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Thailand shocks the world with announcement of death penalty for foreigners convicted of corruption.

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Thailand’s new anti-corruption law is widely seen as targeting the country’s self-exhiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (seen on poster). Photograph: Rufus Cox/Getty Images

Thailand has enacted a new anti-corruption law that extends a maximum penalty of capital punishment to foreigners.

Previous legislation provided various punishments, including a possible death penalty, for Thai officials convicted of bribery, though apparently no one was ever executed for the crime.

The new statutes, which took effect on 9 July and are part of a separate anti-corruption law, extend those punishments to non-Thais working for foreign governments and international organisations.
The military government that took power following the ouster of an elected civilian government last year has said countering corruption is one of its major goals.

Although such action is touted as part of a reform movement to clean up Thai politics, it is widely seen as targeting former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by a previous military coup in 2006. Thaksin was accused of corruption, but also built a powerful, populist political machine that challenged the privileges of the country’s traditional elite, associated with the military and the royal palace.

  • http://www.tempimex.com Andreas Huettner

    The world is shocked?
    The only ones who are shocked are the corrupt subjects.
    Corrupt criminals and drug traffickers must be eliminated. Only then can decent and honest people, live in peace.

    • Arthur Dent

      Because some think in this way, western societies will continue to sicken. these is no one-sided coin, every civilization needs to breathe. the decent & honest people to which you refer are not the majority of any population. - perfect regulation of the behavior, actions, & personal choices of indulgence & participation, thoughts, etc, - can only happen in a fascist dictatorship. funktioniert nicht auf dauer, herr Hüttner. das haben wir schon ausprobiert, ohne erfolg. schon vergessen? freedom entails certain tolerances. ‘living in peace’ cannot exist without freedom of some type. if you have to control someone else’s rights or death, then you’re hardly decent & honest.

  • Farang Talk

    Unfortunately the whole society is corrupt. It’s a cultural issue, not a criminal one in SEA.
    The coup wasn’t about corruption anyway, more fool anyone that thinks it was. Those that believe such naivete are encouraged to read about Thai history and politics, particularly last century.

  • Paul Thode

    if they want to end corruption they need to penalize those that receive the money .. but as the military and the government are the ones who get most of it, there is no incentive for that, so now do yet another thing to keep the Thai economy in third gear

  • Ken Willoughby

    Pity it does not include Chinese Thai, the list would stretch from Bkk to Khon Kaen