BANGKOK – A 16-year-old boy faces possible jail time for parading an improvised catwalk in a crop top that evoked the king of Thailand. An actress is accused of breaking the law by cheering and delivering spicy takeout food to hungry members of the country’s protest movement.
And another perpetrator has learned that selling a calendar decorated with a rubber duck could earn him 15 years in prison.
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Thailand’s student-staged protests last year to demand reforms from the government and the monarchy. But the democracy movement, armed with little more than duck-shaped pool floats To be used as shields against water cannons, it now fights a serious threat to its mission – a series of criminal charges in recent weeks that could end with rally leaders as well as regular protesters trapped for decades.
After Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha allowed the street rallies to continue largely unhindered for months, it appears to have lost patience in threatening to use “all laws and all articles” against dissenters. Since November, dozens of protesters have been accused of violating a dreaded lese majesty law that punishes those who insult senior members of the royal family with imprisonment, according to the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group. Use of the law was suspended for nearly three years, and the reintroduction of the massive dragnet has brought Thailand into condemnation from the United Nations human rights organization.
Several young protesters have brought charges against them as many as years they have been alive, even while the discontent that fueled the street rallies has still not been addressed. Some were confiscated by security forces in the middle of the night and dragged to police stations.
“They see the protesters as the enemy,” said Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, one of the organizers of the meeting, referring to the government’s growing legal campaign against democracy advocates. “If they keep using this method, the protests will continue to grow, and it will never end.”
Mr. Tattep, a gay rights activist commonly known as Ford, has been accused of defaming King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun and violating multiple security regulations.
Recently, Thanathorn Jungroongruangkit, a leader of the political opposition who wondered how a king-bound company secured a contract to produce a coronavirus vaccine, was charged several times with slander by the monarch. Each charge is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. A woman who posted audio considered insulting to the monarchy was sentenced to 43 years in prison in January.
“If this law passes, the sanctity of the law and the legal process will diminish,” said Jutatip Sirikhan, a student protester accused of insulting the monarchy in a speech she delivered in September. “I don’t think what I said is wrong because what I said was based on the facts.”
Other protesters have been charged with sedition and committing “an act of violence against the freedom of the queen,” an obscure section of the criminal code that could mean life imprisonment for offenders. The act in this case was yelling at a motorcade with Queen Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya, the king’s fourth wife.
On Thursday, three high school students appeared at the Central Juvenile and Family Court in Bangkok to be charged with violating a state of emergency recently imposed to quell last fall’s demonstrations.
“The government is not acting under a democratic system,” said Patsaravalee Tanakitvibulpon, a university student who was summoned last month on two counts of lese majesty and faces seven other charges. “The government uses the law to silence us and doesn’t let us talk.”
The meetings began last spring with students pushing for changes to the rules for school uniforms, then expanded to express their disgust at the growing number of Thai dissidents who disappeared while in exile overseas. (Some of their bodies were found later.)
By the summer, protesters, who met every few days despite fears of a crackdown by the military, called for the resignation of Mr. Prayuth, a former coup-led general, and for the monarchy to fall under the constitution .
The demands have not been met, nor are they likely to be taken seriously by the political establishment. Mr. Prayuth is still in charge. The king, one of the richest in the world, continues to hover above the national charter.
Efforts to reform the constitution have been sputtered in parliament, hampered by a senate that has not been elected at all, a feature of the same military charter that the protesters want to change.
“Reform the monarchy, this will not happen,” said Pareena Kraikupt, a lawmaker from the ruling Palang Pracharat party. “Thailand has a king who is loved and most revered throughout our lives.”
Ms. Pareena warned against abandoning the Thai practice of worshiping the monarchy. She compared with France, where she said that an attempt to break certain Muslim traditions had created the conditions for violence.
“It’s a tradition, culture,” said Ms. Pareena. “As with Muslims, you touch Allah, then look at France, you have a mass shooting and the journalists were killed. You have to understand the traditions of each group of people. “
On Friday, a lawmaker from Ms Pareena’s party threatened to file lese majesty complaints against opposition MPs who added references to the monarchy to a motion to condemn the prime minister.
One of Mr. Prayuth’s reasons for orchestrating the 2014 coup – one of about a dozen successful putsches since Thailand abolished absolute monarchy in 1932 – was that the royal family was being threatened by members of the government at the time, an indictment that the politicians have denied. .
For decades, under the rule of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was the longest reigning monarch in the world until his death in 2016, royal criticism was mostly limited to whispers. The rare outbreaks were treated harshly. Someone was once in prison for fooling King Bhumibol’s dog.
But when the protests took effect last year, speaker after speaker broke the royal taboo and directly wondered why a constitutional monarchy has a king who isn’t strictly bound by the constitution. By fall, protesters felt encouraged enough to scribble graffiti that the king mocked on the streets of Bangkok. A few daring people wore crop tops, an item of clothing worn by the king, 68, in Europe. Some such images have been blocked by Thai internet censorship.
“The young people who speak out about the monarchy are betting against the past: Thailand has changed and all public institutions, including the monarchy, are open to criticism and criticism from the public,” said David Streckfuss, a historian who describes the application of lese majesty in Thailand.
The spouted messages focused on the monarch’s complicated personal life – four wives, several disinherited children, and a mistress who increasingly appears by his side at public events – as well as his attempts to build the power of the palace through control of it. to consolidate military regiments and royal regiments. finances.
Protesters asked why the king has spent much of his reign in Germany in luxury surrounded by a retinue of servants, while Thais are suffering the economic fallout from the coronavirus. The award of a vaccine-making contract to a company affiliated with the King also raises questions about transparency.
“The monarchy has been with the Thai people for generations, and it is the root of Thai culture,” said Ms. Patsaravalee, the university student facing allegations of lese majesty. But if the thing that unites the hearts of the Thai people one day creates a bad image of the country, can we bear it? It is one of the duties of the people to speak up and reform it. “
In November, King Maha Vajiralongkorn returned to Thailand for his longest stay since ascending the throne in 2016. News broadcasts have ramped up coverage of the monarch’s visits to hospitals and schools, accompanied by either the queen or his mistress, who has been given the official title of royal consort.
Student protest organizers, who livened up their demonstrations with Harry Potter wands, ‘Hunger Games’ salutes and the rubber duck floats, say they will wait for a recent wave of coronavirus infections to subside before hitting the streets again. But they have vowed to keep pushing for change.
“I see the movement last year as fireworks and fireworks that made a lot of noise and bright lights,” said Mr. Tattep, who graduated from Chulalongkorn University with a degree in political science last year. “This year, after the celebration with that fireworks, we will continue.”
“That’s our homework,” he added, a student to the end.