Truth, May 2010, no remorse

After the illumination attacks on King Vajiralongkorn in Germany, illuminations of sites in Bangkok have remembered and questioned the military’s murderous crackdown on red shirts in 2010.

Prachatai reported that messages “projected onto key locations of the May 2010 crackdown on the Red Shirt protests” on Sunday night and the projected hashtag “#FindingTruth” (“#ตามหาความจริง”) trending on Twitter. The projections appeared just “a week before the 10th anniversary of the May 2020 crackdown on Red Shirt protestors on 19 May.”

The crackdowns were ordered by then Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his deputy Suthep Thaugsuban. The murderous military assaults, including the use of snipers, was led by Gen Anupong Paojinda and Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, among others, many of who were a part of the junta regime after the 2014 military coup and remain part of the current regime.

The locations included “Wat Pathum Wanaram, Soi Rangnam, the Ministry of Defence, and the Democracy Monument.”

Other messages were: “May 1992, 2010: killing fields in the city” and “Facts about May 2010: (1) the military forced all Red Shirts out of CTW [Central World] (2) The military took control of the CTW area (3) The fire happened when the military took control of CTW (4) The military wouldn’t let fire trucks in to put out of the fire…”.

The identity of those responsible was, at first, unknown, but the military elements of the regime sprang into repressive action, threatening “legal” action. The Nation reported:

“We do not know the exact purpose of this group but speculate that they have also spread these messages around social media to gain a wider audience,” Defence Ministry spokesman Lt-General Kongcheep Tantrawanich said. “It seems they are trying to bring up past political events, but this could lead to misunderstanding by authorities and institutes.”

Lt-Gen Kongcheep continued:

“I personally find it inappropriate to project these messages on government and public buildings, which could spark disagreement amid a crisis that the country is already facing. If the group wants to seek the truth, they can find it from evidence in legal cases, some of which have already seen verdicts while others are awaiting further legal procedures…”.

Of course, this is buffalo manure. As Prachatai explained, the:

casualties of the April-May 2010 crackdowns included unarmed protestors, volunteer medics, reporters, photographers, and bystanders. While the Abhisit government claimed that the protestors were ‘terrorists,’ news reports, pictures, and video footage show that none of the victims were armed, and until now, no trace of gunpowder has been found on any protestors’ hands. According to Human Rights Watch’s 2011 report, the excessive and unnecessary force used by the military caused the high number of death and injuries, including the enforcement of “live fire zones” around the protest sites in which sharpshooters and snipers were deployed. No officials responsible for the crackdowns have so far been held accountable for these casualties.

Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch is clear, saying the projections are “a sign of popular support for the demand for truth about the 2010 violence…”. He observes:

… the government of Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, just like its predecessors, has no answers for those demanding justice for at least 98 people killed and more than 2,000 injured between April and May 2010….

In the decade since, the authorities have conducted no serious investigations to prosecute government officials responsible for crimes. While protest leaders and their supporters have faced serious criminal charges, successive Thai governments have made paltry efforts to hold policymakers, commanding officers, and soldiers accountable.

Under pressure from the military, authorities made insufficient efforts to identify the soldiers and commanding officers responsible for the shootings. Criminal and disciplinary cases were dropped against former Prime Minister Abhisit, his deputy Suthep Thaugsuban, and former army chief Gen. Anupong Paojinda over their failure to prevent the wrongful use of force by the military that caused deaths and destruction of property. To add insult to injury, Thai authorities have also targeted for intimidation and prosecution witnesses and families of the victims.

Khaosod reported that the “Defense Ministry will file legal action against those responsible for a light spectacle…”, although it was not clear what the charges would be.  According to the Bangkok Post, “Pol Col Kissana Phatanacharoen, deputy spokesman of the Royal Thai Police Office, said on Tuesday that legal police officers were considering which laws were violated and who should face charges.”

We suppose that the regime can concoct something, including using the current emergency decree, even if Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan seemed stumped.

Meanwhile, the “Progressive Movement, a group of politicians loyal to the now-disbanded Future Forward Party, appeared to claim responsibility for the actions Monday night by posting a timelapse , behind-the-scenes video from inside a van.” The Nation confirmed:

The group also said on its Twitter account that the authorities had no need to track them down….

“The truth might make some people uncomfortable and they may try to silence it but the truth will set us free from your lies,” the group boldly announced on Twitter. “We are no longer your slaves. Find the truth with us on our Progressive Movement Facebook page between May 12 and 20,” it added.

Lacking any remorse, the military is insistent that action be taken against protesters who did not gather and merely composed projections. Its political allies are threatening that the “Move Forward Party, a reincarnation of Future Forward Party, may face dissolution for sharing images of messages with a political tone that were recently projected in public places across the capital…”.

Interestingly, much political discontent is simmering. As The Nation reports, a “large crowd of mourners, many dressed in red, paid tribute to [lese majeste victim] Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul on Sunday (May 10) as the pro-democracy fighter better known as Da Torpedo was laid to rest in Bangkok.” The report notes that: “Her funeral marked the first large pro-democracy gathering during lockdown. Many mourners dressed in red instead of black to demonstrate their determination to carry forward Da Torpedo’s fight for democracy.”

The regime and its murderous military appear worried.

Updated: Passing and remembering

Darunee Charnchoensilpakul (Da Torpedo) has passed away.

We looked for an English-language source but could not find one (but see below). She was one of the first incarcerated in the post-Thaksin Shinawatra era of lese majeste arrests. She bravely fought back and remained stoic, despite ill health, through years of imprisonment.

Matichon photo

For the details of her case, see our long post on her here. A funeral has been is being held (see below).

Sadly, the next day marked the anniversary of Ampol Tangnopakul’s passing, incarcerate for lese majeste.

Read about his tragic case here.

Update: Prachatai has an article acknowleding that Darunee passed away on 7 May “at Siriraj Hospital, where she was admitted for cancer treatment.” It continues to say that a “funeral will be held at Thewasunthon Temple in Chatuchak from 7 – 9 May, and the cremation will be held on 10 May at 15:00.” And, it adds:

Those who wished to contribute to the cost of organizing the funeral may transfer their donations to the Siam Commercial Bank account 0-16-45875-46. In accordance with Daranee’s will, the donations will be used to cover the cost of her funeral. Any remaining amount will be given to her relatives.

Support Da Torpedo

Please support Darunee Charnchoensilpakul if you can. She is battling cancer. Her friends ask for support through a GoFundMe page.

Support Da Torpedo

Da Torpedo (Photo by Surapol Promsaka Na Sakolnakorn from the Bangkok Post)

Darunee Charnchoensilpakul was one of the first political prisoners in what became, under the military junta, a mammoth use of lese majeste to silence critics of the royalist’s ruling arrangements.

A self-proclaimed pro-democracy campaigner, she was arrested on 22 July 2008 after delivering an exceptionally strong speech denouncing the 2006 coup and the monarchy. initially convicted and jailed for 18 years. An appeal was upheld, but she remained in jail until a new trial in 2011 where she was again found guilty and sentenced to 15 years. She was “pardoned” and released after serving more than 8 years in prison.

She now battles terminal cancer. Made poor by her incarceration, her friends are asking for support through a GoFundMe page. Please help if you can.

Lines are being drawn II

Khaosod reports that the military junta is going after pro-democracy activists, targeting both veterans and others who are virtually unknown.

The junta wants 43 people “prosecuted for attending a recent rally demanding elections be held this year.”

It is worth noting that it is reported that it is the junta itself that has picked out those to be charged. Among them are:

Activist Piyarat Chongthep, leftist Chotisak Onsoong, former lese majeste convict Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul, 2010 crackdown justice advocate Pansak Srithep, student activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, civil rights lawyer [and father of Pai] Wiboon Boonpattararaksa and academic Anusorn Unno and 36 others were named in complaints Thursday. They are accused of violating the junta’s ban on protests.

Daranee denies being part of the protest.

Most of the rest charged have “no obvious history of activism.”

As far as we can tell, the junta has now brought charges against almost 90 pro-election activists in the past week or so. All face at least a year in jail if convicted and some face up to seven years.

The Nation on latest lese majeste case(s)

The Nation has an editorial on the latest lese majeste cases:

The monarchy will only suffer when so many dubious actions are carried out in its name….

When the current crop of junta leaders came to power three years ago they made it a priority to go after violators of the lese majeste law. The high number of arrests since then shows how serious this military government is about it, but, as was clear enough even before the coup, protecting the monarchy is too often nothing more that an excuse for suppressing regime opponents.

Thus, when human rights lawyer Prawet Prapanukul was seen as suggesting that the limits of the lese majeste law be tested, the military wasted no time in silencing him. For more than a week he was held incommunicado until he and five others were charged on Monday with violating that very law.

Prawet was arrested at his home on April 29 and not seen in public again until Monday. The junta has long had an axe to grind with this defender of anti-junta red-shirt leaders. He also represented Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul (“Da Torpedo”) before she was convicted on lese majeste charges.

It is a sad state of affairs when national leaders who claim to be defending or restoring democracy instead show disrespect for due process and a law solely intended to protect the monarchy. In fact their action places the monarchy in an unwanted spotlight, dragging it into the mundane realm of politics. The spike in the number of arrests carried out since the coup is no coincidence. It is part of a strategy. And the climate of fear that results further undermines Thailand’s international standing.

The United Nations Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia has reiterated a call for the government to stop arbitrarily detaining political activists and to release those now in custody. “I am concerned at the sharp increase in the use of the lese majeste law after the 2014 coup, with more than 70 people detained or convicted,” said acting regional representative Laurent Meillan.

The authorities seem heedless of the fact that their actions violate international conventions that Thailand is obliged to honour. Human Rights Commissioner Angkana Neelapaijit said Prawet’s arrest violated both the “human rights principle” and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It can “be considered a forced disappearance and illegal, because the officers arrested him [and took him] to an unknown place without notifying his family”. Angkana pointed out that, while the authorities can arrest anyone who commits illegal acts or harms national stability, forced disappearance is prohibited under any circumstances by the UN convention.

Five others were charged along with Prawet after allegedly sharing Facebook posts by Paris-based Thai historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul. The postings were supposedly about last month’s replacement of a historic marker in Bangkok’s Royal Plaza. The original plaque commemorated the 1932 revolution that ended absolute monarchy. It was replaced under mysterious circumstances with another that praises the monarchy and makes no reference to history.

The authorities had warned last month that anyone sharing Somsak’s social media posts would face legal action. Prawet et al fell victim, but it is Thailand’s government that’s suffering a self-inflicted wound to the foot.

We would point out that there are far more than 70 lese majeste cases. More than 100 cases. Readers are invited to look at our pages on these. If the junta has shot itself in the foot, that foot must have disintegrated by now.

What is hidden in this is who ordered and arranged the removal of the plaque. We have said enough on that, but the problem we think that faces the junta is that it has no choice but to cover up.

Death and detention

Prachatai reports on the military junta’s puppet National Reform Council (NRC) on the rightist plan to bring the media even further under the military boot.

The NRC “has given the green light to a controversial bill that would subject the Thai media to a licensing system.”

During what Prachatai euphemistically calls a “debate over the bill” – it was the usual back-slapping resulting in support for the bill – “NRC whip spokesperson Pornthip Rojanasunand declared: “The media nowadays make video clips to defame people. This is very difficult to control … and is destroying society…”.

She was trumped by Lt Gen Thawatchai Samutsakhon who decried Thailand’s “free” media, saying that Thailand needed to be more like “countries such as China and Singapore have similar media regulations…”.

Lt Gen Thawatchai, seemingly drunk on power or just drunk, trumpeted:

Pol Gen Seripisut Temiyavet, a former police commander, recently gave interviews condemning the military…. He has no respect [for the military]. Journalists who report these things should be executed by firing squad.

Reckless chatter from a puppet, perhaps, but we are sure his personal fascism is widespread among the puppets.

Meanwhile, the military dictatorship’s official thugs continue to abduct political opponents. Prachatai reports that the “military has reportedly detained incommunicado two political dissidents one of whom is a human rights lawyer who represented a former lèse majesté convict.” That was Darunee Charnchoensilpakul.

On 30 April 2017 human rights lawyer Prawet Praphanukul told a colleague that the junta had “summoned him.” He then “disappeared and could not be contacted further…”. Legally, this may be another case of forced disappearance by the junta.

Prawet is known for posting “messages critical of the Thai military government and the use of Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the lèse majesté law.”

A day earlier, Prachatai states that “more than 10 police and military officers detained Danai (surname withheld due to privacy concerns), 34, a political dissident from Chiang Mai.”

His disappearance was confirmed by Danai’s father who “reported that the [military] officers searched their house and confiscated two of Danai’s mobile phones and informed him that his son would be taken to Bangkok, but did not disclose other details.”

The official thugs “did not present any warrant for the arrest and did not tell him [the father] why Danai was arrested.” However, the “local village headman later told Danai’s father that his son was arrested for posting political facebook messages critical of the junta.”

Military fascism defines the junta’s Thailand.

Sondhi “unconvicted” on lese majeste

The lese majeste case involving People’s Alliance for Democracy boss Sondhi Limthongkul goes back to 2008.

Having made numerous complaints of lese majeste against others, the yellow-shirted anti-democrat found himself accused of lese majeste after he referred to a speech given by Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul (alias Da Torpedo) when he was criticizing her and calling on the police to act against her.

In February 2012, the Criminal Court sentenced Sondhi to 20 years for corporate fraud in a case dating back to the 1990s. He was eventually convicted and is serving jail time.

On 10 July 2012, Sonthi appeared in court on the lese majeste charge. He denied the charge. On 26 September 2012, Sondhi was acquitted on the lese majeste charge. The prosecution appealed, and in October 2013 he was convicted and sentenced to 2 years. He appealed.

Now The Nation reports that the Supreme Court “ruled in favour of Sondhi … saying he had no intention of repeating another activist’s insults that were made in a political speech in 2008. The ruling reversed the Appeals Court’s decision that saw Sondhi jailed for two years on the same charge.”

The charge was reportedly dismissed as the court was convinced that Sondhi “repeated the statements only to call for police to prosecute Daranee for what she said.” We don’t recall too much attention to intent in other cases. It seems royalists get preferential and special treatment from the courts, even for lese majeste charges.

(Darunee served more than eight years in jail.)

Darunee, Pornthip and Thitinant released

Some good news. As several sites and sources, including the Bangkok Post, it has been reported that Daranee Charnchoensilpakul (Da Torpedo), Pornthip Munkong (Golf) and Thitinant Kaewchantranont have been released from prison. Each was imprisoned for lese majeste.

Darunee was initially convicted and jailed for 18 years on lese majeste. Her appeal was upheld, but she was held in jail until a new trial was held. That trial again found her guilty and sentenced to 15 years. She was arrested on 22 July 2008 after delivering an exceptionally strong 30-minute speech denouncing the 2006 coup and the monarchy. She served more than eight years.

Pornthip was a 24 year-old activist when arrested on 15 August 2014 and charged with lese majeste. She was convicted on 23 February 2015. Pornthip, along with a separately arrested and detained activist, Patiwat Saraiyaem, for their involvement in a political play, The Wolf Bride (เจ้าสาวหมาป่า), about a fictional monarch and kingdom. She was denied bail several times. She eventually entered guilty please on lese majeste charges and was sentenced to 5 years, reduced by half for the guilty plea. She served just over two years.

Thitinant was arrested on 17 July 2012, accused of lese majeste. The details of her case and how and where she was held in not clear. Dating back to 2003, the New Zealand resident had been found to suffer mental illness. This was confirmed by court doctors. She was initially found guilty on 21 May 2014, and sentenced her to two years in jail. The prison term was commuted to one year for her confession. The jail term could be suspended for three years. This suspension was overturned by the Appeals Court sentenced Thitinant to jail for a year. It is not clear how long she was detained in prisons and hospitals.

It is good that these women have been released. None of them should have been in jail.

Somyos and the law

Somyos

Novelist and social and cultural critic Wad Rawee has an article reproduced at Prachatai on the case of Somyos Prueksakasemsuk, sentenced under the lese majeste law, and held in prison since 30 April 2011.

As far as we are aware, only one other political prisoner has been held longer, and that is Darunee Charnchoensilpakul, jailed since 22 July 2008 for a mammoth 15 years in prison for her political speeches.

Wad observes that Somyos was not a speaker or a writer of any of the “offending” words that the authorities considered constituted lese majeste. Rather, Somyos was an editor of a popular oppositional magazine. He was also a labor activist and organizer.

PPT interprets this background as one that made Somyos threatening to and dangerous for the royalist elite.

Wad explains the legal nonsense at the heart of this lese majeste conviction:

Throughout the hearings and investigation, no other evidence was presented other than that which proved that Somyot was the editor of the aforementioned magazine. In the demonstration of Somyot’s guilt, no other evidence was presented other than the opinions of witnesses after reading the two articles in question.

Wad

Wad concludes:

This case must go down in history as one in which the court ruled an editor to be guilty of a crime on the basis of the belief that this editor read the articles in question and then could only reach the same conclusion about them as one particular group of witnesses. This ruling was made without any evidence at all and without any law that specifies that an editor must take responsibility for any crimes that arise in the materials that he publishes.

Somyos, Darunee and many more are Thailand’s political prisoners. They are jailed for daring to go outside the narrow rules that protect the royalist elite, it wealth and its power.