Updated: An unwelcome anniversary

Yet another year has passed for Political Prisoners in Thailand. Fully 17 years after we began, political prisoners still languish in the prisons of a corrupt legal system. What has changed most is that the current crop of persons imprisoned for lese majeste, sedition, and other crimes meant to protect the monarchy and its associated ruling class is that the detainees are now much younger than they were all those years ago.

That we are still actively posting on authoritarianism, monarchy and political repression in Thailand 17 years after we began is a sad commentary on what we see as a far more corrupt judicial system and a political system that has been made – indeed, designed to be – corrupt, weak, and controlled by political gangsters.

As have said on previous anniversaries, PPT should have gone the way of the dinosaurs, being unnecessary as Thailand’s political prisoners would have been released and all the political repression gone. Of course, these may seem like dreams when a voracious ruling class continues its obsequiousness before its linchpin ideological and capitalist monarchy. The royalist state lavishes privilege, wealth and power on a few and speedily represses its opponents.

We began PPT on 21 January 2009, thinking our endeavors would be temporary. More than 11,000 posts later, we are still at it. Remarkably, where in previous anniversaries we’d said little has changed, this time we think the change has been for the worse.

The current king and a strange, even weird royal family, including the living dead, is voraciously consuming taxpayer funds, being lauded by the state, protected from critics, and given powers unseen since 1932. Lese majeste is used to snuff out youthful exuberance for a new politics, and political reformers are harassed and dragged through the courts.

“Modern” Thailand displays a nonsensical royalism and is bound to a monarchy that remains feudal in its politics. Despite that “elected” government and another election approaching, a better, more representative and more democratic politics remains a dream. The junta’s military-royal constitution promises that Thailand will likely remain dominated by gangster governments.

On this anniversary, as in past years,  we hope for an end to this political repression. We hope for the release of every political prisoner.

We want to thank our readers for sticking with us, even if a blog is kind of old-fashioned these days. We trust that we remain useful and we appreciate the emails we receive.

Update: Thanks to the readers who commented and emailed. We don’t post the responses as this could cause commentators problems. One reader asked if we have more ways to help political prisoners apart from what we have on this page. We do, and we have updated that page.

The lese majeste law must be abolished.

All political prisoners must be released.