A royalist conspiracy supporting a draconian law

In The Nation, royalist opposition to any move to amend the draconian lese majeste law is listed. In an apparently related set of statements, academics and the National Human Rights Commission have made similar comments.

PPT has already posted on the Sayam Prachapiwat group of ultra-royalist academics. They have made yet another public statement calling for the protection of the lese majeste law. This time their claim is that the “law was needed to protect the monarchy as head of state, and not as an individual.” They added that the  law is “not a problem in itself, but that the problems were being caused by unfair and inefficient enforcement of the law.”

At least they acknowledge a “problem.” However, their view is that it is those politicians that they hate who are the nasty influences. In fact, they see politicians as the root of all evil and a problem for the “enforcement of other laws.”

Their solution is not that different in philosophy from the People’s Alliance for Democracy: get rid of the bad, evil, politicians and the sun will be allowed to shine on royalist Thailand. Of course, it is fascist nonsense.

This is demonstrated in their position that the link between lese majeste and national security must be maintained and that the law has not “resulted in rights and freedom being restricted.”

“Sayam Prachapiwat views that Article 112 of the Penal Code – which protects the monarchy as ‘head-of-state institution’ – does not restrict people’s rights and freedom of expression, as has been claimed,” the group said.

More surprising is a statement attributed to the NHRC. It has “rejected media reports that it supported calls to amend Article 112.” Such a claim in the media would be bizarre indeed, as we have posted previously on how the NHRC has been reluctant to do anything related to Article 112. Yes, it has a working group “studying” the law, but slowly indeed.

Sounding exactly like Sayam Prachapiwat, the “commission said the monarchy, as head of state, deserved protection against insults in the same way as foreign heads of state, who are also protected under Article 133 of the Penal Code.”

PPT would point out that Article 133 is a little-known law that provides legal protection to foreign heads of state. It is meant to justify the existence of Article 112.

In a related statement, Thawil Pliensri, a “former secretary-general of the National Security Council who is now an adviser to the prime minister, yesterday voiced his opposition to the proposed amendment of the clause.”

PPT has another post coming on Thawil. Here we simply note that he, too, sounds remarkably like Sayam Prachapiwat, to the extent that it seems like there is a pro-monarchy conspiracy. Thawil stated:

The problem is not caused by the law itself. It rather involves the enforcement of the law, so the problem should be tackled at the right point. It is not that when there is an increase in offences, you just rescind the law so it is no longer considered an offence….

Again, there might be a point to celebrate the notion that the enforcement of the law has been problem, but this statement is no different from those made under the biggest-ever user of the law, the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime. That government came to the remarkable conclusion that there was indeed a real threat to the monarchy. The result was a determined use of the law that coincided with the repression of Abhisit’s political opponents.