Panadda “Tong” Sirimasakul, an activist from the Thalufah group, speaking about electronic monitoring as a form of surveillance and political repression:
It’s not an opportunity. It is a tool that binds people. It is a tool that confine people’s freedom. It is a tool that oppresses people and prevent them from being free, from living the life they wanted. Another thing is it’s a tool preventing us from joining protests and exercising our rights…
Watch the Prachatai video:
As a follow-up to our previous post, here we reproduce a post from Prachatai’s FB page:
Anon Nampa gives a speech, saying that he has received a phone call from a high-ranking figure in Pheu Thai party that, on Friday, every opposition party will make a statement to support Tantawan and Orawan. Their demands will be to amend the royal defamation charge at the minimum, and abolish the law at the maximum.
He went on, saying the new wave of pro-democracy movement starting in 2020 defies those who said it had won nothing. Examples given were the emergence of activist groups like Thalufah, Thaluwang, or Thalugaz, the anti-torture bill’s approval, and the lawmakers scrutinies over the Royal Office annual budget.
Clipped from Prachatai FB (photo credit Chana La)
Moreover, the authorities’ retaliation to the movement has consolidated them and created more allies across generations, and the fights between democracy and authoritarianism have sparked everywhere.
“Let us pass the message to Tawan and Bam that. This day, this place, we have awakened and ready to fight side by side with the two of them and those who are in prison…This is the clash between the old and the new idea, democracy and authoritarianism. This clash will take place in every fibre, every class.”
“We talked in 2020 with due truth. They took us to the Court, the conservatives said ‘prove yourself in the Court’, but when we tried to prove by asking for the travel document [of King Rama X to Germany], the Court did not issue [the document request]. Are they scared of the truth?” said Anon.
Anon asked the demonstrators to come out, raise their voice to the Court over the injustice the political detainees have received. If the political prisoners are all released, the political parties respond to the two’s pleas, it would be more reasonable to tell them to save their own lives to see the justice reform demands being done.
Back when PPT was on a break, there were two significant lese majeste arrests reported. The report stated:
Worawet (last name withheld), who runs the Facebook page Free Our Friends, and Nui (pseudonym), who runs the YouTube channel “Sakdina Sua Daeng,” reported to Pathumwan Police Station yesterday (22 March) after receiving a summons on royal defamation and sedition charges under Sections 112 and 116 of the Thai Criminal Code.
In addition to the two charges, they were also charged with resisting officials and refusing to comply with an officer’s order.
These charges resulted from reporting the “activist group Thaluwang’s royal motorcade poll at Siam Paragon on 8 February.” Police considered they “participated” in the event:
The inquiry officer said they were live broadcasting the event, and that participants in the poll were trying to push through a police blockade near Sa Prathum Palace. Nui was also accused of shouting profanities at police officers trying to take hold of a female activist and charged with insulting an official on duty.
The police “did not say how their actions constitute an offense under Sections 112 and 116.”
They were “granted them bail on a security of 200,000 baht each and set the conditions that they do not repeat their offense in a manner that could damage the monarchy, join activities which can cause public disorder, or post on social media invitations to people to join protests. They must also wear electronic monitoring bracelets.”
Photo by Ginger Cat. Clipped from Prachatai
The reason we were reminded of this case was because Prachatai reports a leaked list of activists and reporters who are being “monitored” by the police. This includes a Prachatai journalist. “Monitoring” means police follow those on the list, contact their families, visit their homes, and generally make life as difficult as possible.
That report includes a claim that “at least 6 citizen journalists are now facing charges for livestreaming protests,” and that includes the two mentioned above, facing Article 112 and sedition charges.
The authoritarian shadow is long and dark.
In a very long post at Secret Siam, Andrew MacGregor Marshall has discussed the monarchy’s wealth and its drain on the taxpayer. He puts together an account that draws on multiple sources to assess both aspects.
It is behind a paywall, but if readers can get to it, it is well worth some time going through it.
Some excerpts:
According to an excellent analysis by Prachatai, at least 35.76 billion baht of taxpayer money — well over a billion US dollars — was allocated to the palace in the 2021/22 fiscal year. This represents 1.15 percent of the entire state budget, an extraordinarily vast sum for a country to spend on a supposedly purely symbolic monarchy in the 21st century.
What makes it even more obscene is that the Thai monarchy is already among the wealthiest royal families on the planet, but continues to guzzle taxpayer funds that are desperately needed by ordinary people struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic.
The palace has never been honest about the extent of its wealth, and most media have done an extremely poor job of finding out the facts, so most reporting about the size of the Thai royal fortune is inaccurate and incomplete.
Marshall sets the record straight – or as best as it can be with still limited data. He seems to conclude this on wealth:
Kevin Hewison, one of the foremost experts on the political economy of Thailand, estimated royal wealth at a minimum of $70 billion in his article “Crazy Rich Thais” published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia earlier this year:
Between 2006 and 2019, the ten wealthiest families/groups saw their wealth grow by more than seven times. If that figure is applied to Porphant [Ouyyanont]’s 2005 estimate, the CPB’s wealth in 2018 might have been more than $310 billion. However, because of the CPB’s focus on land and its conservative investment strategies, this is likely to be an overestimate. Using Porphant’s calculations of assets and applying a low 3 percent per year increase for land prices the figure for the CPB in 2019 might be more conservatively put at around $70 billion.
By way of conclusion, Marshall states:
There is no prospect that Vajiralongkorn will agree to reform of the monarchy and greater parliamentary oversight of palace finances. He is implacably opposed to making any concessions. He wants to use the royal fortune however he chooses, and nobody in the regime dares to try to stop him.
But with Thailand facing years of economic pain before it recovers from the damage caused by the coronavirus, and most Thais now aware of Vajiralongkorn’s egregious profligacy, the explosive issue of royal wealth has the potential to bring down the monarchy.
As we have posted several times, the regime has adopted more aggressive repression, extending from protesters to the media. This is reflected in a Prachatai Facebook post on arrests and intimidation on Saturday, reproduced in full:
51 people have been arrested following a clash between protesters and crowd control police at Din Daeng.
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said that they have been notified at around 23.45 on Saturday night (11 September) that 51 people have been arrested, 6 of whom were minors and were taken to the Paholyothin Police Station. 23 of those arrested were adults and taken to the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, while the remaining 22 people were taken to the Don Mueang Police Station.
Volunteer medics in the area have also been detained. According to iLaw, 25 volunteer medics were taken to the Din Daeng Police Station. The police took record of their information, but did not charge them.
From Prachatai’s Facebook page
During the clash, which began in the evening, crowd control police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters, who retaliated with firecrackers and other small explosives.
Crowd control police were also reported to fire tear gas and rubber bullets into nearby houses and apartment buildings. They also threatened to arrest residence who came to force the officers out of their community, claiming that they were out past curfew.
According to The Reporters’ live broadcast, crowd control police also ordered a group of journalists gathering near the Din Daeng District Office to sit down and end their live broadcasts while the officers check their IDs.
The Reporters posted on their Facebook page at around 22.40 that they have to end their live broadcast as the police ordered journalists to leave the area or they will be arrested for breaking curfew.
The Din Daeng Intersection and the surrounding area have been the site of daily clashes for the past month, as protesters gathered to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha. TLHR said that at least 225 people were arrested during the Din Daeng protests in August alone, at least 15 of whom were under 15 years old and at least 62 were between 15 – 18 years old.
Update: Also at its Facebook page, Prachatai provides more information:
To express objection toward the police brutal arrest and protest crackdown last night, people rallied at Din Daeng Intersection and Ratchaprasong Intersection to protest.
As of 19.30, no clash has been taken place in either locations. Explosive sounds were heard and some small fire were seen set on the road of Din Daeng. The organizer at Ratchaprasong were brought to Pathum Wan police station.
On 19.45, rubber bullets were shot at the protester at Din Daeng.
On Saturday night, (11 September) 78 people have been arrested, 6 of whom were minors. Some of the arrested reportedly stated that they were either passerby, vendors, motorcycle taxi or people who went to the protest to find food giveaway.
The regime’s efforts to stifle dissent and anti-monarchism has long targeted online discussion. Because of the way that international apps and sites work, this now involves loyalist, royalist courts issuing orders under legislation that delineates so-called fake news. This resort to the courts has been a constant since the 2014 military coup, deepening since the rise of student-led protests.
Prachatai, using work by The Reporters, show that “between 16 – 22 August, the MDES [Ministry of Digital Economy and Society] reported that they have found 44 URLs which they claimed to be spreading fake news, and that they are in the process of requesting a court order to block at least 145 URLs.” Of course, this is in additon to hundreds and thousands already blocked.
In this latest bunch, most are Facebook pages. While it is no surprise, many of these pages are by political activists. What is something of a surprise is that well-established online news sites and those of journalists are also being targeted. This suggests a growing appetite to further censor the media. We would guess that the confidence to take such steps is to bolstering the regime’s more aggressive street-level tactics to repress demonstrators.
Among them is Prachatai’s own Thai language Facebook page and the Facebook profile of their reporter Sarayut Tungprasert. Other media included are “Voice TV’s Talking Thailand Facebook page and the Progressive Movement’s Facebook page.” Other pages listed are:
The Facebook pages for academic in exile Pavin Chachavalpongpun, photographer Karnt Thassanaphak, actor and pro-democracy protest supporter Inthira Charoenpura, and activist Parit Chiwarak are all included on the list, as well as the Facebook pages for activist groups Free Youth, United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration (UFTD), Dome Revolution, and Thalufah. The Facebook group [belong to Pavin] Royalist Marketplace is also listed.
17 Twitter accounts appear, including those of human rights lawyer and activist Anon Nampa, Thalufah and UFTD, as well as @ThePeopleSpaces, an account which often runs discussions relating to politics and the pro-democracy movement on Twitter’s Spaces platform.
Prachatai states that it “does not know which piece of news led to the Facebook page and Sarayut’s Facebook profile being included on the list.”
While the king has not been seen for several weeks – is he in Thailand or holidaying in Germany? – his minions are hard at work erasing anti-monarchism.
Sunday saw another of the now almost daily protests against Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha’s regime. In recent days, the locus for police crackdowns on rallies has been the Din Daeng area. The Bangkok Post reports:
Violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police resumed around the Din Daeng intersection on Sunday evening to round off the biggest day yet of “car mob” rallies.
Some of the protesters riding motorcycles and cars arrived at the intersection after joining the car mob rallies which converged at key locations including the Ratchaprasong and Lat Phrao intersections.
Around 5pm, a group of mostly young protesters broke away from the main parade rallies and gathered at Din Daeng intersection where confrontations with police have occurred over the past week.
The Post states that protesters initiated clashes. PPT wasn’t there, but that’s not what we saw on live broadcasts. It is true that perception of incidents depends a lot on where reporters are during an event.
That said, the Post generally presents regime perspectives and seems keen to present the protesters as violent.
Other reports present a different perspective. For instance, Prachatai, reporting on Saturday’s protest states:
What promised to be a peaceful march to Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha’s house by the Talu Fa (Pierce the Sky) group made no more headway than other protests earlier this week. The protesters withdrew after police used force to keep them from reaching their destination.
At that protest – a series of multiple events – it is reported that when “some of the protesters tried to tear down the [now usual] container blockade, police responded with tear gas, affected many of those marching.”
Clipped from Prachatai
In all of this, the issue of political violence is being widely discussed among activists. Interestingly, it is reported that:
Red-shirt leader Nattawut Saikuar, who co-organised Sunday’s car mob rallies, arrived at the scene amid boos and jeers as he tried in vain to persuade the protesters to go home.
Earlier in the day, Mr Nattawut promised the movement’s wider rallies would be peaceful. He also said protesters would avoid confrontations with police and stay away from politically sensitive places, including Government House and the prime minister’s residence.
There’s clearly a generation gap on what matters, with the younger generation of activists more clearly focused on the anachronism that it the monarchy and more clearly identifying their opposition to the monarchy-capitalist-military alliance that has been dominant for decades. As well, there is a festering resentment of an older generation that has already capitulated several times over.
Readers may recall the demonstration at the Siam Commercial Bank, where the king is the largest shareholder, when activists “demanded public oversight of … Vajiralongkorn’s vast wealth…”. In our view, the king’s control of huge wealth is as significant as his political meddling. And, perhaps more important than his personal wealth, and how he and his forebears got it, is the huge piles of taxpayer’s money that “supports” the monarchy.
Helpfully, and in the current circumstances, bravely, Prachatai has posted on these topics.
On the money sucked from the taxpayer, the Prachatai report states:
In summary, in 2021, various agencies allocated budget related to the monarchy, all of which total approximately 37.228 billion baht or 1.12% of all the national budget (3.3 trillion baht), divided into 20.653 billion baht in direct expenses and 16.575 billion baht in indirect expenses.
That’s a lot of money – more than $1 billion! Helpfully, there’s considerable detail, all extracted from the Budget Bureau’s reports. The report states that “many of the projects among the indirect expenses are for the public benefit.” We are not convinced. After all, money sucked out of the public purse to glorify the monarch is money lost to other possibly good purposes.
The Royal Offices alone get more than 8.98 billion baht in 2021, up almost 17% over 2020. Meanwhile, the Thai economy languishes and millions are struggling to make ends meet. By 2024, this budget is forecast to increase to almost 10.7 billion baht by 2024, up almost 40% over 2020.
We at PPT also wonder if the figures mined by Prachatai are complete. For example, does it include the budget for the hugely expensive royal projects? Our feeling is that the monarchy eats far more taxpayer wealth than we are seeing here.
Further information on how the monarchy accumulated its wealth is covered in a second Prachatai report. This is mainly focused on historical wealth. We guess it is too difficult and potentially dangerous to add up Vajiralongkorn’s many property grabs.
The past 24 hours have been a churn. The regime is struggling to control defiant students who appear far more nimble and far smarter than the regime’s leaders. The regime’s response is repression.
The most startling events were the demonstration last evening, where thousands of mostly young people, organized through social media and smart phones, assembled at the Prathumwan intersection, leaving the authorities looking daft as they surrounded and barricaded the Rajaprasong intersection (where they expected the rally).
The chants of “release our friends,” “Prayuth out,” and “ai hia O” were lound, even though the event was largely leaderless.
The police then marched down the road and “dispersed” demonstrators using water cannon laced with dye and chemicals. The police looked comical when their first effort to use the cannon resulted in the police spraying themselves.
The regime denies the use of chemicals, but all reporters at the scene said the water caused itching and irritation to eyes. Police arrested some people, some seen being thrown into police vans. Most protesters decamped via Chulalongkorn University.
The police used were reportedly Border Patrol Police, infamous for their murderous role in 1976. But these are the police the regime considers sufficiently loyal.
Reporters were not safe from the arrests. Prachatai announced that one of its reporters, Kitti Pantapak “was arrested in front of MBK Centre while reporting live on Facebook about the police crackdown…”. He was “wearing a press armband from the Thai Journalist Association, a symbol that separates the protesters and media.” He was taken to “Border Patrol Police Region 1 headquarters in Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani, where other protesters were also detained.” At 2am he was released after being fined.
Earlier in the day, police invaded a press conference at the headquarters of the Progressive Movement, “with a search warrant, interrupting a press conference called by Piyabutr Saengkanokkul.” He was “speaking against the state of emergency and legal action taken against protesters accused of causing harm to … the Queen.”
The search warrant was issued under the state of emergency. (For critiques of the emergency decree, see here and here.)
Because there were so many reporters at the conference, the police raid was livestreamed. Piyabutr was heard urging the police to take the side of the people, “instead of following orders from their superiors.” The officers were clearly embarrassed and were repeatedly on the phone to their superiors. They eventually left seemingly finding nothing, but the threat to the Progressive Movement was clear. The regime sees a plot, with the students being led and funded by the Progressive Movement.
Update: In the post above, we had missed The Dictator, Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha’s response to calls for him to resign, as reported by Khaosod:
“Let me ask you what I did wrong? What did I do wrong right now? Can I ask you?” Prime Minister Prayut said to reporters in the first news conference since he declared a “severe emergency” over Bangkok.
When a reporter suggested it was because Prayut has been a Prime Minister for too long, the general replied, “Have you listened to monks’ prayer? Have you visited a temple at all? I guess you don’t often visit a temple, that’s why you are like this.”
“Listen to the prayers … don’t be careless, because people can die today, or tomorrow,” Prayut said, hours before a new protest is planned in Bangkok’s city center. “As the prayers go, don’t be reckless with your life. Prepare to die any moment, by illness or whatever.”
He went on, “Do not trifle with the powerful Grim Reaper. Death may come today, or another day. Everyone can die at any moment.”
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.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 