Thread: MP Rangsima to sue key red

MP Rangsima to sue key red | Bangkok Post: news

MP Rangsima to sue key red

• Published: 24/02/2012 at 07:39 PM
• Online news:

Democrat MP Rangsima Rodrassamee will file a defamation lawsuit against a prominent red-shirt member, seeking punitive damages of between 10 and 100 million baht.

Wirat Kalyasiri, a Songkhla Democrat MP on the party's legal team, said on Friday that lawyers were preparing to file the suit on behalf of Ms Rangsima against Pornsak Srilamoon, a key member of the red-shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

The Democrats say Mr Pornsak defamed Ms Rangsima in a speech at a UDD-sponsored event to open 1,000 red-shirt villages in Udon Thani last Sunday.

Mr Pornsak is alleged to have cursed Ms Rangsima as being a wicked, depraved and foul woman and to have commented on her personal life. He was also alleged to have insulted the MP’s mother, according to Mr Wirat.

Mr Pornsak's speech was broadcast on a red-shirt cable TV channel.

Ms Rangsima, who represents Samut Songkhram, also said she was threatened and bullied by anonymous individuals after last Thursday’s House meeting, where she had sought an explanation from Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra about her meeting with a group of businessmen on Feb 8 at the Four Seasons Hotel.

She said filing the interpellation in the House was part of her duty as an MP, and she had no intention to defame the premier.

Ms Rangsima said she was sworn at and threatened with physical assault on her Facebook page, and had also received many letters attached with "bad things".

"There were accusations with harsh swear words thrown at my mother," she said. "If [Mr Pornsak] reproaches me I will not get angry because being a politician, one must be willing to be examined. But implicating my mother in this has nothing to do with politics and it's unacceptable."