The hashtag #saveแหม่มโพธ์ดำ (Save Queen of Spades) top trended last night as the famous investigative blogger is wanted by the police. This is the second time the hashtag has top trended, since the blogger known as Queen of Spades exposed an alleged scandal in March of this year.
Yesterday, Queen of Spades took to social media and expressed concerns that she is wanted by the authorities for an alleged scandal that she exposed last month.
Currently, Thailand is under the emergency decree, in which the authorities have the power to summon and detain any individual without a court warrant or due process of law.
Last month, Queen of Spades posted a video clip and other evidence showing an alleged hoarding scandal said to involve up to 200 million surgical masks. Fingers were pointed at a businessman and a close aide to a government minister.
However, the accused said this was all “fake news” and that the photos and videos were photoshopped. Meanwhile, the minister in question threatened to sue anyone who links his name to this alleged scandal.
In the post, Queen of Spades said that she is disappointed that the police are after her. She explained that in exposing the alleged scandal, she was doing society a service as the country has been facing mask shortage and it is against the law to hoard masks.
She insisted that her page has never been “political” and that the authorities should protect whistleblowers rather than treat them as criminals.
We tried to reach out to her on Facebook for comments, but she had switched off messaging and the page has been taken down.
Here’s our tweet of the original story, dated March 10, which we discussed in our #CheckThePower video series: