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Thai Court Dissolves Pro-Democracy Opposition Party

Zsombor Peter

   BANGKOK - Thailand's Constitutional Court on Friday ordered the
   dissolution of the country's most vocal pro-democracy party, the Future
   Forward Party, after determining it took an illegal loan, an action
   expected to strengthen the hand of the pro-military government at the
   opposition's expense.

   The court also banned 16 of the Future Forward Party's top executives,
   most of them serving lawmakers, from politics for the next 10 years.

   The party has denied any wrongdoing and decried the case as politically
   motivated.

   ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a group of former and serving
   lawmakers from across Southeast Asia, urged Thai authorities to end
   what it called the harassment of the country's pro-democracy parties
   and activists.

   "The Future Forward Party is the latest in a long line of opposition
   political parties in Thailand to be banned. It is increasingly apparent
   that any party which seeks to threaten the military and the
   establishment's political hegemony will not be tolerated," Francisca
   Castro, a member and lawmaker from the Philippines, said in a
   statement.

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