PUBLISHED : 2 Oct 2023 at 12:50
Senator Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan said on Monday she sympathised with the Thai chef who chased her from his restaurant in Iceland, and was not taking legal action against him.
Speaking at parliament, the senator said the incident, widely reported on social and mainstream media, occurred when she and her friends went to a Japanese restaurant in Iceland last week.
As they were about to order the Thai chef ran angrily up to them, holding a mobile phone in a way that suggested he was livestreaming, she said.
“I have experienced so many such incidents, hatred through not knowing each other. I only sympathise with him,” Khunying Porntip said.
She had not expected the incident to get publicity, but the man posted the video himself.
She said the man had chased her out as as if she were an animal. He shouted at her in both English and Thai, in the presence of other customers.
She decided to leave the place right away. “If I had stayed longer it could have become physical, because he pointed at my face … as if I were a pig or dog,” Khunying Porntip said.
The senator said she was not shocked by the incident. She was 69 years old and had experienced many other such incidents. She did not take offence and would not file a lawsuit, she said.
The video went viral on social media over the weekend. In it, chef Ari Alexander Guðjónsson could be seen singling out Khunying Porntip, telling her to leave the premises immediately, in both Thai and English. He ordered her out in a highly public fashion while recording it on his phone.
Khunying Porntip abstained in the first round of voting for prime minister, in which Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrat failed failed to secure enough support because most senators abstained or voted against him.
She also condemned MFP supporters who harassed senators who did not share their view.
On Monday Khunying Porntip said she had told the Move Forward Party on that occasion that she would vote for its prime ministerial candidate if it withdrew its plan to change Section 112 of the Criminal Code, which is the lese majeste law.
“We must help each other prevent aggression… If you are obsessed with politics, it will have an impact on everything,” she said.