Regional News

Raëlism, World’s Largest UFO Cult has Touched Down Cambodia

Dan Thibault with Am VIchet, the head of the Cambodian Raelian Association. PHOTO Charlotte Pert

CAMBODIA – The world’s largest UFO cult has reached Cambodia. “People are not [ready] yet, but we will keep trying to spread the message,” said Am Vichet, the head of the Cambodian chapter of the Raelian Movement, which believes a group of scientists created life 25,000 years ago in a laboratory.

The symbol of the cult is a star of David with a swastika inside

The 41-year old, who works at reproductive health NGO Marie Stopes, said he became a Raelian in 2007 after attending a lecture where the cult’s philosophy was explained. “I want to learn new things. Then, at that time, I joined a lecture and they showed me a video and I thought it was interesting. But it was not enough just to go one time; I wanted to learn more,” Vichet said.

His next step was to read a book penned by the group’s leader, Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, now known by his acolytes only as Rael and who founded the cult in 1974. He claims to be a reincarnation of Buddha.

Vorilhon, then a journalist for an automobile magazine and racing car test driver, says that, on December 13, 1973, he took a detour on his way to work and wandered around an inactive volcano near Auvergne in France. There, he met an extraterrestrial called Yahweh Elohim, who explained “the message”.

The message was simple: life on Earth is the scientifically engineered creation of an advanced alien civilisation, and Vorilhon’s mission on this planet is to prepare humankind for their eventual return.

One of the main goals of Raelism is to build a $20 million embassy for the Elohim, preferably in Israel. Perhaps due to Raelism’s symbol – a swastika enveloped in a Star of David – the movement is banned in the birthplace of Judaism.

So Raelians are looking eastward and, last January, applied to the Council of Ministers in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Proposed plans for the ‘embassy’ that the Raelians say they hope to build in Cambodia

The project, which the letter states will generate “several billion euros of revenue, as well as additional spinoff ventures”, will make Cambodians “the first [people] to benefit from the Elohim’s highly advanced technologies”.

But more than a year after the application was submitted, Rael has yet to receive a response from Phnom Penh.

Ek Tha, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said that although he was not aware of the application, he would welcome an extraterrestrial movement in Cambodia.

“I myself have researched UFOs and extraterrestrial life for the last two years,” he said.

“To me, this would be great if we can start an alien movement or institution in Cambodia. We are not alone, my friend. When I tell my friends at work, nobody believes me.”

But any attempt to build the embassy may come up against practical obstacles, according to Dan Thibault, a French-Canadian who travels across Asia spreading Rael’s teachings and was in Phnom Penh last week to hold a public lecture.

“The problem is political . . . the problem is the extra-territoriality, the airspace. We need a protected airspace, like a no-fly zone over the embassy,” Thibault said. “The country that will organise the embassy will be the spiritual and cultural centre of the union to come. It’s a really big thing.”

Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, Clonaid Spokesperson and Rael, Group Founder

Vichet explained how he began to accept the Raelians’ ideas after he read Vorilhon’s first book, The Book Which Tells the Truth, which Vichet recently translated into Khmer.

“I started thinking what our natural state was, and one day you can see these things in the sky, and then I thought, oh, it’s true. And then that night I saw the lights again and after that I start to become a Raelian,” Vichet said.

“After that, my life changed. I learn and I read the books and I changed a lot of what I used to think, like negative thinking, and I changed myself.”

The movement claims to be expanding in Asia, boosted by growing followings in China and Japan. Three Cambodians turned up to the meeting last week, at which Thibault delved further into Raelian philosophy.

“Life has been created 25,000 years ago. The Elohim came here, they were a group of scientists who had mastered DNA, and they created all forms of life on this planet,” he said. “They sent all the gods – Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses – all the prophets sent throughout history. We live in the scientific era and at this time we can create life significantly in laboratories, which means we are equal to gods.”

Woman on bed adorned with Raëlian symbol

To appeal to Asia’s Buddhist masses, Raelians have tailored their teachings to the students of the Buddha.

Rael now claims to be the Maitreya, the reincarnation of the Buddha. He said the date of his meeting with Yahweh Elohim corresponds with the Buddhist calendar year 3000, when the sutras state the Buddha shall reappear. The new Buddha, the sutras continue, “will come from the west” in “the land of the cock”, which is a national symbol of France.

But controversies over attempts at human cloning in Europe have led to Vorilhon’s exile from France, where there is a warrant out for his arrest.

“We want to live forever. [Human cloning] is the first step towards eternal life,” Thibault said. “It sounds, perhaps, crazy, but some scientists are working right now on downloading your personality. We’ll be able to download our personality from our brain to a computer.

“The next step is you upload your personality into a new body. We’re going to do that, it’s just a matter of time.”

Despite the movement’s expressed alignment with Buddhist values, since its first seminar in 2006, it has only managed to attract 10 adherents in Cambodia.

Raëlian women at the Seoul Korea Love Hug Festival

“We just have a very small number in Cambodia,” said Vichet, adding that he hopes more people will hear the message now that he has translated one of Vorilhon’s books into Khmer. “Most of the Cambodian people, they don’t want to read, especially big books. They don’t want to read a whole story.”

Raelism, which now claims to have close to 85,000 members in more than 100 countries, has courted controversy in an attempt to gain notoriety and support, including campaigns for public nudity, LGBT rights and setting up a clinic in Burkina Faso to reconstruct women’s genitals after they have suffered female genital mutilation.

They also hope to attract celebrity support, much like Scientology.

“We met Michael Jackson; Rael met Russell Brand in the past year. But the fear, they don’t want to identify themselves publicly,” Thibault said, shortly after playing an animated video showing the four-foot-tall Elohim, who look remarkably similar to Jackson, meeting Vorilhon.

Mike Kropveld, executive director of the Montreal-based InfoCult, which has documented Raelism for about 30 years, said that the group is attempting a two-pronged approach to move into Asia.

“They have been trying for years to move into other countries. They have been raising money endlessly [to do this],” he said. “At the same time, they’ve been trying to get Israel to form an embassy. I don’t know why they want an embassy in Cambodia.

“They also often move into the shock area, or something that’s titillating, like the topless campaign. A more accurate [membership] figure would be 5,000, of people who would consider themselves members.”

Kropveld said that Raelism appeals to disillusioned followers of many religions.

“It has had an appeal here, some of the messages the group subscribes to, it’s like a church in terms of the treatment of women, going to heaven, going to where the creators are,” he said. “It’s not really so far off from what [new members] believed before. They kind of have a global religious perspective.”

While Raelian leaders say Buddhism is compatible with their beliefs, Vichet stopped practising around the time he became a Raelin “guide” through a baptism ceremony in 2007. Through the ceremony, Vichet believes his “cellular plan” was transmitted to a computer in preparation for judgment when the Elohim return in 2035.

“We do a baptism to get the plan transmitted and become a Raelian. The baptism actually is physical . . . everybody has vibrations, you transmit these vibrations.” – Contact Author: Daniel Pye

Regional News

Thai Immigration Police Detain Over 26,000 Illegal Migrant Workers

Thailand’s Immigration Police have detained approximately 26,000 illegal migrant workers from Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia during an eight-day operation in Bangkok and surrounding regions, according to a Royal Thai Police spokesperson.

Mr Adisorn Keudmeuangkhon of the Bangkok-based Migrant Working Group said the drive was in response to an increasing number of concerns about an influx of illegal migrant labor.

“Some Thai people see that many illegal workers are competing for their job positions in the past few months,” he told me. “That’s why the ministry has to take tougher action.”

Civil strife in Myanmar and the recent implementation of a military conscription have driven thousands of Burmese into Thailand, while severe inflation and limited job opportunities in Laos have also encouraged an influx of workers from that country.

Between June 5 and 12, officials detained and checked 20,111 Myanmar laborers, 1,659 Laotian migrant workers, and 3,971 Cambodian workers, according to the Ministry of Labor.

It marked the start of a 120-day campaign to audit workplaces and arrest unlawful migrant workers, according to the government.

Migrant Workers to be Deported

According to Keudmeuangkhon, undocumented workers face fines ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 Thai baht (US $136 to $1,365), deportation, and a two-year prohibition on re-entering Thailand.

Authorities did not intend to file criminal charges, he claimed.

Authorities raided 1,774 workplaces, according to Moe Gyo, chairman of the Joint Action Committee on Burmese Affairs, which advocates for Myanmar labor rights.

He stated that since the military junta activated conscription, there has been an upsurge in the number of arrests of Myanmar citizens in Thailand who do not have a work permit identity card.

All men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 must serve in the military for at least two years. The first group of 5,000 conscripts summoned by Myanmar’s junta will start duty at the end of this month, military sources told AFP on Monday.

According to Keudmeuangkhon, the bulk of Lao migrant workers in Thailand work as fresh market shopkeepers, restaurant servers, and mall salespeople.

Most people visit Thailand as part of ASEAN’s visa-free policy for tourists, but they stay longer than the 30-day restriction once they find job.

“Employers like to hire Lao migrant workers in the service sector because they can speak fluent Thai,” he told me.

Immigration Police Detain Illegal Migrant Workers

The Thai Cabinet may approve an enhanced program for Thai employers to register their unauthorized foreign workers in July or August. Keudmeuangkhon explained.

Last month, the Thai Ministry of Labor’s Foreign Workers Administration office announced that 268,465 Lao migrant workers were officially working in Thailand.

Baykham Kattiya, Lao Minister of Labor, told Radio Free Asia earlier this month that there are 415,956 migrant workers in other nations, the majority of whom work in Thailand.

According to her, the Lao government believes that over 203,000 persons working outside of the nation lack proper work documents.

However, a Lao official familiar with the labor industry informed Radio Free Asia, a BenarNews-affiliated news station, on June 20 that the number of illegal Lao migrant workers in Thailand and abroad is likely significantly greater.

“They go to other countries as illegal migrant workers through different types of methods – as tourists or students,” said the politician. “Thus, it is hard for the immigration police to collect data on these people.”

Government Officials Responsible for Smuggling in Migrant Workers

Government Officials Responsible for Smuggling in Migrant Workers

News

High School Student Dies After Being Electrocuted By School Water Dispenser

14-year-old boy was electrocuted by a water dispenser: File Image

Thailand’s Office of Basic Education Commission has initiated an investigation into the electrocution of a 14-year-old student by a water dispenser in a high school. The event happened at noon on Friday, during the high school’s sports day. The victim was a Grade 8 student.

According to local media in Trang Province, the incident occurred when a teacher instructed the pupil to turn off a water dispenser amid a heavy rain.

According to a witness, the child collapsed while strolling with his friend near a water station. The friend claimed he attempted to assist but was also shocked by electricity.

According to reports, the friend then recovered, left the site, and requested assistance from teachers. A teacher ran to the scene and used a towel to pull the boy away by the ankle. He was taken to the hospital, but it was too late, they claimed.

The event sparked criticism from parents and netizens over school safety, as well as the slow response to aid the young youngster.

Mr. Chainarong Changrua, head of Trang-Krabi’s Secondary Educational Service Area Office, told local media on Sunday that forensic officers from Trang Provincial Police had visited the area. They discovered the blown breaker switch behind the water dispenser, he explained.

The breaker was burned out, thus the authorities assumed the disaster was caused by a short circuit that allowed energy to spill to a neighboring power pole. The student also appeared wet and was not wearing shoes when electrocuted.

According to the Office of Basic Education Commission, a probe team will complete its investigation this week.

The student’s father, Mr Pornchai Thepsuwan, 53, claimed he was saddened when he saw his son’s body. The boy (Wayu), was the youngest of two boys, he explained. He stated that following the tragedy, the school director and staff gave financial assistance to the families.

Mr Pornchai also said he would not seek charges against the institution because he believed it was an accident.

Electrical accidents in Thailand

Electrocution instances in Thailand have increased alarmingly in recent years. Many mishaps occur as a result of improper wiring and inadequate maintenance of electrical systems.

Public locations, such as schools and markets, frequently lack adequate safety precautions, putting individuals in danger. In rural areas, antiquated infrastructure exacerbates the situation, resulting in more frequent and serious events.

Although several high-profile cases have brought these challenges to light, genuine progress has been gradual. Furthermore, the rainy season heightens the likelihood of electrical accidents, as water and exposed wires do not mix well.

The government has made steps to strengthen safety standards, but enforcement is patchy. More education on electrical safety could help to reduce these accidents.

Unfortunately, better infrastructure and tougher rules may have prevented many of these incidents. The loss and injuries caused by electrocution are avoidable, emphasizing the need for immediate action.

Over 200 High School Students Facing Sedition Charges in Thailand

Over 200 High School Students Facing Sedition Charges in Thailand

News

Thailand’s Tourist Police Crackdown on Tourist Scammers in Pattaya

Tourist Police Pattaya: File Image

Thailand’s Tourist Police said it is collaborating with embassies from five countries to combat tourist scams and ten criminal gangs in Pattaya. The Tourist Police Bureau, convened a meeting on Thursday Pol Lt Gen Saksira Phuek-am told a press briefing.

Pol Lt Gen Saksira Phuek-am, the Tourist Police bureau commissioner said the participants included ambassadors from South Korea, Ukraine, Russia, India, and Switzerland.

He told the briefing the he had ordered a crackdown on tourist frauds, such as fraudulent or low-quality tour operators and unfair sales of goods and services. Stepped-up operations began on June 19 and will continue until June 25.

He stated that the agency was working with numerous organisations to increase tourists’ confidence in visiting Pattaya.

Gen Saksira spent time on the famed Walking Street speaking with officers on duty and assigned them to seek for members of ten criminal groups known to operate in Pattaya.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin will visit Chon Buri on Saturday to assess the tourism situation. He intends to visit the site of a future Formula One racecourse near Khao Phra Tamnak in Bang Lamung District.

Prime Minister Srettha recently met with Formula One organisers in Italy to examine the potential of including Thailand on the race schedule in the future.

On Sunday, the Prime Minister will pay a visit to Rayong’s U-tapao airport to discuss development on the airport’s land, with the goal of encouraging investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor.

Police Chief Reinstated

In other police news, Pol Gen Torsak Sukvimol has been reinstated as national police chief following the conclusion of an investigation into a highly publicised quarrel, according to Wissanu Krea-ngam, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s counsellor.

Mr Wissanu released the investigation’s findings on Thursday, after the prime minister formed a fact-finding committee chaired by Chatchai Promlert to investigate into the quarrel between Pol Gen Torsak and his deputy, Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn.

The four-month study revealed conflicts and disorder at all levels of the Royal Thai Police, but it was unclear whether these issues arose from a single cause or several causes, according to Mr Wissanu.

The findings revealed that both Pol Gen Torsak and Pol Gen Surachate were involved, with each team contributing to the tensions, he noted.

Mr Wissanu indicated that Pol Gen Surachate was reinstated as deputy national police head on 18 April following his relocation to the Prime Minister’s Office on 20 March. A disciplinary committee was formed to investigate Pol Gen Surachate, and he was ordered temporarily suspended from the police force.

Because there were no further difficulties to explore, it was decided to restore Pol Gen Torsak. He plans to retire on September 30.

On March 20, Mr Srettha abruptly transferred both top police officers to the Prime Minister’s Office in an effort to address the growing schism within the police service.

Kitrat Panphet, Deputy National Police Chief, was subsequently named Acting Police Chief. According to sources, Pol Gen Surachate could face money laundering charges related to online gaming networks.

Source: Bangkok Post