The spokesman of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has come out to defend the deployment of military personnel to observe political activities by parties and individual politicians in order to ensure peace and order and to prevent incitement of unrest.
Colonel Winthai Suvaree said Sunday that the troop deployment was not intended to restrict the right to engage in activities by parties or individual politicians provided that they are within the law and within the scope of political activities permitted by the NCPO.
He insisted that military personnel had been cautious in their performance of duty that it would not impact on lawful political activities.
He said that the spread of false information or inflammatory remarks was a common practice by several politicians in the past, but this would not be tolerated by the NCPO in order to protect public interest.
However, he said most politicians and parties understood the military and why they had to strictly enforce the law to create an atmosphere conducive to the next election.
