Making 112 connections

Since the 2006 military coup, rightist regimes have made lese majeste a charge that can be used internationally. The result has been that several persons outside Thailand have been charged.

Most recently, Thai PBS reports that serial yellow-shirt complainer and attention seeker Srisuwan Janya has taken a new path to lese majeste repression when he combined the international and the national. ,”lodged a complaint with the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) police … seeking legal action against administrators of the ‘Youth & Direct Democracy TH’ Facebook page for posting images of Thai protesters in a German town, allegedly containing messages deemed to insult and intimidate the Thai monarchy.”

In addition, he demanded that the police charge “45 other individuals who, he alleged, had shared the content on social media.”

Srisuwan said the protesters in Germany, who he alleges are “Thais,” with “some of them living in exile to escape lèse majesté prosecutions … staged the rally on Saturday in Kirn … to coincide with the protests in Thailand, organized by the Free Youth movement…”. He claimed he had a list of names for the police.

Srisuwan, seems to be the self-appointed secretary-general of the Complain About Everything Association or the Thai Constitution Protection Association, with the report stating he is a “solo activist.”

He has also “submitted a petition to the National Human Rights Commission … to rule on whether the Saturday’s protest at Din Daeng intersection was peaceful, creative and without arms, as claimed by the Free Youth movement and its supporters.”

He said that, before the protest on Saturday, the Free Youth movement sent a letter to the NHRC asking the commission to send officials to observe the protest, which the movement claimed to be peaceful and in line with the principle of free expression.

The NHRC assigned commissioners Preeda Kongpaen, Asst Prof Suchart Setthamalinee, Sayamon Kaiyurawong and Wasant Paileeklee and some officials to observe the protest.

Of course, Srisuwan reckons the protesters were violent and “wants the commission’s ruling to be used as a basis to take action against the movement, in accordance with the computer crime law.”

We can only think that the last words are in error, for as far as we know, the violence was physical rather than digital. However, Srisuwan often comes up with loopy legal interpretations, so who knows.