In Thailand, Queen Suthida’s absence raises anxiety among royalists – and questions about royal consort Sineenat

The absence of Thailand’s Queen Suthida from public engagements has roused some anxiety within the country, where the 42-year-old has her own supporters among diehard royalists.

Information about the Thai monarchy is heavily sanitised by the country’s lèse-majesté law, which punishes criticism of the royal family with up to 15 years in prison. As a result, most Thais rely on the royal news broadcast, which runs on television every night, to keep up with the monarchy’s activities – but Suthida has not been mentioned on it since late December.

Neither has the palace moved to discredit rumours swirling online that Suthida might suffer the same fate as King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s three former wives, who were either forced into exile or publicly humiliated.

These developments come as Thailand’s pro-democracy movement, emboldened by the popular support of internet-savvy millennials, has vowed to continue campaigning for reform of the monarchy and revocation of the royal defamation law, which they view as a political tool to silence dissent.

Since the protests took off last July, the Thai monarchy’s place in the public consciousness has changed. Many young Thais no longer address Vajiralongkorn, 68,with a special vocabulary or praise his development projects, as his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej was honoured during his 70-year reign until his death in 2016.