Ten minutes is not a long time; just 600 seconds. But a short time period can be mortally threatening to the establishment.
Prachatai reports that three Khon Kaen University students have gone on trial at the Khon Kaen Provincial Court “for desecrating the national flag.”
Their alleged crime was to take down the national flag and replace it with “‘monarchy reform’ banner on a flag pole during a protest at Khon Kaen University in February 2021.” Police and a university security officer to removed it.
Defendants “Wachirawit Tedsrimuang, Chaitawat Rammarerng and Chetta Klindee were summoned to appear in court as defendants and witnesses on 31 January and 1 February.”
The monarchy reform flag “was raised to the top of the flag pole in front of the KKU President building to symbolically show that Thailand can become a full-fledged democracy when it reforms the monarchy.”
The protesters had “posted on a Facebook page, Khon Kaen Has Had Enough (Khon Kaen Por Kan Tee)” saying: “We do not despise the national flag but we … want it to be a truly dignified national flag representing a democratic regime that conforms with international standards.”
The Khon Kaen District Police Station is reported to have “pressed charges against the three defendants for raising a flag that damaged Thailand’s dignity and treating the national flag in a manner violating the Flag Act.”
It might have been just 10 miniutes, but so shocking, so threatening, so audacious was this act that “o]n the opening day of the trial, the Court prohibited attorneys and observers from recording the proceedings.” Only a court-approved record of the trial, to be issued at some unspecified future date was permitted.
The defendants admit the events and acts “but claimed that they were merely exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression.”
Tellingly, in terms of law, but probably of no consequence for the politicized court, the defendants also stated that “they raised the ‘reform monarch’ flag after removing the national flag from the pole after 18.00, the time when national flags are supposed to be taken down countrywide.” They point out that no KKU official s came to take down the national flag.
They also make the good legal point – also likely to be ignored by royalists – that “they did not desecrate that flag. Instead, they brought it down properly, did not take it away, and did not damage it in any way.”
According to Practatai, the “Court is scheduled to issue a ruling on 25 March 2022.” The charges carry a 2-year jail sentence, a 4,000 baht fine or both.
We looked at the law – Flag Act B.E. 2522 (1979) – and the only section we found that the royalist court could use states:
Section 54. Any person who commits any act in an insulting manner to the flag, the replica of the flag or the colour bands of the flag whose characteristics have been prescribed under this Act or as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations issued under this Act shall be liable to imprisonment to a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding one thousand baht or to both.
These students hardly seem guilty under this section, but we have learnt that the courts don’t really follow the letter of the law in cases like this.