Ultra-royalists are ultra-rancid I

As truly brave women face off against the ruling class’s regime seeking political, judicial, and monarchy reform, ultra-royalists are busy trying to lock-up more young Thais.

Thai Enquirer reports that “last week filed a lese-majeste complaint against a university student for allegedly disrespecting a coronet in her artwork.” Of course, they reckon this constitutes lese majeste.

As the report has it, “[r]epresentatives from six ultra-royalist groups said Petchanin Sukchan, an art student at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, violated the lese-majeste law because her artwork was being disrespectful to Phra Kieo (พระเกี้ยว), a coronet.”

From Thai PBS

The coronet is associated with both the monarchy and the university, being a part of the latter’s “emblem after King Rama VI named the university after his father and its founder King Rama V and the coronet was his personal emblem.”

The mad monarchists claim that the “student disrespect[ed] the coronet by placing its replica on an overpass.” Adding class to the royal insult, these clowns babbled that: “The student placed the emblem onto a footbridge and beggars are usually on these footbridges, therefore, the student insulted the institution by placing the emblem onto the footbridge…”.

In fact, the use of the coronet was an artwork known as an installation and was titled “Tucked under the pillow” which includes “a tiara that was placed on a pink pillow that was surrounded by dog foods and various statements calling for human rights protection by the university’s student bodies.”

The Pathumwan police acknowledged the complaint.

Meanwhile, the royalist university’s University Act “prevents people from replicating and desecrating the emblem. Violators could face a one-year jail term or a fine of up to 100,000 baht, or both.”

Students vs. the feudal regime III

Jirapreeya Saeboo is a third year Political Science student majoring International Relations at Chulalongkorn University and writes at New Bloom about the controversy over the Chulalongkorn-Thammasat football match procession and the executive committee of Chulalongkorn University’s Student Union’s canceling the Phra Kieo parade.

Of course, that brought a predictable royalist backlash.

Jirapreeya points out the huge (electoral) support the current Student Council has and how its statement was supported by student groups:

The statement issued by the student union framed the event as the symbol of feudalistic culture and reinforcing social inequality. Likewise, it asserted that because the parade was just 30-year-old, it was an invented tradition. It also raised skepticism regarding the selection of the privileged male and female students seated on the palanquin, carried by roughly 50 male students, who were forced to participate in exchange for eligibility to stay in the university’s dormitory. The statement ended by closing with the phrase, “For the equality of man.”

In the article there’s more about the royalist backlash. For example:

Chaiyabhak Chanwilai, the head of the so-called “Chulalongkorn University Dignity Conservation,” claimed on Facebook that the cancellation of the parade is a grave abomination towards the monarchy. He pressured the university’s administration to punish the members of the student union and affirmed that if no action of punishment is taken, the university’s administration should just be fired.

Soon after, the “university administration issued a statement saying that the student union’s resolution was an attack on … worshipped figures…” and promising punishment for the students and the university demanded that it be able to censor all Student Council statements and publications.

Jirapreeya writes that:

This is a serious menace to freedom of expression in the academic field, drawing parallels with the authoritarian military government Thais have been subordinated to for decades. For our part, we are fighting and resisting authoritarian acts in our university. We gained a number of supports not only from Thai civil society but also from the international arena. But our university is going to hold us back and punish us for trying to make changes. This is why we need more international attention, and actions towards them.

And there’s a call for help:

We are proposing to the United Nations to recognize October 6th as the “International Day for the Protection of Students’ Freedom of Expression.” This matters because Thai student activists and youth protesters are being captured and incarcerated for demanding equality and freedom. The repressive regime silenced and killed untold family members and friends. This is why we need to resist.

If you are media, press, news reports, please do publicize, and write about this incident to your platform. The University is afraid of losing its international credit which is going to affect its rankings.

If you are a student organization, student union, committee, you can publish a statement in solidarity with us. You can do that by:

• • Support the Student Union’s stances.
  • Condemn the authoritarian acts of Chulalongkorn University’s administration.
  • Demand Chulalongkorn University to terminate all further trials on the Student Union and other associated students.
  • Ask your university, if they are associated with Chulalongkorn University in some ways, to consider the withdrawal of the partnership agreement.

It is time that students stand by each other and aim for the fight for justice and equality.

If you were to write to the university, publish it on your platform and please send the statement or letter pressure to these emails:

• • Associate Professor Natcha Thawesaengskulthai, Ph.D. , Vice President for Strategic Planning, Innovation and Global Engagement, Chulalongkorn University
    natcha.t@chula.ac.th

• • Assistant Professor Chaiyaporn Puprasert, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Affairs, Chulalongkorn University
    chaiyaporn.p@chula.ac.th

Students vs. the feudal regime II

As expected, following the Chulalongkorn University’s Student Union’s decision Phra Kieo coronet, Chulalongkorn University’s emblem, in the Chulalongkorn-Thammasat football match procession, royalists and other feudalists have begun grumbling.

The Bangkok Post reports that the “student administration had voted 29-0 to scrap the tradition…”.

Even so, the Post takes up points that will irritate royalists: the “announcement was issued on Chulalongkorn Day falling on Oct 23 … the day King Chulalongkorn … died.” That dead king is claimed to be “the founder of the university and his successor, King Rama VI, gave the present name to the university.”

The Post adds that student union president Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal “…put himself in the spotlight when he and six other students walked out of the ceremony held for new students to prostate themselves before the monument of the two kings on campus in 2017…”.

It adds that the “Facebook account of the student union was flooded by comments supporting the controversial move…”.

That such a popular move is from those considered dubious by royalists draws them out from under their rocks. Turncoat Wattana Muangsook hit out at the union, declaring they had no right to make the change. He declared that “former students from the two schools would be ready to carry the symbol on a sedan chair…”.

Others “argued that Phra Kiew … was the link between school students and university students with King Rama V…”.

Meanwhile, as Thai PBS reports, “Chulalongkorn University’s administration has been urged to do something about the Student Union’s controversial decision…”, with Nantiwat Samart, former deputy director of the National Intelligence Agency, suggesting a royal insult had occurred, saying “that the use of some wording in the announcement was intentionally disrespectful to the coronet…”. Only royalists could come up with such a notion. He opined: “that the university administration must protect the name of the late king, the founder of the university, against the disrespectful act of ‘just a handful’ of students.”

And so it will go on, with the royalists hyper-ventilating.

Students vs. the feudal regime I

As Pravit Rojanaphruk points out in a Khaosod op-ed:

A year has passed since the students-led monarchy reform movement descended to the streets of Bangkok and beyond in large numbers. One year on, over 140 have been charged with lese majeste crimes, or defaming the monarchy. It’s punishable by a maximum imprisonment term of 15 years. Around half a dozen of them are currently … incarcerated….

Scores of others face hundreds of other charges. Some are in jail, others have bail, others await more charges.

While the media face censorship and with “self-censorship are the norm, combined with self-denial or silence to due fears of repercussions or political expediency,” the students continue to push for change.

Thai PBS reports that the Chulalongkorn-Thammasat football match procession will be different this year. The executive committee of Chulalongkorn University’s Student Union is unanimous in canceling the Phra Kieo coronet, Chulalongkorn University’s emblem. Why? They see “it to be representative of a feudal culture and a symbol of inequality.”

As the most royalist of universities, with many connections with the monarchy and royal family, the message is clear.

In his  article in support of other students who suffer feudal repression – lese majeste – Pravit calls on the media to support them:

The press could continue to watch and simply report about more prosecutions as more youths take the risks, are taken to jail, repeatedly denied bail, and refrain from questioning the anachronistic law . Such stance means the Thai press continue to be part of the problem for their lack of courage and commitment to greater press freedom.

It means the mostly young political activists feel the need to express themselves publicly on the streets or on social media, despite the risks as they regard the current situation as not just abnormal but unacceptable, untolerable and undemocratic…..

The least that journalists and media associations can do is to call out publicly and say we need to talk about the lese majeste law and something needs to be done about it. Even if they do not support the abolition of the law, there are crucial details worth reforming: the severity of the law which is disproportionate and more.

In fact, from our observation, the media has not been comprehensive in reporting of these arrests and charges and the reporting is so sporadic that we feel the regime and its supporters have cowed the mainstream media.

The students deserve better. Thailand deserves better.

Royalist university censors students

University World News reports that administrators at Thailand’s most royalist of universities, Chulalongkorn, have declared that they will “take disciplinary action” against student activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, who is President of the Chulalongkorn University Student Union. The “disciplinary action” will extend to other leaders of the university’s student union “for organising an orientation for incoming students that featured outspoken critics of the Thai monarchy.”

Netiwit in 2017. Clipped from The Nation

That “disciplinary action” follows pressure from royalist “alumni groups” that were supposedly outraged by the 20 July orientation that “featured three well-known figures as speakers: Thammasat University student leaders Parit ‘Penguin’ Chiwarak and Panusaya ‘Rung’ Sithijirawattanakul from the pro-democracy movement and Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an academic and critic of the monarchy, now in exile and teaching at Kyoto University…”. All three face lese majeste charges.

The university’s Office of Student Affairs states that “the content of the orientation was considered ‘radical’ and ‘rude’ and was not approved by the university.” Apparently, “student handbooks published by the student union, which included critiques on certain university traditions and interviews with liberal student activists, were ‘not appropriate’ for new students and their guardians to refer to.”

It is known that university leaderships have been made royalist over the past few decades and that, like the corrupt police and murderous military, prefer hierarchy and paternalism.

Netiwit “said he received a letter from the deputy dean at Chulalongkorn reprimanding him for inviting the activists as speakers, as well as for producing and distributing the student handbooks,” while a deputy dean has reportedly “submitted the case to a university committee for investigation and to decide on the punishment against the student organisers involved.”

The activist chastised the university’s royalist leadership:

Instead of being the last fortress to defend freedom, the university is assisting in the decline of freedom. If Chulalongkorn actually takes disciplinary action against us, not only are they refusing to defend freedom, but they also set a norm for other universities to follow, diminishing liberty in this society and affecting young people’s future….

Who pressured the university? According to the report, it was Chaiphat Chantarawilai, who claims to lead a conservative royalist alumni group, “Defending the Honour of Chula.” Defending the university is defined as “protecting” the monarch and monarchy. On 26 July, Chaiphat “submitted a letter to the university’s dean calling on administrators to take action against the student organisers of the orientation, including a demand to involve the police in a formal investigation.”

In other words, the royalists are hankering for lese majeste charges.

Chaiphat threatened the dean if no action was taken against the students.

After several clashes with university authorities in the past, Netiwit and his colleagues “won in landslide votes in April 2021” when standing for the student union.

Royalists and censorship

One of the traits of royalism in Thailand is the way in which all manner of royalists, from officials to the mad  monarchists, seek to destroy those they see as opponents.

About a month ago we mentioned the “case” being mounted by academic royalists to censor the work of historian Nattaphol Chai­ching, a campaign that had been waged by yellow shirts since 2018. That royalist assault has been recently paired with a ridiculous (except in royalist Thailand) defamation case by minor royal, MR Priyanandana Rangsit, against Nattaphol and publisher Fah Diew Kan (Same Sky), seeking to protect the honor of a long dead relative.

We would have hoped that such a malicious set of actions by mad monarchists would have faded away. It hasn’t, with a report at University World News suggesting that the royalist stronghold at Chulalongkorn University is seriously pursuing the claims against Nattaphol.

The royalists clearly see Nattaphol’s book’s and their “popularity and influence as a threat…”. As a result, they”have targeted the author, calling for his PhD to be revoked.” The royalist witch hunt is led by yellow-shirted political “philosopher” Chaiyan Chaiyaporn at Chulalongkorn University.

The university, “who owns the copyright to the PhD thesis, set up an investigation committee in February ostensibly to review its academic integrity,” after earlier “effectively bann[ing] the thesis by barring public access to it, claiming at the time that it contained errors based on some pieces of evidence used.” As far as we can tell, the “errors” are one mis-attribution to a newspaper article.

With the “investigation” now proceeding, mostly in secret, the university could revoke Nattaphol’s degree or take “other disciplinary action under research misconduct rules.”

The report cites Ek Patarathanakul, assistant to the president for corporate communications at Chulalongkorn University, and an interview with BBC Thai on 26 March where Ek claimed “Chulalongkorn University would uphold the ‘academic perspective’ in examining the issue.” He added: “we have to use universal principles [of academic integrity] in reviewing this case…”.

As we know, in Thailand, “principles” and standards are easily manipulated, and the university’s political track record is royalist and shaky (for an example, see our series of articles Pathetic royalist “university” in 2017 that begins here).

Students, EC and censorship

It has been widely reported that university students have begun a campaign to impeach the bungling, opaque and puppet Election Commission over its mishandling of the 24 March “election.” The universities involved were reportedly: Chulalongkorn, Thammasat (Rangsit campus), King Mongkut Institute of Technology (Thon Buri campus), Kasetsart (Bang Khen campus), Chiang Mai, Naresuan, Burapha, Prince of Songkla (Pattani campus) and Rajabhat Rachanakharin.

Channeling 1957, the Chulalongkorn University Student Council demanded “an explanation from the EC about widespread allegations of irregularities.” Meanwhile, the Thammasat University Student Union released a “statement saying that commission officials must be investigated because their sloppy procedures resulted in ambiguous election results…”.

Following up on the Army’s apparent support for the EC, the junta’s Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam, poured ice water on the student’s demands for impeachment, saying the “process would be long as the [junta’s handpicked] Senate is required by law to forward the case to the [junta’s puppet] National Anti-Corruption Commission.” And, even if malfeasance is found by the NACC, it is the senate that decides whether to remove the EC officials.

In other words, Wissanu thumbed his nose at the students, essentially saying, expend your energy, but fat chance that anything will happen.

And then the usual dirty tricks began, manifested as repression.

Students at Kasetsart “were barred by the university from campaigning and collecting signatures from other students,” and uniformed and plainclothes police and the university’s security guards photographed the students before forcing them to campaign off campus. In fact, they were forced to move twice.

Kasetsart’s rector Jongrak Watcharinrat either lied or is non compos mentis that “he did not know about the incident and insisted that students have the right to hold any campaign on the campus as long as it’s not against the law.” We know he is in one of these states because the “university issued an announcement prohibiting any unauthorized activities from taking place on university grounds, and university officials told the students that the university cannot get involved in politics.”

Not only did the university and police thugs make the students move, but they reportedly “stopped some students from signing the petition…”.

One might have “hoped” that this was a case of one deep yellow set of anti-democrat administrators acting to protect the junta. Sadly, though, it appears that this is a junta-directed campaign against the anti-EC students, with Prachatai stating:

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights reported that Chiang Mai University has also prohibited students from campaigning, claiming that the students did not ask for permission to use the space, and at Khon Kaen University, students said that police officers came to observe the campaign and questioned them. There was also a report that university officials also came to tell the students that the Faculty of Law did not allow them to use the space.

The whole election process, always bogus and rigged, is now being “validated” as a fraud by the actions of the junta and its thugs. But did anyone expect anything else from this regime?

Limiting academic freedom II

A couple of weeks ago, PPT posted on the lackadaisical discussion of academic freedom in Thailand from an Australian-based historian. That blasé account was purportedly about the charging of the principal organizer and several others involved with the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies held at Chiang Mai University in 2017.

Interestingly, as a reader informs us, the Association for Asian Studies has now announced in an email to members that its next AAS-in-Asia conference will be held in Bangkok on July 1-4, 2019. In part, the announcement says:

The AAS-in Asia conferences offer opportunities for Asia-based scholars to interact with each other and their international colleagues. AAS is partnering with a five-university coalition of organizers led by Thammasat University; the other members of the coalition are Chiang Mai, Chulalongkorn, Kasetsart, and Mahidol Universities. In terms of travel, tourism, and obtaining necessary visa documents, Bangkok is known as an easily accessible hub in Southeast Asia.

It then goes on to discuss controversy.

At its most recent AAS-in-Asia, held in Delhi, India, before the event began it became clear that there were major issues of academic freedom, with the President of the AAS writing to members stating that the:

Government of India, while granting political clearance to the conference (a requirement under Indian law), has refused to issue conference visas to citizens of Pakistan or even to persons of Pakistani origin. The officers of the AAS (that means, currently, Katherine Bowie, Past President; Laurel Kendall, Past Past President; Prasenjit Duara, Vice President; and me, President) and all the members of the AAS Board of Directors abhor the exclusion of Pakistani scholars from the conference.

Abhorred, but went ahead, stating: “we believe our course of action is the right one under the circumstances, despite the heated objections that it has generated.”

Remarkably, the AAS has now chosen Thailand, ruled by a military junta. This time it is explained that the AAS:

is encountering challenges in determining venues for international academic conferences, ranging from finding host institutions with faculty and staff willing to take on the significant workload involved in organizing a conference with some 1,000 attendees, to facing the risk of becoming ensnared in the politics of governments in the countries in which the host institutions are located. The U.S. government itself has issued new regulations regarding visa applications from citizens of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Although Thais remain hopeful that their country will have elections (current news reports are suggesting the possibility of early 2019), Thailand currently is ruled by a military junta. Nonetheless, our host partners affirm that holding the AAS-in-Asia conference in Thailand provides support for free academic inquiry in their country. In this spirit, the AAS Board of Directors voted in October 2017 to hold the 2019 AAS-in-Asia conference in partnership with this coalition of Thai universities.

The partners are Chiang Mai, Chulalongkorn, Kasetsart, and Mahidol Universities, none of which have recently been at the forefront of the promotion of academic freedom. To take one example, Chulalongkorn has several times prevented students from protesting (here and here). Several academics, including from Thammasat and Chulalongkorn have had to flee Thailand for fear of arrest for their academic writings that caused lese majeste charges. Others have been threatened by university administrations, assaulted on campus and attacked by the military.

That there may be a rigged “election” will not immediately change the repressive atmosphere that regularly sees military personnel in uniform patrolling university campuses and “inviting” students and academics to military bases for “attitude adjustment” session. There’s also massive censorship of online media and the domestic news media is not free from interference.

In addition, under the military government, films, discussions, seminars and more, related to Thailand and other countries, have been suppressed.

Even if there is a change of government following the junta’s rigged “election,” there are major topics of interest to academics working on Thailand and probably Myanmar, Cambodia, China and Vietnam that will be frowned upon. There will also be an effort to censor and self-censor discussion of anything to do with the monarchy and the military that is not laudatory.

Thailand seems a rather poor choice. But, as the AAS makes clear, visas will be relatively easy to get. Well, at least for those who are not already blacklisted or who face arrest in Thailand.

Providing a platform for dictatorship

Chulalongkorn University’s administration has a reputation as a royal university. This often means that it has, through its history, provided a platform for dictatorial regimes.

It has done it again. The Nation reports that the university has invited The Dictator to speak at the university’s main auditorium on something called “Chulalongkorn University and the Driving of Thailand During the Transition.”

Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha said “his 20-year national strategy … was[not] part of a ‘plot’ to let him stay on in power.’ We agree. Rather, it is a strategy to allow the military to dominate and maintain power in its hands for 20 years.

Protests against The Dictator at Chula were limited. Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal appeared “with a facemask and ear plugs,” saying this ‘was because he found the place “full of air and noise pollution’. He also wore a mourning band to protest the university management’s decision to invite ‘a person like this’ to give a speech.”

Gen Prayuth spent his time defending his junta. The junta is struggling to defend a poor record. Chula’s administrators are trying to help him.

Pathetic royalist “university” V

Having panicked several times, the people administering Chulalongkorn University seem to be spooked again. The problem is that it is their own actions, and the reactions to them, that cause the panic and spooking.

Worried about the reaction to events over a lecturer putting a student in a headlock and the university’s royalist reaction – blaming students – the administration released a statement for the international media. The statement essentially told that media to butt out of an “internal” affair, accusing foreigners of failing to understand “Thai culture.”

According to a report in Khaosod, these same duffers administering the royalist kindergarten have decided to “revise” their statement, toning it down.

Saying the statement hadn’t been properly vetted, officials said stronger language about the “shameful” actions of Ruengwit Bunjongrat, a professor and administrator, was removed after it was originally published.

“We published it on the website without careful deliberation,” Supawan Pipitsombat, a university spokeswoman said by phone. “It was the fault of our team.”

Getting its story straight seems to be rather too challenging for the dullards “administering” the university.