Lese Majeste is a very serious issue in Thailand. For most countries, the idea that having conflicting or even derogatory views of the ruling class, in this case the actual monarchy of Thailand, landing you in serious trouble seems completely crazy. In some places such as the U.K. not only does criticizing the Royal Family not get you put in jail, but it isn't even punishable. It might be considered in poor taste by many, but certainly not something that is going to have you facing a decade or more in prison and denied bail before you even go to trial. Yet the second part is exactly what is happening in Thailand right now.
src
If you are busted under what Thailand calls "section 112 of the Criminal Code," lese majeste violations come with a maximum of 15 years in prison as well as certain things being put in place such as their being no bail hearings and those who have been accused being incarcerated indefinitely pending trial. There are currently 4 people in Thailand that are going through the second part of exactly that.
Arnon Nampha, Parit Chiwarak, Somyot Pruksakasemsuk and Patiwat Saraiyaem are activists that have been protesting the current government as well as the monarchy of Thailand and this idea is not limited to just a few fringe members of the community - this movement of being anti-current-government and a little bit anti-monarchy has been gaining steam in the past couple of years and the protests that we have seen because of it have been huge.
src
While much of this has been limited to Bangkok, protests against the government (primarily the current Prime Minister) and the monarchy have been going on in many places throughout the country for many months and some of the protests took place in Chiang Mai, which is where I currently call home.
Protests have grown and grown and the government has used everything in the book that you an imagine in order to attempt to quell the uprising including changing Covid rules, declaring a state of emergency, declaring public gatherings illegal, and arresting and imprisoning people in order to try to stop or at least slow this growing movement. However, up until this week they have not used "order 112" in order to detain leaders of the movement.
src
For the most part the protests have been peaceful of course until the police come and try to disperse everyone, and this has happened on multiple occasions where water cannons, tear gas, and other crowd control measures have been used on people gathering. None of these measures have had the desired government result as numbers in the protests have actually grown after the public were told time and time again to disperse.
Lately, with what appears to be the suspension of bail for 4 members mentioned before, the international community has declared Thailand's denial of bail in a government that is notorious for taking many months if not years to bring someone to trial, a human's right violation.... and even though I think the people who are protesting are in many ways overstepping what is civil, I agree that the suspension of bail for people who have not physically harmed anyone is and should be considered a human's right violation.
The Humans Rights Watch or HRW is an international organization with quite a bit of clout that has gotten involved on the behalf of the 4 people who are being denied bail on lese majeste violations in Thailand and they are suggesting (and I think correctly) that the government is using "Order 112" with the intention of silencing any political opposition - which is really what this looks like at the moment.
These 4 people are opposed primarily to the government and in a distant second place would be their opposition to the monarchy controlling certain parts of the government - which even I know as a short-term resident here is a very real thing.
This isn't going to work out well for the government if they continue to hold these 4 people without bail as new protests have sprung up in Bangkok specifically aimed at what many people including me, consider the illegal captivity of these 4 political prisoners.
src
Unsurprisingly, the Thai authorities have claimed that they intend to use riot control measures in the future to quell these uprisings and also to crack down on the use of social media as a means of organization.
There is just one problem with this declaration on the part of the government: They are already doing both of these things. Eye-witnesses on the ground say that tear gas has already been used on crowds, which the government denies. Also, recently nearly 40 people were arrested for things they said on social media and while most of these people were released, several are still detained.... for posting something on the internet.... which in my mind is just an insane move on the part of the government.
If the authorities continue like this, the protests will only continue to grow as we have seen over the past 6 months already. This idea that a few organizers locked up is going to somehow diffuse the entire anti-government situation is a truly insane idea on their part, if that is their idea in the first place.
We haven't seen a large scale protest in Chiang Mai in the past couple of weeks but a lot of this has to do with the Lunar New Year festivities going on at the moment: Mark my words - these protests are going to get bigger, louder, and potentially violent in the coming weeks once the holiday spirit has worn off.