militaristic Japan during World War II. However, after World War II, in accordance with the strong instructions of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, MacArthur, and the spirit of the new constitution, which respects the equality of individuals, "crimes against the imperial family," including Lèse-majesté, were abolished in the 1947 revision of the penal code. Therefore, there is no Lèse-majesté in the current law in Japan. During the Meiji and Taisho periods, the number of people who were suspected of Lèse-majesté averaged less than ten per year, but during World War II, the number increased dramatically, and from 1941 to 1943, the annual average number rose to nearly 160.
Faiyen is a Thai political hybrid band of pop and modern luk thung, republican and human-rights activist group, and podcaster. The group emerged as a band that produced satirical songs of Thai monarchy in 2011, after red shirts' protests were suppressed by the Thai army, allegedly supported by the monarchy. The group fled to Laos, sought to evade lèse majesté law, amid 2014 Thai coup d'état. In 2019, fear of a death threat from Thai authority, current members, Khunthong, Chom, Yammy, Tito, and former member, Wat Wanlayangkoon have been in exile in France, podcasting about politics in Thailand on daily from there. Port is currently living in Bangkok, he was charged and briefly imprisoned on lèse majesté law in 2021.
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