One of the anti-terror laws "metes out the mandatory death sentence to convicted terrorists. Those found guilty of terrorist acts that cause death, and those funding such terrorists will both be given the death sentence."

What laws has the national legislature of Thailand passed to address the terrorist threat? Is the Thailand legislature even passing laws any longer?

Malaysia's anti-terror legislation continues: "If there is no death [caused by a terrorist act], the convicted persons would be liable to a jail sentence of between seven and 30 years."

What are the known, statutory penalties in Thailand for any "insurgent" apprehended in the process of recruiting, funding, planning, equipping, deploying and executing a terrorist attack? Or is the unelected prime minister merely pandering to the insurgents?

There is much more in the new Malaysian laws. What they demonstrate is a national government that takes the terrorist threat seriously, does the necessary pre-statutory research, and gives itself the legal tools to respond appropriately. In other words, Malaysia has put in place a coherent plan.

Note that Malaysia's new laws further specify "that terrorist acts also include giving terrorists access to devices, training facilities, and withholding terrorist information".

They do all this, and it's completely irrelevant to the matter at hand that Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country. Islamist terror has absolutely zero relationship to Islam. Everyone knows this. Yet it's also true that 99 per cent of terrorists are Muslims, who have signed on to the "Islamist" agenda of using tactical violence against civilians (shootings, beheadings, bombings, kidnappings, etc) to achieve political ends. As Malaysia has demonstrated, attacking terrorists is not anti-Muslim. It is doing what the "state" is supposed to do: protecting all its citizens from terrorist violence.

What is Thailand's plan for confronting the terrorists?

Stephen Carter

Chiang Mai

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Transparent process must be observed in Pojaman case

Re: "Pojaman charged, gets bail", News, March 27. Khunying Pojaman Shinawatra has been charged with tax evasion in the Shin case. Well and good; if guilty, her day of reckoning is long overdue.

But more important than punishing her, if she is found guilty, is ensuring that justice is seen to be done. As Hierocles noted, "We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavour to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice". If our country is to learn anything from this case, it should be that the days of double standards are over, and we have rule of law. Also, by making any guilty verdict crystal-clear, we will show that we are not on a witch-hunt.

I would rather that she be freed than found guilty if that guilt were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt - the presumption of innocence calls for no less.

But if found guilty, then she deserves the harshest punishment. She is the wealthiest woman in the land, our former leading lady, with the best advisers money can buy, including her husband, who holds a PhD in criminal justice and was a former police lieutenant-colonel. If she is found guilty, she must be jailed for the maximum time allowed by law, not just fined.

Separate from this case, but related to it, the government must show the rural poor why the corrupt steal from the impoverished, as well as from the rich - and so do not deserve their trust or vote. Otherwise, the way will be kept open for corrupt politicians to come feast at the trough.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Independence an elusive concept in modern media

Re: "Need for independent TV station is greater than ever", Opinion, March 27.

In principle, media outlets, whether print, radio or television, should be independent. Of course, it is hard to be unbiased and even harder to say no to influential stakeholders with substantial financial backing.

We have seen how the moneyed people chipped away at the neutrality of countless media outlets and, one way or the other, swung them to become their mouthpiece. There is no one formula to fit all in the Thai media landscape, but it would do all of us well to strive for an independent media stance by basing reports more on hard facts than opinion-making. While it is hard to walk this thin line, media people must try their utmost to be factual and unbiased as much as possible. Also it won't be bad to seek finances from neutral sources, rather than the well-heeled establishment, including state funds if strings are attached.

S Wansai

Bangkok

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Thai workers in Israel 'taking indigenous labourers' jobs'

Earlier this month, Arab-Palestinian women demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the government policy of importing migrant farm workers from Thailand and China. This was organised by the Workers Advice Centre, an independent labour association in Israel working mainly with Arab-Israeli farm workers who have no trade union.

One of the spokeswomen from an Arab village in central Israel was quoted in the Haaretz newspaper as saying: "I work a little here and there, I never had a steady work place, with rights. The Thai workers come and take our work from us. I feel they're taking our children's bread away."

Many of these farm workers work for Arab or Jewish job contractors under miserable conditions, earning the Israeli minimum wage of US$4.60 (Bt161) an hour, picking flowers, citrus fruits, cucumbers. It's hard to survive on that in Israel, but of course attractive to many Thai workers, who may be cheated by their employers, and who are often forced to work seven days a week.

The serious question being raised by Arab-Palestinian Israelis and the Workers Advice Centre is whether foreign migrant workers should be allowed to come in and in effect take the jobs from them that they have done for years. Thai workers are valued by Israeli employers, because they work hard, accept deplorable conditions as part of the "deal", and are not "Arab".

But Thai migrant labourers (and the people who help them go abroad) should consider whether they are hurting fellow workers in the country where they find temporary employment. Our Arab-Palestinian citizens in Israel think they are. It's part of workers' solidarity, across borders and cultures. No Thai should be encouraged to do migrant labour in agriculture or construction where indigenous working people feel they are "taking our children's bread away".

Bill Templer

Phitsanulok

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Hicks plea brings practices at prison into question again

Re: "Hicks pleads guilty before US tribunal", World, March 27.

We see a new chapter opening in the bizarre story of the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay with David Hicks pleading guilty to a "crime" of providing material support to terrorists which was interestingly only brought into existence last September. That a plea-bargain was done is without question most probably for the convenience of the current Australian Premier John Howard, George W Bush's "deputy sheriff" in the South Pacific, who is soon to face elections.

That this will in some way lessen the troubles for Howard is debatable as the status of the military body and its jurisdiction will, I suspect, haunt Howard if David Hicks is repatriated which is now highly likely.

As to what will happen to the rest of the detainees is open to question. We now know that the new secretary of defence wanted to have the aberration closed only to run into the vice president and the attorney general. However with Alberto Gonzales now in difficulty over the removal of eight US attorneys, the eventual outcome is anything but certain. Having enjoyed virtual freedom of action in the past with Congress in Republican control George Bush can look forward to difficult times ahead.

Dr Daniel W Delaware

Boston

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Backlash against US over Iraq good news for other dictators

Perhaps one of the saddest consequences of the Iraq war is that no nation will want to act as a "world policeman" again. Whatever your view on the war and its current situation, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and his removal was a good thing. But now the brutal dictators around the planet must be having a good chuckle, knowing that no nation is going to come after them. If you listen carefully you can hear the laughter from Burma.

Michael Clowes

Bangkok

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Fascinating Houdini saga captures reader's imagination

Re: "Houdini's body to be exhumed", World, March 27.

Little wonder that the great-nephew of the unique "escapologist", Harry Houdini, has organised forensic tests on the body, 81 years after the great man's death - a body which had already been buried with no autopsy when the death certificate was filed!

In the mid 1960s in the UK I read an authoritative news agency report from the US which alerted us to the fact that, in accordance with the late man's will, all the secrets of his great escapes were to be made public on October 27, 1967.

The date fixed itself in my mind because that was also to be the date on which I sat - and amazingly passed - my finals in journalism. Despite that distraction, I scanned the media avidly for the secrets of the great Houdini. In vain. All was silence. Please don't let this fascinating saga die. Again!

David Hardcastle

Chiang Mai