Overseas Thai students urge 'no' on new Constitution

At press time, 104 people have signed the online petition: http://www.biolawcom.de/petition/.

The petition argues that the new charter to be voted in the referendum on August 19 was initiated by the military junta, not the Thai people themselves.

They insisted that the new charter should be derived from the people. They also claimed that the militarysponsored charter would weaken the electoral executive branches by empowering the halfselected, halfelected Senate to control the government. The new constitution also allowed judicial institutions to intervene in the legislative body and this runs against the principle of sovereign division of power, the petition said.

The Nation