STRAYANS hate justice when it's overseas.

[weemadando]

http://www.theage.com.au/national/crowd ... 210kg.html

Remember everyone. Justice is only for white people. Brown people just need a lynch mob. Way to rep Australia idiots.

[Grumman]

Someone was murdered and their friend tried to attack the murderer. From this you extrapolate "Australians hate justice"?

Wouldn't a smarter conclusion be "people whose friend was murdered only days ago might act irrationally"?

[Losonti Tokash]

Well, most people consider lynch mobs counter productive when it comes to justice.

[General Zod]

Sounds like a reverse Trayvon Martin.

[weemadando]

It wasn't the victim's friend who lashed out, it reads like it was a collection of angry white tourists who were there for the spectacle.

[tim31]

Basically that. Probably not a terribly sound decision by the authorities to re-enact the scene in public view; I don't know if their hand was forced or what.

This was a tragedy, and I'm inclined to say that the media coverage of the whole affair reeks of the notion that Australia considers SE Asia its personal playground. I agree with Anders. Way to go with the repping.

[Edi]

When we were in Thailand back in the beginning of April, we stayed at that hotel.

The place where the murder took place was basically right outside the hotel entrance. For all intents and purposes, the Kata Noi Beach is almost a private beach of the Kata Thani Resort. It's open to the public because the law requires it to be, but the resort stretches the entire length of the beach.

It's also one of the quietest areas of Phuket, because all the restaurants and bars in that area are part of the hotel or in some other hotels, there are just a few shops (a couple of tailor shops, a grocery store and a motorbike rental) outside.

The behavior of the tourists does have a lot of colonial overtones, but I wouldn't expect the suspects to get a whole lot of mercy from the locals in that area either, because if it scares off customers for the hotel, it's going to directly and negatively impact the lives of hundreds.

Given the importance of Phuket and its tourism in general to Thailand and the high profile of the case, what with the Thai prime minister and other high officials having become involved, I don't expect that the two suspects are exactly going to get very lenient treatment.

[Stofsk]

It wasn't the victim's friend who lashed out, it reads like it was a collection of angry white tourists who were there for the spectacle.

Did you even read the fucking article you linked to?

Mr Clarke said of Mrs Smith: ''She was the life and soul of the party. She would have fought. I was so close to hitting him [Surasak] because of what he did to her. I was going to punch him in the head.

''The Thai people here are mostly so good. I have a friend, Bob, whose mother was a best friend of Michelle Smith. They knew each other since their youth. I was moving to belt him [accused murderer Surasak] but the police held me back. I really wanted to punch him. The local people were with me and other Australians here. They were saying, 'Get him, get him'.''

Sounds like Mr Clarke knew Mrs Smith, so that's like totally inconceivable that he might get angry and act without thinking.

Even if he didn't know the victim, it is totally impossible for people who don't know the victim to actually feel outraged by the appalling senseless murder of a sixty year old woman over ten fucking dollars.

Incidentally your condemnation fails to include the local Thais who were also angered and had to be restrained:

AN ANGRY crowd of Australian and other foreign tourists, along with Thai locals, had to be held back from attacking two Thai men accused of murdering 60-year-old Perth mother-of-three Michelle Smith.

Seriously that's in the first paragraph. Can we generalise about Thai people hating justice in their own country?

[Losonti Tokash]

Stofsk, I think the article has been revised since it was first posted. I read the whole thing yesterday and didn't see the paragraph on Mr Clarke.

[Grumman]

Stofsk, I think the article has been revised since it was first posted. I read the whole thing yesterday and didn't see the paragraph on Mr Clarke.

It was there eight minutes after Weemadando posted it when I replied.

[DudeGuyMan]

White people are upset about something involving a non-white person. MUST BE RACISM.

[weemadando]

Certainly may have missed it, it's buried nicely. Signs like there was a connection, but certainly not amongst the whole crowd.

And seriously, why would a crowd want to watch this?


Also Dude Guy Man, look into Strayas reaction to various drug smuggling issues in SE Asia. We have a history of, at the very least, our media selling the idea that we think we're above those dirty country's laws.