BANGKOK – A sixteen-year-old boy is facing jail time for trampling a temporary treadmill in a harvest that has provoked the king of Thailand. An actress is accused of violating the law by delivering a spicy takeaway to hungry members of the country’s protest movement.
And another offender was told that selling a calendar decorated with a rubber duck could carry him 15 years in prison.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Thailand’s student-organized protests last year to demand government and monarchy reforms. But the democracy movement, armed with little more than duck-shaped pool rafts to use as a shield against water cannons is now struggling with a serious threat to its mission: a series of criminal prosecutions in recent weeks that could end with rally leaders and ordinary protesters locked up for decades.
After the street rallies were allowed largely unimpeded for months, it appears that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand has lost patience and threatened to use “all laws and all articles” against the dissidents. Since November, dozens of protesters have been accused of violating a dreaded law of majesty that punishes those who insult senior members of the royal family with imprisonment, according to the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. The use of the law has been suspended for almost three years, and the reintroduction of the comprehensive sock has led Thailand to condemn the United Nations human rights agency.
Several young protesters laid just as many charges against them as years they lived, even though the dissatisfaction that drove the street rallies was still not applied. Some were seized by security forces in the middle of the night and dragged to police stations.
“They regard the protesters as the enemy,” said Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, one of the organizers of the protest, referring to the government’s increasingly legitimate campaign against democratic advocates. “If they continue to use this method, the protests will continue to grow, and it will never end.”
Mr. Tattep, a gay rights activist commonly known as Ford, is charged with defaming King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, as well as violating multiple safety regulations.
Recently, Thanathorn Jungroongruangkit, a leader of the political opposition who questioned how a company affiliated with the king was awarded a contract to manufacture a coronavirus vaccine, and he has received several complaints of the defamation of the monarch beaten. Each charge is three to fifteen years in prison. A woman who posted audio that is considered insulting to the monarchy was sentenced in January to 43 years in prison.
“If this law continues, the sanctity of the law and the legal process will diminish,” Jutatip Sirikhan, a student protester, accused in her September speech of insulting the monarchy. “I do not think what I said is wrong, because what I said was based on the facts.”
Other protesters are charged with rioting and a violent act against the Queen’s freedom, a dark part of the law that could mean life imprisonment. The act in this case was shouted at a garage with Queen Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya, the king’s fourth wife.
On Thursday, three high school students appeared in the Central Juvenile and Family Court in Bangkok on charges of violating a state of emergency that was briefly instituted last fall to halt the rallies.
“The government is not acting under a democratic system,” said Patsaravalee Tanakitvibulpon, a university student who was summoned last month on two charges of lecture majesty and on seven other charges. “The government uses the law to keep us quiet, and does not allow us to speak.”
The rallies began last spring with students pushing for changes in school dress code and then broadening to express disgust at the growing number of Thai dissidents who have gone into exile abroad. (Some of them were found later.)
By summer, protesters, who had gathered every few days despite fears of repression by the military, had called for the resignation of Mr. Prayuth, a former general who led a coup in 2014, and that the monarchy would fall under the Constitution.
The demands are not being met, and it is unlikely to be taken seriously by the political institution either. Mr. Prayuth is still in charge. The king, one of the richest in the world, still floats above the national charter.
Efforts to sharpen the Constitution have erupted in parliament, hampered by a Senate that was not elected at all, a feature of the same charter that was changed by the protesters.
“The reform of the monarchy, it will not happen,” said Pareena Kraikupt, a lawmaker from the ruling Palang Pracharat party. “Thailand has a king who has been loved throughout our lives and is most respected.”
Me. Pareena warns against making the Thai practice of respecting the monarchy disappear. She drew a comparison with France, where she said that a push to violate certain Muslim traditions created the conditions for violence.
“It’s a tradition, culture,” she said. Pareena said. ‘As with Muslims, you touch Allah, then look at France, you hold a mass shooting and the journalists are dead. You need to understand the traditions of each group of people. ”
On Friday, a lawmaker from the party of Ms. Pareena threatened to file charges against majesties against opposition members of parliament who added references to the monarchy in a motion to disregard the prime minister.
One of the arguments of mr. Prayuth for orchestrating the 2014 coup – one of about a dozen successful statements since Thailand abolished the absolute monarchy in 1932 – was that the royal family was threatened by members of the government at the time, an accusation denied by politicians . .
For decades, under the rule of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was the longest reigning world in the world until his death in 2016, royal criticism was mostly limited to whispers. The rare eruptions were treated harshly. Someone was once jailed for making fun of King Bhumibol’s dog.
But as the protests took effect last year, speaker after speaker broke the royal taboo and directly questioned why a constitutional monarchy has a king who is not strictly bound by the Constitution. By the fall, protesters had enough courage to mock graffiti with the king in the streets of Bangkok. A few daring harvests wore a garment, a garment on which the king (68) was photographed in Europe. Some such images are blocked by Thai internet sensors.
“The youth express themselves about the monarchy and betting against the past: Thailand has changed and all public institutions, including the monarchy, are open to public criticism and inquiry,” said David Streckfuss, a historian who applies the majesty of reading. in Thailand.
The spray-painted messages addressed the monarch’s intricate personal life – four women, several disinherited children and a mistress increasingly appearing by his side at public events – as well as his efforts to build the palace’s power through military control. to consolidate regiments and royals. finance.
Protesters ask why the king spent much of his government in luxury in Germany, surrounded by a retinue of servants, while the Thais suffer the economic consequences of the coronavirus. The awarding of a vaccine contract to a company linked to the king also raised questions about transparency.
“The monarchy has been with the Thai people for generations, and it is the root of Thai culture,” she said. Patsaravalee, the university student confronted by reading majesty accusations, said. ‘But if the thing that unites the Thai people one day creates a bad image of the country, can we tolerate it? It is one of the people’s duties to express it and to reform it. ”
In November, King Maha Vajiralongkorn returns to Thailand for his longest stay since ascending the throne in 2016. News broadcasts intensified the discussion of the monarch’s visits to hospitals and schools, accompanied by the queen or his mistress, who was given the official title of royal wife.
The student protest organizers, who have livened up their gatherings with Harry Potter wands, “Hunger Games” salutes and the rubber duck rafts, say they will wait until a recent increase in coronavirus infections disappears before they hit the streets again. But they have promised to keep pushing for change.
“I regard the movement last year as fireworks and crackers that made a great noise and bright lights,” said Mr. Tattep, who earned a degree in political science from Chulalongkorn University last year, said. “This year, after the celebration with those fireworks, we will continue.”
“It’s our homework,” he adds, a student to the end.