food for thought

Kornkritch Somjittranukit

Dams constructed by Chinese government along the Mekong river are forcing villagers in Ubon Ratchathani into lives of uncertainty, even as they reap no benefits from the dams themselves.

On 19 April 2017, seven exploration ships from China arrived in Chiang Khong District, Chiang Rai Province. The ships were assigned to navigate Thailand’s Mekong river as part of a plan to bomb outcrops along the riverbank to clear the way for commercial ships.

The bombing is the first stage of a plan to develop a shipping route from China’s Yunnan Province to Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. On 27 December 2016, the Thai cabinet gave the green light to the Development Plan for International Navigation on the Lancang-Mekong River (2015–2025), approving boats from China to survey the river.

This is not the first time that governments have tried to appropriate the Mekong without the participation of local people, who are often heavily affected by such megaprojects. Security officers have also intimidated those who stand against them.

On 26 April, soldiers from the 37 Military Circle of Chiang Rai summoned Niwat Roikaew to ‘a talk’ at a coffee shop. Niwat is the the leader of a local environmental conservation group called ‘Khon Rak Chiang Kong’ that actively stands against the Chinese navigation. Though authorities did not press charge that day, they asked him to stop his campaign but Niwat insisted on continuing his opposition.

Before being summoned, Niwat told the media that the bombing of outcrops would significantly damage the Mekong River’s ecology. Outcrops provide natural shelter for animals and plants, while acting as natural dams that help slow the river stream and prevent the destruction of local agricultural areas.

“[The Mekong] will become a mere canal. Without outcrops, she is no longer a river but a waterway. There will be no place for animals to live,” said Niwat as quoted by The Isaan Record.

Niwat Roikaew, the head of Khon Rak Chiang Kong group (Photo from The Isaan Record)

Conflict between local people and governments on the Mekong river emerged in 1996 when China built the first dam on the Mekong river. Nowadays, six dams have been built in China, and another in Laos. Those dams have dramatically affected the tide of the Mekong, contributing to a decline in fish numbers, size and diversity. Unpredictable tides also prevent people from planting along the riverbank, once a main source of income and food.

Ubon Ratchathani provides a startling example of how the dams have affected local livelihoods. Ubon is the last province along the Mekong in Thailand before the river enters Lao. The river has to pass the seven dams in China and Laos before it arriving in Ubon. The province also profits from tourist spots along the Mekong’s bank such as Sam Phan Bok (Three Thousand Holes), Hat Salueng (Salueng Beach) and the two-tone rivers.

The voices of Ubon people echo the some 3.1 million Thais who live along the Mekong.

Niphaphon Ura, a villager whose house is located next to the Mekong, has witnessed the change and fluctuation of the river since the very first dam was constructed. In the past, the water level will drop between December and April, allowing villagers to grow crops like rice, corns and beans in the sand bars that were revealed.

But ever since the dams were constructed, the river’s tide has become unnatural and unpredictable. Sometimes the water will recede for two days, other times for almost two months. The villagers can no longer plan their farming.

Niphaphon has also observed that the amount and size of fish caught in the Mekong has significantly decreased. She used to catch redtail catfish weighing between one to three kilos, sometimes up to five kilos. Nowadays, fish weigh less than a kilo

Niphaphon explained that fish usually lay eggs during the drought season, where the river is placid. But China has begun releasing water during the same period, preventing the fish from reproducing. She is concerned that if China bomb more outcrops, the tide will be stronger and harm fish even further.

Niphaphon argues it is harder to protect the community and natural resources under the political climate of Thailand’s military regime.

“In the past, we could talk and speak out. We once brought a deputy minister to visit our village because they were elected so had to listen to us. Since the coup, we have had to travel to Bangkok. [In 2015] over a hundred villagers went to Bangkok together with the People's Movement For Justice Society but [the junta] allowed only ten of us to go inside the meeting room. The government said it is aware of our problems and will fix them. But they’ve done nothing,” Niphaphon stated.

The economic hardship caused by the dams is now forcing villagers to leave their hometowns to work in Bangkok. Praiwan Kaewsai, a villager age 46, said that two out of her four children had to start working when they finished grade nine. Her two elder sons went to work in Bangkok when they turned 20. Some months they send back 4,000 baht in remittances, some months they send nothing.

Praiwan’s sons also sent two children back home and asked her to take care of them. She added that when her third son, currently a grade 7 student, may also go to Bangkok to join his brothers when he finishes grade 9.

Apart from remittances, Praiwan’s husband earns 5,000 baht per month from his work as the village head’s assistant. Praiwan also makes kratip, a bamboo container for keeping cooked sticky rice, and earns about two or three thousand baht per month. But the income is spent completely on their children and basic utilities.

Praiwan frets that villagers’ income from fishing has disappeared since the dams were constructed. In the past, villagers could reap over ten kilos of fish and earn seven to eight hundred baht each time they sailed. Presently, they only get a couple of kilos per round and sometimes have to set sail four or five times to reel in just one fish. Most villagers decided to stop fishing and have to buy fish from the market instead.

“Don’t ask about my income. I have no income because I have no job. My only job now is taking care of my children. If my children don’t send back money, I can’t eat,” said Praiwan.

Praiwan has to take a couple days to finish a kratip and it costs only 200 baht.

The tourist industry is also in trouble. Most tourist attractions in Ubon Ratchathani also rely on the Mekong’s tide.

Hat Salueng, or Salueng Beach, is a sandbar that appears between December and May during the drought season. Tourists who want to visit Sam Phan Bok, also known as the Grand Canyon of Siam, have to take a boat from Salueng Beach. The beach is the foundation of many locals’ main sources of income.

Prasat Udomlap, a sailor aged 60, observes that the dams now cause the beach to appear for only a few weeks in late December. His income has dropped from 20 or 30 thousand baht per month to less than ten thousand.

In the past, the beach housed 19 service boats for tourists. Each boat sailed two or three rounds a day and the sailor earn 1,000 baht per round. Now there are only 17 boats that sail only one round a day.

Prasat fears that if there is more bombing of the Mekong outcrops, the water level will be even higher — making his income will be even lower.

“It’s like China is bullying Thailand’s tourism industry. Now there’s flooding during the drought season, which is supposed to be high season. In the past, there were so many tourists and vendors, just like Pattaya. There was a beach volleyball and football competition. Now they’re all gone. When tourists come here and find that there’s no beach, they return home right away,” Prasat explained.

Prasat takes tourist to visit Sam Phan Bok

Prasat added that Hat Hong, called the ‘Desert of Thailand’ for its beautiful dunes, has also been affected by the dams on the Mekong. In the past, this area was flooded for over three months during the rainy season. The lengthy flood period prevented plants from taking root in the area, creating the sand dunes that appeared during the drought season.

After the dams were build, the flood period was shortened to just a month, not long enough to limit plant growth. Hat Hong this year was covered in tall grass, tarnishing its image as the “Desert of Siam”.

Hat Hong (then)

Hat Hong (now)

Salueng Beach (then)

Salueng Beach (Now)

Kittinun Klongyai

This month, Thai television station Channel Seven — with ample members of the military in attendance — held a press conference announcing a new military-themed series named ‘Love Missions’. The show marks the military’s most explicit intervention in the country’s soap opera or lakorn industry yet.

Capt. Wanchana Sawasdee, a military representative, remarked that, “We feel that the stories support nationalism and love for the nation”. But how much fantasy can viewers stomach, as the reality of dictatorial rule grows bleaker by the day?

Representatives of RAFC take pictures with the leading actors and actresses at the conference (from Facebook Fanpage: Royal Thai Air Force News)

Dramas as political tools

In Thailand, lakorns have long been employed by juntas to instill within viewers a sense of nationalism and positive feelings towards the military. Few other TV programs outrate soap operas and the influence of lakorns is widespread, with handsome male actors frequently referred to as “national husbands” on social media.

Chanan Yodhong, an academic specialising in Thai pop culture, explains that military-themed lakorns are often the product of a mutually beneficial relationship where the military provides resources (ranging from financial subsidies to real weaponry for props) in return for good publicity. But not all such lakorns represent the junta’s direct intervention, given these incentives for production companies to proactively produce nationalistic dramas.

Still, the marrying of love and tanks has cropped up time and time again in remakes of the military-themed romantic-comedy Phu Kong Yod Rak, produced like clockwork in the aftermath of coups. But Chanan points out that, “each remake of Phu Kong was produced under different conditions and political contexts, or hidden agendas”.

The junta’s attitudes towards governance have as such inevitably seeped into lakorns screened since the latest coup d'état. In 2014, the National Council for Peace and Order’s (NCPO) suspension of democracy was controversial. The 2015 remake of Phu Kong Yod Rak was one attempt to promote extreme right wing ideals together with a citizen-friendly facade.

The lakorn’s male lead Pan Namsuphan is set up as the epitome of masculinity since he signs up for the military instead of getting drafted, easily and humbly follows the commands of his leader, and collaborates with his team to help villagers. Pan is portrayed as friendly, with a provincial accent to induce comfort and laughter from viewers.

A rom-come superstar Ter Chantavit as Pan in the 2015 version of Phu Kong Yod Rak (Photo from: Sanook)

Chanan argues such a portrayal reproduces the myth that soldiers are always honorable and have good intentions: “far-right ideals of how military power is not only natural but beneficial to the nation.”

In 2016 a South Korean military-themed drama, ‘Descendants of the Sun,’ found similar fame in Thailand during a time of political chaos.

“What a coincidence!” laughs Chanan. “Though of course, Thailand is chaotic all the time,”

The series follows the relationship between Yoo Si-jin, the captain of a South Korean Special Forces unit and Dr. Kang Mo-yeon, a young doctor. Even though Yoo Si-Jin is assigned many a dangerous mission, he performs them for the sake of the nation. Eventually, he is sent on a mission in the fictional country of Uruk, where he meets Mo-yeon.

‘Descendants of the Sun’ won high praise from junta leader Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha himself who, Chanan argues, leveraged the show to present militarism as a global norm.

“I see in this series messages of patriotism, devotion, obedience and the duty to take care of the people. The characters have conflicts, but in the end, they understand each other,” Prayut once enthused.

“Go watch it again! If anyone wants to produce something like it, I’m happy to subsidise.”

Later, Channel Seven bought the series and broadcasted it under the title, Chi Wit Phuea Chat, Rak Ni Phuea Thoe (Life for the Nation, This Love for You).

Descendants of the Sun’s poster (Photo from Twitter)

Now ‘Love Missions’ (Pha Ra Kit Rak) deals with a political climate where Thai citizens are increasingly demanding elections and democracy. This entertainment endeavor could hint at the junta’s longing for more time in power, Chanan suggests.

‘Love Missions’ was originally a military-themed romantic novel copyrighted by Channel Seven. It was adapted into four-part military action-drama that revolves around the stories of four young soldiers committed to crushing international terrorism. The lakorn’s crisis-filled plot conveys the idea that the military is needed to protect citizens from atrocities, just as Prayut has delayed elections under the pretense that the country is not yet ready.

Perhaps more alarming than the political message, however, was the military’s overt role in producing the series. The Royal Thai Army (RTA) along with Royal Thai Police (RTP) provided much of the production’s ensemble, along with military weapons, equipment and settings. It is also unsurprising that Channel Seven is broadcasting the series, given it is partly owned by the RTA.

When propaganda flops

Rather than new and burgeoning social and entertainment platforms, why has the junta invested so steadily in soap operas? One answer could be their genuine popularity among Thai citizens. But Chanan argues military lakorns also reveal the junta’s limitations.

Chanon observes that the military’s propaganda apparatus has developed little since the Cold War. While media is consistently advancing, the military is sliding backwards. The military’s long use of lakorns as a political instrument reflects obsolete and outdated perspectives on the media.

“It’s of course a matter of the popularity of dramas, but one other thing is that they don’t know how to use any other methods,” argued Chanan.

Nor does the military always temper right right extremism enough to be palatable for mass consumption. Soaps are floating further and further from reality, leaving viewers unable to buy into the fantasy.

“The military’s lakorns are not meticulously and professionally produced. It’s like the characters are written to plainly voice the far-right ideals. Who will eat it up?” Chanan added.

For the academic, overt portrayals of extreme militarism in lakorns insult the intelligence of the Thai people.

“They’re blinded by their own fantasies to the point that they think the representations they set up in the soaps will surely persuade the people to believe that such perfect, ideal soldiers really exist. It’s delusional to think this is enough to alleviate the people’s sorrow and disappointment with the military in the real world,” Chanan argued.

For Chanan, the military’s lack of both skills in modern media and an understanding of the Thai people will be its own downfall. Citizens can only digest so much escapism, when faced with the reality of military governance.

“If the military keeps deceiving itself into thinking that it can control everyone’s thoughts, reiterating the same myth, practicing the same approaches, as well as rejecting reality and substituting with their fantasy, when will they ... truly move the country towards progress?” Chanan asks.

(above)The military as portrayed in soaps (below) the military in reality

Kornkritch Somjittranukit

Forming political alliances, securing military influence, creating extra-parliamentary mechanisms and establishing dominant ideology are things that the ruling junta has learnt from the 2006 wasted coup, says an academic.

(Left) The 2006 junta head General Sonthi Boonyaratglin (Right) The 2014 junta head Gen Prayut Chan-ocha

On 19 September 2006, the Council for National Security (CNS) staged a coup against the civilian Thaksin Shinawatra government. The CNS remained in power for year and a half and wrote the 2007 Constitution with the goal of protecting Thailand from “electoral dictatorship” -- in other words, Thaksin’s influence on Thai politics.

However, the CNS attempt failed after Thaksin’s People Power Party won the 2007 election in a landslide. Although the party was later dissolved and its leading politicians were banned from politics, Thaksin still made a stunning comeback after Pheu Thai Party won the next election in 2011.

This is the reason people call the 2006 coup a “wasted” coup since the military government achieved almost nothing but a new constitution drafted during its regime. However, someone learnt some lessons.

On 22 May 2014, The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) staged a coup against Thaksin’s younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra. Ever since, the NCPO has tried to establish political mechanisms to ensure this coup will not be wasted like the previous one.

Ensuring military influence in parliament

The NCPO learned that one mistake of the CNS was that the military junta totally abandoned politics immediately after it stepped down. This allowed political parties to gain popularity easily and grow stronger without interruption during the civilian government.

The NCPO, therefore, has institutionalised military influence in the 2017 Constitution in various ways. According to Section 269, the first 250-member senate will be appointed by the ruling junta to serve for five years after the first general election.

Though the list of appointed senators has not yet been finalised, six seats are already reserved for the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, the Supreme Commander, the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the Police Commissioner.

Senators also have the right, jointly with the lower house, to approve a prime minister if the lower house cannot reach a consensus on who should be PM. In addition, Paiboon Nititawan, a former senator who was appointed by the junta to help draft the 2017 Constitution, has announced that he was setting up a political party with the goal to support the current junta head Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha as an unelected ‘outsider’ PM.

There is still a very slim chance of preventing the senate from exercising the right to jointly select the PM.

Before the election each party may name up to 3 candidates for prime minister. These do not have to be candidates for MP and do not even have to be party members. After the election, all persons named by parties who have obtained at 5% of House seats may then be nominated for election as PM by at least 10% of MPs. A winning candidate needs more than 50% of the vote.

It is possible that this person is an elected MP. It is also possible that they are not. It is even possible (and many think this is the more likely outcome) that no candidate can get the votes of more than 50% of MPs.

In that case, Article 272 will kick in if more than 50% of MPs and two-thirds of both houses so choose. This article nullifies the election of PM by the House alone and calls for an election by both House and Senate and they can vote anyone at all as PM, no matter whether they have been elected as MP or not.

But even under a joint House-Senate vote, it is possible that no one candidate will get a majority of the votes of both houses.

Article 5 would then come into play as the get-out clause for all political deadlocks. This says that solutions will be found ‘in accordance with constitutional practice in a democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State’.

The procedure is that the President of the Constitutional Court will call a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate, the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Supreme Administrative Court, the President of the Constitutional Court, and the Presidents of the Constitutional Organizations. And they will vote on who will be Prime Minister; and it could be anyone.

More complex electoral system

Another lesson the NCPO has learnt from the CNS is that elections are unpredictable. After the 2006 coup, Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved by the courts and banned 111 of its leading members from politics for 5 years. The 2007 Constitution also tinkered with the voting system in ways that were interpreted as favouring small and regional parties. But this could not prevent an overwhelming victory for the Thaksin-inspired People’s Power Party.

This time, the NCPO’s constitution drafters have introduced a complex electoral system called Mixed Member Apportionment (MMA). This system is thought to make it more difficult for Thailand to have a single dominant party.

In MMA system, voters will cast only one ‘fused’ ballot for both their constituency MP and the party list of that candidate’s party. So voters cannot, as they could under previous constitutions, vote for a constituency candidate for Party A, but for Party B in the party list vote. There then follows a complex method for calculating party list seats that ‘balances’ the number of seats each party wins under the constituency vote.

An analysis of this system shows that it will probably result in fewer total seats for big parties, although the calculation method outlined in the constitution still leaves some questions unanswered and voters may change their voting behaviour in response to the new ballot-counting system

This system also favours medium-sized parties who can field candidates nationwide, but who in the past have won relatively few party list seats. One such party, Chartthaipattana, has already declared its support for junta leader Prayut Chan-o-cha to continue as Prime Minister for another ten years.

Extra-parliamentary influence

Even if one party can win the election, dominate parliament and get a PM elected without influence from the junta-appointed senate, it will still not be able to escape military influence. The NCPO has created a National Strategic Plan as a guideline that civilian governments have to follow for the next two decades. This is enshrined in the 2017 Constitution.

The first draft of this plan was published last week on the website of the National Economic and Social Development Board. The draft does not clearly state what kind of policy civilian governments have to follow, but rather discusses the challenges and opportunities that Thailand will experience in the future.

The junta has also appointed members of a National Strategy Committee (NSC) which will “monitor” future civilian governments’ compliance with the National Strategic Plan.

Out of 28 NSC members, 11 come from the military and police and five of them are the heads of Thailand’s security forces: the Supreme Commander, the commanders-in-chief of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the commissioner-general of the Royal Thai Police. The permanent secretary of the Defence Ministry also has a seat while other ministries do not.

These seats can certainly ensure that the security forces maintain a crucial role in Thai politics even in the post-NCPO era.

Forming political coalitions

The list of NSC members also reflects another lesson learnt by the ruling junta -- to form military-dominated political coalitions. The military seem to have realised that they cannot compete against political parties for public popularity. Therefore, it is trying to seek popularity through the bureaucracy and big corporations.

Apart from security officials, the NSC includes civilians who are either representatives of big companies or bureaucrats. The big companies representatives in the NSC include Kan Trakulhoon, Chairman of the Board of Advance Info Service; Chartsiri Sophonpanich, President and Director of the Bangkok Bank; Pridi Daochai, Managing Director of Kasikornbank and President of the Thai Bankers’ Association and Banthoon Lamsam, Chief Executive Officer of Kasikornbank.

The bureaucrats include Paron Israsena Na Ayudhya, Chairman of the National Economic and Social Development Board and Prapat Panyachatrak, President of National Farmers Council.

Ideological operations

The last, but arguably the most crucial, lesson learnt by the NCPO is that the CNS forgot to make people buy into authoritarian ideology. Pitch Pongsawat, a political science lecturer from Chulalongkorn University, has investigated how the NCPO has attempted to establish a dominant ideology during the past three years.

Unlike previous military governments, who just exercised power temporarily, the NCPO is trying to transform the country into a new form of permanent regime which needs to be supported by certain ideologies. According to Pitch, the NCPO has proposed two ideologies which are “pracharat (people’s state)” and “99.99% democracy.”

The word pracharat is in the second line of the National Anthem, whose beginning is translated as “Thailand embraces in its bosom all people of Thai blood, as the people’s state. Every inch of Thailand belongs to the Thais.”

But the NCPO refers to it as a policy strategy that connects the people, the private sector and the government together. The basic concept of pracharat, according to the junta, is to strengthen the local economy by following the late King Bhumibol’s philosophy of the Sufficiency Economy. According to junta head Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the pracharat policy is the opposite of politicians’ populist policies which have ruined Thai politics for decades.

“In the National Anthem, there is a word pracharat, not prachaniyom (populism). Today, we try to change populism into pracharat. I’m not fighting anybody, just trying to make people receive benefits equally by our own hands,” Prayut said in the launching ceremony of the pracharat project.

However, Pitch argued that pracharat is just old wine in a new bottle. Some pracharat policies are very similar to so-called populism, for example, public housing, free wi-fi, TV dramas, village funds and agricultural subsidies. The difference is that national resources for pracharat policies have been distributed through government agencies, not directly to the people.

“I have talked to government officials in rural provinces. They said that the word pracharat has become a part of government projects. [It] is put into every single project and has become the signature of this government,” Pitch stated. “Pracharat comprises the state, the private sector and civil society. It has various goals, like improving exports and the agricultural sector. It’s corporatism in the new era.”

Pracharat has distributed large resources to government agencies who implement the policy, with the private sector as a supervisor. However, there is no space for politicians or elections in pracharat.

“In pracharat projects, there is no place for politicians and elections. It’s the formation of a new world without politicians. Thailand can survive by just having the state, a kind private sector and people living together.”

The second ideology the NCPO has tried to establish is “99.99 per cent democracy”. This term was firstly coined by the junta head.

“Our country nowadays is 99.99 per cent democratic. I never prohibit anybody from criticizing me, just don’t oppose me. If you were in other countries, you would be probably in jail or shot dead,” said Gen Prayut.

So what is the missing 0.01 per cent? The answer that Pitch has found is “freedom.” The junta is trying to convince Thais into believing that ‘too much’ freedom will only lead to chaos and disorder.

“I think it’s a keyword of the coup. Freedom leads to instability, disunity and crisis. It is evil. Therefore, oppressing us with the law, guns and military courts is counted as law enforcement in order to create order and peace,” Pitch explained. “The military, therefore, perceives itself as a peacekeeper and peace is unity. Thus, whatever leads to disunity can justify the military to get into politics.”

Pitch suggests that democratic forces in Thailand should develop an ideology that integrates both freedom and unity together as a counter-narrative to the NCPO’s 99.99 per cent democracy, because if the military successfully establishes this ideology, it can use disunity as an excuse to interrupt politics again in the future.

Kongpob Areerat

The authorities are still pushing an energy policy that ignores local interests and the environment, even after February protests temporarily halted a coal-fired power station in Krabi.

A small fishing village situated close to the area proposed for the construction of Krabi's coal-fired power plant

“The government has the duty to provide to find energy for the country, they went back and I’m already satisfied. The EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) and EHIA (Environmental Health Impact Assessment) will be done again in at least one year. If they pass, the coal-fired power plant will be in operation between 2022 and 2023,” said Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister, on 21 February 2017 shortly after promising anti-coal power plant protesters that the project would be temporarily halted.

After the protest, a tripartite committee was established with representatives of local communities to discuss how the EIA and EHIA process could be improved. With energy demand in Southern Thailand rising by about 5 per cent a year, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and the government are still pushing the construction of the controversial 800MW power plant, arguing that the country has little choice but to stick to the Power Development Plan 2015-2036 (PDP 2015-2036) to facilitate investment in the region.

Voices of local communities

“It was hilarious. We were informed about the project about three years ago when they organised a public hearing about it in the village. The villagers knew nothing about it before that and we began to oppose it then,” said Surasak Wealadee, 39, a villager of Khlong Rua Village, Taling Chan Subdistrict, Nuea Khlong District of Krabi.

Under the EGAT plan, a pier will be constructed close to the village for ships bringing coal to feed the power plant, which is situated about five kilometres from the pier. The villagers in 2014 filed a petition at the Central Administrative Court against the pier, arguing that the area is a part of the Krabi River estuary, which was listed as a protected zone in 2001. It is also protected under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation of wetlands. However, there has been little progress since they lodged the complaint.

Khlong Rua Village

Abdulla Matosot, 57, a fisherman in the village, said about 70 per cent of the villagers are small scale fishers and they are gravely concerned about the construction of the pier. “It will surely affect our livelihood, since it will be within walking distance of the village.”

He added that the EIA conducted in March 2014 stated that the weight of the ships transporting coal would be less than 3,000 tonnes. However, EGAT later changed it to 10,000 tonnes. “With the ships that size the seabed of the passage leading to the pier is surely too shallow and the authorities will have to dredge it, which will have detrimental effects on the marine environment”

Not far from Khlong Rua Village is the old gas power plant of Krabi. The 340 MW plant has been operating since 1961 in Khlong Khanan Subdistrict. Since its first day of operation villagers have complained about pollution from the plant.

“The power plant released contaminated water into the local canal. In the decades since plant has been in operation, many people have developed lung cancer,” Sawai Jaikliang, 68, former head of Thung Sakhon Village in the Subdistrict, told Prachatai.

“The local communities will not benefit from the project for sure. Most of us oppose it of course, but since we are dealing with the military government who could use Section 44 [of the Interim Constitution] to go ahead with the project, we don’t know what the outcome would be.”

Villagers from both areas said that in any case they would not trade their livelihood for energy security in the region. They, however, agreed that if the authorities want to construct power plants based on clean renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, they will not oppose the project.

Surasak Wealadee (left) Abdulla Matosot (right)

Meeting energy needs with local capacity

According to Energy Minister Gen Anantaporn Kanjanarat, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is willing to listen to suggestions about how the region could meet its energy needs. However, the plan must conform to PDP 2015-36.

The Minister said that the another option is to buy energy from Malaysia. However, PDP 2015-36 requires that energy purchases cannot exceed 10-15 per cent in 2026 and 15-20 per cent in 2036.

EGAT, however, announced that importing energy from neighbouring countries is the last resort. EGAT spokesperson Saharath Boonpotipukdee told the media that long-term power purchasing contracts with Malaysia are difficult due to that country’s regulations, unlike Lao PDR where Thailand has been buying energy.

As the region is blessed with sunlight and is the region with largest palm oil plantations, many of Krabi’s inhabitants said that the government should instead opt for alternative renewable energy instead.

According to Athiras Dundee, 52, a palm oil industry expert in the province, Krabi has about 1 million rai (1600 sq km) of palm oil plantations which are increasing at a rate of five per cent every year. Therefore, the province could rely on biomass for energy.

Local fishermen in Khlong Rua Village

Palm oil mills produce a lot of waste, which could be an excellent fuel to generate energy. Currently the local capacity to generate electricity from waste from palm oil production, known as palm oil mill effluent, is about 30 MG, said Athiras, adding that this could increase to 100-300 MG within about three years if mill operators received support from the state.

He said that in mid-2015, EGAT stopped purchasing electricity from palm oil mills. This forced many operators to stop producing power and some went bankrupt because they had invested millions of baht in power generation plants.

“The authorities think that small [biomass] power plants are not reliable. They forget that by buying energy from these plants they also get to support palm oil farmers, boosting the whole economy in the region as the provincial palm oil industry produces about 10,000 tonnes of waste every day,” said the palm oil expert. “Now that the authorities have stopped buying power from these plants, the owners have to sell the palm kernel shells to power plants in other provinces.”

He said EGAT claimed that the electricity transmitted into the central grid from palm oil mills was not stable, but the problem was due largely to old transmission lines which need to be upgraded and the unstandardised purchasing contracts between the mill operators and EGAT.

On Lanta Island off the coast of Krabi where power cuts are common, some entrepreneurs took the matter in their own hands instead of relying on the government to solve the problem.

Khwankanok Kasirawat, 47, the owner of Lanta Mart, one of the biggest grocery shops on the island, installed 48 KW of solar panels on the roof of her shop two years ago. “Power cuts often occur on the island because EGAT has not built an electricity substation here, but I don’t have to worry much about it now,” said Khwankanok. “On top of that, during the high season, when I have to turn on the fridges all day, my electricity bill would be around 120,000 baht per month. But, now it’s only about 70,000 baht since we have installed the solar panels.”

She added that she and her friends are now forming a group to promote the use of solar panels on the island as she now has experience. Asked what she thinks about the coal-fired power plant, Khwankanok said “It would be the death of the tourism industry of the island and of Krabi itself. I don’t know what they are thinking.”

The beach close to the area proposed for the construction of the power plant and the pier

Provincial vs. Regional development

The authorities say that as the region is still reliant on electricity transmitted from the central region, the lack of power security restricted economic development.

For Amarit Siripongyutagut, former president of the Krabi Tourism Association, it is worth questioning what kind of development people in Krabi and other nearby provinces really want. “According to the blueprint which tourism industry operators and the former provincial administration planned together, Krabi with its thriving tourism industry could be developed in ways where the local environment should not be compromised. The province could become a model of how business operators are united in an effort to protect the environment.”

He added that the military government said some civil society groups are turning local people against the government, but most people are of course already against the plan because it is against their interests since most of them are working in the tourism industry.

Agreeing with Amarit, Kittichai Eangchuan, Deputy CEO of the Krabi Provincial Administrative Organization, told Prachatai “I think the government forgot that investing in green energy is also a path to development and Krabi already has the resources for that.”

The global energy trend now is to decentralise power generation while reducing the reliance on fossil fuel, but the government seems to be doing the opposite. “I should not be saying this much, but Krabi is my home and it is famous for its crystal clear sea and beaches. Who would want a coal-fired power plant with its large thermal turbines and large ships transporting coal around here.”

The old fuel gas power plant Klong Kanan Subdistrict of Krabi

Metta Wongwat

In what follows below, I offer a concise picture of the dynamics and significance of Article 112 over the preceding decade. Some of the sources cannot be fully cited as it may harm those who provided information or defendants in ongoing cases.

1. The number of Article 112 cases is inextricably linked with the political context. During periods of widespread protest and intense political analysis, a large number of cases arise. One possible reason may be that the monarchy is heavily cited as part of political struggle, such as by those who claim to struggle for the king. In addition, the monarchy has entered political conflict via those who allege that others wish to overthrow the monarchy, such as those claimed to be part of the Finland Plot or included on the chart of those who wanted to topple the monarchy. In addition, one of the reasons cited for launching the 2006 coup was alleged defamation of the king; some criticism of the coup was also related to the monarchy.

2. During the first two years following the 2006 coup, those targeted tended to be semi-well-known figures opposed to dictatorship, including public speakers, activists, and politicians. Subsequent cases tended to target ordinary citizens, largely due to the expansion of the role of social media. The majority of cases involve Facebook posts and have resulted in very harsh punishments as each post is treated as a separate count. The harshest punishment to date was a 70-year sentence given to Wichai for 10 Facebook posts in 2017. In 2007, there was an attempt by the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to revise the law to extend the its protection to privy councilors and other members of the royal family. This amendment was ultimately not passed.

3. During 2009-2010, online witch-hunts expanded rapidly. One prominent Facebook page was that of the “Social Sanction” group, or SS. The Thai Netizen Network (2011) reported that this page reported personal information of more than 40 individuals its organizers believed to have defamed the monarchy. Many of those named lost their jobs and some were prosecuted. The phenomenon of online witch-hunts declined and then returned in a more virulent form following the death of Rama IX. Following the circulation of information online, mobs surrounded homes or police stations to demand that charges be brought against their targets in Chonburi, Phuket, Ko Samui, and Phang-nga.

4. During 2010-2012, the rising number of cases in the news led to domestic organizing to reform the law. This period also witnessed a clear increase in international pressure. The case of the death of Amphon Tangnoppakul, or Ah Kong, prompted both domestic and international concern. There were academic, cultural and social campaigns, including the repeated collection of signatures to amend or revoke the law. For example, the Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 sought to propose a draft law to amend Article 112. The amendment, drafted by the Khana Nitirat, contained three significant changes: a reduction in punishment, a clear stipulation of who can initate cases, and an increase in the reasons for which guilt is exempt. However, their draft law was not considered by Parliament.

5. With respect to civilian governments, there was a greater number of cases during the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva that during that of Yingluck Shinawatra. In addition, at the end of 2011, the Truth for Reconciliation Commission for Thailand (TRCT) proposed to amend Article 112, but the goverment did not accept the proposal.

6. When the 22 May 2014 coup took place, a large number of those who once held significant political roles or offered rigorous political criticism sought asylum abroad. Simultaneously, the number of Article 112 cases quickly rose. The NCPO holds the record for prosecuting the largest number of Article 112 cases in the past decade. They revived cases previously stalled at the level of police investigation and also used methods to locate evidence in contravention to usual legal principles. Since the coup, soldiers can detain individuals in military camps and carry out their own investigations for up to 7 days before transferring those accused to the police to proceed according to usual procedure. In addition, a large number of people were prosecuted in the military court system between the coup and September 2016, when Article 44 of the 2014 Interim Constitution was used to halt the initiation of prosecution of national security cases in the military court system. Up until the present, soldiers retain the authority to arrest individuals and carry out their own investigations for up to 7 days.

7. During the reign of Rama X, Article 112 cases continue to arise but have not increased. The criticism of the judicial process in these cases remains the same as in the reign of Rama IX. However, at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015, shortly before Rama X began his reign, a large number of people who served him closely were arrested and imprisoned under Article 112. Those arrested and imprisoned included Police Major Prakrom Warunprapa and Mr. Suriyan Sucharitpolwong, or Mor Yong, whose shocking and puzzling death in the 11th Military Circle Base Prison provoked questions which remain unanswered.

8. In April 2017, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society issued an announcement unlike any issued previously. Citizens were to cease communicating with, following, or disseminating content, directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally, of the following three individuals: 1) Somsak Jeamteerasakul; 2) Pavin Chachavalpongpun; and 3) Andew MacGregor Marshall. Failure to do so might lead to prosecution under the Computer Crimes Act. Then, in June 2017, there was a wave of criticism and analysis about the puzzling removal and replacement of the People’s Party plaque with a new plaque holding a different meaning. Somsak Jeamteerasakul offered extensive analysis of this event. The government could not close his Facebook account and so they instead targeted those inside the country who engaged with this analysis. Six individuals who shared Somsak’s post were arrested and held on a military base before being accused of violating Article 112 and the Computer Crimes Act and transferred to regular prison detention. They were repeatedly denied bail and detained for the maximum of 84 days. After 84 days, all were released except for Prawais Praphanukul, a senior lawyer who has been accused of 10 counts of violation of Article 112 and 3 counts of violation of Article 116 in relation to Facebook posts. He has refused to sign court documents or otherwise participate in the court process because he does not believe that he will receive a just decision from a court operating under the umbrella of the king. He is the first person to take this kind of action.

9. The process of examining cases in the miltary court system is lengthy and the punishments are more severe than those in the civilian court system. This functions as an indirect form of coercion to compel people to confess. The Internet Dialogue on Legal Reform (iLaw) has reported that many defendants being prosecuted in the military court system have initially entered a plea of not guilty but then changed their minds, such as Samak, Thara, Wichai, Khathawut, and Ari.

Article 112 Cases Filed By the Police, 2007-2017 (Prime Minister noted in parentheses)

2007: 36 cases (Surayud Chulanont)

2008: 55 cases (Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat)

2009: 104 cases (Abhisit Vejjajiva)

2010: 65 cases (Abhisit Vejjajiva)

2011: 37 cases (Abhisit Vejjajiva and Yingluck Shinawatra)

2012: 25 cases (Yingluck Shinawatra)

2013: 57 cases (Yingluck Shinawatra)

2014: 99 cases (Yingluck Shinawatra and Prayuth Chan-ocha)

2015: 116 cases (Prayuth Chan-ocha)

2016: 101 cases (Prayuth Chan-ocha)

January-September 2017: 45 cases (Prayuth Chan-ocha)

The majority of the total number of cases remain at the level of police investigation. A total of 254 have been forwarded by the police to the prosecutor, of which 137 cases have been ordered not to be prosecuted. There are 110 cases in which the investigation has been halted due to the inability to locate the perpetrator; these are cases in which the alleged crime has taken place online and widely-used platforms such as YouTube and Facebook continue to refuse to reveal information about their users to the police. In addition, there are 62 cases being investigated by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) as they have taken place outside the country and the OAG holds the authority to investigate and complile evidence, and 23 cases being investigated by the Department of Special Investigtion (DSI).

iLaw has noted that between the 2014 coup and the beginning of October 2017, they have been able to access and follow a total of 90 Article 112 cases related to expression. A total of 38 of these cases are in the military court system, or 34.2%.

Article 112 cases are viewed as “hot potatoes” by state officials in every agency. Therefore, the cases must be centrally controlled. Although its initial date of establishment remains unknown, from at least the end of 2009 until the present, the Royal Thai Police have operated a Committee to Examine Lèse Majesté Cases.

This ommittee includes the Police Commissioner, Deputy Police Commissioner, and the heads of various other units. The primary operating strategy is that police in every locality must report the detailed facts of a case along with their opinion in Article 112 and Computer Crimes Act cases. The committee then examines whether or not a case falls within the scope of the law. All 112 cases must be examined by the committee with no exceptions made.

This information is confirmed by an account of a case related to the alleged defamation of Princess Sirindthorn. Prior to the 2014 coup, an investigating official decided not to forward such a case to the prosecutor without consulting the committee. After the 2014 coup, the case was examined by the committee, which then decided to forward the case to the prosecutor. The original investigating official was disciplinarily sanctioned and transferred from Bangkok to a provincial post. He wept as he told the court of his “mistake” when he gave testimony in the case to the court as the former investigatigating official.

.................

Two primary strains of criticism in relation to Article 112 cases have been leveled at judges during the past decade. The first strain comments upon the process by which cases are examined in the courts, and include that of the primary tendency to deny bail, the exceptional cases in which bail is granted, the secret examination of cases and the severe punishments granted. The second strain of criticism instead focuses upon the judges as possessing conservative and royalist thinking.

“The Courts of Justice are very cautious. Even when they make the record [of what is said during court proceedings], they are very strict. In some cases, they have to consult their boss before making the record of examination. For example, in the case of Pai [Jatupat Boonpattararaksa], we submitted a petitition for some sessions to not be examined in camera, such as those with the investigating and arresting officials. The judges had to go consult with their boss. Before issueing any orders, they had to go consult with their boss. Ultimately, every session was examined in camera. Or, with the case of the arson of the royal portraits in Khon Kaen, the court officials called the lawyers directly. This was a case that was in the news and the region [al officials] asked for the hearings to be moved up, and to have a reconciliation meeting [for the defendants to have the opportunity to confess], because it must be reported at the regional level,” Pawinee Chumsri, from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), observed.

Simultaneously, Yingcheep Atchanont from iLaw, who has followed Article 112 cases for a long time, offered a different view. He said that, “I don’t think that it has to do with the judges’ attitudes. I do not put weight in the idea that judges deciding under the umbrella of the king produces limitations. I think that they do as they do in other cases, follow the principle of listening to evidence ... the cases in which it seems as if the judges are biased are very rare. For example, those in which they speak ill [to the defendants]. But what I encounter in the majority [of judges] is fear.”

“What are they afraid of? Judges are human. I think that they are afraid they will be criticised by society, afraid that it will become a political matter, afraid of being criticised by head judges, afraid of a committee being set up to investigate them, afraid that the accusation will come to them ... each person then deals with his fear differently. Some are quiet. Some struggle,” Yingcheep said.

No matter how one views what informs the judges’ roles, it is undeniable that the judiciary was created in a manner that has made it long-intertwined with the institution of the monarchy. During the period of absolute monarchy, the power to decide cases belonged to the king. Up until the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), the courts used to be located in various ministries and ministers expert in the Dharmasustra made legal rulings. Due to pressure from the Great Powers to have a modern judiciary, the Ministry of Justice was created in R.S. 110 (1892 C.E.) and all courts were centrally placed within it. Krom Luang Ratchaburi Direkrit (Prince Raphi Phatthanasak), the 14th son of Rama V, played an important role in setting up the Thai system of courts and laws.

A few decades later, in 1932, the People’s Party carried out the transformation from absolute to constitutional monarchy and the king came to be under the constitution. Two important changes in terms of sovereignty ensued. The executive and legislative branches were to now be selected by elections of the people. But very little changed in the judiciary. This resulted in an enduring criticism that the judiciary is antiquated that has never undergone any democratic reform.

Yoshifumi Tamada from Kyoto University, a long-time scholar of Thailand, has offered a compelling observation about the proximity between the judiciary and the monarchy and the traces that remain in the present. These traces include the oath of allegiance to the monarchy taken by judges, the use of the symbol of the king, and the large percentage of judges on the Privy Councils of both Rama IX and Rama X.

Thongchai Winichakul, a historian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argues that the modern-day king emerged after 1947 along with true military dictatorship in Thailand. The modern-day king developed strength under military dictatorship in the development era and achieved fundamental success when the military dictatorship fell in 1973. The modern-day king then used the next 15 years to strengthen the security of the institution and succeeded in creating a king who was sacred, beloved by the masses, and above politics. Thongchai notes that, “This is the legacy of absolute monarchy that has adjusted itself to once again attain strength in our times.”

With respect to the constricted political context of the past decade, many legal scholars refer to Rama IX’s April 2006 speech to judges, given after many citizens called for a royally-appointed prime minister according to Article 7. This was the beginning of all courts having an increased role in political transformations and therefore unavoidably becoming both political actors and targets of criticism. In a 2017 BBC Thai interview, Jaran Phakdithanakul, a Constitutional Court judge, emphasized the factors that resulted in the expansion of criticism to every political institution in society.

“At that time, new principles emerged. There was no executive branch, no legislative branch, and the Senate could not truly perform its duty. A problem arose that we had to pester the king to address. If the king did as requested, it would constitute interference in politics. This would be a violation of existing principles. The king’s genius is that he perceived a channel for [judges] to find a correct solution. If we could not find one, we would resign. We then had to find a way.”

“The thing that we always hold to in performing our duties here [Constitutional Court] is that we do so under the umbrella of the king ... we hold the king to be Judge No. 1. This is journalistic speak for how we understand things among ourselves,” Jaran said.

In 2013, within the context of the notable political role of judges after that speech, Sathit Pairoh, a former senior judge, read an open letter harshly critical of the role of the judiciary and called for the amendment of Article 112. He divided his criticism into that of rulings which continued the actions of the [2006] coup and that of how examination in Article 112 cases reflected unprincipled actions and undemocratic thinking by judges.

Discussing such delicate matters with judges is very difficult, but is not completely impossible and may aid in creating understanding.

One new-generation judge who does not work on Article 112 cases views the phenomenon of these cases as understandable given the judiciary’s role in the protection of the institution of the monarchy. Judges may view these cases as those in which they must issue harsh punishments, so that the cases do not expand until they become uncontrollable.

He also said that it is undeniable there is real indoctrination and emphasis placed upon working under the umbrella of the king with the judiciary. Combined with the primary strands of criminal law, which focus on deterrence, this results in punishment without suspension in cases judges deem as important and within the scope of the law.

“Even though some judges hold liberal views, being inside this kind of structure for a long time affects their thinking and worldview,” the young judge said.

This judge maintained the existence of judicial independence by noting that judges normally have full independence in examining and ruling in cases. But, in important cases, they will decide according to Supreme Court rulings and may consult internally with the head of the court. These are typical occurrences. Judges may go against the trend of Supreme Court rulings, but such decisions may be without effect because a higher court may later overturn them. There are many groups of judges, and with regards to allocation cases, the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court can decide to give important cases to the judges he trusts.

A senior judge also uninvolved in Article 112 cases said that he did not believe that the decisions resulted from the judges being indoctrinated inside the judiciary.

“You cannot change people in a short period of time. The long period of a lifetime is needed to make people think the way you wish them to think. You must look at the system of schools, universities, media, and various things around us in society. There may be indoctrination into conservative thinking within the judiciary, but it rests on an existing trend. It then continues by combining with individuals’ own authoritarian mythology.”

“The judiciary exists at the source of the river. No matter the country, the court system is a mechanism that serves the ruling regime. If it is a court in a communist country, the court will be communist. A court in a dictatorship must protect the dictatorship. The court during Hitler’s time protected the Nazi regime. The court in America when it was liberal, protected liberalism. But the court cannot emerge on its own or do anything at all on its own. It is only a tool.”

“Article 112 cases can be viewed as political. They cannot be viewed as not poltiical. There is defamation law for ordinary people and the institution has it as well. It is not in the law itself, but in the interpretation of the law and whether it is interpreted widely or narrowly. Criminal law must be interpreted narrowly because it restricts the rights and freedoms of the people... Therefore, there is no need to amend the law at all. It rests with those who interpret it and how they do so, and how it is enforced. It comes back to what I said about the court being an instrument of the regime. If you want to change the courts, you must have political change and make the demand for it yourself. Don’t put your faith in anyone else,” a senior judge said.

Kritsada Subpawanthanakun

The Gender Equality Act of 2015 was enacted by the junta almost three years ago now.

Although the name is seemingly progressive and rosy, one of its articles—17, paragraph 2—contains a worrying loophole that states that actions implemented for national security or religious purposes do not constitute gender discrimination.

In fact, the 67th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on July 5 in New York expressed several concerns about this loophole to the Thai representatives who attended via teleconference.

Prachatai spoke with members of official committees established under the act and gender activists about the Act’s implementation over the past three years. We found that trying to exercise gender rights by referring to this law is often at odds with the reality of gender discrimination.

Slow bureaucratic processes and speeding them up through subcommittees

The Gender Equality Act of 2015 established a Committee to Promote Gender Equality (CPGE) to enact the Act’s legal policies on a big-picture level.

Suchada Thaweesit, who chairs subcommittees of this Committee, told Prachatai that there were two main obstacles to moving forward gender equality in Thailand. The first is the bureaucratic process that delays everything, down to scheduling meetings to discuss issues.

The second obstacle, said Suchada, is a lack of knowledge and understanding of gender equality issues among committee members. Members have vastly different understandings of gender equality, so the committee has to hold lectures to make sure its members are on the same page—slowing down the committee’s work even further.

Nevertheless, the CPGE has now established various subcommittees: for Policies, Measures and Plans; for Educational Development and Research; for Legal Matters; and for Public Communications to expedite the Committee’s actions.

Suchada is the chair of the first three subcommittees, which she says hold meetings almost every month.

“We’re trying to push for government agencies to make action plans with gender diversity groups,” Suchada said. “Although I would like to do more, we’re just starting out. Plus, the Committee should not use its power to force government agencies to act in certain ways because this Act is more about supporting gender equality than being punitive.”

The key is trying to make both the public and private sectors understand what gender equality is through the law. She gave the example of sex discrimination in workplaces or schools. Ideally, people should be allowed to dress according to their gender identity, there should be at least one bathroom for people of all genders to use and derogatory language pertaining to gender should not be permitted.

“Another policy our Committee to Promote Gender Equality plans to implement is that our members should be women, men and other diverse genders in appropriate ratios,” Suchada said.

System still under construction and need to amend Article 17

Usa Lertsrisantad, a member of the Consideration of Unfair Gender Discrimination Committee (CUGDC), said that in the past couple of years her Committee has been constructing its operational system, admittedly at a slow pace.

“In the first year we could hardly do anything because we had to build the entire system, none of which was in place,” Usa said. “When we received complaints we couldn’t take action.”

CUGDC members also had to be appointed while the system for receiving complaints was developed. It took until the end of 2016 before the Committee could have an official meeting about the complaints they had received, which were mostly from gender activist groups within educational institutions.

“For example, they campaigned for the right to dress in the gender they identified with for graduation or within the workplace,” Usa said.

One reason why the Committee’s work lags is that they must give a chance for the accused party and others involved to defend themselves or provide additional information.

“One of the issues we encountered was, ‘If the teacher is transgender, does that affect the students?’ We have to inform the accused party to see things in ways that they never even thought of before,” Usa said.

Complaints sent into the CUGDC are often similar, so the Committee compiles several cases before forwarding them to the CPGE to develop legal policies that can create change at a structural level, Usa explained.

Article 17 The establishment of policies, laws, regulations, notifications, measures, projects or procedures by government agencies, private organizations or any individual with characteristics of unfair gender discrimination is not permitted.

The implementation of the policies described in paragraph one to eliminate obstacles or support the person’s to exercise their rights and freedoms equal to others, to protect the person’s safety and welfare, to comply with religious principles or for purposes of national security are not judged as unfair gender discrimination.

The second paragraph of Article 17 is problematic for Usa.

“We discussed that if a complaint comes in and the accused party cites national security, we will have to judge whether those are reasonable grounds or not. It’s not like they can just say national security and we will drop the case,” Usa said.

In cases that cite religious principles, Usa says the Committee must distinguish between religious principles and local beliefs.

“Many of our cases relate to this. For example, some cases of violence against women refer to religious principles, but after consulting religious experts we see that every religion has principles of gender equality,” Usa explained. “Therefore, we have to do research and see if the alleged sexual discrimination due to religious principles is actually due to beliefs that should be changed.”

Article 17 paragraph 2, said Usa, should be changed as well.

Conditions Impede the Law

Natakamon Siwasilp, legal advisor to the gender equality activist Togetherness for Equality and Action (TEA) Group shared her experience in trying to report discrimination using the Gender Equality Act of 2015.

“In October 2016, we sent in a complaint about a school that only accepted gender normative students and refused admissions from any non-normative ones,” Natakamon said. “But Article 18 of the Act said that complaints sent in had to have an aggrieved party, rather than accusatory complaints. In other words, if someone sees something wrong being done, they can’t just go and report it.”

Victims of gender discrimination have to be the ones reporting complaints themselves, and many are afraid to do for fear of risking their education or career.

“The Act says that independent gender equality organizations can be the ones to submit complaints, but a victim must be a signatory to the complaint. After the complaint is received, the victim and the accused party have to meet as well,” Natkamol said. “After we submitted the complaint about the school to the CUGDC, they replied that we had to find an aggrieved party, in this case rejected students, and involve them in the process.”

The complications of the complaint process are another reason that prevents full implementation of the law.

Kornkritch Somjittranukit

Though no Thai government has ever conducted a formal survey, in 2014 UNAIDS estimated that some 123,530 sex workers operate in Thailand, with sex industry contributing to 10 per cent of the revenue that the country generates from tourists. Another study in 2003 estimated that Thailand’s sex industry generates an annual US$4.3 billion dollars.

While sex work is evidently a pillar of the country’s economy and touches the lives of a great number of people, sex work remains outlawed in Thailand. This contradiction drives sex workers into precarity: they are excluded from government welfare and have no legal recourse if exploited by law enforcers or clients.

In this investigative report, Prachatai spoke with sex workers, government officials and NGO representatives to find out how sex workers navigate their grey status under the law. How do they maintain dignity in a society that attributes little value to their work and lives?

“Prostitutes just sell themselves”

‘Prostitutes sell only themselves, but wicked women sell the nation,’ a famous Thai Rat newspaper cartoonist once tweeted — as if the business of sex workers merely involves sleeping with clients and reaping the money.

Such a prejudiced view overlooks the fact that sex workers who work the market best rely on well-practiced skills like any good businessmen, be that in negotiating, bargaining or advertising themselves well. All these factors are crucial in enticing customers to return.

In this industry, standing out is crucial. For most sex workers, most clients come from low-income backgrounds such as taxi drivers, labourers, and young adults. One session may reap only 500-800 baht. Making a living then relies on being able to win multiple clients. Some sex workers operate in multiple locations to maximize client numbers, for example by wandering tourist spots when their usual base is quiet.

Kam, a 24-year old independent sex worker, usually waits for clients at her usual spot in Bangkok from early evening until 3 AM. On a good day, she makes between 3000-4000 baht a night. But on a quiet evening where she has only one or two clients — or none at all — Kam turns to advertising her services online.

Young and beautiful, Kam could likely find steady employment at a ‘massage’ parlour or even a high-class bar. But she explains that operating as an independent sex worker provides freedom.

“It’s liberating. If on any given day I’m busy, or I’m on my period, or if I’m feeling lazy, I just won’t come. I don’t have to ask anyone for leaving. I don’t have to have my pay cut. Nobody else is directing my life. I keep every single baht that I make from clients. Nobody else gets a cut.”

But with this freedom comes certain instabilities, least of all the risks of encountering authorities.

While images of police officers raiding brothels have repeatedly made headlines in Thai media, officials usually do not obstruct the industry. But at irregular intervals each year, public pressure on the police to show the fruits of their work escalates crackdowns on sex workers.

Sex workers themselves have no way of knowing when these periods of heightened surveillance will come — that is, when they may inadvertently appear on front page news.

Another inescapable risk in sex work comes in the form of undesirable clients. Sometimes a client may be intoxicated, refuse to use protection, or refuse to pay the fee. In dealing with these situations, workers sometimes risk physical danger. Without legal protections, the best sex workers can do is spread warnings of such individuals by word of mouth.

In the face of the risks of working independently, many sex workers trade their freedom for the relative safety that comes with fixed employment in businesses such as ‘karaoke’ bars, ‘massage’ parlours or brothels.

Though sex workers with fixed employment can be safe from undesirable clients as there is security staff in their workplace, the threat from state authorities still exists.

Illegal trade and ‘legal’ operation

So-called ‘karaoke bars’ commonly feature karaoke machines as décor, even though few or no customers visit such venues to sing, but rather to buy sex service. Why the farce?

While prostitution is prohibited under Thai law, ‘karaoke bars’ and ‘massage parlours’ can be legally registered as normal businesses. When arrests of sex workers occur at such premises, authorities usually treat the act of prostitution as an exchange between the sex worker and the client — an exchange to which the owner of the premise was not a party.

Even so, cases of clients being charged are few and far between, giving rise to the popular quip that, ‘employing sex workers is legal, being a sex worker is illegal, clients get off scot-free.’ Brothel operators are only accused of crimes when simultaneously breaking other laws, such as the employment of underage workers or illegal migrants.

In June 2016, an undercover police investigation into a Huai Kwang district massage parlour, “Nataree’, resulted in the arrest of 119 employees, seven of whom were underage (of this seven, six were Burmese migrant workers). While the employees were accused of engaging in prostitution, the brothel owner was accused of crimes related to human trafficking.

Security officers raid Nataree massage parlour (Photo from PPTV)

Undercover police investigations, where officers may pose as customers, have drawn criticisms for being hypocritical, if not themselves instances of illegal behaviour. Questionable behaviour has included the inviting of media to photograph sex workers during sting operations, and officials themselves persuading sex workers to engage in intercourse.

Decha Kittwitthayanon, a lawyer and academic, has documented cases where officers have utilised the services of sex workers, before using the discharge and condoms filled with semen as evidence of illegal activity.

“The Supreme Court reasoned that having intercourse with sex workers was a necessary and appropriate action for finding evidence of the activities of criminals. They pointed out that officials had no other choice but to use such measures.”

Chantawipa Apisuk, the director of Empower Foundation, an organisation that has promoted the rights of sex workers in Thailand for more than 30 years, points out both the cruelty and lack of reasoning behind sting operations.

“I don’t think sting operations should happen because things that were used to protect yourself from diseases become instead things that result in your arrest. They simply become wrongdoers.”

“But officials say that if they don’t [go undercover], they won’t be able to make arrests. But that makes me ask, why do they need to be arrested? Everybody has sex. I have sex. So why is having sex for work wrong?”

Jet (pseudonym), a former ‘bar girl’ turned volunteer at Empower Foundation, tells a harrowing story where one official went as far as to solicit an underage sex worker.

“Once a police officer posed as a client and asked a brothel owner whether there were any workers under the age of 18. When the owner said there weren’t any, the officer asked them to find one, and the owner did so. At first, the girl didn’t dare to go [have sex], not because she was afraid of the police, but of meeting a nasty client.

“But the officer persisted, kept flirting, acted sweet to befriend the girl until finally, she began to trust him — began to feel that, ‘This guy is a good person. He probably wouldn’t hurt me’. Simply, she grew fond of the officer. In the end, when she agreed to go with the officer, she was arrested.

“But do you know the saddest part? The officer that she trusted was the one who interrogated her. He took notes on the interrogation right to the girl’s face.”

Unfortunately, arrests of sex workers can have far-reaching complications for their careers. Jet reports that most sex workers who are implicated in sting operations choose to leave the industry. Those who desire to keep working struggle to find work, since employers fear they will draw the attention of authorities.

Jet added that sting operations at brothels have increased in frequency ever since the Trafficked in Persons 2016 report ranked Thailand as among those countries with the highest incidents of human trafficking. She also warns the government against blurring sex workers who voluntarily enter the industry with victims of human trafficking.

Chantawipa argues that if the junta was committed to ending human trafficking, it would invest funds into exposing the networks of influential people and even state officials who benefit from the market — rather than chasing and arresting petty actors who may not even be victims of human trafficking, but rather voluntarily sell sex.

However, the Thai Royal Police have proved unresponsive to criticisms of their sting operations against sex workers. During a meeting with the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a representative of the Royal Thai Police went as far as to deny the issue’s existence.

“In the case of sting operations, I insist that the Office of the Royal Thai Police has never included them in official policy, and has never supported officers to use such measures,” claimed Maj Gen Kraibun Suadsong.

This article was first published in Thai on Prachatai and translated into English by Catherine Yen.

On the fourth anniversary of the clash at Ramkhamhaeng University and Rajamangala Stadium during the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PRDC) campaign, there is no progress in the legal cases to report. The father of a Ramkhamhaeng student hopes to learn who shot his son. The case of a beaten-up red shirt taxi driver has been met with ‘silence.’ Thida Thavornseth points out that the incident was aimed at escalating the conflict.

Chaotic scenes at Ramkhamhaeng University on the evening of 30 November 2013.

During the formation of PDRC, there were many key moments. Among them is the violence that led to the deaths at Ramkhamhaeng University and Rajamangala Stadium on 30 November and 1 December 2013. The clash resulted in five deaths: a Ramkhamhaeng university student, three United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) supporters and a civilian whose political affiliation was not identified. Apart from the street violence, there was a burst of hate speech on social networks blaming and expressing hostility and resentment to the opposing political camps. In the aftermath of the violence the delays in the judicial process have seemed endless. Even four years after the incident, it seems that truth and justice are out of reach.

Prachatai has interviewed relatives of the victims of the Ramkhamhaeng incident on the fourth anniversary about progress in their cases, compensation, and their feelings after four years have passed.

Ramkhamhaeng student’s father reveals case has not progressed and hopes he will eventually know who shot his son.

Naramase Teerarungsigul is the father of Thawisak Phokaeo. Thawisak was shot dead. Naramase said there was no progress in the case. He contacted Huamark Police Station once or twice but there was no progress. He met the Police Commissioner General who made an appointment for the family to meet the Huamark Superintendent but the family did not hear any further progress in the case.

Thawisak's father said that he wants to know who shot his son or if there is any progress. A lawyer worked on the case for approximately six months to help to make progress, but it was useless. He said he did not know if the lack of progress was because the investigation did not reveal anything, because police have no evidence, or because the police have chosen not to take action.

Naramase said the government did not give any compensation. About 200,000-300,000 baht was handed to the family but nothing else. He wanted his son’s case to be an example that killings should not occur in protests in this country.

Thairath online reported on 11 February 2015 that Thawisak’s mother submitted a petition and evidence to Pol Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri, Assistant. Commissioner-General and then spokesperson of the Royal Thai Police to ask for progress on Thaweesak’s case. Pol Lt Gen Prawut told Thairath Online that Thawisak was ambushed and shot with an 11 mm pistol on Wednesday 30, November 2013 at an exit gate behind the university near an area where there was a UDD rally. Police officers had seized a firearm that was thought to have been used to kill Thaweesak but the autopsy result indicated that the bullet found in Thawisak’s body did not match the gun. This made the arrest of the perpetrator difficult. The incident happened at night, making the process of arrest even more difficult. He admitted that some cases took time to investigate because they occurred at a rally. The police were not unconcerned and were expediting the case to bring the offender to justice.

The case of a beaten-up red-shirt taxi driver has gone on for 4 years with no progress

Somyot Wongchanla, a taxi driver, was beaten up and seriously injured by a mob of opposition protesters who smashed his taxi, dragged him from his vehicle and forced him to take off his red shirt. . He said his case has gone quiet. He received 15,000 baht in compensation and decided to follow the progress of the case. He went to the Government Complex on Chaengwattana Road and a government agency gave him 3,000 baht after 3-4 months. After that, he did not follow up the case because he could not remember the perpetrators’ faces, or he would have pursued legal action against them.

“I raised my hand into a ‘wai’ but someone punched me in the eye, removed my shirt, and stomped repeatedly on my body. I begged for my life; otherwise, I would have died that day. My teeth were knocked out, my hand was chopped with a machete. If a friend had not jumped in and intervened, I would have died," said Somyot. He emphasized that he lodged a complaint at Huamark Police Station but he had heard nothing from the police. He recalled that the area had CCTVs, but the police had never contacted him about the case. After he received the financial compensation, he decided to stop pursuing the case.

Somyot said that he cannot read. He has problems with his spinal cord. He cannot drink carbonated beverages. His brain is not the same. He can read with his right eye, but when he closes his right eye, the left cannot read letters. He sold his taxi and gave up driving because it only brings trouble. Currently, he makes a living from a bit of business, just enough to feed the family.

“Let me say to those who attacked me, you are not human. People can talk to each other, talk to each nicely.. Not just look at me and hurt me like an animal. Like a lamb to the slaughter. I was able to escape because of a friend. But right now I do not know where that man is. I was looking at him but they punched me in the eye,” Somyot said in the fourth year after his assault.

Thida: the motive was to expand the conflict

Thida Thavornseth, a UDD leader, said she did not know the progress of the cases. In addition to the five who died, Sanong Inthara also died from a stroke while travelling home from the rally. She stated that many had been attacked and injured.

Thida thought that the incident was intended to escalate and expand the conflict because the UDD held a rally in an enclosed area far away from the PDRC, but then the PRDC brought people into the area. The UDD might have mistakenly thought that since their rally was far from the PDRC’s, there would not be any incident or provocation. But the other side mobilized people into the area. She noted that the injuries and death occurred in front of Ramkhamhaeng University and in the sois around, as the opposing protesters did not dare to break into Rajamangala Stadium but attacked people outside. The police had not been able to do anything. It was clear that this was an attempt against people in a peaceful assembly. They want to start something and spread the problem. In the end, we abandoned our rally.

3 years and 4 months given to Adison for torching UDD bus in front of Ramkhamhaeng

Suradet Khampaengjai, aged 17, was found dead in a bus that had brought UDD supporters. The coach was torched in front of Ramkhamhaeng University. On 16 February 2015 Matichon Online reported the Court of First Instance ruled in the case of Adison Sichanphong or Dam, 30, accused of instigating unrest, arson of a bus and theft in front of Ramkhamhaeng University. The court judged that the defendant had jointly committed an act of theft with two or more people and using a vehicle, based on photos of the defendant removing property, and sentenced him to five years in jail. The court reduced the sentence by one-third to three years and four months as the defendant’s testimony was helpful. The defendant was ordered to return all property. On the remaining charges of gathering with more than ten persons, use of force, instigating unrest, and arson causing death, the court considered that the photographic evidence did not show he committed the offences and dismissed the case.

Progress since the police press conference in 2014

The police spokesperson team held a press conference on 27 February 2014. Bangkok Biz News reported that ten arrest warrants had been issued and four persons arrested.

Murder. Thawisak Phokaeo, 21, a pre-degree student at Ramkhamhaeng University and first-year student at Siam Business Administration Technological College, was shot in the left side of the chest with a .45 calibre bullet. The shooting occurred on the footpath near the fence at the back of Ramkhamhaeng University near Gate 008 on 30 November 2013 at about 21.00 hrs. Progress: awaiting the results of the investigation of the person in the video clip. Crime scene investigation has been completed. Eleven witnesses were questioned. The police received an autopsy result, including the bullet trajectory. The police are investigating potential perpetrators and investigators are requested to periodically report to their supervisor. So far, the perpetrators cannot be identified.
Murder. Private Thanasit Viangkham, 21, was an army private at Pranburi Infantry Centre. He was shot in the head through his helmet. The incident occurred in the middle of Soi Ramkhamhaeng 24/14 on 1 December 2013, at about 2:00 hrs. On 22 December 2013, the police arrested Nophadon Kaeomichin, 20, of 183 Moo 6, Tha Yang Sub-district, Thung Yai District, Nakhon Si Thammarat, and Thirathat Thongrit, 20, of 246 Moo 5, Nai Khuan Sub-district, Yan Tha Khao District, Trang, with a .38 revolver and six bullets. The two were charged with homicide and joint possession of firearms and ammunition without permission.
Murder. Viroj Khemnak, 43, of Bang Bua Thong, Nonthaburi, was shot in the chest by a bullet of unknown caliber while standing near the entrance to gate W, about 2-3 metres in front of the ramp into Rajamangala Stadium, opposite the Faculty of Science, Ramkhamhaeng University (adjacent to the northern stadium fence.) The shooting happened in front of the building on the North side of the stadium on 1 December 2013 at 06:10 hrs. Progress: Eleven witnesses were questioned by the police. A report on the bullet trajectory from the crime scene is still pending as is identification of the bullet from the old building.
Murder. Wisanu Paopu, 26, of Lat Krabang, Bangkok, was shot in the upper left chest by a 9 mm bullet which did not exit the body. The shooting happened on the footpath on Ramkhamhaeng Road, opposite the mouth of Soi Ramkhamhaeng 53 on 1 December 2013 at 06.30 hrs. The deceased was walking with his friend, Worawit Tritrakun, to observe the clash before going home to Lat Krabang. Earlier, teenage students were facing a group of red-shirt guards in front of the deceased. Progress: eight witnesses questioned, autopsy examination report, the friend of the deceased questioned about the direction they were walking; results of a new bullet identification test and bullet identification matching awaited from Bangsue Police Station.
Arson causing death The body of Suradet or Jay Kamphaengjai, 17, was found in a burned out bus at the Gate 1 entrance to the stadium, on 1 December 2013 at about 15.30 hrs. The deceased left home in Ekkamai with Chatmongkhon Pinnak, his friend, on the latter’s motorbike. An investigation revealed there were 15 offenders. Eight arrest warrants were issued and two were arrested: Adison Sichanphong, 29, and Chaiyan or Jimmy Simora, 15, a juvenile.

Read the original article in Thai here

Metta Wongwat

Apart from the problem of interpreting the legal meaning of the term ‘defame’ in Article 112, where the current standards of the courts use a very broad interpretation, the scope of the royal persons protected by the law has a similarly problematic interpretation, despite the fact that the law clearly specifies only four positions, namely, the King, the Queen, the Heir-Apparent and the Regent.

The position that seems to be the most problematic is ‘heir-apparent’. This has been a delicate issue for many years. Documents that will confirm this issue in fighting a case be used for the defense are extremely difficult to access. What is strange is that this is still the case even when we have entered the reign of King Rama X.

The underlying reasons for the judges’ frustration can be found in the cases involving Princess Sirindhorn, including those of Prachuap Intaphat a decade ago, Chanwit Chariyanukul, who was tried shortly after the 2014 coup, the two defendants in Kamphaeng Phet, and Anon, whose lawsuit has cleared the Court of First Instance and the Appeal Court. In each locality and at each level, the courts demonstrated ‘sensitivity’ towards the issue and gave reasons that differed from each other.

Prachuap Intaphat

Prachuap’s case was heard in 2004, when the court of the First Instance handed down a sentence of ten years, the Appeal Court five years, and, finally, the Supreme Court four years. We can see different interpretations of the term “heir-apparent” throughout the case, from the court of the First Instance to the Supreme Court.

The Court of the First Instance defined ‘heir-apparent’ as a son or a daughter of the King. Initially, the public prosecutor accused him on an ordinary defamation charge, under Article 326 in the Criminal Code, for defaming Princess Sirindhorn. The Court found this was inappropriate for the Princess’ status. The Appeal and the Supreme Courts referred to the 1924 Palace Law of Succession; and hence both ruled that defaming Princess Sirindhorn did not constitute lèse majesté. The appellate courts dismissed the offense relating to the Princess and only imposed sentences for the offenses relating to Queen Sirikit, and then Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

Here are extracts from verdicts to illustrate the issue.

The Court of the First Instance: “In the 1999 Royal Institute Dictionary, the term ‘Heir-Apparent’ refers to a person who will ascend to the throne. It does not refer to any ‘right’. When interpreted in combination with Article 112, it must be in accord with the terms, ‘King’ and ‘Queen,’ which precede the term ‘Heir-Apparent.’ Consequently, ‘Heir-Apparent’ under the provision of Article 112 refers to every royal ‘heir' or ‘heiress’ of the King, not to any specific royal person. … The term must mean that Princess Sirindhorn is within the meaning of ‘Heir-Apparent’ under Article 112. But this does not go so far as to make a final decision on the term “heir-apparent” in the 1924 Palace Law of Succession… An interpretation of the law that an offense against Princess Sirindhorn can be brought under Article 326, as with an ordinary person, may not be done under any circumstance and is utterly inappropriate. Such an interpretation is under the general authority which the Court uses to uphold the sanction under the law, with consideration of customary law, the intention or principle of law, to uphold the institution of the monarchy and justice.”

The Appeal Court (and the Supreme Court): “The plaintiff as public prosecutor has investigated the status of Princess Sirindhorn, because the matter involves the authority to file a lawsuit. The designation or removal of an heir-apparent is in accordance with the 1924 Palace Law of Succession, which is the law concerning specifically the royal succession. Since Princess Sirindhorn is not the heir-apparent; the act does not constitute an offense under Article 112.”

Chanwit Chariyanukul

Nonthaburi Provincial Court read the verdict in 2014. The offense was reportedly committed in 2010. Chanwit was accused of distributing copies of a flyer criticizing the Monarchy, including King Rama IX, Queen Sirikit, then Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn and Princess Sirindhorn. The public prosecutor prosecuted four different counts based on the alleged insult to each royal family member.

The defendant testified that he distributed the flyers, which constituted bona fide criticism. He argued that the distribution of a single flyer should constitute only one count. However, if the court insists on penalizing him as the public prosecutor proposed, he should be penalized on only three counts, pertaining to each of the royal family members protected royal defamation law. The defendant said that the public prosecutor sent a letter to ask the Royal Household Bureau to provide the number of heirs-apparent. The prosecutor received a letter in reply that Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was the only heir-apparent. The judges summoned the defendant's attorney and the public prosecutor to view the letter in the courtroom, but the defense lawyer was not permitted to make a copy of the letter.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights reported on its website that a part of the verdict reads, "the defendant's action is defaming the Monarch, who shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. The Monarchy contributed incalculable benevolence to the country and the all Thai subjects. The content which the defendant wrote in the flyer is regarded as an act that defames the [royal] institution, which constitutes an offense under Article 112. The defendant is sentenced to imprisonment for six years. With regard to the issue of having to consider whether or not the Princess Sirindhorn is heir-apparent under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the court makes no judgment because it is not necessary for the case, as the defendant’s action is already regarded as one offence.”

Atsadaphon and Noppharit

The royal defamation case came under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Court of Kamphaeng Phet in 2015. The defendants were charged with making a false claim that they were able to request the presence of Princess Sirindhorn to preside over a temple consecration ceremony. There were people demanding money from the temple. There were four offenders. Two pleaded guilty and were sentenced to seven years and four months for falsifying public documents, impersonating officials by wearing a uniform they were not entitled to, and lèse majesté. The defendants that pleaded guilty had their prison term halved to three years and eight months. After a general royal pardon, the two prisoners were released. The remaining two defendants remain imprisoned until the present, while their attorney has stubbornly fought for a certain document.

Firstly, the defendants’ attorney petitioned the court to summon a document from the Provincial Court of Thanyaburi in a similar case where the defendant was accused of defaming Princess Sirindhorn. In that case, the investigating officer sent a letter to the Royal Household Bureau asking about the status of Princess Sirindhorn. The official received a reply (during the reign of King Rama IX) that the only heir-apparent appointed was then Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn. The reply was referred to in the Provincial Court of Thanyaburi and the investigating officer also testified in Court. Ultimately, the defendant won the case.

Thiraphan Phankhiri, a member of defense team said, “The Court did not allow the issuance of a summons for the letter, for the reason that it does not appear that the letter clearly exists, although we referred to the correspondence number of the Royal Household Bureau.”

The second time, defense lawyers filed a new petition to the court to issue a summons for the document again, citing the testimony of the investigating officer and the plaint in the case at Thanyaburi Provincial Court. Most importantly, the petition documented the Royal Household Bureau’s reply to an inquiry from the investigating officer, which is essential for the defendant’s argument in the case. In the end, the court refused to issue a summons.

“The Court called the lawyers to discuss the matter and said only that the Court may not cross the line,” said Thiraphan.

The lawyers attempted, for the third time, to search for a document on the Council of State’s website, which publicly displayed a consultation letter from the Royal Police Department in 1989, that the Crown Prince is the only heir-apparent. The Court issued a summons to the Council of State; however, one day after the summons was delivered, the document was removed from the Council of State’s website. The Council of State, citing the Rule on Maintenance of Official Secrets 2001 and the Public Information Act 1997, sent a fax to the Court declining to deliver the document. The Council of State reasoned that document is classified state information and its release could cause damage. The defense lawyers are requesting the Court to summon the Secretary General of the Council of State to testify if there are reasonable grounds for denying access to the document.

In the document in question, the Royal Household Bureau states that the official title in Thai of Princess Sirindhorn includes the term “สยามบรมราชกุมารี” which may be literally translated as “Crown Princess of Siam” which means a daughter of a Siamese king, and does not mean a designated heir to the throne. Therefore, Princess Sirindhorn was not covered under Article 112. The document also stated that the police had voiced concern on how to prosecute alleged defamation of Princess Sirindhorn under the normal criminal defamation law (Article 326 of Criminal Code) since the Criminal Procedure Code states that a defamation suit must be filed by the person defamed. The police further stated that since such cases should not be known to the Princess, they could not prosecute the alleged defamation of the Princess.

“Generally, the defence must be given full opportunity to prove the innocence of the defendant. In this [lèse majesté] case, I feel that in every procedure where the law gives us the authority and the right, as soon as we use the right, we are blocked and we meet obstacles. In other cases, we have never found obstacles of this size,” said Thiraphan.

Anon

Anon’s case was not covered in the news. He was accused defaming Princess Sirindhorn while chatting in a private conversation with a friend. Anon was accused in 2012, and despite the police initially making a non-prosecution order, the case was tried in 2014, shortly after the coup, similar to many other lèse majesté cases that had been dropped. Anon’s case was tried in the Provincial Court of Thanyaburi. The Court of the First Instance and the Appeal Court dismissed the charge because the offense did not constitute lèse majesté. Nevertheless, the verdict is not final as the public prosecutor in the case has appealed to the Supreme Court.

Taweesak Kerdpoka

Although the Constitution supposedly guarantees the right to bail, it is as if that right does not exist for a lèse majesté suspect. In the case of Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa, the court seemed to improvise the reason for revoking bail beyond what the law allows, an expert says.

21 December 2017: Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa wore his graduation gown over his Department of Corrections-issued prison uniform, amid his loved ones and supporters, before he testified at the military court at Sripatcharin Camp at the 23rd Royal Army Base in another case where he was charged with holding an activity, “Speaking for Freedom”. This is one of the five cases he has faced since the coup in 2014.

Other than his loved ones and political comrades, a group of children on their way to a music contest thanked Pai for teaching them how to play the phin and khaen. Before they left, they took a photo with the still-smiling Pai.

On Dec. 22, 2016, just over a year ago, Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa, a law student at Khon Kaen University, answered a court summons at Khon Kaen Provincial Court. Police investigators had petitioned the court to cancel bail on his lèse majesté case, citing the reason that Pai had “mocked the investigators”. The court deliberated the investigator’s petition and ruled that:

“The accused did not delete his Facebook message with which he is charged in this case, and the accused displayed behaviour via social media in a manner which ridiculed the authority of the state without fear of the nation’s laws, causing damage to the nation. The accused also had a tendency of acting in this way repeatedly. The accused is a student in the Faculty of Law and is 25 years old, and should well know that aforementioned actions constituted a violation of the court’s order. It is therefore reasonable according to the petition that the accused has acted in such a way as to cause damage after being temporarily released. In addition, the guarantor of the accused did not urge or take care that the accused follow the conditions that court ordered, resulting in the aforementioned damage occurring. Therefore bail for the accused is revoked.”

Jatupat celebrates his graduation with his parents in front of the court building

The case was filed by Lt. Col. Pitakpol Chusri, a military officer in charge of overseeing political movements in Khon Kaen. He gave evidence that Pai shared a BBC Thai biography of Rama X—an article that 2,800 others also shared.

After that day, the court never again granted bail to Pai although he submitted dozens of bail requests. Each time, the court gave the reason on that there was “no reason to change the former ruling.” Finally, Pai confessed that he shared the alleged Facebook post, but did not admit that what he had done was illegal. On August 15, 2017, the court sentenced him to five years in prison but halved it due to his confession, for a total of 2 years and 6 months. At that time, Pai had already been in prison for 244 days.

“Ridiculed the authority of the state:” An unprecedented condition for revoking bail

Sawatree Suksri, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University, said in a seminar “When the Right to Bail Disappears” on 15 January 2017 that in principle, the alleged offender in a case should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, and the authorities cannot treat suspects as if they were already guilty, but act on the hypothesis that they are innocent. Therefore, denying temporary release goes against this principle and basic human rights. Exceptions must be meticulously decided, with clear reasons, on a case-by-case basis.

There are three main types of temporary release on bail, said Sawatree. The first is release without conditions. In the second type, the suspect promises to show up to court as scheduled or according to a court summons. If they do not show up, then they will be fined. The third type requires bail money as a guarantee. If the suspect does not show up in court as scheduled, the court will confiscate the bail money.

The court can use their discretion to release the alleged offender without conditions if their behavior does not pose any problems. However, in almost all cases, the court demands a guarantee, showing the discrimination inherent in the justice system. While release with conditions but without a guarantee is practiced in foreign countries, in Thailand the opposite is practiced. In Pai’s case, during his first temporary release he put up a guarantee, but the court also issued conditions for his release. Sawatree insisted that Pai did not violate the bail conditions.

As for the court’s determination that Pai was challenging the state’s power, Sawatree said whether or not Pai intended to “ridicule the authority of the state” is supposedly irrelevant to determining his freedom. First of all, ridiculing the authority of the state does not constitute a violation of the bail conditions. Secondly, since the sovereignty of the state is owned by the people, the government is merely the representative of the citizens. Therefore, mocking or challenging the state’s authority is basically a citizen mocking their own authority.

Of course, the court can use their discretion but they must use it within the framework of the law, rather than completely improvise. The revocation of Pai’s bail, Sawatree said, may not be within the law.

“If we say that this country is still a democracy, power belongs to the citizens. The question is: how is it wrong if citizens mock themselves?” she said.

When bail is revoked and you can’t fight your own case, then you’re forced to confess.

“In terms of feeling, I don’t feel anything anymore. Being denied bail has become a normal thing after something like this happens. If you were to compare it to a boxing match, I lost even before getting in the ring. But I’ll still fight though I know I’ll lose because I think it’s the loser’s victory.” —Pai Dao Din, Jan. 1, 2017

“After the 2009 coup, the justice process—especially for 112 cases—has been a coercive process that forces people into corners, forcing them to choose between confessing and fighting the charges...even though you believe you’re innocent, but nothing is certain because nowadays, the interpretations push the envelope more and more...If you fight, you’ll be locked up. If you lose, you’ll be locked up for longer. That’s the nature of 112 cases. Finally, people confess in droves.” —Sawatree Suksri, 19 January 2017

Although the Constitution states the right to bail as well as the assumption that alleged offenders are innocent until proven guilty, these rights are not exercised in lèse majesté cases. iLaw, or the Freedom of Expression Documentation Center, has stated that since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)’s coup on 22 May 2014 until15 January 2017, there have been 73 cases of lèse majesté. Of the 46 requests for bail, only 18 were granted.

Sawatree stated in her seminar on “Judgements and Rights to Temporary Bail in 112 Cases” on 19 January 2017 at Thammasat University that being denied the right to bail in lèse majesté cases is a method to force defendants to confess. Being held behind bars devastates one’s mental condition and prevents one from fighting the case by finding evidence and witnesses. Worse, defendants are not allowed to consult with their lawyers in private although this is a legally-sanctioned right. In lèse majesté cases, the court often holds secret proceedings, with only the defendants and their lawyers present. These conditions, said Sawatree, are authoritarian, forceful, and instill fear.

“For many years Thai courts have regularly refused bail to people awaiting trial for ‘insulting the monarchy,’” Adams said. “The systematic denial of bail for lese majeste suspects seems intended to punish them before they even go to trial.” —Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, 20 August 2014.

The article is originally written in Thai and available here.

Bribes are unavoidable for businesses that operate in the grey market. Sex businesses must forfeit considerable sums of money to the authorities to persuade them to turn a blind eye to sex work, especially if their businesses operate in tourist districts.

June (pseudonym), a 39-year-old ‘bar girl’ from Ao Nang in Krabi Province, recounts that each week the ‘bar’ owner provides a list of sums of money to be given to various government departments. Like clockwork, representatives from those departments come to the ‘bar’ to collect the bribes.

In June’s capacity as the bar’s de facto accountant, she remembers that few departments sought out bribes in the past. But after the coup in 2014, the number of departments demanding ‘kickbacks’ grew.

‘Once a man swaggered into the bar and said that he was from Region 8 and said that he was here to collect money. He said that we had to pay. Otherwise, he would have the bar closed. I didn’t have an issue with the money per se. No matter what, we have to pay. But why didn’t he speak nicely to us? He said he came from Region 8 but who is Region 8? What does it do? I still don’t know. When I asked why we had to pay the sum, he said his boss ordered him to come,’ recounts June.

‘Region 8’ is not the only department that has paid a visit to June — there have been visits from ‘the provincial police’, the ‘investigations division’, ‘division 2’, ‘division 5’ and many more.

According to June, each department demands between 1,000-2,000 baht. While in the past, the bar forfeited around 2,000-3,000 baht in bribes each week, that amount has now risen to 10,000 baht a week after the coup. On top of these regular payments are ‘tokens of kindness’ that officials demand now and then, such as for festivals or senior police officers’ birthday parties, which cost 500-1,000 baht each.

These officials do not provide evidence of the payments, nor does June have any way of determining whether they genuinely are department representatives. They never present IDs before collecting the money. Still, June has little choice but to pay the bribes to whoever these men are, out of a desire to avoid trouble.

When Prachatai contacted Ao Nang’s local government, the Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO), Suphot Chotchoi, a representative, denied any part by the TAO in these monetary exchanges. Supot insisted that the TAO’s only responsibilities with respect to service businesses are to check that the premises meet health and safety standards.

“There are three types of service businesses in Ao Nang district. First, there are more than 40 four and five-star hotels. Second, there are small hotels and resorts. These make up 70-80 per cent of service businesses. Third, there are entertainment venues. There are about 13-14 of these businesses along a street, and there are 4-5 more along the beachfront. Our responsibilities are to check whether they are properly registered, whether their safety procedures are adequate, and whether they have an adequate waste management system yet.”

While the law prohibits sex work in Thailand, bribes involve big money for authorities. If we roughly multiply June’s sums by the number of bars stated by the Ao Nang TAO, ‘officials’ collectively reap as much as 800,000 baht a month.

Although sex workers in Ao Nang report that they have no idea what becomes of these funds, they are relieved that authorities do not interfere with their work once bribes are paid.

But in some regions in Thailand, the authorities demand more than bribes from brothels. Sex workers in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, face harassment from the authorities despite their employers paying bribes of up to 3,000 baht a day.

In Mahachai, the world of brothels frequently mingles with the world of migrant workers in the local fish industry, both legal and undocumented.

Pla, a former sex worker turned volunteer at the women’s rights organisation, the Empower Foundation, recounts that police cars patrol the brothel zones every night. They do not look for sex workers so much as undocumented foreign workers who come to visit the brothels. Any workers without work permits are promptly arrested and forced to pay bribes to be set free.

In the past, the authorities rarely interfered with brothels themselves, and were concerned primarily with cracking down on illegal migrant workers. But as in Krabi, the lives of sex workers in Mahachai have changed since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) came to power.

Pla told Prachatai that rising bribes were the first sign of the change. While in the past, brothels might have paid some 2,000 baht a day in bribes, that sum has now risen to 3,000 baht a day. But the most massive effects came with the passage of the NCPO’s Managing Alien Workers Act.

Before the NCPO came to power, foreign workers comprised a sizeable segment of sex workers’ customers in Mahachai. However, the strict penalties against illegal workers set by the NCPO convinced many foreign workers to return to their home countries. Pla estimates that the Act resulted in a 40 per cent drop in her brothel’s clientele.

Jiw (pseudonym), a brothel owner, also began facing challenges after the 2014 coup. For the first two years of the military government, her business mostly remained the same and could make between 20,000-30,000 baht a month, and up to 40,000 baht during holiday periods. But she estimates that the NCPO’s harsh measures on foreign workers have resulted in a decline in business of more than 90 per cent. These days, her brothel makes a loss rather than a profit.

“If it stays like this, I’ll probably have to close down. I just can’t survive. I’ll have to find other work. For my employees, if they have two or three clients a night, that’s enough to make a living but I can’t. I have to find the money to pay water bills, electricity bills, bribes and 1300 baht a day for rent. Now I can still make ends meet. But if it stays like this until the end of the year [2017], many brothels may have to close down.”

“Before Prayuth came, on paydays, festivals, public holidays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, there were lots of clients. People in the streets round here would be bumping into each other. All the workers hoped to make money. These days, you don’t have to hope. It’s all down to luck. At the end of the month and weekends there are few clients.”

Streets that were once lively with people are now empty, the exception being patrolling police officers. These days, however, they are targeting the sex workers themselves.

Pla reports that after the 2014 coup, the authorities began randomly checking sex workers more often — searching specifically for drugs or condoms. Officials argue that having condoms implies prostitution. Some workers are let off with a minor fine, but unlucky brothels may be closed for two or three days, but still have to pay daily bribes.

“In the past, when there was a fight in a bar, we would call the police and have to wait hours. By then, the people fighting had all gone back home. But these days, I see the police more often than my husband,” Pla says and laughs.

Also, the authorities often ask sex workers for active ‘cooperation’ in their crackdowns on prostitution. Pla explains that when the police are trying to meet annual quotas, they ask brothels to send one or two workers to report to the police station. The workers are then made to give their fingerprints and pay a fine of between 100-200 baht. Although the sum is relatively small, the workers walk away with criminal records.

But all of the above describes only the actions of the local police — who are cute and cuddly when compared with Thailand’s national police force from Bangkok. Sex workers have no way of knowing when Bangkok police will spring an inspection, when the authorities forcibly enter the back rooms of brothels where the girls work.

In the worst case Jiw remembers, the police raided when a sex worker was serving a client and accused her of human trafficking. She had to pay as much as 50,000 baht to get free and that was an ‘unofficial’ fine.’ An official punishment would have presumably been even worse.

“He turned and asked how much I could give them. At first, I said 20,000 baht, but he wouldn’t accept it. So I said that all I had was 30,000 baht, he still wouldn’t take it. So I asked him how much he wanted. He said he wanted 50,000 baht. I called one of the girls at the bar and asked her to collect 1,000-2,000 baht from the others. We managed to get the other 20,000 baht, which the worker brought to the police station. After that, the officer released me.”

While the NCPO views the sex industry as the cause of human trafficking, sex work is also voluntarily chosen by many as a means of making a living — a distinction that the junta’s policies do not recognise. In this way, the government’s crackdown on the sex industry is pushing many workers away from the jobs that support them.

Fear of police interference has convinced many sex workers to leave permanent establishments in favour of freelancing by advertising themselves on the internet. But as Prachatai’s previous instalment of ‘Sex in Grey Areas’ found, independent sex workers are at higher risk of abuse at the hands of clients and face critical financial burdens.

The Thai government’s harsh policies against sex workers are pushing many workers into a precarious position. But of course, to blame the NCPO alone is unfair. The junta’s crackdown on sex work has been enabled by general support from Thai society, where sex work continues to carry a significant social stigma.

So how should society view sex work, so that the dignity of sex workers is upheld?

Branding sex workers as ‘sources of disease’, ‘sluts’ or ‘lazy’ is not only a distortion of the truth but marginalises them to the fringes of society. But neither are all sex workers ‘victims’ of sex trafficking, poverty or a patriarchal society. Such discourse serves only to give legitimacy to the Thai government’s heavy-handed management of the industry.

One sex worker imparted the following advice to this writer. Perhaps they are words that may help the rest of society see the stories of sex workers with clarity:

“When you write about us, don’t view us as bad women or promiscuous women. At the same time, you don’t have to write that you feel sorry for us and we are always victims. Just write that I am just one worker who has not got the basic rights that I should get. Only that is enough.”

Military officers usually assist police in raiding brothels (Photo from Khaosod)

Pongpan Chumjai

Tens of thousands of migrant workers without proper documentation travelled back to their homelands or were fired by their employers who feared legal repercussion as soon as the Royal Decree on Managing the Work of Aliens B.E. 2560 (2017) went into effect on 23 June.

The tumultuous, uneasy situation lasted for over a week until 4 July, when Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, as head of the National Council for Peace and Order, issued NCPO Order Number 33/2560 Re: Temporary Measures to Rectify the Problems in Managing the Work of Aliens. One of the measures delayed punishment under four articles in the Royal Decree until 1 Jan. 2018 and added a loophole for changing the law.

The Mae Sot Labour Law Clinic, under the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF), found that during the time the Royal Decree was applied from 23 June to 3 July, 27,000 Burmese workers travelled back to Myawaddy in Karen State over the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Mae Sot District, Tak Province. If 4 July is included, the number may be as high as 30,000.

Many affected by the new alien labour laws do not have plans to return to Thailand, since they cannot call it “home” anymore.

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‘I don’t want to move anywhere any more’: Burmese Muslims

The-Bangladeshi Mosque village after tenants were told to move out

Naing Win’s rickshaw

Towards the end of August, a winding concrete road led me to a village in Mae Sot, Tak. Tin roofed wooden huts, raised just enough to stay out of the stagnant water below, lined both sides of the road. The Bangladeshi Mosque village is one of six Burmese Muslim villages in the area’s Islam Bamrung Community. According to the NGO Save the Children, the Bangladeshi Mosque village consists of 1,526 people in 280 households.

Bangladeshi Mosque village is so named because of its location next to the Nurul Islam Mosque II, colloquially called the Bangladeshi Mosque. Around 35 years ago, Bangladeshi traders settled in Mae Sot and were given land to build a community mosque and row houses to rent. The first inhabitants were Burmese Muslims who migrated from the often-violent Wang Pha village, Mae Ramat District in Tak Province near the Thai-Myanmar border. Later migrants eventually made this community the largest in Islam Bamrung.

Along the concrete road I walked past rows of houses until I came to a wide space that used to have 23 houses of Burmese Muslims, said my guide. All the migrants and houses disappeared until there were three left, their occupants pondering what to do next with their lives.

Naing Win, 40, is a Burmese Muslim from Rangoon. His citizen ID states that he is of Surti ethnicity, which means he is descended from people in Gujarat in western India near the Pakistan border. According to Myanmar law, citizens are still categorized based on their ethnic ancestry, no matter how many generations ago they moved to the country—one of the main factors in discrimination against non-Burmese.

Naing Win said he left Rangoon for the Bangladeshi Mosque community over a decade ago. He has a work permit from his old employer, but since the process was complicated, he didn’t bother to change the name of his employer when he changed jobs. When his work permit expires, Naing Win has virtually no chance of extending its validity since the Myanmar authorities do not issue Certificates of Identity (CI) for Muslim citizens.

Nowadays, Naing Win rides his rickshaw collecting used goods and doing an unstable flow of odd jobs. When he collects enough items he sells them for around 400 to 500 baht per load. He makes 3,000 to 4,000 baht per month.

His wife, 33-year-old Pattama Kyi, stays at home and takes care of their children since she does not have any official documentation.

The couple have four children and are currently taking care of three. Their sons Faisal, 12, and Maung Lin Lin, 8, study in third grade and kindergarten 3, respectively, at a primary school in Mae Sot. The youngest son, Duwaniya, 2, stays at home with Pattama Kyi. Their only daughter Malinee, 10, is in first grade but is staying with relatives in Myanmar due to her poor health.

The family’s heavy burdens got worse when the Royal Decree on Managing the Work of Aliens B.E. 2560 went into effect. One early morning in late June, soldiers and police raided the Burmese Muslim community, deporting some back to Myanmar but letting others stay since they had no home to go back to.

The troops came for Naing Win and Pattama Kyi’s family, too. They let Naing Win go because he had a work permit, but detained his wife and children. Naing Win had to ask his sons’ teacher at the primary school to confirm with the authorities that the children did indeed go to that school, and that his wife was their guardian. Only then did the police let Pattama Kyi and the kids go.

Although they were released, troubles continued to pile on. The local landlord gave an ultimatum that his tenants had to move out by September because he didn’t want any further trouble with the authorities. Naing Win planned to move onto another landlord’s land, since the current landlord decided to only put 10 houses up for rent and most households moved out.

Pattama Kyi said she constantly worried about the move. Naing Win was also afraid to collect second hand goods since the authorities were cracking down on the immigration law at that time. Without Naing Win’s income, the children had to stop going to school.

Still, the family is adamant that they will not return to Myanmar. In their native land the situation is even worse, they said, with no chance of their children getting an education there.

“Mobile Children” affected by authorities’ policies

The example of Naing Win’s children who had to suddenly quit school is one of the troubles that befall “mobile children,” or stateless refugee children in Mae Sot District, Tak Province. According to data from Tak Public Health Office, in August 2017, there were 71,690 stateless refugee children under 18 in Mae Sot while the five border districts in the province have 200,000 in total.

The Child Protection Network Mae Sot (CPN), one of the non-government social development organizations in the region that focus on children's’ rights, expressed their concern that mobile children in the area are vulnerable to health risks and human trafficking without legal protection.

Human rights experts: children must not be detained or deported.

Vitit Muntarbhorn, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, and expert on international human rights law and refugees, said that Thailand has two laws that already offer legal protection for refugee children: the Child Protection Act B.E. 2546 and the Act for the Establishment of and Procedure for Juvenile and Family Court B.E. 2534. Vitit said these two laws effectively help manage the “mobile children” situation.

The two sets of laws should prevent mobile children from being detained or deported. Officials of child aid organizations such as the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, NGOs and trade unions should also aid the individuals since it is a social welfare rather than immigration issue.

Vitit said that Thai education law should be open and not be affected by interpretations of the new immigration law. Under the National Education Act and resolutions by the 2005 cabinet, everyone, regardless of nationality, has the right to free education.

“Therefore, we should allow both official and unofficial schools to remain unaffected by the new immigration law. We have to put the children’s benefits first and reject discrimination against their development and protection by considering their basic needs and fundamental rights,” [AB1] Vitit said.

Thai laws should be looked at from a big-picture perspective: no Act stands alone, he continued. “We have to respect labour policy and law but they’re not the complete answer. … We have an obligation under the international Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to take a general and broad view and look at laws and policies on children in general together with other related laws,” said the international human rights law professor.

When democracy is deferred

The transition from military to semi-civilian rule in Myanmar has been a rocky one. General elections in November 2015 that put in power the government led by Htin Kyaw and Aung San Suu Kyi did not lead to democratic reform.

The Myanmar army still maintains political power under the 2008 Constitution. The seven-decade-long wars between the army and ethnic groups are still raging due to stalled peace talks. The Rohingya humanitarian crisis in Rakhine [AB2] State, according to October data from the UNHCR, has resulted in 600,000 refugees streaming into Bangladesh.

Widespread discrimination, prejudice and general distrust of Muslim minorities in Myanmar severely discourages Muslim refugees since the era of military rule from returning to the country.

Refugee schools

Sa Muang and his students

In the Bangladeshi Mosque village in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, the sound of dozens of schoolchildren reciting lessons from the blackboard floats on the wind blowing through. On the plastic sheets covering the raised wooden floorboards, some sit with their legs to the side while others sit cross-legged against the tin walls. The curriculum and teaching is done completely by volunteer teachers. The school, called a community learning centre in the area, is one of 50 in Mae Sot.

This wooden schoolhouse has been open for four years, attended by local refugee children. One of the teachers is Sa Maung, 55, a Burmese Muslim. Sa Maung was one of the democracy activists who marched in the 8888 Uprising in August 1988. He was arrested, jailed for four years and released in 1992. Sa Maung used to live in a refugee camp in Phop Phra District, Tak Province. As the years passed, his friends got visas approved and moved overseas while he decided to go and live in Mae Sot District, where people encouraged him to teach refugee workers’ children.

When asked why the community had to open a school even though many children in the community are eligible for enrolment in public schools, Sa Maung said that the community leader told him that there are many other children who do not have any education at all and he was afraid they would grow up without any future or would be led to misbehave. Therefore, he asked parents in the Bangladeshi Mosque community to send him their children until they have enough money to send their children elsewhere.

Sa Maung’s school currently has 42 students of varying ages sitting comfortably together in the 6-by-8 meter wooden hut. School runs from 2 pm to 5 pm on weekdays, with lessons including English, Burmese, Maths 1 and Maths 2. Sa Maung said that 3 to 4 years ago, a volunteer teacher taught Thai too but this year there have been no volunteers. In the evening, children go learn Islamic subjects at the mosque until 8 pm.

Sa Maung said that although elections have been held in Myanmar, he has had no chance to go back to his home country. A Burmese Muslim like him, he said, is basically stateless. Although not Rohingya, he says Burmese Muslims have encountered so many problems when they have to prove their citizenship to get their citizen ID.

If he could plead with Aung San Suu Kyi, Sa Maung said he would ask her to do something about radical conservatives in Myanmar. Nowadays when a problem crops up in Myanmar, people from these groups do things that affect Muslims, which is undesirable. “Before, if the higher-ups did something bad, we could teach them. But now there’s no one to teach anything, so they are free to cause all the problems they want,” he said.

“In Myanmar, there are the Shan, Karen, Mon and other states. In the country there are people who follow many religions, including Buddhists, Christians and Muslims. In the past, the government took care of only the Burman ethnic group. People of other ethnicities, like those who practice other religions, are oppressed,” Sa Maung said.

Although he exists as a stateless person without a citizen ID, he says it’s not a big deal for him, as long as the children eventually get statehood and receive an education without being deported. That’s enough for him, said the teacher. Still, he believes that if the children had an ID card they would focus on their education more and have a better chance at a good future. Even people of different religions and cultures should be able to coexist, because all religions teach people to live peacefully, Sa Maung said.

Stateless, existence-less: Refugees from Karen State to the edge of a field on the border

Mue Mue’s family hut

Not far from the main road in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, I weaved through the concrete paths into a village and walked along the earthen ridges to a flat space where there were three huts close to each other. I talked to a Karen family of 14 with no nationality who lived together. The family is part of the Karen refugee population that moved from border camps to live in Mae Sot.

Mue Mue, a 42-year old Karen woman, was born in a village near Dooplaya District, also called Kawkareik in Myanmar, not very far from Mae Sot. Unrest in Karen State made her decide to flee to Mae Sot in 1988, or when she was 13. Later, her mother followed. Mue Mue only went back to Myanmar once, when she was 30, to bring over her elderly father.

Struggles and Starvation in Dooplaya during the Civil War with the Myanmar Army

Map shows location of Kawkareik District, also known as Dooplaya, in Karen State.

Since the late 1980s the Myanmar army has conducted intensive operations in areas of Karen State occupied by the Karen National Union (KNU). In December 1994, some Karen troops collaborated with the Myanmar army and established the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), weakening the KNU and taking their bases at Manerplaw in February 1994 and Kawmoora a year later.

After taking those strategic bases, the Myanmar army invaded further into Karen State. According to a report in 2000 by the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), villages in Dooplaya District that occupy thousands of square kilometres formerly under KNU rule came under Myanmar army control by 1997 after Karen troops defected to them.

From 1997 to 1999, the Myanmar army burned down villages and forced Karen villagers to move away from Dooplaya to weaken the support network for the KNU. Villagers had to settle in neighbourhoods strategically located close to Myanmar army bases. People had to get permission to do farm work outside of the village area. The army drafted local people as coolies. Those suspected of collaborating with the KNU were detained and tortured—a fate that often ended with execution.

In December 1999, Karen villagers had to hand over their entire year’s harvest to the army, which the army later redistributed as daily rations to each family. This resulted in widespread starvation all over Dooplaya. To survive, many went into the forest and dug for taro roots. Some escaped into the wilderness, and the army declared they would shoot them on sight. Others escaped across the border to Thailand ... where an uncertain future awaited them.

......................

Today, Mue Mue lives with her Karen husband and their three children. Her eldest daughter is 25, her son 16 and the youngest daughter is 9. When her eldest daughter married and moved out, she gave her then 4-year-old son from her first marriage to raise. [AB3] One of the other huts belongs to Mue Mue’s older brother, while the other belongs to her younger sister and her family. No one in the three huts has any official identification, save for her younger sister’s husband who has a work permit.

Mue Mue said that when she first moved to Thailand, she earned 300 baht a day working as a farm hand. She would move around wherever there was work. Mostly she worked in Mae Sot, but she had travelled as far as Mae Charao Subdistrict in Mae Ramat District and Mae Kasa Subdistrict in Mae Sot District, all in Tak province. One job often lasted weeks or even a month. After it was over she would come back to Mae Sot, and the cycle continued. Most of her work was in cornfields, sifting corn kernels or field work. In this season, she said she was mostly husking corn into sacks, for which she got paid 15 baht per sack. On a good day, she gets 200 baht. On bad days, 80 baht.

When the Royal Decree on Managing the Work of Aliens B.E. 2560 (2017) went into effect, the landowner told Mue Mue and her family to move out because they were liable to be caught by the police and soldiers. The family escaped into the forest for three days and nights and only returned to live in the huts when news of the raids dissipated.

Since she has chosen to settle down in Thailand and the Myanmar government’s reorganization of the administration of Dooplaya District (Kawkareik), Mue Mue has no official documentation from the Myanmar government. Trying to prove her Myanmar citizenship would be impossible. Mue Mue even said, “If we went back to Karen State we would have no way of surviving. But in Thailand there’s still a way. I’ll live in Mae Sot until I die. Even if I get arrested and sent back to Myanmar I’ll get on a boat to come back to Thailand.”

While I was talking to Mue Mue, La Kor, her 16-year-old son came and sat next to her. Like other children of refugees, he does not have a Birth Certificate or a Certificate Of Report Of Birth. Although the Thai government has allowed stateless children to attend public schools since 2005, La Kor has had no chance to go to school since he has become an important source of income for the family. His work at a car wash in Mae Sot brings him 3,000 to 4,000 baht per month.

When I asked Mue Mue whether she wants her children to go to school, she said she used to not want her son to go to school because he is the only one who helps his parents work. She doesn’t know if her daughter wants to go to school, but she would like her to. A few months later, Mue Mue talked to a human rights worker in the area and then decided that she would plan for all of her children to go to school.

Surapong Kongchantuk, an expert on nationality law at the Social Action for Children and Women Foundation (SAW) said Mue Mue and her family’s stateless situation could be helped under Thai law.

Although Mue Mue was not recorded in the Person Without Registration Status survey by the Ministry of the Interior between 2006 and 2011, Article 38 Paragraph 2 of the Civil Registration Act (No.2), B.E. 2551 was amended in 2008 to say that those without Thai citizenship could register their status if they lived in Thailand. This Article was then subsequently implemented in Mae Sot district.

Therefore, in Mue Mue’s case, if she can prove that she has lived in Thailand for a long time and that she has no ties to the Myanmar state, she can register her status on the TR 38 immigration form. She would get in return a Registration Status card which would have a 13-digit ID number. The number would begin with a 0 and the 6th and 7th digits would be 00. The card signifies that the holder is a Person Without Registration Status but still has no rights of habitation and public healthcare.

However, children of two Persons Without Registration Status, even if they are born in Thailand, do not yet receive Thai citizenship. To get Thai citizenship they must qualify according to the cabinet’s Dec. 7, 2016 resolution and the Ministry of Interior’s Mar. 14, 2017 announcement. Mue Mue’s children, who were born in Thailand,[AB4] can receive Thai citizenship if they 1) obtain a Certificate of Report of Birth that states they were born in Thailand and 2) complete a Bachelor’s Degree.

As for Mue Mue’s children that have not gone to school, Surapong says it is the parent’s duty to take the children to school and the schools’ duty to accept them, whether or not the children want to learn. It’s everyone’s collective responsibility to make sure that children get the highest level of development in their formative years. The law stipulates that parents should enrol their children so they can have Thai language skills. Children without any Thai language ability fall behind when compared to other children their age.

The Thai state must protect ethnic refugees

Authorities should not use a blanket approach when coming up with policies that apply to ethnic groups from Myanmar, including Burmese Muslims that live along the Thai-Myanmar border, said Surapong.

Indeed, such people should be categorized into three separate categories. The first group are foreign labourers who have immigrated to Thailand for work and can return to their own countries. With this group, the state should treat them as a foreign workforce. The second group are people who have settled in Thailand for a long time, such as ethnic groups or refugees. This group cannot return to their native countries and they left Myanmar a long time ago and the political situation there is still unstable. With this group, the state should treat them as ethnic minorities or refugees. The third group are refugees’ children who are born in Thailand. They are not foreign labour nor did they escape here. According to the former idea, this group may qualify for Thai citizenship, which the state has not granted them.

Therefore, the state should treat these three groups differently, but currently they paint a broad brush across all of them, accusing them of illegally entering the country and using deportation as a punitive measure, creating a long-standing problem.

The state must tackle the problem at its source rather than detaining people based on the new Royal Decree on Managing the Work of Aliens B.E. 2560 (2017) by seeing which category a person belongs to. If they are a refugee they must register as such, if they are foreign labour, they must register accordingly. Children born in Thailand must be treated as that—children born in Thailand, because they are neither refugees nor foreign labour. If processed correctly, they could stay in Thailand legally under regulations and with guardians. Even if they are declared illegal and deported, they will just enter into Thailand again.

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Back at the yard in front of Mue Mue’s hut on the edge of a field, the sun started to set as we continued to talk. Towards the main road, we could see twinkling lights from malls that outlined the horizon. We ate dinner and Mue Mue’s family cleaned their house and got ready for bed, saving their strength for the hard new day ahead.

Before I said my goodbyes to Mue Mue and La Kor, I asked her what she thought was most necessary in life.

“Number one, a citizen ID. It would allow me to find work anywhere. If we have work then we have food,” Mue Mue answered. “If we have money but no ID card, then we can’t travel anywhere and have to hide here and there.”

Mue Mue believes that if her family obtained citizenship or at least registration status, their lives would improve since they would not have to hide from authorities. Her son could also do other kinds of work, such as factory work. Previously, when he applied at a factory no employer would hire him since he had no status.

Kritsada Subpawanthanakun‎

“... some people had stones thrown at their head, a knife pointed at their throat or a knife aimed at their belly (these are experiences that I myself had directly). Some have had piss thrown at them, and have been kicked and slapped around. Some have been beaten up to within an inch of their lives just for other people's satisfaction. They have been kicked, beaten and stomped in the face, without being raped or having their possessions taken. That sounds like a joke but it is the reality for kathoei in our home in Cho-airong District.”

[Translators’ note: the Thai word kathoei is used with a number of different meanings, including gay men, transgender men and transvestites, making an accurate translation difficult]

This was in a message to Bussayamat Issadul. Youth in Yala refer to her as Mother Ann of Buntem Shelter. Ms. Issadul assists gender diverse people in the area when they encounter painful experiences in their lives because of their different gender.

….

In the southern border provinces (SBPs) of Thailand, the overlapping identities of being ethnic Malay, Patanian, and Muslim are intertwined in such a way that an outsider cannot decipher the complexity of identities. Identity politics has been extensively used in the struggle against the Siamese state, locally known as Siyae, a term also used to represent non-Muslims. I assumed that during the more than thirteen years of unrest that restarted in 2004, the Malay identity has been intensified to say ‘who I am’ and ’you are not like me’. Religious life has become stricter and tightening.

In reality, humans do not carry only one identity. If all identities in a single person were compatible, life would not be tough. But if two identities (or more) clash violently, it is hard to compromise. Sometimes tragedy is unavoidable. Anticha Sangchai, from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus, and the owner of the Buku Bookstore, agreed with the above assumption.

"In the Islamic scriptures, there is a strong and clear indication of the sin of being LGBT. When religious identity intensified, sex and gender issues immediately become sensitive and more important because if something in the scriptures is not given importance, it means that the scriptures are weak. People who are trying to establish a strong sense of being Muslim in the area push many things that are not accepted in the scriptures. "

In general, the holy texts of every religion are controversial. There are many interpretations, struggles, and negotiation of ideas in interpretations. In this regard, Anticha thought that this dimension, in recent years, has been missing in the SBPs because of the fundamentalist turn to a strict adherence to the scriptures, which has been monopolized by some people. There is no culture of dialogue to discuss these issues.

Anticha told me that the scriptures did not speak much about sexual diversity, yet there are abundant terms referring to mercy, love, fraternity. However, it turns out that these words were ignored. Personally, she does not think religion is the main cause of the phenomenon of alienation, discrimination, or misunderstanding of LGBTs. She remembers that social norms contributed to the phenomenon. She has experienced a progressive Muslim society bringing gender issues to society.

…………,……

Ahmadkamae Waemusor, Vice President of the Islamic Council of Pattani Province and Director of Sasnupatam School said:

"Being a kathoei is acceptable in Islam, because in Islam there are religious practices. You are a man, you practice your religion through praying or different rites. How you practice must be clear. If a person is a kathoei, the fact is that he is a man, so he must be treated as a man and perform rituals like a man. But don’t do anything wrong; for example sexual relations with the same sex will be punished. But the individual has no problems and is accepted."

Ahmadkamae said being kathoei is acceptable to the extent that a kathoei must not have sexual relations with the same sex, which is considered a sin and is forbidden.

Islam has space for gender diversity, especially those who are kathoei. However, for toms [Translators’ note: lesbians who act like men] the thinking seems to be different. Ahmadkamae told me being a kathoei is the original 'condition' of the person, while being a tom is a 'behaviour' that comes about from the influence of the media, from the environment, and from unstable families.

"When I found out (meaning about students in the school), I called them in for a chat. We talked back and forth under my care and after a little over a year, this behaviour disappeared and there was no problem. Being a tom is not like being a kathoei. It is not their condition, it just arises from behaviour to show off or be sarcastic in a way about society or the family. That’s how it is. What there is a lot of bisexuality. Some days a person is a woman, some days a man. It does not come about from the original condition of a person, but is temporary. It is caused by feelings. If a person is a student, they can come to adjust their behaviour. We have methods."

I asked him if he had ever heard of LGBT assaults in the area.

"I know there are physical assaults. In the society of the school, there are physical assaults, but not many. There is bullying and psychological assaults. We try to monitor and prevent the situation from getting out of hand into action. We have to intercept it. They can live here and be accepted. They can express themselves. When there is a school show, there is a group of them who come out screaming. We give them an opportunity as long as they don’t go too far from the condition they are in. For example, they cannot dress up like a woman. Islam has a rule about that. We cannot compel their condition but we must keep watch on their actions. "

Ahmadkamae said that incidents like this were not many. However, he acknowledged that when they happened, LGBT groups were unlikely to make it known. They keep it in their group, making it impossible to know definitely the extent of physical assaults.

Ahmadkamae confirmed that attacking a kathoei or a tom is not right. Islamic principle insists that it is a sinful act to wash dirtiness in dirty water.

Likewise, it is forbidden for Muslims to harm others, even if that person is a member of LGBTs. Islam teaches that being LGBT is a sin, a personal sin. LGBTs can also perform religious duties according to their original biological sex.

"They must not marry the same sex," this is the iron rule.

...............

Three years ago, Ae (not her real name) decided to run away from home in Yala to live in Bangkok. She could not live with the pressure from her the family anymore. Since she could remember, she considered herself a tom, despite at that time not knowing the name of her identity. She felt strange and unusual; in particular, she felt shy when close to a woman. She fooled herself into trying to date men but she could not resist her impulse.

Her family is strictly religious. Ae wore hijab head scarf when she was a child. While men wear anything they want, she asked her father why women have to wear a hijab.

"Father said God does not like women who are not covered. God commanded that not wearing one is a sin and women will go to hell. If a man sees a single strand of hair, a woman will be in hell for forty years. My dad always made claims about God. I then told him that it was hot, very hot. I even dared him to wear one to see. He replied that hell was hotter. For me at that time, it did not make sense at all. I thought that uncovering my hair did not cause anyone any trouble. Why should God hate me just for uncovering my hair for other people to see?

In addition to the difficulty of wearing a hijab, it is also a symbol of females. For Ae, it is harder to adjust to the hijab. Ae considers her/himself as a man; thus, Ae chose to cover the hair at home and take off the hijab outside.

"At that time I was a tom. I believed it was a sin. But one hundred percent sin? No. Balanced against that was the thought that it didn’t matter. I am like this. But I still believe in God, who is always merciful and forgiving. The iron rule of Islam is that as long as one still believes in God, all sin will be forgiven. I thought I still believe in God, so if I am a tom, God will forgive me. I also wondered what if God does not love me. God said the third sexes are hell-bound. Why? If I love God, will God still hate me? Can I not still be a good servant of God? I am just like this. If God hates me and calls us people of hell, why did God create me?

Ae lived with this discomfort until her parents pressured her to get married. Of course, to a man. That was the turning point when Ae decided to escape to Bangkok and slowly eased her/himself out of religious bondage. She questioned the existence of God and chose to walk out of Islam. It is a crucial issue, apart from her/his vulnerable relationship with her/his parents ... Crumbling is still a much lighter word to describe the relationship. Ae's choice of word is 'empty.'

................

Not all LGBTs have chosen to cut ties with their families like Ae. It was an expensive price to pay. Some people choose to compromise and negotiate when two identities collide in a religious framework so that they do not hurt themselves and their loved ones.

"The clashes between identities, I think, have their space and time. We have many identities, depending on time and place. LGBTs may put on clothes that conform to their sex at birth because it is colourful and a day to celebrate with their family. An LGBT person knows what s/he should do at any given time. Appropriateness is not a limit on rights and liberties; but it is an interaction with something that is different from us and how shall we live with that?" said Ekkarin Tuansiri of the Faculty of Political Science, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus.

A young kathoei in Yala city, known as Nana Venus, a name she gave herself, chooses to express her gender identity to society. At the same time, she does not neglect the religious practices that a good Muslim follows. It is not easy, but is it unbearable to go into a mosque without make-up? She cannot. Forced to do that, her confidence would vanish before she reached the mosque.

Nana wears make-up when she goes to the mosque for prayers but she keeps her traditional outfits for the prayer session. The elders looked and some asked ‘Is this excessive?' Her peers of the same age chose to gossip and Nana heard them. She said being in a city her appearance was not serious and weakens the shock of being different.

"I have to look at the place for how I can dress. It’s not that I just wear something short. My parents know I am like this but I have never worn shorts. Whenever I go anywhere, I try to dress respectfully. I wear makeup and my hair is cropped, so people know what I am but I never overdo it."

"Do you feel sinful?" I asked.

"I do. I was born that way. I cannot choose. I try to be a good person so other people can see I am good. I'm not the kind that will be a woman all the way. Being what I am and being too much are not the same. The sins are not equal. I know I am sinful. Just this is a sin. I will try to stop at this."

"Have you ever wanted to have a sex change operation?"

“When I was in Grade 7 or 8, I saw older LGBTs in the media. They had long hair and breasts. I wanted to be like them. However, the reality is that I am in this religion. I am Muslim in a Muslim society. I have learned, I have grown up. I have studied. My parents did not prohibit me at all, yet they set a boundary for me. I do not want an operation. This is enough for me. Just this has already caused them enough worry."

"What if one day you want to change into a woman?"

"I have to restrain myself when I am like this. I have feelings but the feelings can disappear. When it comes again, it must disappear. Our feelings always change. I try to reduce my media consumption. I try to consume media that I have seen is appropriate for me. I have older peers who went to work in Bangkok. They are like this. They are beautiful. But I do not have to be beautiful, with long hair or breasts. I am happy with just this. It depends more on my happiness. If I do more than this, I feel that other people stare at me. I won't be happy. Doing this is enough."

..............

The love of A and B (not their real names) crosses the religion line. A is a Muslim and B is a Buddhist. They identify themselves as gays. A is a kathoei and B is a man. They met through social media. Later, they decided to live together to help each other run a business. A came to the point where he underwent a lot of pain, negotiation and major changes in himself.

A told me that he spent some time as a kathoei. He went through almost all the procedures required for a man to be transformed into a woman, excepting only the sex-change operation. He is the only son of a well-known and respectable Muslim family in the area, which meant his parents could not tolerate his sexual identity. He was violently rebuked. He was cast out of their home. It went as far as beating him. It ended when he escaped to take up a life as a dancer in Bangkok. Since in the society he lived in he had only gay friends, he gradually changed into a gay. He could still preserve characteristics of being male, not like a kathoei. A's family found it is easier to accept. He started wearing a beard, playing football and dressing like a man with the heart of a gay.

"That's what the parents see on the outside. But inside I am still the same. They can accept me as their son. That's enough. "

After seven years in Bangkok, A returned to Yala as a gay man, unlike the kathoei who had left. His parents came to terms with this image. He started his own business with extensive experience and knowledge gained from life in Bangkok, as a makeup artist, hairdresser, and even a dance teacher.

After starting his own business, A wanted a companion to share his path, his life, and his business. Then came B. B had previously had a family and had children. A believes that his parents should know about his relationship with B, and should be able to accept it because they both help each other earn a living.

If one day, you are pressured to marry a woman, what will you do?

"If you ask if one day I will want it, I want it. But I have to stabilize my position first so that I can look after another person who is a woman. I want to have children. I want to have a family life. Yet, at this time, I am looking for a place where I stand. One day I want it. But I want by that day everything to be perfect, and that I can raise her child. Before that time, I have to choose for the family.

Would you be happy?

"I think we have to get to know each other"

"What if you still love B?" I asked.

"I think for love we do not need to separate because a shared life, I will have a wife. Do we need to separate? It is not necessary to go that far, because we live together today. We are together more like a family. We live like a family, relying on each other like life partners. If one day, we have to separate we'll both be glad. We have a different family. We have talked to each other that if one day we really have to separate from whatever reason, we want to part smiling. We don't want a noisy fight.

I turned to look at B. He was just quiet and smiling.

..............

The question is: in what way can Muslims in the SBPs and LGBTs coexist?

The ongoing unrest in the SBPs increases the complexity of gender and LGBT issues. The marginalized are marginalized further amidst explosions and human rights abuses by officials and insurgents. The problems of marginalized people are not as significant as ending the unrest. With this priority, LGBTs live in eternal non-existence and an endless wait.

"If I look at the violence that occurs against LGBTs in the SBPs, I think it overlaps in multiple dimensions. When a person in the SBPs is Muslim and is LGBT, they suffer violence in many dimensions, in many forms not only because they are LGBT alone. They may be discriminated against in other dimensions from their overlapping identities," said Anticha.

"How does Islam deal with this?" Ekarin repeated my question. "First, one has to consider that they are people of the faith like us. Muslims must first understand that the LGBTs who are Muslim are servants of God. They have the same status as us. If we are people of the faith, we have to exchange with LGBTs. The problem that arises in Muslim society is when we think we are pious, are good servants of Allah, then we will not associate with people who we feel are not good servants.

"For me, we have no right to accuse or do anything to them at all. They and we have the same rights. What is an issue between these individuals and God, we do not have the right to judge their sin that they are good persons or bad persons. That's not our duty. "

..............

In Malay, the word ponae means kathoei or a man who acts effeminately like a woman. The terms lesbian, gay, tom[boy], [la]dy, bi[sexual], queer or terms for other sexes are not yet established in Malay. In one way, it reflects that Malay has not caught up with changes to name or define things.

Local people commented that ponae cannot be interpreted to include other sexes those that are not kathoei. But some others said it can. It is not a little embarrassing when there is no language to call something. It is enough to say that apart from kathoei, other LGBTs have no place in Malay. The use of borrowed words is a way to help Muslims in the area who use Malay to know what to call people who are different.

It is really not easy to be ponae, tom, lesbian, bisexual, queer ...

Sarayuth Rittipin

Suphap Khamlae, wife of disappeared land rights activist Den Khamlae, has been released upon completing a six-month jail sentence for land encroachment. At 65, Ms Suphap, of Khok Yao Village, Khon San District, Chaiyaphum Province, insists that she will continue to fight for the Khok Yao community until justice is achieved.

Each night as darkness falls, desolation descends upon this lonely house as Mother Suphap awaits her husband’s return to the place they call home

Charged under the Forest Act (1941) and the National Reserved Forest Act (1964) with encroachment on the Phu Sam Phak Nam Protected Forest in Chaiyaphum, Ms Suphap was sentenced to six months in Phu Khieo Prison, Chaiyaphum, beginning 27 June 2017. The sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court and read out by the Phu Khieo Provincial Court.

Upon her 6 January release, she was joyfully received by members of people’s movements nationwide under the umbrella of the People’s Movement for a Just Society (P-Move). Human rights activists, ordinary citizens and students came to welcome “Mother Phap” to freedom, reuniting her with home in a spirit binding ceremony.

Suphap told Prachatai that prisoners are usually freed at 10 in the morning, giving them time for devotions, exercise and to bathe before singing the national anthem and eating at eight. However, she was released at seven, given no time to prepare and no opportunity to eat or say goodbye to friends.

She speculates, with a smile and a laugh, that prison officials released her early out of fear of the journalists and large crowds that might meet her at the prison gate. She was overjoyed and deeply moved at the many people who, in fact, did come to receive her.

With the early-morning release, some missed meeting her at the gates. Professor Alongkorn Akkasaeng, College of Politics and Governance, Mahasarakham University, left home on 5 January and took a room in Phu Khieo, eager to greet Suphap the morning of the seventh. He arrived at the prison at 10, the scheduled release time, only to find no one. Prison officials told him that she had been released at seven and that everyone had already left. Alongkorn then travelled to a temple in Khon Kaen where ceremonies were being held for Mother Phap and offered his congratulations there.

Another academic who welcomed Suphap to freedom, Anuson Phatthanasan, Faculty of Political Science, Chaiyaphum Rajabhat University, says that in the course of researching land use issues he had spoken with Den, Suphap’s husband, a few times before he disappeared. Though he had not had much opportunity to speak with Suphap, he had encountered her many times at land use seminars, and at an event in May of last year marking the one year anniversary of Den’s disappearance.

“I’ve felt bound to their fate for a long time now, and after Mother Phap was imprisoned, I committed myself to welcoming her upon release and giving her encouragement,” he says. “Why should anyone bear repeated hardship like this? Khok Yao Village takes up very little space, both for living and gardening. The houses are not much more than tin shacks, just enough to shut out the wind and with less than a tenth of a hectare, just enough for beans and vegetables to live day-to-day. And she has to go to jail. That’s more than the poor should have to bear.”

Mother Suphap’s case is only one instance of injustice resulting from the improper exercise of government power in land disputes with the state. Protected forest status is designated for areas where people are already living and eking out their survival, and officials move to force the villagers out of their homes and off their land. When villagers petition for their rights, they are met with obstacles, threats and various forms of violence. Many are arrested and charged and must fight their cases from the Court of First Instance all the way to the Supreme Court. Some lose their freedom and are jailed. This endless cycle of injustice will continue as long as state agencies fail to cooperate in correcting problems with policy.

FACT BOX ON SUPHAP KHAMLAE

Ten villagers have been arrested on charges of encroachment in Phu Sam Phak Nam Protected Forest since 1 July 2011. The defendants are named in four cases:

Case 1: Khambang Kongthui, Samnieng Kongthui

Case 2: Thong Kunhong, Sompong Kunhong

Case 3: Sanam Chunlanan

Case 4: Den and Suphap Khamlae, Bunmi Wiyarot, Nupit Wiyarot and Tia Yamsanthia

The Phu Khieo Provincial Court read out the Appeals Court’s sentence in the fourth case, involving Den and Suphap Khamlae and three others, on April 25, 2013. The Court of First Instance had sentenced Den and Suphap to six months imprisonment without parole and denied bail on appeal as they were considered a flight risk. Charges against the other three were dismissed. The Appeals Court upheld the verdict of the Court of First Instance.

On 9 May 2013, the People’s Movement for a Just Society (P-Move) gathered in Bangkok to call for reform of state agencies and rallied at the Supreme Court calling for the defendants to be granted bail. The defendants’ lawyers lodged an appeal, which the court accepted, also allowing bail for Den and Suphap, but raising the amount from 200,000 300,000 baht.

While awaiting the court’s decision, on 16 April 2016 Den was forcibly disappeared in the border area between Phu Sam Phak Nam National Forest and Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary. He had gone into the forest to look for bamboo shoots.

After examining human remains found 25 March 2017, the Central Institute of Forensic Science released its initial finding that there was over a 90 percent probability that the remains were those of Den, based on DNA from his younger sister.

On July 27, 2017, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of First Instance conviction and sentence against Suphap Khamlae: six months in prison without parole.

Tewarit Maneechay and Yiamyut Sutthichaya

It’s already been over a year since the referendum on the constitution which was approved by the majority of voters, and the memories of what happened before and after the referendum may have disappeared like the contents of a textbook; all forgotten after the test ends.

However, something very important which shouldn’t be forgotten is that a diversity public opinion could not be expressed because of various orders of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). One of their measures was the arrest and prosecution of numerous people who came out to express in public their opinions concerning the draft constitution and referendum.

On 29 January, Ratchaburi Provincial Court will announce the verdict in the case of four activists and one Prachatai journalist who were accused of allegedly violating the Referendum Act by giving moral support to villagers in Ban Pong District, Ratchaburi Province in the case of the activists, and by reporting on the incident by the Prachatai journalist. Prachatai invites readers to review the proceedings of a case that has been going on for around a year, as well as the demands for a democratic referendum from organizations fighting for human rights and media freedom. This will show how the results of a referendum should not be used to question or penalize activists and journalists who are merely performing their duty under the rights that should be guaranteed for all citizens.

Prachatai journalist Taweesak Kerdpoka (left) wins the Human Rights Media Award 2017 from Amnesty International Thailand

Read his award-winning story here

Events leading to the judgement on 29 Jan 18

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights reported that on 10 July 2016, approximately one month before the referendum on the current constitution, three activists, Pakorn Areekul, Anan Loked and Anucha Rungmorakot, visited friends who had been summoned by the court. The friends were accused of violating the order that bans political gatherings of five or more persons by opening a referendum monitoring centre in Ban Pong District, Ratchaburi Province. Taweesak Kerdpoka, a Prachatai journalist, travelled in the car to report on the event.

It started when officers from Ban Pong Police Station searched Pakorn’s car. The search found documents opposing the draft constitution, ‘Vote No’ stickers and leaflets belonging to the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) in the trunk of the car. The activists were interrogated along with the journalist; initially, police did not file charges, and only registered the case in the daily log and seized the documents.

However eventually, the police arrested the four on a charge of “together disseminating texts, images or sounds through newspapers, radio, television, electronic media or any other channel that are inconsistent with the truth or in a violent, aggressive, rude, inciting or threatening manner aimed at inducing eligible voters to refrain from voting or to choose a certain vote or to abstain from voting”, an offence under Article 61 Paragraph 2 of the 2016 Public Referendum Act.

The four accused were then detained at Ban Pong Police Station without bail, pending investigations that night. The following day (11 July 2016) at 9.00 am, police requested permission to detain them further from the Ratchaburi Provincial Court. Lawyers from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights filed a complaint against their detention. Taweesak tried to explain to officers numerous times before being detained that he was only a journalist hitching a ride to report an incident, and had no part in distributing the documents. However, authorities saw that the four of them had come together, so they filed charges against all of them. On 12 July 2016 police arrived at the Prachatai office with a search warrant to search for and confiscate anything related to “vote no” campaigns, but nothing was found. Taweesak revealed to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights that police officers tried to implicate Prachatai in the case by claiming it was a sponsor and printer of documents used in the Vote No campaign for the New Democracy Movement.

Later on the same day, four carloads of police surrounded the house of Phanuwat Songsawadchai, at that time a student at the Faculty of Political Science at Maejo University, Phrae Campus. He is one of the alleged offenders who had reported to Ban Pong Police Station in the morning on charges of holding an event at the opening of a referendum monitoring centre. He had the same charges filed against him as the four other accused.

Despite demands from numerous organisations to drop charges against the four activists and one reporter, they were not withdrawn. The alleged violation of the Referendum Act continues according to the legal process.

The defendant’s statement – assures stickers not inciting

Taweesak talked about the case in a general overview. He faces two charges; 1) violating the Referendum Act by distributing Vote No stickers, and 2) violating Order No. 24 of the Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy (CDRM) for refusing to give his fingerprints during police interrogation. He has confessed to the second charge, testifying that his reason was that he did not accept the arrest process.

Taweesak responded to the accusation concerning the Referendum Act with two points. First, he travelled to Ban Pong Police Station on 10 July 2016 merely in connection with his work as a journalist, and not to participate in the referendum campaign in any way. And secondly, campaigning on the referendum is not illegal since the Act speaks of statements that “are inconsistent with the truth” or made “in a violent, aggressive, rude, inciting or threatening manner ”. Therefore referendum campaigns which do not contain such statements are not unlawful.

Taweesak (right) stayed a night behind the bar after he was arrested with other four activists.

On 3 October 2017 in testimony on this case, Pakorn said that during the constitutional referendum he saw that campaigns providing knowledge on the pros of the 2017 constitution were not well-known or extensively disseminated in the media. The information that the public received consisted only of the main points. There were people who didn’t even know the date of the referendum itself.

Pakorn views that the message in the sticker “Vote No for a future we didn’t choose” is not a violent, aggressive, rude, inciting or threatening message. With respect to the additional question attached to the referendum concerning whether members of the Senate and the House of Representatives should be allowed to select the Prime Minister for the first five years, Pakorn is of the opinion that because senators may not be chosen by election, this becomes “a future we didn’t choose” as the stickers illustrate.

Pakorn testified that Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) had said in an interview that distributing stickers shouldn’t violate the Referendum Act and Wissanu Krea-ngam, a Deputy Prime Minister, also said in an interview that the New Democratic Movement’s dissenting documents could also be disseminated and people may express agreement or disagreement on the draft constitution.

On the same day, Taweesak testified as a witness that on the day of the incident he had followed the activists to Ban Pong Police Station as a journalist after learning that the alleged offenders in the referendum monitoring centre case had been summoned to hear the charges. Before the incident, he had done a news report on Pakorn at Thammasat University, and Pakorn told him that he was heading to Ban Pong Police Station to give moral support to the people there. Taweesak then asked for a ride. Once they arrived at the Station, he began taking pictures and interviewing the alleged offenders, before interviewing the third and fifth defendants to write the news story.

Taweesak testified that afterwards, the authorities invited them to the police station, although he had declared himself a journalist from the very start, also showing them his journalist ID card. Also, when he was summoned, police did not say that it was to make an arrest, but once he was at the station, officers announced the charges and apprehended him.

Taweesak also testified that at first he was allowed to use a phone, so he called Somchai of the ECT to interview him about the stickers. Somchai stated that having stickers shouldn’t be a violation of the law and if it’s not making speeches or giving false information and provoking or inciting others then it’s alright; however, it’s also up to the discretion of the police. Then Taweesak handed the phone to the Deputy Superintendent for Inquiries at Ban Pong Police Station.

Taweesak added that when he presented himself as a Prachatai journalist, police may not have believed him since Prachatai is an online news agency without a printing house. Police may have thought that the seized documents belonged to Prachatai, since after Taweesak was summoned, Pol Lt Col Sarayut Buriwachira contacted Sutthisan Police Station. Police from that station then searched the news agency; however there was nobody there that day, so police did not enter the premises. Prachatai knew that the police had come since other agencies in the same building informed them.

Panuwat, Anan, Pakorn, Anucha and Taweesak stands in front of Ratchaburi Court

Other Referendum Cases

Threats against freedom of expression during the referendum campaign started approximately with the preparations to open referendum monitoring centres in various provinces headed by the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD). The actions taken ranged from summoning campaigners to military camps for talks to filing charges. In particular, 19 core UDD members were charged with violating NCPO Head Order No. 7/2015; the prohibition of any political gathering of more than five people, as a result of a press conference to launch a referendum monitoring centre at Imperial World Lat Phrao on 5 June 2016. This case is still proceeding in the military court. Meanwhile, alleged offenders in other cases facing the same charges in other provinces have either been summoned to attitude adjustment sessions or prosecuted. For example, in Sakon Nakhon, the court ruled that taking a photo with a referendum monitoring centre poster was a violation of NCPO Head Order No. 3/2015, and the offenders were given sentences of a 1 month and 15 days in prison and fines of 2,500 baht with the prison term suspended for 1 year of after all 20 defendants confessed.

A report by the International Federation for Human Rights or FIDH stated that the authorities increased the number of arrests and charges in the period before the referendum from 27 April to 24 July 2016. The authorities arbitrarily detained at least 41 people for criticizing or campaigning against the draft constitution, including at least 38 core members of the UDD, who were detained for their attempts to establish referendum monitoring centres.

On 23 June 2016, activists from the New Democracy Movement (NDM), Ramkhamhaeng University and Triumph Labour Union, a total of 13 people, were detained by military and police officers at the Bangplee Industrial Estate, Samut Prakan Province, for distributing leaflets and documents providing information on the draft constitution and referendum. They were later charged with violating NCPO Head Order No. 3/2015 for holding a political gathering of more than five people; the case is still before the military court.

Even well-known politician Watana Muangsook was also taken to a military camp for attitude adjustment after a Facebook post about voting no on the draft constitution. He then made another post, “No matter how many times you take me to adjust my attitude, I’ll still vote no on this draft constitution”. Afterwards, Watana was charged with violating NCPO Announcement No. 39/2014 on the conditions of release for persons summoned by the NCPO.

On the day of the referendum, Piyarat ‘Toto’ Chongthep or tore up his ballot paper in protest against the referendum. He and his friends, Jirawat Aekakkaranuwat and Thongtham Kaewpanpruek, who recorded the incident, were charged with causing a disturbance and public disorder, but the charges were dismissed by the court. But Piyarat was charged with destroying a government document and causing damage to public property. He was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment and a fine of 4,000 baht. Because he pleaded guilty and had no prior criminal record, the sentence was reduced to 2 months’ imprisonment suspended for one year and a fine of 2,000 baht.

Some public events were blocked by the police, reflecting pressure through the law. The Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) reported that an event and constitution campaign activities arranged by the Referendum Websites Network in February 2016 had to be cancelled after the military and police contacted the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre where the event was to be held.

Many organizations questioned the legitimacy of the referendum when the media and the people were restricted by the Referendum Act

Taweesak has informed Prachatai that the court has allowed him to fight fairly and that there is nothing to worry about; he personally believes he has done nothing wrong and is pleased to prove himself according to the judicial process. However, charges filed by the authorities against the mass media have created ripples in the media and human rights organisations.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand expressed concern about the arrest of Taweesak and said that the charge set an alarming precedent for media freedom in Thailand. “It is not unusual for journalists to accompany or travel with newsmakers and interviewees. As a reporter covering human and environmental rights, Mr Taweesak was merely doing his job,” stated the FCCT.

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said “arresting peaceful activists is bad enough, but jailing a journalist for reporting on the ‘vote-no’ campaign is a serious blow to press freedom in Thailand and any hopes that the vote on the constitution will be a fair one.”

Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Asia-Pacific desk of Reporters Without Borders stated “It is unacceptable that local officials, acting under the junta’s authority, fail to distinguish between political activists and a journalist who is covering their activities.”

“As if violating the fundamental freedoms of assembly and opinion were not enough, the authorities are compounding their crimes by also violating freedom of information and media freedom. What will come next? Arresting the journalists who cover these arbitrary arrests?

The government must tolerate the media reporting of the critical views of opposition,” said Ismaïl.

Pramed Lekpetch, Vice President for Rights and Freedom and Media Reform of the Thai Journalists Association and Supan Rakchuea, Vice President for Rights and Freedom of the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, have similar views on this case. They demand that the Prachatai journalist be released without charge because the authorities cannot claim that a journalist riding together with activists is unlawful; it is normal for journalists to head to their destinations on time, and it’s not unusual for journalists to find it necessary to travel together with others involved in the event. At the same time, journalists must perform their duties in line with principles of liberty and rights as well as take responsibility for presenting news according to the constitution.

Kulchada Chaipipat, Mass Media Liberty and Rights Manager of the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), said that the arrest of the journalist and activists is excessive and unreasonable. The identification card matter is another issue, but since he was in the area to collect information from a witness, and the facts confirm that this journalist has been following the referendum campaign from the start, there should be no reason for the arrest.

Kulchada also said that what has happened reflects how Article 61 Clause 2 of the Referendum Act has a direct effect on the media, especially in this case where charges were filed. The journalist should be released without condition since he was only performing his duty as a media professional. Expressing personal opinions is also his right; the arrest was groundless.

Mana Treelayapewat, Dean of the Faculty of Communication Arts at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said that the arrest of Taweesak reflects how society and Thai police still don’t see alternative media as a journalism, and even though at present there has been a great increase in alternative media and civilians who can present news by themselves and are professional in their work, these media cannot receive any protection.

From a not fair not free referendum to election credibility

Under the limited freedom of expression enforced by the junta government and forecasts of an election in 2017 or early 2018 if the draft constitution passed, international human rights and media freedom organizations criticized the enforcement of the law and NCPO orders to suppress those that oppose the draft constitution and demanded the release of people charged under these laws .

Shawn Crispin, the Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) not only proposed that the Thai junta government clear Taweesak of the charges immediately, but also sees it as contradictory that Taweesak was arrested on charges relating to the referendum while the country was heading towards an election. If the Thai junta government wants this election to be credible, they should drop all charges and stop all threats towards the media. "If Thailand is truly on a path back to democracy, as the junta claims, then it should lift its various bans on critical news reporting and allow journalists to resume their democratic role of checking and balancing government and military officials," said Crispin.

Similarly, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, held a press conference on 19 August 2016 expressing concerns about the continuously increasing restrictions on democracy, as well as demanding that the nation immediately stop filing charges against political activists and human rights defenders, including those imprisoned for opposing views towards the draft constitution; these measures are critically necessary for Thailand to move forward towards an election in 2017 [now delayed until 2018 or 2019] with the aim of bringing democracy back, according to the junta government’s roadmap.

Four years ago, on February 2, 2014, People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) protesters, led by Suthep Thaugsuban, forcefully shut down many polling stations in Bangkok and the South. Many citizens who came to vote were prevented from entering the booths and some were assaulted by PDRC mobs. A day earlier, red shirts and the PDRC even fought over the delivery of ballots in front of Laksi District Office. A 72-year-old man was shot in the crossfire: he was disabled and later died of his wounds.

The blockade prevented the election from being held on the same day nationwide. The Constitutional Court later used this as a reason for declaring the election invalid, creating a political vacuum that smoothed the way for the army to take control on May 22. The PDRC claimed that they obstructed the election because they wanted “reform before elections”. After the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) took control, PDRC leaders expressed the hope that the junta would carry out this reform. In its fourth year of power, the NCPO has declared that elections will be held in November this year, or maybe in February 2019, or whenever — with no sign of the “reform before elections” that the PDRC called for so loudly.

1. Poverty and social disparity reform: charity instead of a welfare state

The PDRC saw the poor as the root of Thailand’s political problems. Because they are poor, a large number of people, especially in rural areas, depend on patronage systems and populist policies, such as the rice-pledging scheme, the first car initiative, and 30 baht universal healthcare without caring about the long-term damage to the country.

When the NCPO came to power, they adopted only some of the PDRC’s ideas. Somkid Jatusripitak, Deputy Prime Minister, announced at the Thailand 2018 Seminar that this year the junta would tackle the country’s poverty by integrating government sectors. One project was the poverty welfare cards, colloquially called Poor Cards, for which 11.4 million people have registered.

Although various earlier projects and policies of the junta had aimed at tackling poverty, the Poor Cards turned out to be the most concrete. It categorizes people by economic class and increases their visibility so that the state can help them better.

However, a closer look shows that this aid for the poor is at most charitable assistance, rather than a measure to tackle poverty at its source. The long-established disparity between the 99 percent and the one percent in Thailand determines that the act of injecting money only into the lowest class cannot be classified as solving the problem of economic disparity. The various benefits for Poor Cardholders are actually benefiting capitalists with close connection to the junta because the poor can use the card to shop only at Thong Fa (Blue Flag) welfare shops, the project initiated by the NCPO.

Existing welfare systems, like the universal healthcare system and pension system, were cut back to focus on the poor. Although no clear measures have been enacted, the 2017 Constitution provides a loophole for the state to escape its obligation to provide universal welfare.

To illustrate, the Section 47 states: ‘A person shall enjoy the right to receive health services from the state. The indigent shall have the right to receive health services from the state without payment in accordance with the law ...’

In contrast, the 2007 Constitution states (Article 51): ‘A person shall enjoy an equal right to receive proper and standard public health service and the indigent shall have the right to receive free medical treatment from public health centres of the State...’

Supporters of the current healthcare system criticised that removal of the word “equal” might allow future governments to jeopardise universal access to free medical treatment.

2. Corruption reform: harsher sentences and interference in the NACC

Another point of reform touted by the PDRC was “reform of the problem of corruption, having the government accountable to its citizens.” This includes heavier legal punishments, removing the statute of limitations, and allowing citizens to file complaints without going through prosecutors or the DSI.

But the problem of corruption has not lessened at all in the NCPO era. Transparency International in 2016 ranked Thailand 101st out of 176 on the Corruption Perceptions Index with a score of 35 points, 3 lower from the previous year, due to rights violations during the Constitution drafting period which was devoid of freedom of investigation and debate.

In fact, investigating corruption has never been harder. Gen Prawit Wongsuwan’s scandal of his undeclared assets of 25 luxury watches has provoked mass criticism of the Defence Minister and the junta, putting the administration on its “last legs”.

Another point of contention for citizens is that Watcharapol Prasarnratchakij, Chair of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), is a close friend of Prawit. Therefore, people doubt the NACC’s ability and willingness to investigate corruption among the junta. Criticism rose even louder when the NLA passed the organic bill on the NACC, which intentionally created a loophole for Watcharaphol to continue serving in his position, even though he is constitutionally not qualified for his position because he recently held a political post. Members of other independent or organizations, such as the National Human Rights Commission, have been dismissed en masse, even if they still meet the qualifications for their positions.

This is not the first time that the “self-investigation” phenomenon happened under the NCPO’s rule. Gen Udomdej Sitabutr, who managed the Rajabhakti Park project, admitted that kickbacks were paid in the park’s construction, but all the “commission” had already been returned as a “donation”. The army set up their own investigation and declared that there “was no corruption” in the project.

Nevertheless, the NCPO did implement some of the PDRC’s anti-corruption ideas, especially with regard to harsher sentences. In August 2017 the Conflict of Interests bill entered the NLA. The objective of this act was to prevent government workers and officials from taking bribes. What constituted “corruption” in the law, however, was very petty, including acts such as borrowing vehicles or getting more discounts at shops than other customers. Some academics said the law was made to bully officials rather than prevent corruption.

Under the junta, some corruption cases have moved fast while others stalled. For example, the case of the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration’s rice price guarantee scheme is still stalled while the case against the later Yingluck administration’s rice-pledging scheme has already been completed.

How corruption-free is the NCPO, who claimed to have taken power to get rid of corruption? Scandals include Rajabhakti Park, the blimp, and the Hawaii trip as well as various others, which some are still uninvestigated. Those who have tried to investigate have been prosecuted by the law. For example, pro-democracy activists from New Democracy Movement were arrested for their attempt to call for an investigation over Rajabhakti Park scandal.

The Corruption and Malfeasance Cases Act of 2016 and other anti-corruption policies lean towards heavier punishment rather than creating systems of checks and balances that involve citizens.

3. Decentralization reform: using Article 44 against local officials

The PDRC’s most progressive suggestion seemed to be their proposal on decentralization. They suggested that provincial governors must be elected, rather than appointed by the Ministry of the Interior as now. Governance should also involve citizens more. Yet the NCPO did the opposite of these suggestions.

As with national elections, the NCPO indefinitely deferred elections of Local Administration Organizations. Office holders currently in position would continue until new orders were issued. Not only that, but the junta also used Section 44 of the Interim Constitution to relieve officials in many provinces of their duties, especially those tainted with corruption, and replace them with officials from the Ministry of the Interior. Section 44 also closed down many small-scale local government organizations, combining them into larger organizations.

There has been no discussion during the past four years of electing provincial governors. Sukhumbhand Paribatra, the Governor of Bangkok, was also kicked out of office by the NCPO after being criticized by the junta for his failure to deal with flooding. (Bangkok is the only province with an elected governor.) The NCPO then appointed Pol Gen Aswin Kwanmuang, a former member of the NCPO’s National Reform Steering Assembly, to replace him.

Although Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, soldier-turned-politician, has said that there will be limited local elections before the next national election, it is unclear which provinces are in the running. But NCPO orders that violate political freedoms and restrict political activities are still in effect. Local election laws remain unchanged. The combination forebodes a cloudy future.

4. Delayed police reform

The NCPO called for the police to be under the administration of a citizen-elected Police Administration Monitoring Committee, and for promotions in rank to be based on a merit system. The NCPO created a team from officials from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice and the Royal Thai Police to form a Commission on Police Reform in 2015 that lasted until 2017. The cabinet also appointed Gen Boonsang Niempradit as its head. According to the Commission’s latest announcement, they reached 80 to 90 percent of their conclusions on personnel management, promotions and position appointments, assignments, and investigations. Still, these reforms did not devolve authority to elected representatives – a condition that the PDRC had demanded. For example, NCPO Head’s Order 6/2559 requires that police are legally appointed by the Royal Police Act, NCPO announcements, NCPO orders, or Gen. Prayut’s orders.

Suthep had called for the Royal Thai Police to be divided into national and provincial divisions. Elected representatives in provincial divisions would determine police appointments and transfers, hypothetically solving the problem of cross-province transfers. These demands, and also one that police officers should have Bachelor’s Degrees, have been stalled until today, with no concrete action taken whatsoever by the reform committee.

5. Electoral and political party reform: an appointed Senate and National Strategy Committee

Three days before the PDRC was formed, Suthep proposed election reforms that would guarantee fair elections where “evil people would not come into the Senate and do evil things without listening to citizens.” When the NCPO came into power, this was the “reform” that the junta gave the most weight to. This can be seen in the election system regulated under the new Constitution.

But the actual reforms were far different from those that the PDRC envisioned. An election system where no single political party would gain an advantage will create a weak coalition government that cannot push for citizen-friendly policies and paves the way for an unelected Prime Minister. This reform was aided by one of the NCPO’s innovations: the 250 appointed Senators, all appointed by the NCPO. Senators may have the authority to nominate and vote for the prime minister.

Another innovation is the National Strategy Committee, which sets a 20-year strategy which all later elected administrations must conform to. The Committee will get periodical reports from government agencies, and ignoring the strategy may result in punishment.

In terms of political party reform, the Political Parties Act has been criticized for many petty laws such as those regarding party registration, membership, funding, and other laws to make parties more policy-based rather than a person-centred. Critics say these laws prevent the formation of smaller, newer parties.

Towards the end of 2017, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha announced to Thailand and the world that elections would be held in November 2018. Yet shortly after, that promise was again broken due to complaints that the organic law of the election of MPs, drafted by the NCPO-appointed Constitution Drafting Committee, was unfair to new and small political parties, so implementation of the law had to be postponed. Among the complainants were Paibul Nititawan and Suthep Thaugsuban, who clearly stated that they would support Gen Prayut in the next election.

Before that, the two big political parties, Democrat and Pheu Thai, had asked the NCPO to “unlock” political parties so that they could prepare for the year-end election – requests that the junta ignored. But when small parties with “good people” like Paibul and Suthep speak up, the NCPO responds as quick as lightning.

In December 2017, the junta invoked its absolute power under Section 44 of the Interim Charter to issue an order to allow some political activities while the general ban on political activity remains. This measure, of course, also pushed the deadline for elections from November 2018 elections out another 90 days into the future.

The order states that members of a political party who intend to continue their membership have to “draft a letter” to confirm their intention to the party leader. They must also attach evidence that they are eligible members, according to the Organic Act on Political Parties. This must be done by 1 May.

This means that the established political parties have to get their current members nationwide to send the letters and evidence within the given period. Otherwise, their membership will be invalidated.

Several politicians have subsequently condemned the order as the junta’s attempt to create an excessive burden for old-established parties, given reports and rumours that the NCPO plans to support small parties in the next election.

“The fact that this order forces members of political parties themselves to draft a letter to confirm membership is difficult. There is writing the document and sending supporting evidence. Are people capable of doing this? Is it a violation of their rights?” asked Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a member of the Pheu Thai Party legal team, “In fact, it should be the duty of the party to check if their members have the qualifications or not. This is not the responsibility of party members.”

After junta leader Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha announced that the election may be held in November 2018, various political groups, including the junta's National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) itself, have shown their political agenda to the public. On one hand, the junta last November posed a question to the people: “Does the NCPO have the right to support a political party?” The question is seen as a clear sign that the NCPO will take part in the next election. This assumption was confirmed after Prayut told the media that he is “a politician who used to be a soldier.”

On the other hand, major political parties are seeking a way to prevent military influence in the next election. One scenario proposed by politicians from Pheu Thai and the Democrats is that the two parties might form a coalition in the next election to prevent an ‘outsider PM’ and to amend the junta-written constitution.

In order to see the political future more clearly, Prachatai asked people from across the political spectrum two big questions:

1) Do you agree with the formation of an NCPO party or a military party in the next election and will you vote for it?

2) Do you agree if Pheu Thai and the Democrats form a coalition for political purposes, for example, to prevent an outsider PM?

Jutharat, 59, state enterprise employee from Pathum Thani, former PDRC and PAD protester

Q1: I won’t vote for a party, but for the individual. If Prayut runs for the election himself, I’ll vote for him. But if there’s a military party or a party that nominates Prayut, I won’t vote for them. I’ll vote Prayut because I’ve seen his genuine determination. He works and speaks directly and determinedly. He does things without beating about the bush. Other people don’t like him but I do. He has no corruption issues.

Q2: I disagree because I hate Pheu Thai. This is my personal feeling without any academic reason. If they really cooperate, I might hate the other party as well.

Taweechai, 64, retired engineer from Bangkok, former PDRC and PAD protester

Q1: If the NCPO run for election, I won’t vote for them because, firstly, I always vote Democrat and, secondly, the NCPO right now has a lot of power but still can’t run the country properly. They’re powerful but not capable. If they became politicians like others, without any special power, that’s even more useless. Although they can be the government, they can’t do anything. The NCPO has no ability and are probably not capable of being good politicians. They don’t have any good points.

Q2: I don’t agree with the two parties joining together. I’ll be certainly dissatisfied. If Pheu Thai becomes the government by themselves, I’m already not satisfied. If the Democrats help them to form a government, that will really hurt my feelings. Because Pheu Thai have been the government for many terms and changed its name many times. That proves there’s only corruption and scandals. I drove them out of government many times so if the two parties form a coalition government, I would hate all politicians forever.

Prasat Chumphon, 39, a university employee from Maha Sarakham, has observed PDRC, PAD and UDD demonstrations

Q1: If there’s a military party to support the power of the NCPO as the government, that’s not good because they’re not good at economics and politics. They’re suitable only for keeping the country quiet but that’s like sweeping problems under the rug. If people are still poor, don’t have enough to eat and can’t sleep well, the NCPO won’t last long. What I want to see are policies where grassroots people can live well and eat well on the basis of sustainable development, not policies that only aim to increase popularity.

Q2: I’ll vote for neither of them because whichever party gets in, it can’t solve the conflict or give people a better living. I think the Democrats still stick with its old-fashioned values and haven’t proposed any new ideas to make the country keep up with others. The Pheu Thai Party also sticks with the individual. If the two parties really come together, it may be difficult to work together because their basic values are different.

O (pseudonym), 28, a university employee from Khon Kaen, joined the PDRC protest when Pheu Thai was pushing the amnesty bill

Q1: I disagree because soldiers are only trained to receive orders and obey them, not to think about the public interest as much as they should. I’m not saying that they’re incapable but to run the country, the public interest is something that needs to be taken great care of. The NCPO’s projects don’t look at the long term effects in the future as much as they should, like, the welfare card for the poor, which is complicated. Does it really benefit people? Although they recruit academics and experts to help in each project, it is still the NCPO that has the power to listen or not. They haven’t chosen or decided as people have asked.

Q2: If there is real cooperation I think it is something good because the different parties have ideas that are contradictory. If both parties believe in democracy, respect the majority, and prioritise people’s interests, then even though they have different ideas, it should be a good thing. I think these people are experienced, knowledgeable and have useful ability. But I still can’t imagine cooperation between the two big parties.

Ya (pseudonym), 60, rubber farmer in Trang, former supporter of the ideas of the PDRC

Q1: It’s difficult to answer because during the past year, Prime Minister Gen Prayut announced through the media that he wouldn’t run for election, but he has just recently confirmed that he is a politician. Whether he claims that he’s a soldier or a politician, I will only choose politicians because they have experience in running the country and come to power through people’s votes while the military appoint themselves, and don’t come from elections. The government and the leader must only come from election.

Q2: It’s certainly difficult but I believe that if eventually they can cooperate, it’s acceptable for me. But I have to wait and see who will be the leader of each party. If they are compatible, I will vote for them because I think that most southerners still favour the Democrats. If the Democrats are willing to cooperate with Pheu Thai, the southerners might accept it. Let’s see if they can cooperate. If they join together, I will vote for them whether they can cooperate or not.

Ueng Bao-ubon (pseudonym), 44, redshirt who has been at UDD demonstrations since 2009 in Bangkok and Ubon. Recently he was arrested and is being prosecuted

Q1: I don’t believe that the election will occur in 2018 according to the roadmap. I don’t believe that Prayut will hold the election as he promised. He made this kind of promise many times before but in the end he never kept them. And when there’s an election, I don’t think that the parties that support Prayut will be elected to parliament. Now northeasterners don’t want Prayut, and people in other regions as well.

Q2: I will not oppose that. I give people chance. The Democrats may be able to be developed.

Tuwaedaniya Tuwaemaengae, 34, Deep South civil society activist, Muslim Malay from Pattani

Q1: If the military dares to reveal themselves as politicians, and if they have good policies, and the people see that really benefit, and if they play by the rules of democracy, people will probably vote for them. For me, as a person in the Deep South provinces, I want to see tangible policies that promote peace.

Q2: That still depends on policies. The parties have long been polarized.If they can really cooperate, that may be the answer to reconciliation. That will be a new model of a coalition government of both poles that considers the people’s interests.

Rukchart Suwan, 54, coordinator of a Buddhist peace network from Yala, joined the PDRC protests and always voted Democrat.

Q1: Firstly, in this election, if we need to reform the election, we need to look at the quality of politicians. If there is an NCPO party which is full of soldiers, I should have to think. The country’s administration nowadays is a good example of the NCPO’s work. Personally, I won’t vote for them because at present I feel uncomfortable with this administration so I won’t vote for this party. Even though Prayut runs for Prime Minister himself, I still won’t vote for him, nor for Suthep’s party. There are many ways in which the PDRC movement has been disappointing that make me think that I should not have blown a whistle. I didn’t blow a whistle to call for the military. At that time, I thought that it would be better. The military might have to come to help us but I didn’t think that they would stay as long as this.

Q2: If civilian parties cooperate to reduce the power of the military, I’m okay with that. There was a slogan “let politics lead the military” but in fact, the military has always led politics. In every decision, the military will be the one who has the final say, especially in the Deep South. Therefore, if the civilians think of something big to uproot the military power, I will support that.

Chaiyapong Samnieng, 34, from Phrae, PhD student at Chiang Mai University, member of the Democrat Party, never joined a PAD or PDRC protest, prosecuted for joining a political gathering of more than 5 people to protest the military government at the 2017 Thai Studies conference

Q1: I certainly won’t vote for it because a military party shows the prolonging of Prayut’s power. He may lack capability in parliamentary politics. It is likely to be the old political groups joining together.

Q2: If they cooperate to oppose an outsider PM or to amend the constitution, I’m OK with that. But I think they can’t join together because they have totally different political ideas. The Democrats think about using any authority to move towards a politics of good people while Pheu Thai is mass politics. I think they are so far apart that they will not be able to cooperate.

Woot Model, 42, former community radio host in Samut Prakan, voted for Pheu Thai in 2010

Q1: If the NCPO forms a political party or there’s a military party or a nominee party for the military in the election, I would agree only if it lets the people vote according to a universal democratic system. But what I disagree with and cannot accept is writing election laws which are undemocratic and are said to be written to benefit the NCPO and its clique to prolong their power or gain power more easily. For example, (1) 250 appointed senators, (2) eligibility of candidates, (3) electoral districts and party-list representatives, (4) non-party representatives which will lead to vote buying, (5) PM from outside the nominees of political parties and (6) Provincial Election Commissions having sky-high power to decide on yellow or red cards or to declare an election invalid. Therefore, I see the upcoming election as just a soap opera to trick the people and international community.

Q2. Whether they cooperate temporarily or overnight, I disagree in every sense. I will certainly not cooperate with murderers with bloody hands. Also, the Democrats mobilised people to overthrow popularly elected governments. It’s the party that supported the military to seize the power of the people so I disagree.

If Pheu Thai forgets the painful past of every man for himself, I certainly won’t vote for them.

A (pseudonym), 50, red-shirt political activist from the northeast, twice detained by the military without charge

Q1: I agree with Prayut playing politics and forming a political party. Now we are beginning to see a social movement trying to form political parties by old supporters of the coup. I understand that this is organised for Prayut enter politics.

The political transition after a coup like this is not the first. In the past, Field Marshal Phibun, Sarit or Thanom used this method. Getting involved in politics is a good thing. At least they are regulated by the constitution, not just doing whatever they want, like today.

Q2: On principle, I disagree with collaboration between Pheu Thai and the Democrats. But in practice, I have to wait and see what the goal of the collaboration is. If the goal is clear and the collaboration is just temporary, that could be acceptable. But personally, I never want to sing from the same hymn sheet as the Democrats but if Pheu Thai wants to do it, I won’t oppose it.

Yiamyut Sutthichaya

March 17th marked the first anniversary of the death of the young Lahu activist, Chaiyaphum ‘Cha-ou’ Pasae. He was shot dead by a soldier under suspicious circumstances. The military claimed the shooting was in self-defence, but have not provided any evidence to the public. Investigation procedures in the inquest, where evidence is accessible only to the authorities, cast doubt on the effectiveness of the Thai judicial system to bring to light truth and justice.

The suspicious murder of the famous minority rights activist once again reflects the oppression experienced by ethnic minorities in Thailand, especially in the areas bordering Myanmar, where they are marginalised, face discrimination and are often indiscriminately branded by the authorities as involved in drug smuggling.

Chaiyaphum was shot dead by a soldier who claimed that the killing was necessary because he attempted to throw a hand grenade.

The army also accused the activist of smuggling illicit drugs. The army claimed that the soldiers had to open fire as Chaiyaphum attempted to throw a hand grenade at them at a checkpoint.

To mark the first anniversary of the death of a Lahu hero, Prachatai’s Yiamyut Sutthichaya investigated the suspicious circumstances of the murder and how the death of the young activist has affected his family.

Prachatai talked to Chaiyaphum’s lawyer about his thoughts on the death probe and his doubts about the investigation process, and to Chaiyaphum’s adopted brother about his memories of Chaiyaphum and how his death threw his family and community into a bottomless pit of despair.

Lawyer says Chaiyaphum’s case reflects discrimination against ethnic minorities

Chaiyaphum was killed on 17 March at a checkpoint in Mueang Na Subdistrict, Chiang Dao District, Chiang Mai Province. Soldiers at the checkpoint claim that they found amphetamines in the car that Chaiyaphum was travelling in and that he resisted arrest by pulling out a knife before running into the bushes with a grenade in his hand. The authorities, therefore, had no choice but to shoot him, they claimed.

However, an eyewitness at the checkpoint gave an interview to Thai PBS that Chaiyaphum was dragged from the car, beaten and summarily shot dead.

“A lot of villagers saw that he was dragged from his car. He was beaten and his face was stepped on. Two warning shots were fired. When he got free from the soldiers beating him, he ran off. When he ran off, they shot him dead. They did not let villagers get near the scene,” one of the eyewitnesses said.

Pongsanai Sangtala, the driver and also a friend of Chaiyaphum, was arrested and accused of drug smuggling. He has been released as a free man as the public prosecutor decided not to indict him on the drugs charge. He still has to appear before the court as a witness in the inquest of his friend.

The forensic evidence showed that Chaiyaphum died of a gunshot wound to the chest from an M16 assault rifle.

After the killing, many human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and ethnic minority groups, demanded that government be transparent and more serious in the investigation of his death.

Reactions from the military and the NCPO junta did nothing but spur tremendous waves of doubt and dissent. Lt Gen Wichak Siribansop, commander of the 3rd Army Area in charge of the region, said that he has seen the CCTV footage and found that the soldiers were protecting themselves from danger as Chaiyaphum resisted the regular check-point and tried to throw a grenade but it was accidentally fatal.

“It was a normal decision of the soldier. If it were me there, I might shoot in automatic mode.” These words caused a huge backlash after they were disseminated in the media.

Wichak said that the CCTV footage would not be shown publicly as it will be part of the evidence in court.

Gen Pravit Wongsuwan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, commented on Wichak’s reckless cowboy-like opinion: “He’s been through many fights. I don’t know. Different people have different ideas. If he wants to submit a petition to the Office of the Auditor General to audit the 3rd Army Area, he can do so.”

Villagers in Kong Pak Ping village where Chaiyaphum and his family lived received several threats after Chaiyaphum’s death. Maitri Chamroensukskul, Chaiyaphum’s adopted elder brother, found a bullet placed in front of his house last April. There were also people who came and took photos of his house.

Regarding the accusation that Chaiyaphum was smuggling drugs, soldiers went to search Chaiyaphum’s house on the same day. Later on, police arrested Chaiyaphum’s sister-in-law, Chantana Pasae, and Maitri’s sister-in-law, Nawa Ja-eu, in May last year, claiming that they were the ones who sent Chaiyaphum the drugs before he was killed.

Sumitchai Hattasan, one of the lawyers representing Chaiyaphum, said that there is an atmosphere of intimidation in the area. Eyewitnesses who are summoned to testify are afraid of speaking against state officials.

According to Sumitchai, the forensic results presented during the inquest on March 14 indicated that they did not find Chaiyaphum’s fingerprints on the knife that the soldiers accused him of using to fend them off. Reports also show that one of the many people whose DNA was found on the body of the grenade (not the pin) was Chaiyaphum.

The fear of state officials among the Lahu people dates back a couple of decades. Sila Jahae, President of the Lahu Association, told Prachatai that conflicts between the Lahu and police officers and the military erupt from time to time. In the farming season, the Lahu would be charged with farming in reserved forests or national parks. Sometimes Lahu were beaten by soldiers so badly that they had to go to hospital.

Sila said that he did not rely on soldiers and forestry officials as they caused more problems than they solved.

The Lahu people mostly live in districts bordering Myanmar in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces, and have been living in a climate of fear since the Thaksin Shinawatra administration announced the War on Drugs policy in 2003. State authorities believe that the border districts are part of a drug trafficking route from Wa State in Myanmar and that some hill tribe people are involved.

After the War on Drugs was concluded at the end of 2003, the practice of torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances has continued until today. State officials may arrive at the door, claiming to search for illegal goods and order a search without a court warrant, or with a fake warrant, taking valuables and vehicles from the house and detaining the person at an unknown, unofficial place.

Sila is one who was detained in a hole dug for detention in a ranger camp.

“It’s a custom of state officials to capture villagers and beat them in front of other villagers,” the President of the Lahu Association told Prachatai.

Problematic ‘Closed’ Circuit Television is yet (never) to be seen.

As the claims of eyewitnesses and soldiers differ over this mysterious death, many organisations and individuals believe that the military-owned CCTV footage at the checkpoint is the key evidence for what happened at Rin Luang checkpoint.

Until now, only Lt Gen Wichak and Gen Pravit have claimed to have seen the footage. According to Sumitchai, the military sent the hard disk and the recording device to the police investigator in April last year instead of sending a copy on CD. Such an action provokes doubt in society once again. Pol Col Mongkol Sampawapol, Chief of Chiang Mai Police Station said that having the entire hard disk caused a problem for the police because they could be blamed if they opened the hard disk and found no footage. So the hard disk was sealed with signed duct tape and sent to the Central Police Forensic Science Division.

On 14 March 2018, Sumitchai informed Prachatai that the Central Police Forensic Science Division report had been presented during the inquest. It reported that the footage from 17 March 2017 was not found on a hard disk. Sumitchai said that the forensic officer confirmed that the footage recording machine was working properly.

The footage was never shown in the court despite waves of pressure asking to see it. Sumitchai asked for the court’s approval to summon the footage from the military but this was rejected, claiming that the existing witnesses and evidence are enough for the court to finish the inquest.

The mysterious loss of footage and the court decision make it doubtful that the footage of the death will ever be shown to the public. Is it possible that somebody erased the footage? Did the two people who claimed that they saw the footage lie?

Lesson learnt: More open investigation as a tool to check state use of force

Sumitchai said the investigation process is problematic for the victims and the relatives of the dead. The Chaiyaphum case shows that the state grants its officials the power to kill. Thus, the investigation should be conducted in a fairer manner for the victims as a part of checking and balancing the state’s use of force.

“Extraordinary measures should be methods that the state should not use, that is, use only as necessary. For what happened that day when someone resisted and ran away, there are many were ways to arrest him. You can follow him and arrest him later or issue an arrest warrant. We are trying to say that these extraordinary measures are a matter of violating the right to life and person of the people, an international principle. Extraordinary measures can be used when there is no alternative in dealing with the case, for example, if someone resists and uses force, and we have no alternative and have to protect ourselves. The soldiers say that they were trying to protect themselves because they say that Chaiyaphum had a grenade, but from the facts that we have, the grenade pin was not even pulled out. Many things are a mystery about whether Chaiyaphum had a grenade or not, because a witness said that when Chaiyaphum ran away, he did not see him holding anything. And where did the grenade come from? The CCTV footage has not been revealed. The evidence is unclear.

“In a case like this, all evidence must be revealed especially to the dead person’s relatives who have a right to this evidence. But now everything is still unclear. It seems that the officials are being protected. From what we have seen, 2-3 days after the incident people came out to give interviews. The people who are looking for the truth do not easily dare to speak the truth as they are afraid when senior people in the country say that the military was right.”

Thai society has learnt a lot from this incident. But the system has not changed. The process of finding evidence is still the same which makes access to the judicial process a problem. All evidence is a secret held by the investigators. By global principles, evidence must be revealed to the injured parties or the relatives of the dead. But here requests to see the CCTV footage are denied. In our system, the collection of evidence by the investigators becomes a secret. Litigants or the injured parties cannot access it. They will access it when it reaches the court, Sumitchai said.

The brother’s voice: Community and family suffer as officers become more engaged

Maitri, who now stays in a safe house, said that the family’s life is harder and the community was divided by fear after Chaiyaphum’s death. He also cited some memories of his dead brother, as he still missed him.

“The family is in a bad way with many troubles. I haven’t gone home at all. It’s difficult for Chaiyaphum’s mother because there is another younger brother. When Chaiyaphum died, there was no one to look after him.”

“His aunt is in prison on a drugs charge.

“Every day I still miss him. When he died, many things changed in the community and his family, especially his family. His younger brother (Chanon Pasae) has not studied any more. He was a hard-working person, and liked helping others. He could not keep still, he would have to do this and that, or help this or that person. Now he would go to set up solar cells in this house and now take a job at that house.

“Our memories of Chaiyaphum are good things. Chaiyaphum was a hard-working, responsible kid. He was one person with a heart. He sacrificed himself for his friends, his family and everyone. When we work, we think of him. When there are activities, we see him get up on stage to speak and sing. Now we will not hear his music and guitar, not hear him talk about rights. We will hear just his song that said that people without citizenship are not nobodies.

“One set will say they are a group that says we should not oppose state officials. Another sees that the officials went too far. The villagers are not at peace. They are divided into different parties and different sets. The community is in turmoil. Some people in the community say that because of Chaiyaphum, it’s caused trouble. State officials and the military visit often. Some people who don’t have identity cards, when the officials come, are afraid.

“Officials tried to find clothes and blankets to distribute. The villagers did not show up. They forced Chaiyaphum’s mother to take some blankets. When she did not turn up, they went to her house. That scared the villagers.”

Maitri is also a victim of the state’s use of violence against ethnic people. In 2007, he was sued by a military officer under the Computer Crime Act because he published stories of soldiers slapping villagers at Kong Pak Ping village in the face and video footage of villagers arguing with soldiers. The case was dropped nine years later.

Right now there is no one coming to threaten him but if he goes home, there may be, because right now he is in hiding in the city and doesn’t go home

Maitri expressed the hardship of marginalised people when they try to challenge state power.

“Power is something necessary, but I do not want to see the use of power to harass others in our country.”

“When Chaiyaphum was killed, I thought the police would help us, but they did not. It turned out that every official tried to protect themselves, right? Even though the truth could very easily be cleared up by releasing the CCTV footage, they claim that there was no footage. I find that unacceptable.”

“I believe that if Chaiyaphum was the son of somebody rich he would not be dead. I see many news reports of soldiers beaten or killed and it’s taken seriously and in the end it is settled with compensation. But Chaiyaphum’s case was discussed and supported by the little people, the minority in society. Their activities are a wave that will not reach justice.

“The elite must not protect their subordinates too much and must look on Chaiyaphum as their son too because he also lived in Thailand. The military’s duty is to protect everyone in Thailand, not only the military itself.

“Every day I am really afraid, but I will not turn back.” Maitri said.

Maitri is the founder of the Save Lahu Youth Group (Klum Yaowachon Rak Lahu), that engages with ethnic kids and youths to keep them away from drugs.

The inquest is still in process in its second phase. This death once again brings out the long-standing dispute between ethnic minorities and state officials especially the military.

It is important for society to keep following how the trial turns out. This case will be one of the milestones for the Thai judicial system in showing how problematic the investigation system is and how necessary reform is to make the system more transparent and reliable. Sad but true, the dead are long gone from this realm but the survivors still live on with an antiquated and unfair system.

Nutcha Tantivitayapitak

From concerts, musicals, to movies, read ISOC’s cultural mission in their process of promoting the main ideology of the security services.

We invite you to look at the origin and development of the ideological promotion process of “nation-religion-monarchy” by the security agencies of the Thai government, especially after the enforcement of the 2008 Internal Security Act. Security agencies such as ISOC, which has power over civilian agencies, moved forward in ideological indoctrination through cultural tools.

Origin of the ideology “nation-religion-monarchy” that came with ISOC

The “nation-religion-monarchy” ideological indoctrination process is related to the political context; after the 1932 revolution, when the royal institution was in decline, to the era of Field Marshal P. Phibunsongkhram (Phibun) and of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, the nation-religion-monarchy ideology was most securely established. Benedict Anderson, in his book “Withdrawal Symptoms: Social and Cultural Aspects of the October 6 Coup”, said that from 1927 to 1937 Phibun had to work hard to create legitimacy for his rule by fomenting nationalism. During the time of the Khana Ratsadon (People’s Party) military leaders, nation and monarchy were still two ideas that could be separated, with the state (most importantly, the army) as representative of the nation and at the same time something like a protector of the king. But because of the military’s role in taking power in 1932, the royal family felt antagonistic towards them. Therefore when Phibun was Prime Minister for the second time (1948-1957), he still wasn’t able to use the royal institution as a symbol to create legitimacy for himself as he had hoped. Perhaps because of this, toward the end of his term, Phibun turned towards democracy as a symbol to help save the situation when his legitimacy declined in 1956.

However in the 1932 revolution, Sarit had a rank that was too low to have an important role. At the same time he didn’t pretend to be interested in the constitutional system or democracy like other army leaders in Khana Ratsadon. That’s why he was able to revive a good relationship with the monarchy soon after overthrowing Phibun. Sarit started to campaign systemically to “integrate” the royal institution anew by bestowing new honours on the institution and of course, to secure Sarit’s legitimacy as well.

During Phibun’s time, the King and Queen rarely travelled outside the capital city, but during Sarit’s time, the King and Queen travelled to countries all across the globe to visit and greet other monarchs, especially the monarchs of Europe. Various royal ceremonies that lapsed after the end of absolute monarchy were revived and performed, and the monarchy more often had a close relationship with Thai citizens. The royal institution became more and more “sacred”. At the same time, dictatorship also became stronger.

In addition, Sarit also used Buddhism to his benefit. He abolished the Sangha Organisation, which was a decentralised and democratic system, and replaced it with a centralised and authoritarian system under the control of the Supreme Patriarch (Somdet Phra Sangkharaja).

All of this is the origin and formation of the nation-religion-monarchy ideology that helped secure Sarit’s dictatorship and other dictatorships later on.

Importantly, the ideology is used to explain “dangers to security”, which means anything that could become an enemy of the nation, religion or monarchy, in no matter what era after that.

The Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) was established as a mechanism for this ideology. ISOC was established in 1965, during Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn’s term. Its former name was the Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC), with the initial objective of opposing communism, with responsibility for the prevention and suppression of communists, who, of course, were considered “dangers to the security” of the nation, religion and monarchy.

Cultural work in ideological indoctrination and communist suppression

The restoration of democracy after the major demonstrations of the people on 14 October 1973 occurred in the midst of an economic situation and problems with the economic structure that the elected government may not have been able to solve, along with the flourishing of socialist ideology. There were various processes actively moving for change. This meant the conservative side was under severe challenge. Eventually, the students and people were overcome by the coup d’état on 6 October 1976.

During 1974-1976, the nation-religion-monarchy ideology was annexed to the cultural communication of the security agencies. Mostly, it was done to incite hatred towards communists as a group undermining the nation’s basic institutions. There were smears on radio and television, and in newspapers, leaflets, and anonymous or threatening letters, or even spreading rumours by word of mouth.

In addition, “stirring songs” were written to compete with “songs for life”, and many of them became popular, like “Thahan Phra Naresuan”, “Nak Phaendin” and the royal composition “Fight!”, which began to be disseminated in the early half of 1976.

ISOC in 1974-1976: Focus on communism suppression

Nevertheless, in 1974-1976, ISOC did not yet have any role in cultural work, but had a clear duty to directly suppress communists. They established various mass groups, gave weapons training, gave them weapons to use and looked after them financially with money from the secret budget, whether it was vocational student groups such as the Red Gaurs to wipe out other student groups or groups of the people and government officials such as Nawaphon.

“Communist suppression by ISOC was a secret method. They probably suppressed some real communists, but they also supressed many who weren’t. From before 1973, the red drum killings in Phatthalung and the constant bullying of villagers everywhere and accusing them of being communists, caused trouble to citizens in general, and many who couldn’t stand the cruelty any more fled into the forest and became communists.” These were the words of Puey Ungphakorn, recorded in “Violence and the Coup d’État, 6 October 1976.”

After the 2008 Act: Advances in cultural work

After the Communist Party of Thailand broke apart and the Cold War ended, ISOC, whose main mission was to suppress communists, was not abolished, but changed its concept of dealing with dangers to national security according to the times. In 2008, the Internal Security Act was passed, which we might call the ISOC Act, since its content was exclusively about ISOC. It resulted in ISOC becoming a permanent security agency with power over all civilian agencies, especially during national emergencies.

The concept of protecting the nation, religion and monarchy is still strongly in existence even today. The definition of “danger to security” is no longer aimed towards communists, but specifies broadly “individuals with roles in society that aim at political benefit, by using distortion and causing misunderstandings about the democratic form of government with the King as Head of State.”

If we take a look at ISOC’s 2017-2022 Strategy, the security situation section, under 10 “dangers to security”, gives principles they have to be prepared for: 1. violations against the royal institution; 2. different opinions and conflicts of ideas of people in the nation; 3. the situation in the southern border provinces; 4. cybercrime; 5. natural disasters; 6. alien workers and refugees; 7. terrorism and transnational crime; 8. drugs; 9. natural resources and environmental problems; and 10. effects of international agreements and commitments on internal security.

And so that everything goes according to the strategy, some of the stratagems are stated as strengthening the security of national institutions, such as promoting the people to have awareness, pride and understanding of the role, importance and value of the institutions of the nation, religion and monarchy; promoting the learning of the importance of the royal institution and Thai national history; promoting activities that build an awareness and understanding of the importance of national sovereignty through the power of Pracharat; and promoting the learning of the importance of Thai national history so people love and cherish national sovereignty.

So ISOC this year has changed from using the hard power of suppression from the communist era, to the greater use of cultural power.

Of course they have not discarded their old jobs like their work with the masses. ISOC in every province still gathers “ISOC masses” such as the Thai Volunteer Defence Corps, the National Security Businessmen’s Association, the Muslim Community Leaders Club, the Thai-Sikh Club, the Thai-India Club, the Catholic Club, Petchnaitom etc., to access people in all sectors.

ISOC also has a role in education. They train teachers in schools, set up campaigns or inspirational speakers like Orapim ‘Best’ Raksapon, who has before upset Northeastern people at an event held for 3,000 students recruited from 5 provinces. There are also the “Yaowachon Khon Di Khon Keng” (“Good, Outstanding Youth”) and “Tham Di Phuea Pho” (“Do Good for Dad”) projects, which give out scholarships to children from the southern border provinces, the “Petchnaitom” (“Diamond in the Rough”) project that accepts students to the Faculty of Education, SWU, selected from the children of ISOC officials in 32 provinces, the “Thiw Khon… Khon Fan” (“Tutor Intensely…Find a Dream”) project that tutors students for their exams, etc.

In art and cultural work, it was found that in 2009, the ISOC started the MOSO project, an abbreviation for Moderation Society. The MOSO project operates under the concept “think sustainably to instil Thai people’s consciousness to live rationally, understand the meaning of moderation and learn to build immunity according to the sufficiency economy philosophy”. There are various presenters, such as Khamron Wangwangsri, an MC; Maj Wanchana Sawatdee, a military officer; Aed Carabao, a singer of songs for life; Thanachai Utchin or Pod Moderndog; and Siraphun ‘Noon’ Wattanajinda, an actress. The September 2009 issue of Sudsupda magazine featured MOSO as its lead content under the heading “Fight the economy with the sufficiency economy philosophy, the Living in Moderation Society”. There were both images and interviews with the project’s presenters, including with the Prime Minister at that time, Abhisit Vejjajiva.

In September 2009, the MOSO project of ISOC held a short film contest “Following Somdet Ya’s Footsteps” to promote Thai youth to study the important royal works and biography of the Princess Mother, Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Boromarajajonani, as well as to encourage society to recall her royal benevolence.

In November 2009, with the MOSO project of ISOC as a main sponsor, held the 9th Fat Festival concert Ini Fat Fest na ja 9 ja (“This is Fat Fest 9, okay”), a big concert held every year. That year, various Thai teenage bands were gathered from several affiliations. It was held on 7-8 November 2009 at Challenger Hall 2 and 3, Impact Muang Thong Thani.

In January 2010, ISOC was the main sponsor of the Fat Festival North show, Ton … show nuea sutttttt (“Northernmostttttt Show”) on 30 January 2010 at Lan Muan Jai, CentralPlaza Chiang Mai Airport.

In April 2011, ISOC, together with the army, campaigned to create a trend of patriotism and loyalty by using music as a supporting media. They held music performances in various areas across the country from near the end of April 2011 and used over 700 stations of the ISOC Community Radio Network for Security, streaming the performance 3 times a day through the internet. They focused the event on His Majesty’s royal benevolence towards the people and inserted content on patriotism and loyalty.

In 2014, ISOC held a concert Doen Na Prathet Thai Ruam Chai Patirup (“Move Forward Thailand, Reform Together”) in various provinces to publicise the work of the National Council of Peace and Order (NCPO) in phase 2 of the road map to national reform and reconciliation, and returning happiness to the people according to the policies of the NCPO head. The concert was led by famous Luk Thung singers, Dao Mayuri, Chaiyo Thanawat, Sakda Kampimoon, M Kantawat, Arm Chingchasawan, Beer Kimhun, Yo Soraya, Wongklom, Ep Waranyu, etc. It was broadcast live through the Veteethai channel and recorded for broadcast through the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT).

In July 2015, ISOC held a screening of “Latitude 6”, the first film created by ISOC in partnership with the private sector. This was identified as a strategy to create learning and understanding of the way of life and identity, and of the multi-cultural society in the area of the ‘tip of the axe handle’ (the extreme south of Thailand), to create peace from now on.

In April 2016, ISOC, together with the Scenario Company, held a stage performance of “The Last Blanket” (Pha Hom Phuen Sutthai) from 17 March to 3 April 16 at Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre, with a synopsis that it “tells a story of love, sacrifice and loyalty towards the land of soldiers, inspired by a real story from the 3 southern border provinces.” It starred by O Anuchit, Aon Sarawut, Chacha Ramnarong, Froy Natthapong, Aon Korakot, Pawanrat Narksuriya, Ae Smart, Due Arisara, and Junior Kornrawich, was produced by Takonkiet ‘Boy’ Viravan and directed by Santi Towiwat with a script by Kitti ‘Kluea’ Chiawongsakul.

In August 2017, ISOC announced the composition of songs honouring King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the occasion of the Royal Cremation of His Majesty the King. There are a total of 5 songs: Ngan Khong Pho (“Dad’s Work”), Isan Yim (“The Northeast Smiles”), Thi Hen Lae Pen Yu (“What You See and What Is”), Si Nam Sam Rot (“4 waters 3 flavours”), and Chotmai Thueng Luk (“Letter to my Child”). The contents relay His Majesty’s royal duties and royal projects in the 4 regions (north, northeast, central and south), aiming for Thai people to follow in Father’s teachings and do good deeds to offer to the Father of our Land.

In February 2018, ISOC commenced a project honouring the nation’s main institutions for 2018 under the topic “Create good people with history, create the nation with ideology”. It is a lecture with lights, sound, colour and a multimedia system. The resource persons campaigned together to inculcate gratefulness. The participants were a total of 500 teachers and students at the auditorium of Mattayom Than Bin Kamphang Saen School, Kamphaeng Saen District, Nakhon Pathom Province.

To summarise the art and cultural work of ISOC since the 2008 Internal Security Act to the present: the target group of ISOC is the new generation. In the early period before the 2014 coup, ISOC’s concepts mainly focussed on disseminating and instilling an ideology of nationalism and loyalty to the royal institution among children and youth through the concept of sufficiency in the MOSO Project, which permeated into the short film contest to the Fat Festival concert, along with using well-known artists, stars and actors and actresses to further promote their work. ISOC received great cooperation from radio and TV stations in publicise these ideologies, such as the frequencies of ISOC’s 700 community radio stations.

After the 2014 coup, together with the NCPO’s PR for their policy of unity and returning happiness with these famous singers, ISOC presented the situation in the southern border provinces through film and stage performances about the sacrifice, courage and patriotism of the Thai military, and also pushed further forward the ideological campaign directed at children and youth.

We can see that, since the time of Sarit until now, the ideology of nation-religion-monarchy has always been active and is a mainstream value that exists for us in everyday life everywhere, from the educational system to advertisements, from songs to films, from the cinema to the concert stage, as well as various contests, etc. and a part of that has been ISOC as the communication mechanism for these ideologies.

[1] Pracharat is a public-private economic partnership policy. It is thought to have been created in contrast to ‘populist’ (prachaniyom) policies associated with civilian politicians

Nutcha Tantivitayapitak

The coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network analyses the latest draft of the Cyber Security Bill, saying that the definition of “cyber” is too broad, there is a risk of offending over content affecting security, the Committee is structured to give dominant power to the security sector, and private agencies not complying with requests for data may be penalised, but state requests for data do not require any court order.

“Cyber security is the security of general infrastructure systems, whether it’s finance, the economy, society, daily activities or the military. But for this bill, when you look at the power structure of the committee in terms of checks and balance, it is like we’ve regressed to the time when the military was in power. They are using only the perspective of military security, mainly with regard to defending the nation. They’re not looking at other dimensions.”

This is one of the conclusions from the analysis by Arthit Suriyawongkul, coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network, of the latest Cyber Security Bill.

Prachatai invites readers to analyse this draft: the definition of "cyber" that is broad enough to cover data and content, thereby risking offences concerning content that affects security; the committee structure that seems to give power to the security sector; a military fast track while civilians have to meet criteria to become officials; and requests for data which, if they not complied with, may result in legal penalties.

Arthit Suriyawongkul

The broad definition of "cyber" entails the risk of offences over content affecting security

Arthit spoke of Article 3 on the definition of “cyber”. In this bill, the definition is “activities related to computer networks, computer systems, computer data communication and computer data.”

“Which is very broad. It could be anything. It includes the content read by people, not just the system. This is like the Computer Crime Act. We say that, in principle, the Computer Crime Act was designed for computer crimes like attacking the system, but Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act includes messages, images, and information read by humans, not just data read by computers. Therefore it also includes defamation and false data. Even though they excluded defamation in the last draft, false data remains. This kind of language reappears in the Cyber Security Act. Do the words “computer data” mean that if there are any video clips, images or messages widely disseminated on the Internet, this committee will say that it is a threat to cybersecurity? They then might order all ISPs (Internet Service Providers: agencies that provide internet network services) to try and remove this data from the system.”

Arthit stated that this isn't just his own interpretation. If we read a 2012 military commission report, there is a study by the Senate military commission which talks of a new form of threat that comes with social media and indicates what they are. A number concern attacks on the system and one relates to content that criticises or affects the fundamental institutions of the nation, which could be considered a cyber threat. It’s possible that this draft will be used alongside Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act.

The coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network explained that from now on if there are posts on Facebook criticising politics, institutions or criticising something like the 20-year national strategy or mocking the Prime Minister, causing misunderstandings, they might claim that discrediting the Prime Minister affects national security. For example, people uploading millions of video clips wouldn't cause the system to crash – it’s not a problem of the system. However, that video clip may upset people. It should be clearly stated that cybersecurity is the security of computer systems and information systems. As for the issue of upsetting people affecting national security, that should be dealt with in another law, not this one.

Arthit also explained that this Act can even be used in advance. For the Computer Crime Act, the incident must happen first, while the Cyber Security Act also covers prevention of any incidents. If there are suspicions that any person is going to disclose any data, they can be arrested on the premise of preventing the incident. The current draft can be interpreted as such, and it shouldn’t be like that. How should the Act be written so that the issue of content will be excluded, with only the issue of systems covered?

Committee structure: leading power with the security sector

Regarding the structure of the National Cybersecurity Committee, Arthit said:

When compared to the proposed draft two years ago, this section has changed quite a lot. In the former draft, the committee chair was the Minister of Digital Economy and Society, with no more than ten committee members. However in this draft, the Prime Minister is the chair, and the number of committee members is increased by including ministers from various ministries, security agencies, and other agencies. The position of deputy chairs was also added, with the Minister of Defence as first deputy chair, and the Minister of Digital Economy and Society as second deputy chair. So when the chair is unable to attend meetings, the first deputy chair will chair the meeting according to precedence. So the Minister of Defence will hold more power than the Minister of Digital Economy and Society. Moreover, if we look at the proportion of members who come from the security agencies, such as the National Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, this has increased.

Arthit further explained the committee structure. According to this draft, there will be two committees, the "National Cybersecurity Committee", taking care of policy-making, and the "Executive Committee", implementing the policies. In this aspect, if we look at this overall, the security side and the defence side will be the ones looking at policies while the role of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, which previously was making the policies, now becomes an implementation of the policies.

2 models regulating cyber plans; the security side takes care of policy, and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society leads in implementation

For the model plan that will be regulating relevant policies, the coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network explained that no matter what policy is made by the National Cyber Security Committee, according to Article 5 of the bill, all policies must be in accordance with the 2 model plans. The first model plan concerns the development of the digital economy and society of the National Digital Economy and Society Committee with the Prime Minister as chair, and the second concerns the security of the National Security Council.

This means underneath there will be the cybersecurity plan and above there will be two more model plans which regulate the cybersecurity plan. In the power balance, even though the National Cyber Security Committee can return suggestions to the National Digital Economy and Society Committee, it cannot send suggestions to the National Security Council. Also taking in mind the proportion of security officials that are on the National Cyber Security Committee, it all becomes clear that in this draft the power is not with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, but with the National Security Council and the Ministry of Defence,” said Arthit.

Arthit gave an example of the situation from other countries. When we look at the security councils or the ministries of defence in foreign countries, they are led by civilians. But in our country for some reason, the National Security Council is led by the military, while past Defence Ministers in Thailand have mostly held military positions, not completely separated from the army.

If the private sector does not comply with requests for data, it may be penalised – requests for data do not require court orders

The coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network talked about further problems of this bill. The mechanisms used to check the exercise of power is still rather unclear. In the case of asking for cooperation with requests for data, the court may be asked to issue an order, but only for cases where the private agency does not consent to the request. Therefore if the private agency consents, a court order is not needed, while state agencies can be directly requested without a court order. We see there should be no exceptions here. No matter what kind of data is involved, whether from a private or state agency, or whether they consent or not, the court should always be consulted, since, in the end, the data may not be theirs. For example, suppose they want data from a certain bank. That data belongs to the bank or the bank’s customers, and if the bank consents, a court order is not needed. Thus, the bank may consent to give the data.

Article 7 Clause 2 states “In the case that the private sector does not comply with the order of an official requesting cooperation let it be proposed to the committee to consider proposing to the overseeing state agency to consider punishment according to any law, announcement or other regulation in existence.”

Arthit explained that under this Article if any agency does not cooperate, they may receive punishment. That’s why, for the issue of consent or no consent, when in the end there is a punishment in place, it is no longer voluntary. In this situation, the balancing power mechanism, here the court, will not be used, since the private sector would consent rather than risk punishment. In this case, there should be a clear distinction. For any cases concerning requests for cooperation, there should be no punishment, but in serious cases, orders must be issued, and non-compliance with an order will be punished as a refusal to obey an order.

Definition not concise, state agencies may not be just state agencies

Concerning the fact that requesting data from state agencies doesn’t require a court order, Arthit said that, when we take a look at the definition in Article 3 of “state agency”, it refers to the central government, regional government, local government, independent agencies, public organisations, state enterprises and state agencies established according to Acts or Royal Decrees. It also includes legal persons, groups of persons, or persons who hold power in state operations in all cases. This could include private agencies that have been granted concessions from the state, so the BTS could also be covered. This is because it is not clear as to what agencies are included. It may be too much to clearly name the agencies, but there was a proposal that suggested a clear announcement of agency names that are really important. It doesn’t need to be in this bill but indicates in the bill that agency names can be referred to according to the announcement since at least we know beforehand which agencies will be important.

The military gets the fast-track, civilians must meet criteria to become officials

Article 49 on the appointment of officers according to this Act, has the minister appoint experts in computer systems or information security protection with the qualifications as specified by the minister.

Article 50 for the benefit of coordination or implementation, has military officials of the Ministry of Defence that has been assigned to missions responding to and dealing with cyber threats that will affect security, as responsible officials according to this Act.

Concerning Articles 49 and 50, Arthit stated that the appointment of officials could be divided into two. One is the normal method where the Prime Minister appoints experts according to the specified criterion. Second is what we call “fast-track”. It is a special method, an urgent method. Any assigned military personnel can become officials according to this Act instantly and automatically, without needing to meet the criterion of being an expert. Therefore it can be seen that even in practice the standards applied to the military and civilians are not equal.