Rihanna has been sighted on the island at Phuket Fantasea, and posted photos on her Instagram account of her travels. In several photos it looks like she is on Bangla Road - and one photo shows her holding an endangered loris. Rihanna has thousands of followers on Twitter and Instagram, and the loris photo had 220,000 likes by Saturday night.
The photo has sparked outrage from many people due to the long-running issue of protecting the lorises in Thailand, and endeavours by animal welfare groups to keep them in the wild and away from tourists. They are an endangered species and it is illegal for touts to charge tourists money in return for photos with the cute animals. Several touts were arrested in June but despite promises of crackdowns, police say they are unable to track down the touts easily.
Today (September 21) Mr Veera said he had told both the Superintendent and the Ministry to investigate the lorises on Bangla Road again.
"Please investigate and prosecute, as per your authority and duty," he told them.
Also creating reaction were Rihanna's tweets via social networking site Twitter, about her experience at a sex show, including one tweet which said the following: "Either I was **** wasted last night or I saw a Thai woman pull a live bird, 2 turtles, razors, shoot darts and ping pong, all out of her *****"
Other tweets about the sex show followed, with Rihanna saying she was "traumatised".
When The Phuket News called Mr Veera to inform him of these tweets, he said the sex shows were "completely against the law".
"The authorities and officials who are involved with the law have surveyed the area to arrest and fine those involved. But they [the shows] still happen.
"Since I first started in this position I have ordered that officials must be strict and work to control these sex shows. They really ruin Phuket's image."