Royalist smother reform

The royalist courts continue their vendetta against political reformers, seeking to smother any effort to rid Thailand of its military-monarchy feudal political system.

In yet another court case decided yesterday, the Pathumwan District Court sentenced Pita Limjaroenrat, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, Pannika Wanich, Piratthachot Chantarakajon, Nuttha Mahatana, Tanawat Wongchai, and Parit Chiwarak each to four months in prison, suspended for two years, over a protest on 14 December 2019 protest in Pathumwan. The protest “was in response to the Election Commission’s 11 December decision to disband the Future Forward Party.”

A Bangkok Post picture

The protest drew many hundreds, maybe thousands – one of the PPT group was there – to see Thanathorn and the others speak about the EC’s decison, which was based on yet another politicized decision by the regime’s Constitutional Court.

Thanathorn had “posted a Facebook invitation for people to gather. The demonstration took place on the skywalk between MBK Mall and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Protesters filled the skywalk and the courtyard in front of BACC.”

The court found them “guilty of violating the Assembly Act for organising a protest near the Pathumwan Intersection within a 150-metre radius of a prohibited [royal] area, the Sa Pathum Palace.”

The court sentenced each person “to four months in prison and fined 20,200 baht, both for violating the Assembly Act and for using a sound amplifier without permission… The sentences of all 8 defendants were suspended, as the protest was for purposes of political expression and not a serious crime.”

The defendants are to appeal on the principle that they were exercising constitutional rights. The courts pay little attention to principles, rights, or even the law.

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights condemn the Supreme Court

A press release from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights:

Please find below quotes from APHR Member and Malaysian Member of Parliament ​​Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen responding to the permanent banning of former Future Forward Party MP Pannika Wanich from holding political office for allegedly breaching “ethical standards” for photos she posted online that were deemed to disrespect the monarchy:

From Thai PBS

“We unequivocally condemn the decision from the Thai Supreme Court, as it is clearly a politically-motivated punishment imposed on a former opposition parliamentarian. How can someone be permanently banned from running for election simply for innocuous photos that were taken and posted long before they ever held public office?”

“The idea that these photos constitute a ‘serious violation of ethical standards’ is absurd and goes to show how those in power can twist broadly worded laws and regulations in order to target political opponents.”

“This ruling is also clearly in contravention of Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that every citizen has the right to be elected ‘without unreasonable restrictions.’ There is nothing reasonable about the restrictions imposed on Pannika for actions that should not be considered violations to begin with.”

“We call on the new Thai government to fulfill its campaign promise to amend the 2017 Constitution to be more democratic and inline with international human rights standards, including section 235, which makes it all too easy for those in power to disenfranchise political opponents. We stand in solidarity with Pannika and other parliamentarians and former parliamentarians in Thailand who have been unfairly targeted with selective and politically-motivated prosecution.”

More on royalist courts and their tripe

In an earlier post PPT commented on the Supreme Court’s effort to protect the monarchy and the ruling class by contorting the law.

Thai Enquirer observes:

In a decision that echoes the tightening grip of establishment politics over the voice of the people, the Thai Supreme Court has banned Pannika Wanich from politics for life. The move comes as a harrowing reminder that Thailand’s journey towards democratic governance is marred with potholes and detours.

We think the “journey” is now in the hands of the people. The ruling class has demonstrated its intransigence. When a ruling class is unrelentingly horrid, it is time to push it off the nearest cliff.

The monarchy is further tainted by this political decision. As Prachatai explains, the court “determined that Pannika did not violate the principle of upholding and respecting the democratic system with the monarchy as the head of state,” but it still banned her for life.

The Nation adds a titbit. It claims “[o]ne of Pannika’s alleged posts said, ‘Birthday, so what?’, which appeared on December 5, Rama IX’s birthday.”

It seems an important moment in the establishment’s rule when its courts decide that no criticism of the monarchy will be allowed and that no change can be made to the system of government. The implicit alternative then is to overthrow the monarchy.

More royalist tripe masquerading as law

Monarchy remains a useful tool for anti-democrats and ultra-royalists in defeating and repressing political opponents. The 2023 election has not changed this one iota and the new regime is likely to be as royalist as the previous military/military-backed regime.

The Bangkok Post reports:

The Supreme Court has banned former Move Forward Party MP Pannika Wanich from politics for life in connection with a picture deemed disrespectful to the monarchy that she posted online 13 years ago.

From Thai PBS

The ruling on Wednesday said that Ms Pannika was guilty of a breach of ethical standards that a person with a political position should have, media reports quoted her lawyer Krissadang Nutcharat as saying.

While the court banned Ms Pannika from running in any election and holding any political position for life, it did not take away her right to vote because she was not proved to have rejected the constitutional monarchy.

Barron’s AFP report adds:

“The (Supreme) Court ruled that she has violated the ethical standards of a person who holds the political position,” Pannika’s lawyer Krissadang Nutcharat told AFP.

“The court has banned her from enrolling in politics for the rest of her life.”

Srisuwan Janya, a royalist activist and serial petitioner, filed the case with the National Anti-Corruption Commission in 2019 over Facebook posts published on Pannika’s personal account.

He alleged that photos — including an image taken at her 2010 graduation, where she was photographed pointing at former King Rama IX — were disrespectful to the monarchy.

Srisuwan claimed Pannika had breached the “ethical standards that a person with political position” must maintain to hold public office — which include respecting the monarchy.

The Supreme Court upheld his complaint on Wednesday.

Pannika is already banned for 10 years in another contrived case where the Future Forward Party was dissolved by the politicized Constitutional Court when the ruling class went after her, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and Piyabutr Saengkanokkul. These progressives strike fear in the hearts of the ruling class.

The case was yet another by the reprehensible Srisuwan. He or another royalist trawled Pannika’s social media to “discover” a post he reported to the National Anti Corruption Commission in June 2019.

The NACC dutifully agreed and ruled that Pannika had breached “ethical standards while serving as an MP because she failed to remove the material or block public access to it.”

The post in question was made in 2010 when Pannika was aged 22.

Subsequently the Supreme Court “ruled that Ms Pannika’s behaviour was an expression of disrespect for the monarchy that must be protected according to Section 6 of the Constitution and a related subsection on ethical standards.”

This is patently ludicrous, but in ultra-royalist circles like the Supreme Court bench, this makes no difference as they know that they need to punish her, again and again.

The court ruled that “Pannika’s posts showed her intention to refer inappropriately to King Rama IX and HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.” It added that by not deleting the post, “[e]ven after she was elected as an MP, she … showed her disrespect for the royal institution…”.

As far as we can tell, these are the “offending” pictures:

The ultra-royalists and their courts are a disgrace.

Regime cyber-spying

In commenting on the regime’s Pegasus hacking of his phone, Prajak Kongkirati, an academic at Thammasat University, told VOA News: “It’s very scary…. It’s like the 1984 novel,” referring Orwell’s dystopian novel about the surveillance state. He added: “But this is in real life, it’s really happening.”

The team that outed the spies is “continuing to search for more targets…”.

Yingcheep Atchanont, iLaw’s program manager, stated: “So far we have only some names in our heads that we think they should be checked, but I know there are more people who can be targets…. We believe that if the government possesses this weapon, the victims will be much more.”

In fact, Prachatai has already reported that Phicharn Chaowapatanawong “a Move Forward Party MP has claimed 5 more victims of state-sponsored spyware attacks using Pegasus. 3 are his party colleagues and 2 are core figures in the Progressive Movement, a splinter group from the dissolved Future Forward Party. Most attacks were timed to coincide with bold speeches in parliament.” They are:

• Bencha Saengchantra, MFP MP, attacked three times,
• Chaithawat Tulathon, MFP Secretary-General and MP, attacked once
• Pakorn Areekul, former activist and former MFP MP candidate, attacked twice,
• Pannika Wanich, Progressive Movement spokesperson, attacked twice,
• Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, Progressive Movement Secretary-General, attacked eight times.

 

The Prasit affair

Readers may recall our recent post about the fraudsters who bore remarkable similarities to the massive Mae Chamoy scam of the 1970s and 1980s. The similarities were royal and military.

Prasit displaying loyalty

Following the negotiated surrender and arrest of fraudster-in-chief Prasit Jeawkok, the Bangkok Post had a recent editorial calling for the military to reveal its links with Prasit. As ever, self-censorship, fear and misplaced loyalty prevents the Post asking about palace links.

A couple of days ago, Thai PBS provided some background on Prasit. For those who can read Thai, we suggest going to the source of much in this report – the grifter’s own website. All of our photos are clipped from that website, where there are plenty more.

The report observes that the “wealthy businessman” was once considered “a saint and a model of success” by the yellow-shirted brigade. He is now outed as a fraudster who may have nicked more than a billion baht. As seen in the Mae Chamoy scam, such fraudsters usually share with influential people in military, police, and even palace.

As can be seen at his website, Prasit made much of his links to the palace and its activities and displayed the loyalty expected of  “good people.”

Prasit claims he is a “reformed gangster” who abandoned his criminal past to establish a “billion-baht business empire” from which he now “gives back” to society. He claims a rags to riches story.

Like so many of his ilk, he’s made many influential connections.

Prasit has also “given back” as a royalist and as a supporter of the military and its ruling regime.

He’s “been linked to the Thai military’s so-called ‘information operations’ (IO), which critics say target the government’s opponents and propagandize for the powers-that-be.” Opposition politician Pannika Wanich of the Progressive Movement accuses “Prasit of being instrumental in the Army’s IO by allowing free use of computer servers under his control.”

Prasit admits “”to owning phone applications and servers used by the military but said his goal was to combat fake news by spreading facts about His Majesty the King’s kindness.”

Like many rogues, Prasit promotes “his royalist credentials. Appearing on a talk show in early December, he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the words “Long Live the King” tattooed on his chest.”

Prasit also makes much of his relationship with the late Privy Council president Gen Prem Tinsulanonda, Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, former Cabinet members and, of course, senior military leaders.

Updated: Siam Bioscience and national security

In yet another mind-boggling legal decision, The Nation reports that the “Criminal Court ruled on Sunday to block the Progressive Movement’s statement on Thailand’s Covid-19 vaccination plans under Section 14 (3) of the Computer Crime Act.”

Not only has the Digital Economy and Society Ministry filed a lese majeste case against the movement’s leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit “for his statement on Thailand’s Covid-19 vaccination plans and linking it to a royally-owned pharmaceutical company [Siam Bioscience],” but it has now finagled a court to block access to the statement.

The court ruled that the statement “could affect the Kingdom’s security.”

Of course, this is nonsensical, but it does more or less confirm that the regime has much to hide.

Update: You have to wonder why Minister of Digital Economy and Society Buddhipongse Punnakanta is working so hard to shut Thanathorn up. Is it mad monarchism or is it that the regime has much to hide on this? We are betting on the latter.

The Criminal Court has, according to the Bangkok Post, “ordered the Progressive Movement (PM) to erase Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit’s video that criticises the government’s Covid-19 vaccination plan while police are considering a lese majeste charge against him.” We do not recall such an erasure order previously, but maybe we haven’t been following the politicized courts closely enough.

Buddhipongse continues to cheer on lese majeste charges against Thanathorn, saying “police are bound to take action in this case.”

The report states:

Progressive Movement executive Pannika Wanich yesterday tweeted that the group had not yet received the court’s order to pull down Mr Thanatorn’s video. She insisted the video contained no lies or threats to national security and did not clarify if the party would comply with the court ruling. Ms Kannikar also urged YouTube and Facebook to protect the right to freedom of speech.

Good for her. But such statements make her a bigger target for the military-monarchy regime.

Legal harassment continues

The military-backed regime and its minions continue to see the hand(s) behind the latest round of protests as being that of the Progressive Movement.

This has resulted in Pannika Wanich, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, and Piyabutr Saengkanokkul having to front the Phaya Thai police to “acknowledge sedition charges filed against them by a former yellow-shirt co-leader.”

Clipped from Thisrupt

The yellow shirt making the complaint is none other than Suwit Thongprasert, the former People’s Democratic Reform Committee activist monk Buddha Issara. This is not just any PDRC clot, but the one who has been seen a couple of times having things whispered in his ear by the king.

King, queen and ex-Buddha Issara

In Piyabutr’s case, the complaint “against him involved posting in social media his academic work, including his lectures, while he taught law at Thammasat University.” Some of this goes back a decade. Those old posts were connected with more recent “posts supporting solutions to the ongoing political crisis” where he “suggested that the three demands of youth protesters, including the monarchy reform, be brought to a safe zone by setting up a House special committee to hear their grievances.”

To an outsider, all of this must seem rather odd, but the fascist former monk sees it as sedition for commenting on the monarchy.

The allegations against Pannika appear to be “centred around her Facebook Live sessions from rally sites,” while Thanathorn is “accused of his role in connection with Samesky, a publishing house specialising in Thai politics,” a connection that also goes back many years. Apparently, the fascist former monk also found discussing the allocation of huge dollops of taxpayer funds to the royal family to be seditious.

The fascist ex-monk and other neo-Nazis are desperately trying to put the monarchy genie back in the sealed bottle. In other words, the rightists are using sedition as they previously used lese majeste.

Pannika “urged Gen Prayut to stop using the same old weapon he has been relying on for seven years.” She said: “Prosecution of dissidents no longer works. These bullets are blank— they not only fail to stop the rallies but also escalate them…”.

Law as political weapon

It was only a few days ago that we posted on the ever pliant Election Commission deciding to file criminal charges against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit for the time when he was with the Future Forward Party. It no coincidence that the regime believes Thanathorn behind the rallies. In addition, its pretty clear he’s being punished for his questioning of the monarch’s use of taxpayer funds and for posing a challenge to the ruling regime and the ruling class.

The regime’s strategy, managed by Gen Prawit Wongsuwan and the odious Wissanu Krea-ngam is to tie the upstart opposition (and student protesters) into legal knots.

The Thai Enquirer reports on yet another regime move against the former Future Forward and now heading up the Progressive Movement.

The former leaders of the dissolved Future Forward Party – Thanathorn, Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, and Pannika Wanichhave – been summoned by police “to hear charges of sedition and other alleged crimes…”. As the newspaper puts it, this is “continuing a judicial campaign against people thought to be behind the current pro-democracy protests.”

Summoning the three is a step taken before issuing arrest warrants.

Piyabutr pointed out the bias and yet more bending of the rules for the regime:

“If the police take off their uniforms and think back to their second year in law school, they would know very well that almost every warrant that was issued [is not a real violation of section 116],” Piyabutr said.

“Thailand is unlucky because these police officers have to throw away everything they learned in order to become part of the government’s mechanism and serve the people in power,” he added.

A Bangkok Post picture

That the judicial system is now a tool for repression is now widely acknowledged – we have been saying it for years – with even the Bangkok Post’s opinion page scribbler Thitinan Pongsudhirak writing:

When Thailand’s justice system issues decisions that have political ramifications, fewer people are holding their breath these days because conclusions are increasingly foregone. In fact, when the historical record comes into fuller view, it will be seen that the politicisation of the judiciary has fundamentally undermined Thailand’s fragile democratic development and reinforced authoritarian rule that has been resurgent over the past 15 years.

He adds something else we have been saying for years:

The lesson is that Thailand’s political party system has been deliberately weakened and kept weak to keep established centres of power in the military, monarchy, judiciary, and bureaucracy paramount and decisive. No democracy can take root until voters have an equal say on how they are to be governed without the usurpation and distortion of party dissolutions and power plays behind the scenes.

The point of the junta’s time in power was to ensure that there was 20 years of non-democracy.

Updated: Army lies

Army trolls

A few days ago, we posted on Twitter’s revelations that the Royal Thai Army has at least 926 accounts used in “information operations” against anti-government figures and opposition politicians. Naturally enough, the military and its regime responded. And, this bunch of dullards did so only they can.

The Bangkok Post reported that the regime and Army “have slammed Twitter, accusing it of unfairly linking them with nearly 1,000 accounts which the social media giant took down for being propagandist.” Yeah, right. Remember that this is a regime that has jailed hundreds for posts on social media. They claim they can track social media accounts, but, apparently, the company Twitter can’t. Seriously, how stupid are they and how stupid do they think Thais are?

The Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta went on the attack, seeming to acknowledge that the Twitter accounts belonged to the military, but blasting Twitter for not complying with orders issued by the regime’s tame courts “to take down accounts which contained defamatory content against the monarchy.” Some dolt must have told the minister that attack was the best form of defense.

It’s always about the monarchy when these dopes try to repel criticism, reverting to Pavlovian responses.

As it so often does, the Army simply denied it had any “information operations.” How thick are these people? It was only in February that official budget documents revealed such information operations.

To “help” out, deputy army spokeswoman Col Sirichan Ngathong decided to deny by stating something that’s true but irrelevant: “Unidentified user accounts had nothing to do with any official account of the army.” Ah, that’s the point of these operations; they are not meant to be official.

Khaosod reported that the accounts “were using randomized usernames and they had zero to 66 followers. The oldest account was created on May 27, 2014, five days after the coup which brought PM Prayut Chan-o-cha to power, while most of the accounts were created between Nov. 2019 to Feb. 2020.” It added that the majority of the 21,386 tweets by the accounts “promoted the works of the army and praised the monarchy with messages such as ‘Great work!,’ ‘I’m with you,’ and ‘Long live the king’.”

They became particularly active after “the mass shooting in Korat by a disgruntled soldier in February, in which they tried to disassociate the army from the shooter and honored the military’s role in bringing down the shooter.” Many of the messages attacked “opposition politicians, such as Thanathorn Juangruangroongkit and Pannika Wanich, the former executives of the now-disbanded Future Forward Party.”

Khaosod also pointed out that the Army’s cack-handed effort to distance itself from “Twitter’s accusations do not sit well with multiple reports that show army units routinely engaging in online information campaigns aimed at discrediting the opposition and upholding the Royal Family.” Back in 2016, “then-army chief Gen. Chalermchai Sittisart confirmed the force is engaging in information operations to suppress distorted information and create ‘better understanding’ with people on social media.”

In other words, they are liars. Indeed, damned liars.

Update: When they are not lying, they are shutting down stuff. Prachatai reports that its “video of human rights lawyer Anon Nampa in which he addresses monarchy reform is inaccessible…” on YouTube.  A “YouTube spokesperson has stated via email that it is operating in line with a Thai government request.” In other words, YouTube is working hand-in-glove with liars, trolls and dictators. In fact, the regime seldom uses a court order when requesting blocking: “According to the Google Transparency Report … during 2009-2019 the Thai government submitted 964 requests to delete content…. Of the requests, only 62 were endorsed by the Thai courts…”. Shameful that YouTube goes along with such rubbish.